Текст книги "The Wolf in Winter"

Автор книги: John Connolly

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

44

Ronald Straydeer was not unfamiliar with sleeping outdoors.

He’d bedded down in the jungles in Vietnam, in the Great North Woods of Maine and beside pot plantations in upstate New York during a period of misunderstanding with some rival growers, which came to an end when Ronald put one of them head-frst into a narrow hole and proceeded to fill it in.

Thus Ronald understood the necessity of good nutrition and proper clothing, particularly when it came to cold weather. He wore polypropylene, not cotton, next to his skin, because he knew that cotton trapped moisture, and the action of convection meant that cold air and damp drained the body’s heat. A hat with earflaps covered his head, because when the head got cold, the body began to shut off circulation to the extremities. He kept himself moving constantly, even if only through the gentle shuffling of his feet and minute stretches of his arms, fingers and toes, generating heat as a by-product. He had brought plenty of water, and an assortment of nuts, seeds, energy bars, jerky and salami, as well as a couple of MREs – because sometimes a man needed a hot meal, even one that tasted like it had been made for pets – and containers of self-heating soup and coffee. He didn’t know how long he might be out in the wild, but he had packed enough food for four days, or more if he had to be abstemious. He was armed with a licensed hunting rife, a Browning BAR Mark II Lightweight Stalker in .308. If it came down to it, he could claim to be hunting squirrel or hare, even coyotes, although the Browning wouldn’t leave much of a varmint behind other than bits of fur and memories.

He had been fortunate with this location. The woods around the ruined church were a mixture of deciduous and evergreen, but more of the latter. He bedded down in the thickest copse he could find, and covered his sleeping bag with branches. He made a careful recon of his surroundings but did not enter the church grounds – not out of superstition, but simply because, if Shaky was right, then the church was important, and people tended to protect places that were important. He checked the gate and the fence, and saw nothing to indicate that the grounds were guarded electronically, but he still didn’t want to risk setting off any kind of hidden motion sensor. Neither did he risk an exploration of the town itself. Ronald was a striking, imposing man, and he attracted attention. Perhaps he would be seeing more of the town soon enough.

To pass the time, he read. He had brought with him a copy of Bleak House by Charles Dickens because he recalled the detective recommending it to him once. He had bought it but never got around to reading it. Now seemed like the appropriate time.

Shaky, like Jude before him, was convinced that Prosperous was rotten, and he had halfway managed to convince Ronald of the same thing, even before Ronald had ever come to the town. Shaky had accompanied Ronald around Portland and South Portland as he began quietly questioning the homeless about what they had seen in the days preceding Jude’s death. Shaky had a way of calming folk. He was unthreatening, and generally well liked. It was, thought Ronald, a little like having a good dog with him: an old Labrador, maybe, something friendly and tolerant. He didn’t share this with Shaky, though. He wasn’t sure how it might be taken.

Despite their efforts, they learned nothing of worth until the end of a long day of searching and questioning. It came from an unlikely source: the woman known as Frannie, with whom Shaky had witnessed Brightboy arguing on the morning that Brightboy had attacked him. Shaky usually did his best to avoid Frannie due to her intimidating nature, and the vision of a man having his nose gnawed off that she invariably conjured up, but Ronald Straydeer wasn’t troubled by her in the least. He told Shaky that he knew Frannie from way back, when she still had most of her teeth.

‘Is it true that she once bit a man’s nose off and spat it out in front of him?’ said Shaky. After all, it seemed like Ronald Straydeer might know.

‘No,’ said Ronald solemnly. ‘That’s not true.’

Shaky was relieved, but Ronald wasn’t done.

‘She didn’t spit it out,’ he continued. ‘She swallowed it.’

Shaky felt ill. During the subsequent conversation with Frannie, he found himself using Ronald’s body as a bulwark between him and the woman. If she’d developed a taste for male flesh, she’d have to go through Ronald to get to him.

Frannie was pleased to see Ronald, although she was less pleased when she learned that he was no longer dealing. Using mainly four-letter words, she expressed the view that Ronald was a grave disappointment to her. Ronald accepted the judgment without complaint, and gave her the name of someone who might be able to help find some pot, along with twenty bucks with which to treat herself.

In return, Frannie told them about the couple she had seen near Jude’s basement.

