Flaco, who’d been looking increasingly excited during this exchange, now suddenly frowned, grew remote. After a moment, he held out his hand. “Give me book.”

Smithback gave him the book back. Flaco stuffed it in his pocket, turned, and left.

Son of a bitch, thought Smithback. He almost had him.

Ten minutes later Flaco was back. “You lie. You want escape.”

Smithback shook his head. “Where would I go? You know my name. You have my license—you know where I live, where I work. Look, if you don’t trust me, come with me.”

But Flaco shook his head. “Bighead back tomorrow afternoon. If he find out we go…”

While Smithback had been reviewing the comic, he’d also been assembling a game theory decision tree. Now he played the best of his limited options. “So I go in the morning. We go in the morning,” he said hastily as the expression on Flaco’s face changed. “You wait outside, at the corner. Better Bill not see you first, because of…you know…” And with more gestures than words, he explained how Flaco’s fearsome demeanor might initially put the publisher off—though ultimately Johnson would appreciate the realism Flaco could bring to his work.

Flaco seemed to be on the fence while Smithback made his case. Then he shook his head. “No. Demasiado peligroso. Too dangerous.”

“Look, we can make it fast. I’ll go in, shake his hand, get him excited about your manuscript—give it to him and then leave. Let him read it. All it takes is a read and then he’ll see the genius in your story. Then you can follow up with him yourself. You won’t need me after that.”

“Why not talk to him now? You call.”

“Flaco, it doesn’t work that way! It’s all done in person! Just like in the drug business. Would you do business with someone only over the phone, that you’d never met in person? Of course not!”

Flaco seemed unconvinced; his creative ambitions were clearly at war with his cautious instincts. “Peligroso,” he repeated.

Smithback played his last card. “You’re the boss,” he said. “But you’ll never get another chance. This is it. He knows all the important people in Hollywood. And for a character as exciting as your El Acero, the movie tie-ins, series licenses…” He shook his head. “Bill’s made a lot of artists rich.”

They fell silent as someone passed by in the corridor. Flaco pursed his lips. “We see. If Carlos go out in the morning…” He shrugged with feigned nonchalance, but Smithback could tell that he could barely contain his excitement.

“I’ll need to clean myself up.” Smithback indicated his wrinkled clothes, the dried vomit that was still caked to one side of his head.

“We see,” Flaco said. “Meanwhile, you remember. Say anything to Carlos, and—better keep mouth shut.” He took out his switchblade and pointed it at Smithback’s mouth, for emphasis. Then he slipped it back into his shorts. “I get your dinner now.”

And with that he turned and left the makeshift cell. The door closed and locked behind him.

38

CONSTANCE AND PENDERGAST sat in deck chairs on the wide veranda, looking westward over the gulf, watching the sun slide toward the western horizon. Pelicans, seagulls, and sandpipers cruised across their line of vision, black spots against the pink and blue and gold. On a table next to the door sat Coldmoon’s police scanner, which he’d left behind when he went to Central America. It was on constantly, volume turned low, its background squawk like law enforcement Muzak. They had been relaxing for over an hour, and their conversation, despite its unhurried back-and-forth and occasional lapses into silence, had been of absorbing interest to them both. They had spoken of how Piranesi’s Carceri had managed to influence at least three disciplines—fine art, literature, and rectilinear geometry. The topic of geometry led them, indirectly, to a debate on the house they were currently inhabiting, and whether its symmetrical façade and numerous formal touches—transoms, coffered ceilings, rococo molding—truly qualified it as an example of shingle-style Victorian architecture. Once or twice, in the subtlest of ways, Pendergast had inquired how, exactly, Constance was spending her days; each time, the question was put off with equal delicacy.

“Peculiar, isn’t it,” Constance said, rather abruptly.

“What is that, my dear?” Pendergast asked. The conversation had moved on to whether Campari or Aperol made for a nobler aperitif.

“The way the sun sets over the sea. At first, it seems to drop so languorously, one can barely observe its transit. But then—as it nears the horizon—it accelerates, as if pulled by some invisible elemental force.”

“There’s a scientific explanation for that,” said Pendergast, sipping his Campari. “But I think I prefer your idea of the elemental force.”

“Sunset is time for the appreciation of elemental forces, not talk of science.”

Pendergast smiled slightly.

At that moment, his cell phone rang. He plucked it from the jacket of his suit pocket, examined the caller ID, which indicated nothing, then answered it. “Pendergast.”

“Good,” came the voice on the other end. “And you’ve answered your work phone: that will make things easier.”

Pendergast recognized the voice as that of ADC Pickett. But it was not quite that man’s normal voice: it sounded strained.

“I’ve just heard from our station in southern China. Specialist Quarles is dead.”

For the briefest moment, Pendergast went totally still. Then he reached for his glass. “Give me the details.”

“He fell from his suite at the Sofitel Foshan, in Guangdong Province. Chinese police and medical workers recovered the body and had already begun an investigation before Quarles’s credentials, and his assignment, were spotted as active by Langley. By the time we reached out to the Chinese authorities and completed the necessary diplomatic dance, the autopsy was complete. We were lucky to get one of our own forensic specialists in for an examination before the body was cremated and returned to the States.”

“And the findings?”

“The official Chinese verdict was death by blunt force trauma, consistent with a fall from the twentieth floor of a building. I’m sending you some encrypted images now.” There was a brief pause. “Suicide was presumed. The autopsy was quite thorough, and our expert had a difficult time finding evidence to the contrary. Quarles fell from his room, all right. But…”

“Yes?”

“Our expert noticed something unusual: the man’s esophagus was abraded.”

“Abraded?”

“That was the word our medical examiner used in his report, yes.”

“Will you send the report to me, please?”

“Just a moment.” Another pause. “The Chinese M.E. brushed it off as esophageal perforation due to a preexisting—let’s see—squamous cell carcinoma.”

“Anything else?”

“There was no time. He did what he could before the Chinese cremated the remains—as is their usual damnable practice, covering up any hint of foul play that might befall foreigners in China.”