discomfort.
“Why did you leave the Agency?”
“Descontento.”
“Yes, but why?”
“I don't want to tell you.”
“Okay, fine.”
The dank little room reeked… of something… of many things… sweat, mildew, a lingering uric scent… of fear… of nightmares. These were the odors of broken men. Burden had smelled it in women's rooms, too, but those rooms wafted also of perfume, and no matter how cheap it was, no matter how sweet, it lessened the loneliness. But it also left behind a melancholy that was unbearable.
“I never thanked you, ”the man said.
“It wasn't necessary.”
“Very few things are really necessary. I'm ashamed that I never thanked you. Lo siento.”
Burden understood, but he didn't respond. The man lived a life that had no tomorrows. Inasmuch as one man could, he lived in the present, moment to moment. It was a clean life, the life of an animal that knows nothing of the idea of future. It was a horrible life.
“I didn't know where you'd gone, ”Burden said.
“Did you look for me?”
“After a fashion.”
He heard the man aspirate, and he thought he saw his breath shoot out in a long plume of cynicism into the pale light surrounding his dark silhouette.
“After a fashion, ”the man said, to hear the sound of it again. “That's a very Garcia kind of response.”
“I thought you wanted to disappear.”
“I did. ”He coughed a little. “You did the right thing.”
Now that he was actually sitting here in front of him, Burden wanted to ask him something he had always wondered about. His curiosity overcame the fear that would have prevented any other man from asking.
“How did you manage to get away from him?”
There was no immediate response. Maybe there would be no response at all. But then the man said, “It was easy. Like suicide. There's nothing easier in the world once you finally decide to do it.”
Burden waited for more.
“One sleepless night… I lay in the dark. I saw no end to it. I reached and got a handful of the darkness and pulled on it. It came, like a black curtain coming down. And I pulled on it and pulled on it. This went on for hours. By daylight I was gone. And that was all there was to it.”
Burden nodded. He had heard that the man talked this way, that for him there was no verge between normal and fantastic.
“There's a merry-go-round out there, ”the man said, and turned his face toward the window. “And swings. And weeds.”
The curtains hung dead behind his face, a pale silhouette against a paler light.
“I have a name for you, ”Burden said, “but I don't want to give it to you yet. ”He was afraid the man would grow agitated, that knowing who it was would upset him to the point of making him unpredictable. “You remember that I often handle things differently.”
“We used to say unorthodox.”
“Carefully, ”Burden corrected him.
“Unorthodox. But it has no meaning to me anymore. It has no context. It's nothing.”
“But you understand?”
“Well, you see, it just doesn't have any meaning.”
Jesus. Burden saw the edges of difficulty. But for all the man's psychosis, his reputation was impeccable. It occurred to him that it was he, Burden, who was now having trouble with unorthodoxy. Here he was, insisting on a frame of reference from a madman. Well, here was a lesson, wasn't it. He shouldn't be surprised.
“Is it tonight? ”the man asked.
“No.”
“Then I don't want to talk about it. Do you still go to pray?”
“Yes.”
“Churches? Mosques? Synagogues?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For all the same reasons.”
“You don't see things differently now?”
“Things? Yes, things are always changing, so I see things differently. But I don't see myself differently. So I still go.”
“If the stories I've heard are true, ”the man said, “I don't know why you still go.”
Burden didn't say anything.
Silence.
“But then, ”the man said, “what does it matter, really? I don't think it matters at all.”
They looked at each other across the dusk of the small room, silhouette to silhouette.
Burden stood slowly, suddenly feeling as if night covered the globe, as if, while he had been in this puggy little motel room, all of the time zones had melted away into darkness everywhere and morning was erased from the vocabulary of man.
“When I come back, ”he said, “I'll be coming to get you to do it.”
Chapter 26
When Burden finally got there, Titus was waiting for him on the veranda. Burden was hot and sweaty, having been let out by his van crew on Cielo Canyon Road and then having climbed through the woods to the back of the orchard. He was dressed much as he'd been in Mexico twenty-four hours earlier when Titus had left him, faded jeans and a baggy, chocolate brown linen shirt.
They went across the courtyard past the fountain and the atrium hallway and into Titus's office, where Rita was waiting.
Their introduction was awkward. Rita was wary and standoffish and making no effort to disguise it, and Burden was sweaty and clearly pressed for time. Rita was civil enough to offer him a glass of water, which he accepted. When she returned with it he thanked her, took a long drink of it, and dove right into his explanation.
“The first order of business for us, ”he said, standing at the end of the table, the windows overlooking the dark orchard behind him, “is to find out how many people Luquin actually has working with him on this operation. In setting up this meeting, they'll have to put their communications and security people into play. We'll watch and count. That's all.”
He took another drink of water and a deep breath. He looked at his watch and went on.
“We're at a huge disadvantage here, ”he said. “We can't lose sight of that. And we only have one shot at getting this count-”
“Explain the disadvantage, ”Rita interrupted.
Burden looked at her. Titus thought he could see him swallowing his irritation. Then he nodded.
“This is a kind of operation that Luquin has refined over years of experience, ”he said. “His people have probably been here several weeks doing advance work, which is how your house got its electronic surveillance. His operational point man is probably Jorge Macias, a former intelligence officer in the Mexican Federal Directorate of National Security. For years Macias secretly informed on intelligence matters to Luquin. And Macias has connections in the U.S. He's probably got four or five teams on this operation, all compartmentalized, all perfectly used to Macias's style of doing business. His people are rested, well rehearsed, and wired.