Frannie wasn’t a mixer. She avoided the shelters. She was always angry, or briefly coming down from being angry prior to getting angry all over again. She liked no one, not even Jude. She’d never asked him for anything, and he’d never offered, knowing better than to do so. Shaky couldn’t understand why she was opening up to Ronald Straydeer, even allowing for the money, and the pot connection. It was only later that it dawned on him: Frannie had been flattered by Ronald’s attention. Ronald spoke to her as he would to any woman. He was courteous. He smiled. He asked about a wound on her arm, and recommended something for it. None of this he did in a false manner: Frannie would have seen through that in an instant. Instead, Ronald talked to her as the woman that she once was, and perhaps, deep down, still believed herself to be. How long had it been since anyone had done that for her, thought Shaky. Decades, probably. She had not always been this way and, like all of those who ended up on the streets, never wanted it for herself. As she and Ronald spoke, Shaky saw her change. Her eyes softened. She was not beautiful – she would never again be that, if she had ever been – but for the first time Shaky saw her as something other than an individual to be feared. She let her guard down while talking to Ronald, and it struck Shaky that Frannie lived her life in a state of perpetual fear, for however bad it was to be a homeless man, it was infinitely worse to be a homeless woman. He had always understood that, but as an abstract concept, and generally applied it only to the younger girls, the teenagers, who were more obviously vulnerable. He had made the mistake of imagining that somehow, for Frannie, it might have become easier over the years, not harder, and now he knew himself to be wrong.

So Frannie told Ronald Straydeer of how she had walked past Jude’s place the night before he died, and saw a car parked across the street. And because she was always desperate, and asking was free, she tapped on the glass in the hope that a dollar might be forthcoming.

‘They gave me a five,’ she told Ronald. ‘Five bucks. Just like that.’

‘And did they ask for anything in return?’ said Ronald.

Frannie shook her head.

‘Nothing.’

‘They didn’t ask after Jude?’

‘No.’

Because they already knew, thought Shaky, and they were smarter than to draw attention to themselves by bribing a homeless woman for information. Instead they paid her – enough to be generous, but not too generous – and she went away, leaving them to wait for Jude to appear.

Ronald asked what Frannie remembered about them. She recalled a silver car, and Massachusetts plates, but she admitted that she might have mistaken about the plates. The woman was good-looking, but in that way of women who try too hard to keep themselves in condition as they get older, and end up with lines on their tanned faces that might have been avoided if they’d resigned themselves to a little flesh on their bones. The man was balding, and wore glasses. He had barely looked at Frannie. The woman gave her the money, and responded to Frannie’s word of thanks with the briefest of smiles.

Frannie’s information wasn’t much, but it was some small reward for their efforts. Ronald prepared to take his leave of Shaky and return home. He would call on the detective along the way, and share what he had learned with him. Instead, he and Shaky saw the detective’s face appear on the television screen of a bar on Congress as they passed. Ronald bought Shaky a beer while he sipped a soda, and together they watched the news. Shaky told him that it had to be connected to Jude and his daughter. If that was the case, then it was also connected to Prosperous, and if Prosperous was involved then it had something to do with the old church, which was how Ronald came to be lying in the woods eating MREs and reading Dickens. Even if Shaky was mistaken, at least Ronald was trying to do something, but he had to give it to the little homeless man: Prosperous felt wrong, and the old church felt multiples of wrong.

There had been little activity since he arrived. Twice a police cruiser had driven up the road to the church, but on each occasion the cop had simply checked the lock on the gate and made a cursory circuit of the cemetery. Ronald had used the telescopic sight to pick out the cop’s name: Morland.

The only other visitor was a tall man in his forties with receding hair, dressed in jeans, workboots and a brown suede jacket. He arrived at the cemetery from the northwest, so that his appearance in the churchyard caught Ronald by surprise. On the first occasion, Ronald watched as he opened the church and checked inside, although he didn’t remain there for long. Ronald figured him for the pastor, Warraner. Shaky had learned about him from the detective, as well as something of the chief cop named Morland. Both Jude and the detective had endured run-ins with each of them, according to Shaky. Ronald didn’t follow Warraner when he left, but later he found the path that led from the churchyard to the pastor’s house. Better to know where he was coming from than not.

The pastor returned shortly before sunset on the first day, this time with a rake and a shovel, and began clearing undergrowth from an area about forty feet from the western wall of the church. Ronald watched him through the scope. When Warraner was done, a hole just a little over two feet in diameter was revealed in the earth. Then, apparently content with his work, the pastor left and had not yet returned.

