"These will do nicely, but I can't find any syrup, absinthe, or lemons. Presumably, there is room service?"
"Lester," Castillo ordered, "get on the horn and tell room service that Mr. Pevsner requires immediately what Uncle Remus just said."
"Yes, sir," Bradley said, and started for the telephone.
"You're all going to sit around and get drunk, is that the idea?" Pevsner asked unpleasantly. "We have a serious problem and-"
Leverette interrupted him. "Charley, I hate to tell you this, but I'm starting to dislike your Russian buddy. Again."
"Me, too," Edgar Delchamps said.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Pevsner demanded angrily.
"Somebody who thinks he's Ivan the Terrible, Jr.?" Leverette asked innocently.
Castillo laughed, but even as he did, he realized that was not the wise thing to do.
"Not one more word from anybody!" Svetlana snapped. "Not one!"
Everyone looked at her in surprise.
Castillo and Leverette had much the same thought at the same moment, but Leverette was the first to say it out loud: "Be careful," he said in Russian. "Sweaty just put on her podpolkovnik's hat."
"You'd better be careful," Castillo said. "That's way over your word limit. What Podpolkovnik Alekseeva said was 'Not one more word.'"
"I said from anybody and that includes you," Svetlana snapped. "For God's sake, Charley, you're in command. Act like a commander!"
Everyone looked at Castillo to see what his reaction to that would be.
His first reaction was a sudden realization: This is getting out of control.
And the commander is in large measure responsible.
Sweaty's right about that.
His next reaction was: On the other hand, Sweaty should not have snapped at the commander like that, telling him to act like a commander.
One of the problems of having women subordinates is that one cannot jump all over their asses when they deserve it.
Especially when said female subordinate is sharing one's bed.
This sort of situation was not dealt with in Problems of Leadership 101 at West Point, nor anywhere else since I've been in the Army.
Correction: During the time I was in the Army.
So, what are you going to do now, General MacArthur, so that everyone can see you are in fact acting like you're in command?
Confidently in command.
There's a hell of a difference between being in command, and being confidently in command.
And those being commanded damned well know it.
You better think of something, and quick!
Colin Leverette came to his rescue.
"I know what," Leverette said. "Let's start all over."
"What?" Svetlana asked.
"No, Mr. Pevsner," Leverette went on, "we are not all going to sit around and get drunk. We're going to have one-possibly two-Sazerac cocktails, and then we're going to get down to business."
Pevsner didn't respond.
Castillo looked between them, and thought: I believe Uncle Remus just saved my ass.
What is that, for the two hundred and eleventh time?
"That was your cue, Mr. Pevsner," Delchamps said, "to say, 'I should not have said what I did. Please forgive me.'"
Pevsner looked at him incredulously.
"It's a question of command, Aleksandr," Tom Barlow said, his tone making it clear that now he was wearing his polkovnik's hat. "If Charley, the commander, doesn't object to something, you have no right to. Now, ask Uncle Remus to forgive your runaway mouth."
"You have just earned my permission, Podpolkovnik Berezovsky," Leverette said, "to call me Uncle Remus."
Now, everyone looked at Pevsner.
"Uncle Remus is waiting, Mr. Pevsner," Delchamps said after a long moment.
After another long moment, Pevsner smiled, and said, "If an apology for saying something I should not have said is the price for one of Mr. Leverette's cocktails, I happily pay it."
Castillo had another unpleasant series of rapid thoughts:
Well, Pevsner caved, and quicker than I thought he would.
Problem solved.
Wait a minute! Aleksandr Pevsner-unlike me-never says anything until he thinks it through.
He knew the apology meant he understood he can't question me.
But what about the first crack he made?
Was that an attempt to put himself in charge?
If we'd caved, that would have put him in a position to question-question hell, disapprove-of anything.
Alek, you sonofabitch!
His chain of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the butler-not a bellman; penthouses A and B shared the full-time services of an around-the-clock butler-bearing simple syrup, absinthe, a bowl of ice, a bowl of lemon twists, and a tray of old-fashioned glasses.
"The first thing we will do-actually, Lester will do," Leverette announced, "is fill the glasses with ice. This will chill them while I go through the rest of the process. Now, how many are we going to need?"
Everyone expressed the desire to have a Sazerac.
Leverette arranged all the old-fashioned glasses in two rows.
"You understand, Sweaty," he said, "that one of my Sazeracs has been known to turn a nun into a nymphomaniac?"
"I'll take my chances. Stop talking and make the damned drink."
"First, we muddle the syrup and the Peychaud bitters together," Leverette announced. "When I've done that, we will carefully measure three ounces of rye per drink and a carefully measured amount of ice into the mixing vessel."
He picked up a champagne cooler, and quickly rinsed it in the sink of the wet bar.
"This will serve nicely as a mixing vessel," he said, and then demonstrated that his notion of a carefully measured three ounces of rye and ice per drink was to upend the bottle of Wild Turkey over the champagne cooler and empty it. He shook it to get the last drop, then repeated the process with the bottle of Van Winkle Family Reserve. He then added four handfuls of ice cubes.
He stirred the mixture around with one of the empty bottles.
"You'll notice that I did not shake, but rather stirred. I learned that from Double-Oh-Seven," he said, then looked at Bradley. "Lester, dump the ice."
Lester emptied into the sink the melting ice from all the glasses.
"I will now pour the absinthe, and Lester will swirl. I know he will do a good job of swirling because I taught him myself."
Leverette then picked up the bottle of absinthe, and ran it very quickly over the lines of glasses in one motion. This put perhaps a teaspoon of the absinthe in each glass.
Lester then picked up each glass, swirled the absinthe around, and then dumped the absinthe into the sink.
Leverette picked up the champagne cooler. Lester picked up a silver strainer and held it to the lip of the champagne cooler to hold back the ice cubes as Leverette poured the chilled liquid content of the cooler into the glasses.
"There is a slight excess," Leverette announced as he looked into the cooler. "Stick this in the fridge, Lester. 'Waste not, want not,' as my saintly mother was always saying."
Leverette then picked up handfuls of the lemon twists and squeezed them in his massive hands, which added not more than two drops of the essence into each glass.
"Finished!" he announced triumphantly.
He handed one to Castillo and another to Pevsner. He handed a third to Sweaty, and took a fourth with him as he walked to the couch.
He raised his glass to Pevsner, took an appreciative sip, and then asked, "And what do you think, Mr. Pevsner?"
Pevsner sipped his cocktail.
"Unusual," Pevsner said. "But very good."
"I will pretend that I don't know the only reason you said that is because you knew I would tear off both of your arms and one leg if you hadn't, and will accept that as a compliment."
"You're insane," Pevsner said with a smile.
"Genius is often mistakenly identified as insanity," Leverette said. "I'm surprised you didn't know that. Now, shall we deal with our problem?"
He came to attention, gestured at Castillo, and gave the Nazi salute.