“Then what you should do is call the ranch and say, ‘Turn on the runway lights.’ ”
“I don’t have the number handy.”
“You’re on your way to the ranch?”
“No. But I thought it would be fun to wake you up and have you turn on the lights to scare hell out of the rattlesnakes keeping warm on it.”
“You’re not only a wiseass, Gringo, you’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“I’m thirty minutes out, Fat Boy. Now call the fucking ranch and have the fucking lights lit. And don’t let anybody know I’m there.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“If the lights aren’t on when I get there, I will tell María you have been chasing blond cocktail waitresses again.”
“And you would, you miserable prick. So hang up so I can call.”
“It’s never a pleasure to talk to you, Lard Ass. Break it down.”
When the conversation had been concluded, Svetlana Alekseeva, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Learjet, inquired, “Carlos! Who were you talking to?”
“My cousin, Fernando. He’s actually more like my brother. He’s a really good guy.”
And then he had activated his microphone and politely requested permission from the air traffic controller to close out his flight plan to Midland and instead land at a private field in the vicinity.
Two GMC Yukons were waiting at the hangar for them.
Castillo was the last person off the airplane. When he had closed the stair door, put chocks under the wheels, and slid the heavy hangar doors shut, a short, massive, swarthy woman got out from behind the wheel of one of the Yukons and rushed up to him. She called him “Carlos,” took his face in her hands, and kissed him affectionately.
“Svet,” Castillo said, “this is Estella. She has been running this place since . . . forever. Estella, these are my friends Susan Barlow and her brother, Tom.” He motioned at Davidson and Bradley. “You know Jack and Lester. They’ll all be staying with us for a couple of weeks, and we don’t want anyone to know.”
She didn’t seem surprised at the announcement. She wordlessly and formally shook everybody’s hands.
“Well,” she then said, “come on up to the house, and I’ll get you something to eat. Ernesto will get your luggage.”
“I’m sorry there wasn’t more,” Estella, hands on her hips and surveying the table, said after the group had gorged themselves on ham steaks, eggs, and Caesar salad. “But Fernando only called a little while ago.”
“It was wonderful,” Svetlana said.
“I put Lester and Sergeant Davidson in their usual rooms,” Estella announced, “and the gentleman in the last room on the right, and the lady in the room next to him.”
To hell with it, Castillo thought. Bite the bullet.
I am not going to sneak around my own house.
Besides, Abuela’s not here.
He said, “Estella, the lady will be staying with me.”
Estella looked at him in disbelief, then crossed herself.
“Estella,” Dmitri Berezovsky offered, “I am her brother and, like you, a Christian. I know what that might look like. But I have found some comfort in the Scripture that enjoins us to judge not, lest we be judged.”
Estella looked between them.
“We will make sure Doña Alicia does not find out,” she said somewhat anxiously. “Or Fernando. Or, God forbid, María!”
“Okay,” Castillo said twenty minutes later. “The AFC is up and running. Starting first thing in the morning, it gets monitored twenty-four/seven. And that means we will have to teach Dmitri and Svet how to use it.”
“Just Dmitri, my Carlos. Sweaty already knows how to operate it.”
“Dmitri, then, will require instruction,” Castillo said. “And we’ll have to come up, Sergeant Major, with a duty roster.”
Davidson nodded.
“And after breakfast tomorrow, having come up with a necessary equipment list—printers, scanners, tape recorders, etcetera—and having submitted same to Corporal Bradley for his approval, either Davidson or Bradley or both will drive into Midland and find an office supply or something similar to acquire what’s needed.
“We’ll then set up a CP in the library. That being accomplished, we can then all sit around with our thumbs in our . . . ears, waiting for the AFC to go off reporting how others are doing what I’d really prefer to be doing myself.”
“Come on, Charley,” Davidson said. “You heard what Phineas said. If we went over there we’d wind up in some cannibal’s pot.”
“You can really be stupid sometimes, my Carlos,” Svetlana said.
Castillo raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, he said, “And on that romantic note, I’m going to bed.”
“Is this the place where I am not supposed to sleep?” Svetlana asked five minutes later.
Castillo didn’t reply. He went into the bathroom. When he came out ten minutes later, Svetlana walked wordlessly past him into the bathroom.
When she hadn’t returned ten minutes later, Castillo considered the pros and cons of going in after her.
He had just about decided that that would not be a very good idea when she suddenly appeared nude—then rushed across the room and jumped in beside him in the bed.
“This place is like Siberia. I am freezing. If you were a gentleman, you would make me warm.”
That, Romeo, is as close to a peace offering as I’m going to get. . . .
He hugged her.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” she said a moment later, “but you were an adorable little boy.”
“I know.”
“That’s not what you were supposed to say.” She momentarily laid an icy hand on his crotch.
He squirmed. “Jesus!”
“You’re going to have to learn not to blaspheme,” she said.
“What was I supposed to say?”
“ ‘How do you know?’ And then I would say, ‘I was looking at your pictures on the wall.’ ”
“What is this leading up to?”
“Does it always shrink when it is cold?”
“Why don’t you try putting a warm hand on it and see what happens?”
Svetlana vigorously rubbed her hands together, then did so.
After a moment, she declared, “Ah. Is much better.”
“Yeah.”
“When you were a little boy, did you ever think you would lie here one day with a beautiful woman putting her warmed hand on your you-know-what?”
“Every night from the time I was thirteen.”
She squeezed. “When I was thirteen, I wanted to be a nun. I wanted to marry Christ.”
“And then you turned fourteen, and that didn’t seem like such a good idea?”
She made a soft grunt and after a long moment said, “Why is your farm in the middle of an oil field?”
“It’s a ranch, not a farm. You raise cattle on ranch. And things like corn on a farm. Unless you have milk cows; then it’s a dairy farm.”
“And then they found oil on it?”
“Actually, my great-grandfather found the oil. It was there all the time, but he didn’t know about it until he put down the first hole. They call it the Permian Basin. You really want to talk about this?”
“You have some income from this oil?”
“Sure.”
“Then it is your oil? Not the government’s?”
“They call that the concept of private property. It goes hand in hand with capitalism. And speaking of hand in hand . . .”
“Stop that! What do you think you’re doing?”