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The question was never answered. The waiter appeared, Castillo scrawled his name on the check, and they walked out of the bar and into the lobby.
“What are we going to do about dinner?” Fernando asked when he came out of the bathroom, pulling up his zipper, in Castillo’s suite.
“First, before I have to make an important decision like that, I’m going to have a drink. And I’ll even make you one if you promise to stay sober for the next hour or so.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I need to talk to you.”
“About what? You in some kind of trouble?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. I need to talk to you, Fernando.”
“You don’t really talk to me, you tell me misleading half-truths. ”
“I thought maybe you’d noticed. What do you want to drink?”
“I’ve been drinking scotch, but if you’re in trouble maybe we better not.”
“It’s not that kind of trouble. I’m still waiting to hear if a rabbit in New York died, but aside from that . . .”
“You sonofabitch!” Fernando said, chuckling.
Castillo handed him a drink and then sat down in an armchair facing Fernando’s across a coffee table. They raised glasses, locked eyes for a moment, and then took swallows.
“You were telling me about this lady who seduced you in New York,” Fernando said. “Or was it rape?”
“I wish it was that simple,” Castillo said.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I realized a while back that I was getting to the point where I didn’t know who I was. Or am. I don’t know how to say it. I told you, this isn’t simple.”
“Try. I’m not really as dumb as Maria would have you believe.”
“That ID card I showed the guard at Baltimore-Washington? ”
“What about it? It impressed the guard.”
Castillo reached in his pocket and came out with the leather wallet and tossed it to Fernando.
Fernando failed to catch it and had to pick it up. He opened it and looked at it carefully.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “ ‘Department of Homeland Security.’ ‘United States Secret Service.’ ‘Supervisory Special Agent.’ I thought you were still in the Army.”
“I am. And I’m not in the Secret Service,” Castillo said. “I got that because it was the easiest way for me to carry a pistol—or anything else—onto an airplane. And that ID calls the least attention to me when I do.”
“You often do that? Carry a gun?”
“I don’t often carry one, but I usually have one around close. It says ‘Supervisory Special Agent’ instead of just ‘Special Agent’ in case I run into a real Secret Service agent and his hair stands up—they’re good; they can spot people who aren’t what their credentials say they are. There’s a double safeguard against that in there. First, they probably wouldn’t want to stick their necks out and question a supervisory special agent. But if they do, there’s a code on there. If they call a regional office and ask if there really is a supervisory special agent named Castillo and give the code, they’re told I’m legitimate and to butt out right now. It’s happened twice.”
“So you’re not really the . . . what did that calling card say? ‘The Executive Assistant to the Director of Homeland Security’?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“You just said you were still in the Army.”
“And I am. Getting the picture, Fernando? When I said I was getting confused about who I really am?”
