and, holding his arm above the elbow, guided him over gravel, then grass or weeds, and finally a couple of steps to a porch. Wooden porch. Into a front door.
By pretending to be more uncertain of his movement than he really was, he was able to reach out often with searching, fumbling hands and to touch his escort more often than he would have done otherwise. Between the car and the porch, he managed to leave a mole on this man also.
Inside, he was told to stand still and wait for instructions, then he heard the man leave and the door close behind him. He could tell someone was in the room with him, and he could smell a cold fireplace. The wooden floor underneath his feet creaked. Old. Deteriorating.
“Take off the hood, Mr. Cain.”
Titus recognized Luquin's voice.
Chapter 28
He took off the hood and found himself in a one-room shack. It was lighted by a kerosene lantern that sat on an overturned bucket in front of a caved-in fireplace. The light was harsh around the lantern, giving way quickly to shadows that waited anxiously around the edges of the room. The odor of kerosene mixed with the stench of rat urine and rotting wood.
“Sit down, ”Luquin said. He was sitting to one side of the lantern in a canvas deck chair. His shadow, thrown against a near wall, was broken by the angles of a corner. The seat he offered Titus was another overturned bucket. He was dressed in very nice street clothes (Titus could see the silk in the trousers), which made him look entirely out of place in his surroundings, as if he'd stepped off the back lot into a movie set. They were alone in the room.
“You wanted to talk, ”Luquin said. He was relaxed, his arms resting on the arms of the chair, his hands dangling loosely over the ends.
Titus stepped over and sat on the bucket, five feet from Luquin. He looked hyperreal. Knowing what he had done to Charlie had altered Titus's perception of him.
“You had Charlie Thrush killed.”
“Yes.”
The monosyllable, so readily given, so free of guilt, was disarming.
“Do you know how he was killed?”
“No. ”Said with the same weightlessness of conscience.
“You don't know.”
“No. ”Luquin twisted his head in irritation. “What do you want, Mr. Cain?”
“You shouldn't have killed him, ”Titus said.
Luquin raised a finger and wagged it slowly at Titus. “Be careful. You are up to your ass in shit here, and sinking.”
“Why?”
“I told you, ”Luquin said, “that I would decide who died and when. And so I did. That surprises you? What in the world did you think I meant when I said that?”
A beetle flew in, heavily, like a miniature aircraft, and smacked into the globe of the lantern. It fell at Luquin's feet, spinning around in circles on the dusty floor with a broken wing. Luquin didn't even notice.
“What did that accomplish, killing him?”
“Did it change the way you thought of your situation?”
A rhetorical question. Titus didn't answer.
Luquin's expression soured, and he nodded. “That's what I accomplished.”
Luquin's manner dripped arrogance, and Titus hated it that Luquin thought that this was the way to play him.
“Have one of your people come in with a telephone, ”Titus said, “and I'll put through the first ten million right now. And I'll make the next payment of twenty-one million within twenty-four hours, rather than the forty-eight you've instructed.”
Luquin's eyes brightened, but even as he nodded affably in gratified surprise, his brow puckered in skepticism. Titus could see him formulating a question and then instantly correcting himself and moving his chess piece to another square.
Without taking his eyes off Titus, he lifted his foot and crushed the beetle with a sharp pop of its crusty shell.
“Roque, ”he said in a voice no louder than the one he was using to speak to Titus. There were stirrings outside in the darkness, the door to the shack opened, and a man came in and stood behind Titus.
“Tu celular, ” Luquin said, lifting his chin at Titus. The man unsnapped a cell phone from a holder at his waist and handed it to Titus.
Titus dialed Lack Paley's number and listened to it ring. Luquin was watching him like a lizard, motionless, processing. Paley answered.
Titus told him to move the money to Cavatino first thing in the morning, the moment the bank opened. He told him to get the second investment ready. Lack knew the drill, and though he didn't know what was behind it all, he knew something extraordinary was going on. That was that.
After Paley had hung up, Titus pretended to be listening. Before Roque had handed him the phone, Titus had managed to work off one of the lighter moles and was holding it between the forefinger and thumb syof his right hand. He held the phone in his left. As soon as he had the mole the way he wanted it, he concluded his feigned exchange with Paley, punched the disconnect button, and with his right hand handed the phone to the waiting man. The mole stuck like a leech. The man returned it to the clip at his waist.
“That's it, ”Titus said to Luquin.
“We'll see. ”Luquin was studying Titus. He had lighted a cigarette, and as he smoked he seemed to be trying to come to some kind of conclusion.
“But, ”Titus added, “if anyone else dies, you won't get another dime.”
Luquin's face changed as if Titus had reached out and slapped him. His surprise was genuine, and so was the gall that replaced his enigmatic expression.
“You don't have any fucking idea what you're saying, ”he said. “I really don't think you are capable of understanding what that would mean.”
“If I let you… if I bargain with you over lives, I won't be able to live with myself, ”Titus said. “And I know that you don't understand that. But that's the way it is. It's called normal. It's not extraordinary. It's what decent people do.”
“Decent people, ”Luquin mused, nodding. “Yes. Well, Mr. Cain, it has been my experience that there is just a hair-a very thin hair-between decent people and animals. I have learned that what works with animals, works with decent people, too.”
“Fear.”
“Yes, of course. Fear.”
Titus listened to the faint hiss of the lantern in the following silence. Even though the windows of the shack were open, the heat was oppressive, and the acrid smoke of Luquin's cigarette mingled with the decaying odors of the old shack. Titus was sweating under his uniform, and he saw that Luquin was sweating now, too, almost suddenly.
“You are a stupid man, Mr. Cain, ”Luquin said.
“Within forty-eight hours you can have thirty-one million dollars in your accounts, via Cavatino, ”Titus said. “But if another person dies, I'll go straight to the FBI with everything. I'll have them hunt your ass all the way to Patagonia. And if they don't find you… I will.”
Luquin flinched, and his right arm shot up as he thrust his upper body forward in his deck chair and pointed the first and second fingers at Titus, the cigarette smoldering between them. The swaggering affability was gone, and Titus saw rage. He saw Luquin's beast, a thing that had hungers that could be satisfied only if someone grieved.
