"I thought you didn't want to get dressed up for dinner," Castillo said.
"I changed my mind when I saw my room. Do you always live this good?"
"Whenever I can. Fix yourself a drink, Jack. And as soon as they've set up the food, I'll tell you what's going on."
"Just out of idle curiosity, what does this place cost by the night?"
"I really have no idea," Castillo said.
"Why am I not surprised?" Betty said, and there was an unpleasant sarcastic tone in her voice.
"I really don't know how this works in the Secret Service," Castillo said. "But I don't think the presidential protection detail people stay in the economy motel ten blocks from where the President is staying to save the government money. I intend to find out. I don't want to spend my money to buy things I've bought to carry out what I've been ordered to do. The government is not on my list of favorite charities."
Britton nodded.
"I wanted to keep you two away from the FBI," Castillo said.
"They don't like you much, either," Britton said. "I picked that up on the airplane."
Castillo found an excuse not to get into that when he saw one of the waiters opening a bottle of the cabernet.
"I'll do that, thank you," he said in Spanish. "And we'll serve ourselves." By the time Castillo had finished relating what had happened, and why he had asked that they be sent to Argentina, and what he expected of them, they had finished what had turned out to be an enormous meal.
And as they talked, Castillo had the feeling that his moral dilemma had solved itself. Special Agent Schneider was in
fact a cop, and a smart one, and this was business, not romantic fantasy. And there was no question in his mind that if he made the first preliminary pass at Schneider, she would turn it down. Gently and kindly, probably, because Schneider was a good guy, but turn it down.
And it was after two A.M.
"Let's knock it off," he said. "I want to get started early in the morning. You want to eat here-we may think of something we missed-or do you want to meet in the restaurant downstairs at, say, quarter to seven?"
"If you don't mind, here," Special Agent Schneider said. "For personal reasons: I want to look out your windows in the daylight."
"Okay, here at quarter to seven," Britton said. "My ass is dragging."
He got up from the table and walked to the door. Special Agent Schneider followed. Both waved a good-night, but neither said anything.
Three minutes after they had gone, Castillo was in bed. And then-he had no idea how much later-the door chimes bonged.
Oh, shit! The floor waiter wants to get the goddamn dishes!
Not quite knowing why he did so, he picked up the Beretta from the bedside table and held it behind his back as he stormed out of the bedroom and across the sitting room to the door and jerked it open.
Special Agent Schneider was standing in the corridor.
"I seem to have dropped my handkerchief," she said.
He didn't reply.
"May I come in?"
He stepped out of the way.
"I thought it was the floor waiter," he said.
"Were you going to shoot him?" Special Agent Schneider asked.
He held up both hands-one of them holding the Beretta-helplessly.