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"What makes you so sure he doesn't already know?" Pevsner snapped.
"I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that he does. But that's not the same thing as being told he does by the American ambassador, is it? And the Argentines seem, at those levels of the government, to solve embarrassing problems by throwing people to the wolves. Wouldn't you agree, Alfredo?"
Pevsner glared at him.
"Think it over, Alex," Castillo said. "Very carefully."
"Goddamn you, Charley," Pevsner said, more sadly than angrily.
"And fuck you, Alex. I say that in the friendliest possible way."
"What do you want to do with the helicopter?"
"You really don't want to know, do you?"
"Hypothetically?"
"Hypothetically, if I knew (a) where somebody I wanted to teach to sing was located-in a foreign country; and (b) I knew that other people were trying to make sure that he didn't sing, what I think I would do would be to get him back home to the good ol' USA as quickly and quietly as possible. A helicopter would be useful if someone was, hypothetically, of course, thinking of doing something like that."
"You just told me, you realize, that Lorimer is not living in Buenos Aires. Or any other city. You want the helicopter to move him from someplace in the country to an airport. An airport large enough to take a plane that could fly him out of the country. You didn't, by any chance, come all the way down here in that Lear you had in Cozumel?"
"I'd love to keep playing twenty-questions with you, Alex, but I have to be running along. Are you going to loan me your helicopter or not?"
"Goddamn you, Charley."
"You already said that. Nice to see you, Alex." Castillo stood up. "I'll have to pass on the lomo sandwich and the beer. Thanks anyway."
"Sit down, Charley," Pevsner said. "You can have the helicopter."
"Thank you."
"What do I tell the pilot? Have you thought this through?"
"Tell your pilot to fly it to Jorge Newbery by five o'clock this afternoon. Tell him to park it at Jet-Aire. Have him top off the tanks, leave the key under the pad in the pilot's seat, and take three days off."
"Who's going to fly it?"
"I will. And when I'm through with it, I'll take it back to Jorge Newbery, give you a call, and your pilot can pick it up."
Pevsner nodded. He looked at Munz, and after a momentadded, "Take Alfredo with you. I'm sure he'll be useful."
"Absolutely not. But thank you just the same."
"Alfredo is not in the beauty spot business, if that's what you're thinking."
"But he could come back and tell you where we'd been, couldn't he?"
"If you'd already taken Lorimer out of the country, what difference would that make? What I'm thinking is that when it comes out-and it will-that you got to Lorimer before the other people looking for him did, it would be embarrassing for me if people knew you'd used my helicopter to kidnap him."
"Kidnap him? What a terrible thing to even think! What I'm thinking of, hypothetically, of course, is returning this poor, lost soul to the bosom of his loved ones."
"Of course. What I'm suggesting is that if something happened while you were carrying out this humanitarian mission of yours-officialdom asking questions you'd rather not answer, for example-Alfredo could deal with that better than you could."
Goddammit, he's right.
The question is, will Munz deal with the officialdom, or just wait for the opportunity to whack Lorimer?
Castillo looked at Munz.