Now darkness had descended again, and Ronald was preparing to spend another night in the woods when the car arrived. It approached slowly because it was driving without lights, and it stopped well before it neared the cemetery’s railings. Two men got out. Ronald turned his Armasight night vision binoculars on them. One was Morland, although this time he was out of uniform. The second was an old scarecrow of a man wearing a long coat and a felt hat. They didn’t speak as Morland unlocked the cemetery gate, and the two men entered.

A second car, a station wagon, came up the road. Morland and the scarecrow stopped to watch it come. It pulled up alongside the first vehicle and an elderly woman emerged from the driver’s side. Two more men climbed out of the back, although one of them needed the assistance of his companion and the woman to do so. He wore a small oxygen tank strapped to his back, and a mask covered his mouth. Supported by the others, he made his way into the churchyard.

Finally, from the northwest, came the pastor, but he was not alone. There was a girl of eighteen or nineteen with him. She wore a padded jacket over what looked like a nightgown, and there were unlaced sneakers on her feet. Her hands were restrained behind her back, and tape covered her mouth. To her right walked another man, a decade or so older than the pastor. He held the girl’s right arm above the elbow, guiding her so that she wouldn’t trip over the old gravestones, whispering and smiling as he did so. The girl didn’t struggle or try to run. Ronald wondered if she was drugged, for her eyes were drooping slightly, and she dragged her feet as she came.

She was brought to the place by the western wall of the church from which Warraner had cleared the undergrowth earlier that day. Ronald tried to get closer to them, but he didn’t want to risk making a noise and alerting the group below. He contented himself with shifting slightly so that he might see more clearly what was happening. It was a still, quiet night, and the voices of the group carried to him if he listened carefully. He heard Warraner tell the girl to rest, that they were almost done. The man who held her arm assisted her as she sank to her knees, and the others formed a halfcircle around her, almost obscuring her from sight. A blade appeared, and Ronald drew a breath. He put down the binoculars and switched to the night vision scope on his rife. It wasn’t as powerful, and didn’t give him such a wide view of proceedings, but if anyone tried to take the knife to the girl then, cop or no cop, he planned to cut them down before the metal touched her skin. The Browning was self-loading, which gave him four shots before he’d have to pause.

But the knife was used only to cut the bonds holding the girl’s hands. Ronald watched them fall loosely to her sides, and then the man who had been assisting her removed the padded jacket, leaving her with only the nightgown as protection against the cold. Through Ronald’s scope she looked like a pale ghost in the churchyard. He fixed his sights on the man with the knife and waited, his finger not quite touching the trigger of the rife, but the blade disappeared, and none of the others was holding a weapon.

They backed away from the girl, partially obscuring Ronald’s view of her. He could still see her nightgown, though, white against the dark. He moved his sights from one back to the next, watching for movement, waiting for someone to produce a weapon, to make a move on the girl, but nobody did. Instead they appeared to be waiting.

Ronald moved back to what he could see of the girl, and a finger of shadow crept across the pallor of her nightgown, as though the moon had suddenly shone on an overhanging branch.

But there was no branch, and there was no moon.

A second shadow came, and a third, like cracks on ice. There was a furry of movement, a blur of white, and single dull snap, as of a twig breaking. The watching elders came together, and for an instant the girl was entirely hidden from Ronald.

When they separated again, she was gone.

Ronald removed his eye from the scope and blinked. It wasn’t possible. He scanned the ground, but there was no sign of the girl in the white nightgown. Even had it somehow been stripped from her, her naked body would still have been visible on the ground, but Ronald could see nothing.

Now the group was dispersing. Warraner was heading back to his house, while the man who had come with him joined the others as they returned to their cars. Within minutes, the gates were locked once again, and the vehicles were making their way back down the road to the highway, still driving dark.

Ronald waited for fifteen minutes, then headed for the cemetery. He climbed the railing, heedless now of any hidden sensors, and approached the spot where he had last seen the girl. He knelt, and discerned signs of disturbance. Clumps of earth had been dislodged from the dry ground, and there were marks in the dirt where something had briefly been dragged through it. They ended where the hole once lay, but it had now collapsed, leaving only a slight depression in the ground.

