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"We'll get into that later. Let me continue," Pevsner said. "So, Svet, you may trust Janos completely."
Svetlana nodded.
"Now we turn to Alfredo, which shames me," Pevsner said. "He was advising me. Not about any of my business enterprises, but how best I could disappear in Argentina, how best I could protect Anna and the children, things of that nature. I repaid his faithful service, when others were betraying me, by suspecting Alfredo was among them. Charley was a far better judge of character than I; he knew Alfredo was incapable of what I suspected. Charley also knew what I was capable of when someone threatened my family, that I believed what the Old Testament tells us in Exodus, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,' rather than in turning the other cheek.
"Charley sent Alfredo's wife and children to his grandmother in the United States to protect them from me. And Alfredo went to work with Charley. And when the time came, when Alfredo had every right in God's world to apply what it says in Exodus to me, he instead turned to Saint Matthew and turned the other cheek."
Castillo was having irreverent thoughts: While this theological lecture by the Reverend Pevsner is certainly interesting--and Svetlana is swallowing it whole as if he just carried it down from Mount Sinai carved in stone--the truth is if Alfredo could have got a shot at you when your thugs were following him around, he damn sure would have taken it. And then, when you found out he was really a good guy after all and called off your bad guys, he didn't whack you because (a) he doesn't like killing people unless he has to, and (b) it would have caused more trouble than the satisfaction would have been worth.
Or am I the only near heathen around here? Is Alfredo a Christian in the closet? "As a good Christian, Aleksandr, I forgive you. Go and sin no more"?
Or am I committing the sin of looking in the mirror? Just because I have trouble believing a lot of the things I've heard in church doesn't mean that Alfredo does. And Svetlana and Aleksandr sound like they're perfectly serious.
Jesus, what did she say when I wisecracked that I wasn't a Christian in good standing?
"I'll fix that" is what she said.
Jesus Christ!
"Have you been able to find forgiveness for me in your heart, Alfredo?" Pevsner asked.
"Of course," Munz said. "You thought you were protecting your family, and I knew how you felt about that."
"And will you come back to work for me?"
"No."
"You can name your salary."
"This isn't about money, and you know it. Or should. And anyway, it's moot. I work for Colonel Castillo."
"And there is some reason you can't work for both of us?"
Munz chuckled.
"Yes, there is, and you probably know it as well as I do," Munz said, and then went on to quote effortlessly: "Saint Matthew, Chapter Six, Verse Twenty-four, 'No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.' That's from the King James Bible. But there's not much difference between that and other versions of Holy Scripture."
I will be damned.
You have been looking in the mirror, stupid!
; "You're right of course," Pevsner said after a moment. "But that's going to cause a problem."
"How so?" Munz asked.
"I was about to tell Janos to contact everybody and tell them that you are back, and that you speak with my voice."
Munz considered that quickly and replied. "If it's all right with Colonel Castillo, that's probably a good idea."
"How so, Alfredo?" Castillo asked.
Pevsner answered for him: "Before the Buenos Aires rezident learns that you have brought Dmitri and Svetlana here, we're going to have to move Dmitri out of your safe house. The Cubans do most of the work for him, for the obvious reasons--and we've seen the proof--and while they might not know specific details, the Cubans know the Americans have something, most likely a safe house, in Mayerling Country Club, and if the Cubans know, the rezident knows."
Munz nodded his agreement.
And the Central Intelligence Agency, which will also shortly be looking for Berezovsky and family, also knows about Nuestra Pequena Casa.
