all expecting another message. The room was silent except for Bonnie's fingers snapping on the keys across the room.
The ping of another message was like a gunshot.
“Here we go, ”the Mayan girl said, and the screen flashed a short, terse message.
Charlie Thrush has paid for your stupidity. You should have lived with the surveillance.
Titus was standing again, again staring over the girl's shoulder. It took him some time-he had no sense of dura tion-to make the two words fit into the context of the moment. Charlie Thrush?
Then Burden asked, “Where did Thrush live?”
The past tense of the question hit Titus like a blow to the stomach. Suddenly he had no moisture at all in his mouth. “On a ranch west of Austin.”
“Where? Exactly.”
“Fredericksburg. Near there. ”He thought he was going to be sick.
“Rosha, ”Burden said, and the Mayan girl swiveled to another computer and began typing furiously.
Titus saw Charlie talking, his lanky frame sprawled in a chair in front of one of his computer screens, his long fingers flapping on the keys as if he were playing the piano, his head half turned as he talked, explaining the theory behind the calculus and the quantum mechanics on the screen. He saw him with his head buried in a book in a small pool of light in a dark room. He saw him handing Rita a wicker basket of his own peaches with a crooked grin, telling her that Titus still didn't have the knack to grow anything as sweet as these.
“Here it is, ”Rosha said, reading a paraphrasing. “A little over three hours ago the Gillespie County Sheriff's Office got a call to the Thrush ranch on Schumann Creek. It just says that they responded.”
Titus experienced a sensation of being somewhere else. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then the seat of a chair touched the back of his knees. He sat down. He heard the computer keys snapping snapping snapping. He was weak. Shaky. He listened to them talk as if he were not in the room. He wasn't aware of looking at anything or even of seeing anything. He wasn't aware of himself at all, in any kind of context.
“Here it is, ”Rosha said again. “Speer Funeral Home. Accepted the body of Charles Thrush from the Gillespie County EMS half an hour ago. Cause of death: ranching accident.”
There was an awkward quiet in the room. They didn't know the man. They didn't even know Titus. What did he expect from them? Weeping? Charlie's death was as removed from them as a weather report from the Azores.
Burden was the one who broke the silence, his voice soft and edgy at the same time.
“You see how this is going to work, ”he said.
Titus could feel his face burning. His emotions were indescribable, a swarm of embarrassed fear and anger and panic. There was nothing here he could identify with. The indictment of his responsibility in Charlie's death was unavoidable. Burden had even asked him if Luquin had forbidden the security sweep. Titus remembered his feeling of claustrophobia at imagining he would have to live with Luquin listening to every word he spoke. He remembered saying, I can't live like that. Well, apparently he could have. And should have. But now, how in God's name was he going to live with this?
He worked his mouth for moisture.
“Rita's with Louise Thrush in Venice, ”he said. “I've got to get them back here. ”Then, before he had the last word out of his mouth, he looked at Burden in panic. “Jesus Christ. Luquin knows that, doesn't he.”
He listened to the connections going through, then the phone ringing. It was two-thirty A.M. in Venice. After their conversation she wouldn't go back to bed.
Burden's women had made themselves busy, turned away to terminals or absorbing paperwork, a gesture of privacy that he appreciated even though it was only symbolic. Burden himself waited in a chair at the next desk. He had not turned away; he wanted to hear the conversation.
“It can only be you, Titus, ”Rita answered from the edge of sleep.
“I'm sorry, ”he said.
“I know you know what time it is here, ”she said huskily, and he imagined her looking at her watch on the bedside table. “You know, hon, if you'd waited just a few more hours, I would've been awake anyway.”
He didn't really know how to try to make himself sound. It didn't much matter. In a few more words she'd pick up on it anyway, hear it in his voice.
“I've got some bad news, Rita, ”he said.
Pause. He imagined her going suddenly still in the dark, factoring in his words, his tone of voice.
“What's the matter? Are you okay, Titus? ”Her voice was calm, her “I won't panic no matter what he says ”tone of voice. Firm, prepared. She would be sitting up in bed now, frowning in the dark, straining to pull the words out of him.
“Yeah, I'm fine, ”he said. “It's Charlie.”
“Oh, no… ”She was holding her breath.
“He was in an accident today, out at the ranch. He's dead, Rita.”
“Oh, no! ”She repeated it. And then she repeated it again. And then again.
He hated this more than anything, doing this to her at so great a distance, handing to her the responsibility of telling Louise, of getting them both packed and on a plane, comforting her for thousands of miles on the way back home.
They talked for half an hour, and he told her the truth: He didn't know much. He'd try to get more information. He didn't tell her he was in Mexico, of course. He'd work all that out later. He lied to her, comforted her, planned with her. Rita was best if she was planning. It calmed her; it helped her deal with the unknown, with the unavoidable but frightening unravelings of life.
He told her he was going to charter a private plane to bring them home. She thought this was unusual but didn't protest too much, and he said he would make the arrangements and get back to her with the details.
It was a strange and wrenching conversation, made all the worse for Titus because he was among strangers. And worse than that, because he knew the truth.
Chapter 16
The subdued tempo that followed the confirmation of Charlie Thrush's death didn't last long. It was nearly dusk as Mattie, Titus, and Burden followed the loggia around to Burden's study. The doors and windows of the large room were still open as before, and it was lighted only by a few scattered table lamps and the low, eerie illumination of the long photograph of the nude widow.
As soon as they were inside, Titus turned to Burden.
“I'm flying back tonight, ”he said. “That pilot had better not think he's going to be spending the night here.”
“No, ”Burden said. “He's ready.”
“Okay, ”Titus said, “then let's get down to it. As far as I'm concerned, you can go after Luquin any way you want to. Just tell me what you need, what I'm supposed to do.”
Burden turned to Mattie. “Will you get the telephones for me? And bring back Titus's laptop.”
As she walked out the door, he turned back to Titus.
“Look, ”he said, “the first thing I want you to understand is that Luquin and I have this much in common: Silence is our mantra. We have to keep him in the dark about this meeting. He can't know that you've contacted someone for help and that you're being advised. He needs to believe that your responses to his demands are yours alone, and that you're totally focused on getting the money he wants. He needs to believe that you're paralyzed, holding your breath waiting for the next word from him.
“He must not know that we know he's in Austin. Any hint of that, and he'll vanish. Keep in mind: The people he works with are very good. They've probably been in Austin several weeks getting ready for this. We're at a great disadvantage, so we have to be smarter. Unflinching. And absolutely silent. Without that we don't have any hope of success here.
“Second thing: You can't undo this once it gets started, Titus. You understand that, don't you?”
“I hadn't thought about it, ”Titus said. He paused. “But now I have. Do what you have to do.”
