“Really?”
“Which of the pups did you rescue?” Delchamps asked.
With no hesitation at all, Sof’ya hoisted one.
“This little girl,” she said. “I call her ‘Marina.’”
“Well, Marina now belongs to you,” Delchamps said. “That means, you understand, that you now will be responsible for seeing that she has enough to eat, things like that. You think you can do that?”
Sof’ya happily nodded.
On one hand, Castillo thought, Delchamps may have finally found the out he was looking for after running off at the mouth and announcing he wanted one of Mädchen’s pups. How the hell was he going to care for a puppy?
On the other hand, truth being stranger than fiction, a human heart may actually be beating under the old dinosaur’s hide.
Delchamps gently took the other pup, the last one, from Sof’ya and walked to Castillo.
As if he had been reading Castillo’s mind, he said, “In the trade, that’s known as establishing the good-guy/bad-guy relationship. Guess who’s the good guy, Ace? The guy who gave the kid a puppy, or the bastard who tore Auntie’s bathing suit from her shoulders and then stared shamelessly at her boobs?”
He handed the pup to Castillo. Castillo took it, shook his head but didn’t reply, and returned his attention to the pool.
Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva had reached the shallow end and was now wading through the last several feet, trying without success to repair the broken strap with one hand as she held the suit top with the other.
Max, who had been lying on the tiles recuperating from his ordeal, stood up and eyed her curiously.
As Svetlana marched past him, he shook to free himself of the water in his fur. The fur of a Bouvier des Flandres holds an astonishing amount of water.
As Svetlana jumped out of the way, the right side of her bathing suit bottom slipped off her right buttock and bunched up in the valley between the opposing buttocks, exposing to view a pink, fleshy orb that put into the shadows all other orbs Castillo had seen here and there in his lifetime.
She pushed and pulled the cloth back into place while marching with what dignity she could muster toward the house.
Castillo felt a stirring in his groin.
Down, boy, down!
If there was ever a really off-limits female, there it is, walking on those lovely long legs into the house!
VII
[ONE]
Nuestra Pequeña Casa
Mayerling Country Club
Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1905 29 December 2005
Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky was the first of the Russians to appear. He was wearing baggy swimming trunks, a knit shirt embroidered with a Ralph Lauren polo player insignia, and rubber sandals, and he had a towel draped around his neck.
Castillo, who was standing at the parrilla turning bifes de chorizo, saw Sof’ya holding the puppy and running happily toward her father, obviously intending to tell him that the dog was now hers.
Berezovsky, without breaking stride, held out his hand to her in a stop signal. Shedding the shirt and the towel en route, he took the steps into the shallow end of the pool, waded toward the deep end until he judged it deep enough for swimming, then flopped onto his belly and swam using a breaststroke with his head out of the water to the far end of the pool. There, he stopped, hung on to the side of the pool for several seconds, then flopped back into the water and breaststroked—with his head held high again—back to the shallow end. And, there, he stood, waded until he reached the end of the pool, and got out.
Castillo saw that Berezovsky had managed his swim without getting his hair wet.
The Russian walked to where he had dropped the towel and Sof’ya was now standing. He picked up the towel and dried himself methodically as Sof’ya explained what had happened and tried to hand him the dog.
When he had finally dried himself to his satisfaction, he rolled up the towel, held it between his knees, put the polo shirt back on, draped the towel around his neck, and took the dog.
Berezovsky looked thoughtfully across the pool at Castillo.
He’s wondering what we’re up to, Castillo thought.
In his circumstances, I’d do the same damn thing.
And by now, of course, in addition to wondering what’s going to happen to him and his family, he’s almost certainly wondering if defecting was really such a good idea in the first place.
Castillo turned to the parrilla, stuck an enormous fork into a two-pound bife de chorizo—New York strip steak—then held it over his head, signaling Berezovsky to come over.
Still carrying the pup, Berezovsky did so, with Sof’ya at his side.
“My Sof’ya tells me she has been given this animal,” he said, making it a question.
“And now she wants me to cook it for her on here?” Castillo asked.
“No!” Sof’ya said, but laughed.
Berezovsky handed her the puppy.
“Why?” he asked simply.
“I guess Mr. Delchamps thought she should have it,” Castillo said. “This has to be tough on her, Colonel.”
Berezovsky nodded. Castillo couldn’t read it.
“Are the women about ready?” Castillo said. “The food is.”
He picked up another bife de chorizo to illustrate his point.
“Sof’ya, go tell your mother that supper is ready. And Auntie Svetlana, too.”
The girl ran off with her puppy.
“The beef here is the best in the world,” Castillo said.
“So I have been told,” Berezovsky said.
“It goes down very well with wine,” Castillo said, pointing to an uncorked bottle of Saint Felicien Cabernet Sauvignon and some long-stemmed wineglasses sitting beside an open cardboard case of the wine. “You’re welcome to help yourself, but you might want to keep in mind that right after we have our supper, we’re going to have the first of our conversations.”
Berezovsky met his eyes, considered what he had said, then said, “Thank you,” and headed for the wine.
I wonder if the “thank you” was for the warning or the wine?
Berezovsky poured wine—a lot of it—into two of the large wineglasses, half filling them and half emptying the bottle, then walked to Castillo at the parrilla and offered him one.
“I started early,” Castillo said. He pointed to his now nearly empty glass at the end of the grill.
Berezovsky thrust the glass he held at Castillo again and smiled.
Okay. I get it. You think I have grape juice in my glass.
Then you will drink the real stuff, get plastered and loose-lipped, and I will be absolutely sober and able to take advantage of your naïve trust.
Castillo took the glass Berezovsky held out to him.
“Chug-a-lug?” Castillo asked.
“‘Chug-a-lug’?” Berezovsky parroted.
I don’t think, Tom Barlow, ol’ buddy, that you have a clue what that means.
Castillo raised the glass to his lips and drained it.
Berezovsky’s eyes showed his surprise, but he rose to the challenge and also drained his glass.
Castillo immediately refilled the glasses, but set his down and began to flip the steaks on the grill.
If I chug-a-lug again, I’ll probably fall down and begin to sing bawdy songs, or in some other manner manifest behavior unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, such as myself.