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Naylor said, “To which the President might well reply, ‘That’s because Colonel Castillo doesn’t work for General Naylor, he works for me.’”
“Point well taken,” Montvale said after a moment with a smile.
“Are you going to the President, Mr. Ambassador?” Castillo asked.
“Probably, but not right now. That one card of yours—at this moment—is the ace of all spades. General Naylor is right. If the President was the pope, after that session in the apartment tonight you would now be Saint Carlos the Savior of His Country.”
Both Naylor and Castillo chuckled.
“So you are going to find something else for Mr. Ellsworth to do?” Castillo asked.
“Let me show you my cards,” Montvale said. “Okay?”
Castillo nodded.
“I’m very impressed with you.”
“Is that what they call the ‘flattery card’?”
“Hear me out. All it will cost you is a little time.”
“My standard tactic when I’m dealing with someone I know is smarter than me is to run,” Castillo said.
“Is that your flattery card?”
“I am out of my class with you and I know it. Just because it may be flattering doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Castillo said.
“Then why does it have to be untrue that I’m impressed with you?”
“That would depend on why you’re impressed.”
“Like the President, I think you did one hell of a job finding that airplane and then finding this Lorimer fellow. The major problem I have with you—other than that the President thinks you should be beatified—is that I think you should be working for me.”
“Mr. Ambassador, I don’t want to work for you.”
“At the moment, that’s a moot question, isn’t it? The President is very happy with his presidential private agent.”
“All I want from you, sir, is to be left alone to do what the President wants me to do.”
“Until you said that, I was beginning to think you might really be as smart as the President thinks,” Montvale said.
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t afford to be alone, Charley,” Montvale said. “You need me. My assets. My authority. My influence. Think about it. They use your face as a dartboard in Langley and in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The FBI is starting to hate you as much as they do your friend Howard Kennedy.”
“I wasn’t sure you believed that story,” Castillo said.
“I checked on it,” Montvale said. “I have some friends in the bureau. To a man, they would like to see Kennedy dragged apart by four horses after he was disemboweled.”
Curiosity overwhelmed General Naylor. “Who is this fellow? What did he do?”
Montvale smiled, more than a little condescendingly.
“As Charley told me—and my friends confirmed—after being made privy to the darkest secret
s of the FBI, Mr. Kennedy went to work—presumably at a far more generous salary—for a notorious Russian mafioso, a chap named Aleksandr Pevsner, taking with him all the darkest secrets.” He paused. “The reason they hate our friend Charley is because when they sent an inspector to tell him they expected him to notify them immediately of any contact with Kennedy, our friend Charley told them not to hold their breath. They also suspect—correctly—that Charley was behind the President’s order to them to immediately cease and desist looking for Mr. Kennedy.”
“Pevsner and Kennedy have been useful to me in the past,” Castillo said. “And almost certainly will be useful to me in the future.”