Ronald put his rife aside and started to scrabble at the dirt with his bare hands. He dug until one of his fingernails cracked, but there was no trace of the girl, only earth and thick roots, although Ronald could not tell their origin, for there were no trees in the cemetery. He sat back on the ground, breathing heavily. Above him, the old church loomed.

A fragment of something pale caught his eye in the dirt. Lodged against a small stone in the dirt was a piece of pale cloth about half an inch square. Ronald held it between his finger and thumb.

I am not mad, he thought. I am not mad.

He picked up his rife and, using his boots, tried to hide his efforts at digging. When he felt that he had done all he could, he returned to his hiding place, gathered his belongings, and prepared to leave. He checked to make sure that he had not left behind any trash or possessions, even though he knew himself to be more careful than that. Still, it paid to take the time to be sure. When he was done, he started walking. It was not yet 11:00 PM, and by traveling carefully he made it to the town of Dearden shortly before midnight, where he huddled down at the outskirts and made himself as comfortable as possible against a tree. He called just one number along the way, but it was not 911. He used a cup of coffee to warm himself, but it did not stop his shivering, and his whole body was aching by the time the truck arrived. The Fulci brothers helped him inside, and drove him back to Scarborough.

45

Angel and Louis were parked close to the intersection of Amity and Henry, about four blocks south of Hunts Lane. They spoke as they walked, heads down against the rain.

‘So?’ said Angel.

‘He’s not telling us all he knows,’ said Louis.

‘But you believed what he did tell us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there was a percentage in keeping information back from us, but none in lying, and he’s a man who works the percentages. He wasn’t the middleman on the hit, but he has more information about who was responsible than he’s shared with us.’

‘You could tell that just by looking in his eyes?’

‘I understand him. And I know that he’s scared of me.’

‘It’s not a very exclusive club.’

‘No, but not everyone in it has the resources to make a move against one of my friends. Cambion does, but he’s smart enough to know that if he involved himself then he’d have to take me out as well, and that didn’t happen.’

‘Which means that the shooters either don’t know about you, or don’t care.’

‘And you just know that it can’t be the latter.’

‘God forbid. You’d have no reason left to live.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So what is Cambion holding back on the shooters?’

‘Their names. Cambion doesn’t trade in rumors. Maybe they crossed his path once. He might even have tried to recruit them.’

‘And, like you, they turned him down.’

‘But, unlike me, they sound like religious zealots.’

‘True. Nobody could ever accuse you of darkening church doors, not unless you were planning to shoot somebody from the shadows. So Cambion is waiting for you to get the contract voided, and then he’ll give you more?’

‘That would be my guess, theoretically.’

‘Can you do it? Can you burn the contract?’

‘No. It’s gone too far. There are too many people with an interest in seeing Cambion dead, either for what he’s done or for what he knows.’

‘But if Cambion is as clever as you say, then he must realize that.’

‘Probably.’

‘Then what’s the game?’

‘He’s trying to buy time. Like I told you, he works the percentages. I think he knows exactly who we’re looking for, so right now he’s trying to figure if the people who were sent after Parker are more dangerous than I am. If they are, then he can sell me out to them in return for whatever it is he needs: money, a hiding place, or most likely the heads of some of those who are hunting him. If Cambion doesn’t believe that the shooters are good enough to take me out then he’ll feed them to us, but he’ll wait until we have more to offer him. I don’t think he was lying when he said he wanted to live out the rest of his days in peace. He wants a guarantee of protection, but he knows that’s more than I alone can give him.’

Angel considered this.

‘Feds,’ he said, after a time. ‘He wants a government screen.’

‘Feds,’ confirmed Louis.

‘But we only know one Fed.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And he doesn’t like you and me.’

‘No, but right now I’d say he’s real interested in us.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I reckon that’s who’s been following us for the last two blocks.’

‘The big blue Ford? I was wondering about that. Maybe he figures he’s undercover.’

‘I don’t think he cares.’

Louis stepped out into the street in front of the creeping car, put his fingers to his lips, and gave a piercing whistle as it braked within feet of him.

‘Yo, taxi!’ said Louis.

Through the wipers and the rain, Special Agent Ross of the Federal Bureau of Investigation grimaced at him. His lips moved soundlessly as Angel joined Louis. Angel cupped a hand to his ear.

‘Sorry, “Mother –” what?’ said Angel.

The second time, Ross shouted the word, just to make sure.

They sat together in Henry Public at 329 Henry. Each ordered a Brooklyn Brown Ale. It seemed only right, given the neighborhood. They were almost alone in the bar, given the hour.

