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“Then just forget it,” Castillo said. “I don’t want to steal Alek Junior’s breakfast.”
“Nonsense,” Pevsner announced. “Make what you have, and I’ll see about getting more of the flour.”
“I’m sure they sell it in the embassy store,” Castillo said. “I’ll get you some before I go.”
“Go where?”
“To the States.”
“And when will that be?”
“Tomorrow maybe. More likely, the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, Charley,” Anna Pevsner said, laying her hand on his, “could you really? I’ve tried every store in Buenos Aires and they just look at me as if I’m crazy.”
“Consider it done.”
And if that store in the embassy doesn’t have any, the chief of the Office of Organizational Analysis will make sure there’s five—ten—pounds of the best pancake flour available in the next diplomatic pouch.
Pleasing Madam Pevsner and Alek Junior is sure to please Alek Senior. Probably more than the fifty thousand—maybe more—dollars’ worth of avionics in the Cherokee.
“How would you get it out here?” Pevsner asked.
The translation of that is, “Without anybody learning A. Pevsner, prominent Russian mafioso and international arms dealer, resides in the Buena Vista Country Club?”
“If I can’t bring it myself, maybe you could have János meet me someplace.”
“You just say when and where, Charley,” Pevsner said, “and János will be there. Alek is really crazy for pancakes.”
“Both of them are,” Anna said.
“Or maybe Howard Kennedy can meet me,” Castillo said. “He’s in the Four Seasons, right? Where I’m staying?”
“Howard’s not here right now,” Pevsner said.
“Well, then, maybe Colonel Munz?”
“Didn’t he tell you, Charley?” Anna said.
“Tell me what?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “and I know I shouldn’t be smiling, but he is—or was—a policeman for all those years before he came to work for Alek. What he did, Charley, was shoot himself in the shoulder while he was cleaning his pistol.”
“Is he all right?” Castillo asked, looking at Pevsner.
“He’s fine,” Pevsner said.
“And terribly embarrassed,” Anna said.
“Well, give him my best regards,” Castillo said. “Don’t mention that you told me what happened. I can understand—sympathize with—his embarrassment.”
[FIVE]
“If you’ll excuse us, darling,” Pevsner said over their second cups of tea and coffee, “Charley and I are going to have a look at the helicopter.”
“And then I’ll have to be getting back to Buenos Aires,” Castillo said. “So thank you for the breakfast. You saved my life.”
He stood up and Anna gave him her cheek to kiss.