‘I’ll pay,’ said Ross, as the beers were brought to their table. ‘It’s bad enough that I’m sitting with you. I don’t want to be accused of corruption as well.’

‘Hey, wasn’t this how that Fed in Boston got caught, the one who was tight with Whitey Bulger?’ said Angel. ‘One minute you’re just enjoying a drink with friends in Southie, the next you’re doing forty years.’

‘To begin with, we’re not friends,’ said Ross.

‘I’m hurt,’ said Angel. ‘Now how am I going to get my parking violations fixed?’

‘That’s the fucking NYPD, knucklehead,’ said Ross.

‘Ah, right,’ said Angel. He took a sip of his beer. ‘But suppose I get ticketed in DC?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘You know, you swear more than the Feds on TV.’

‘I only swear under stress.’

‘You must be stressed a lot.’

Ross turned to Louis.

‘Is he always like this?’ said Ross.

‘Pretty much.’

‘I never thought I’d say it, but you must be a fucking saint.’

‘I believe so,’ said Louis. ‘He also has his uses.’

‘I don’t even want to know,’ said Ross.

He took a long draught from his bottle.

‘You been to see him?’

‘Parker?’ said Louis.

‘No, the new pope. Who the fuck else would I be talking about?’

A look passed between Angel and Louis. Angel wanted to go up to Maine, but Louis had demurred. He believed they could be of more use to Parker in New York. He was right, of course, but it still sat uneasily with Angel. He was deeply fond of the detective. If Parker wasn’t going to pull through then Angel wanted to be able to say goodbye to him.

‘No,’ said Louis. ‘They say he’s dying.’

‘That’s what I hear.’

‘Is it true?’

‘He’s like a cat: he has nine lives. I just don’t know how many of them he’s used up by now.’

They let that one sink in while they drank.

‘What do you want, Agent Ross?’ said Louis.

‘My understanding is that you’re turning the town upside down trying to find out who shot him. I was wondering how far you’d got.’

‘Is this an attempt at an information exchange?’ said Louis. ‘If so, you’re about to be gravely disappointed.’

‘I know who you were seeing in Hunts Lane,’ said Ross.

Louis’s left eye flickered. For him, it was an expression of extreme surprise, the equivalent of someone else fainting. Ross caught it.

‘How fucking inefficient do you think we are?’ he said.

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘You want to see my file on you?’

Louis let that one pass.

‘How long have you been watching him?’ said Angel.

‘Ever since he got back into town,’ said Ross. ‘How’s he looking? We haven’t been able to get a clear shot of him. The last pictures we had of him, he wasn’t doing so good.’

‘He’s probably still having a little trouble dating,’ said Angel.

‘Was he involved?’

Ross watched them both, and waited. He was very patient. A full minute went by, but he didn’t seem perturbed.

‘No,’ said Louis, eventually. ‘Or not directly.’

‘Were you planning on bringing him in?’ said Angel.

‘We’ve got nothing but stories. We do hear there’s money for whoever pushes the button on him, though.’ His gaze flicked back to Louis. ‘I thought you might be looking to cash in.’

‘You got the wrong guy,’ said Louis.

‘Clearly.’

‘Were you listening?’

‘I wish. He hasn’t left that old store since he took up residence. There’s no landline. If he’s using cell phones, they’re throwaways. He conducts all of his business away from the windows, which means we can’t pick up vibrations, especially with all those drapes.’

‘So?’ said Louis.

‘My understanding is that he’s been making informal approaches, looking to have the contract lifted. Is it true?’

Again Louis waited for a while before answering. Angel remained silent. If this was to be an exchange, then it was for Louis to decide how much to give, and what he wanted in return.

‘That’s true,’ said Louis. ‘You considering offering him a deal?’

‘Our understanding is that he holds a lot of secrets.’

‘He’ll bleed you for every one he reveals, and you’ll never get him to testify.’

‘Maybe we don’t want testimony,’ said Ross. ‘Maybe we just want details. It’s not just about putting people behind bars. It’s about knowledge.’

Angel thought of the list of names now in Louis’s possession. It might be worth something. Then again, it might be worth nothing at all. The truth, in all likelihood, lay somewhere in between.

Ross finished his first beer and held up the bottle, signaling the waitress for another round, even though Louis had barely touched his first drink.

‘I heard he tried to bring you into his fold,’ Ross said to Louis. ‘Way back in the day.’

‘Not so far back,’ said Louis.

‘You didn’t bite?’

‘Like you, he seemed to be confused about what I did for a living.’

‘And you didn’t like him.’

‘There wasn’t a great deal to like. Even less now, seeing as so much of him has rotted away.’

The second beers arrived, but no one reached for them. Angel sensed that they had reached a crucial point in whatever negotiation was unfolding, although, as far as Angel could tell, there didn’t seem to have been much obvious progress of any kind. Angel wasn’t built for negotiation. That UN job just got further out of reach every day.

‘I’ll ask you again,’ said Louis. ‘What is it you want from me, Agent Ross?’

He fixed Ross with his gaze, like a snake mesmerizing an animal before striking. Ross didn’t blink. He’d taken the ‘three guys having a beer’ approach, and that hadn’t worked. He must have known that it wouldn’t, but it never hurt to try. As Angel watched, he transformed himself, sitting up straighter in his seat, his face tightening, the years seeming to fall away from him. In that moment, Angel understood why Parker had always been so careful around Ross. Like Cambion, he was a creature of concealment, a repository of secrets.

‘I came to warn you that I won’t tolerate a campaign of vengeance, even for your friend. I won’t tolerate it because I’m concerned that it might interfere with my own work, with the bigger picture. For every man or woman you kill, a potential avenue of inquiry closes. That’s not how this thing works.’

‘And what is the “bigger picture”, Agent Ross?’ asked Angel. ‘What is “this thing”?’

‘The hunt for something that’s been hidden away since before the appearance of life on earth,’ said Ross. ‘An entity, long buried. Is that big enough for you?’

Angel picked up his beer.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘maybe I will have this second one after all.’

He drained half the bottle.

‘And you believe in the existence of this “entity”?’ said Louis.

‘It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters are the beliefs of those who are looking for it, and the havoc they’ve created, and will continue to create, until they’re stopped.’

‘So you want us to step back and do nothing?’ said Louis.

‘I’m not a fool,’ said Ross. ‘Doing nothing isn’t an option where you’re concerned. I want cooperation. You share what you find.’

‘And then you tell us if we can act on it?’ said Louis. ‘That sounds like the worst fucking deal since the Indians got screwed for Manhattan.’

‘It also sounds like a good way to end up in jail,’ said Angel. ‘We might as well just sign a confession in advance. We tell you what we’d like to do, you say, “Hey, that sounds like a fucking great idea. Be my guest!”, and next thing we’re all staring awkwardly at one another in front of a judge.’

‘He has a point,’ said Louis. ‘No deal.’

To his credit, Ross didn’t appear particularly surprised or disappointed. Instead he reached into his pocket and removed a manila envelope. From it he slid a single photograph and placed it on the table before them. It showed the symbol of a pitchfork, crudely carved into a piece of wood. Louis and Angel knew it immediately for what it was: the sign of the Believers. Parker had crossed paths with them in the past, Angel and Louis too. The Believers hadn’t enjoyed the encounters.

‘Where was it taken?’ said Angel.

‘At Parker’s house, immediately after the attack. Now do you understand why I’m asking you to tread carefully?’

Louis used the edge of his bottle to turn the photograph so that he could see it more clearly.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

It was Louis’s turn to produce an envelope from his pocket. He handed it to Ross without comment. Ross opened it, and glanced at a typewritten list of names, places and dates. He didn’t need Louis to tell him what it meant.

‘From Cambion?’ said Ross.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did he give them to you?’

‘He thought I could act as the go-between in his contract difficulties.’

‘What did you get in return?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Ross folded the list and returned it to the envelope.

‘Why are you giving this to me?’

‘It’s what you wanted, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you don’t need to cut a deal with him, and you can call off your surveillance.’

‘Leaving him at your mercy.’

‘I don’t have any mercy for him.’

‘Should that concern me?’

‘I don’t see why.’

Ross balanced the envelope on the palm of his right hand, as though judging its weight against the cost to his soul.

‘You went to Cambion because you thought he knew something about the hit on Parker,’ said Ross. ‘I’ll bet a shiny new quarter that he gave you a taste of what he had, but you believe that there may be more. Negotiating on his behalf was part of the deal. Don’t bother telling me if I’m warm. I wouldn’t want you to feel compromised.’