She had grown impatient with him. “You had a visit from a policeman and he didn’t actually threaten you but you read between the lines and as a result you seem to have spent the past twenty-four hours changing into dry pants, and now you run me through a wringer of mystery and intrigue and when I ask you what it’s all about, all you do is stick your jaw out at me and do an impression of Charles Bickford playing a warden who’s glaring at the convicts. Let me tell you, Crobey, the acting stops right now.”

She clapped her lips shut and glared.

“Let me remind you,” he said quietly, “that I’m not your lackey. For a thousand a week I’m not going to die in the service of the memory of a dead kid I never met. If the precautions seem excessive you’ll just have to humor me. Now I’m not entirely as Mongoloid as I look and I do understand a couple of things—I understand that you have this habit, when you get rattled you just tend to keep talking until you think of something to say, and I understand that flip snide insults are to you what fodder is to cannons and I don’t expect to break all your unpleasant habits for you overnight but I want you to keep a curb on your tongue because otherwise things could get a little dicey around here. There are people I take insults from but you don’t know me well enough to be one of them. You’re completely out of your element here and you’re scared—you’re a city kid out in the wild jungle and every last thing is going to cause fear and trembling until you get used to it. Mostly right now I expect you’re scared of me. I don’t have a lot of polish, I haven’t got any cocktail party chitchat, I’m not the kind of domesticated house-pet you can put in his place with wise-ass remarks.”

His insight startled her—she was, above all, afraid of him. There hung about him a kind of menace; the type of quality that might emanate from a dozing predator. It wasn’t just her private reaction; she saw it as well in the way Santana watched Crobey. And Santana was his friend.

Fear was something she wasn’t used to. She fought it and this brought out the anger in her. Knowing it was foolish she blurted, “I’d be more impressed with all that if I thought you were doing an acceptable job of chasing the mice. I didn’t ask you to lay your life on the line for a thousand a week but I did ask you to do a job. I don’t see much sign you’ve been doing it. For instance maybe you’d better run that Glenn Anders business past me one more time. Maybe you can explain who authorized you to make cozy deals with the CIA.”

“Apparently I was under a misapprehension—I understood I had a free hand.”

“Did you honestly think I wanted you to share everything with the CIA?”

“The CIA has facilities that I don’t have. It’s my intention to use them to provoke Rodriguez. When he learns they’re sniffing around his backtrail he’ll get nervous and a nervous man makes mistakes. It may provoke him into showing himself and when that happens I plan to be there.”

“Even though you’ve given the CIA the inside track.” She snorted theatrically.

“It’s no great trick to get there ahead of those jokers,” Crobey said mildly. “They move like slugs. Anders is all right by himself but he’s lugging all the dead weight of the bureaucracy behind him.” Then his voice turned hard. “Did you listen to anything I said before?”

“I heard you talking.”

“Right. Look. I can’t do a job for you if I’m chained up in a dungeon or thrown out of Puerto Rico. The only way I can make any progress is to go to ground. If they can’t find me they can’t deport me, you dig? That’s why we’re out here instead of drinking banana daiquiris at Dorado Beach. I don’t know if you were tagged at the airport but we have to assume you were. By coming here you’ve exposed yourself and that makes my job harder. If they can reach you it’s the same thing as reaching me.” Then Crobey showed anxiety: “You’re dealing with terrorists—people who kill people. If Rodriguez gets the idea you’re putting him in jeopardy—” and he shrugged without finishing it. Then: “Maybe it’s time you put paid to this thing. Go home to the world you know, don’t try to mess about with things you can’t handle—you’re a guppy trying to swim through a school of piranha. If they’re hungry they’ll have you for breakfast and they won’t even belch afterwards.”

“Have they got you scared, Crobey? Is that it? Do you want me to call it off because that way you won’t have to think of yourself as a coward?”

“Believe that if it makes you feel better.”

“My son isn’t any less dead now than he was when I hired you.”

“When we get too close to Rodriguez he’ll do something about it. You understand that?”

“I understand he’ll try. It’s your job to make sure he fails, isn’t it.”

“Given a free hand I’ll try. But it means you’ve got to stay out of it. Go back to the mainland, hide out somewhere, hire a bodyguard if you can, wait it out.”

“No. I’m staying, and I’m setting the rules. For a thousand a week you can play it by my rules.”

“Rules? Do you think there are rules in this game?”

“I want every scrap of information you get—whether it’s useful or negative or just immaterial. When decisions are made I’ll discuss them but I’m in charge and I don’t put things to a vote. If I want you to divulge anything else to Mr. Anders or the police I’ll let you know but until then you’ll keep your lip buttoned and say nothing to anyone.”

Santana gaped at her—he’d never heard a woman talk to a man that way, let alone to a man like Crobey.

“I hear you,” said Crobey, amused, waiting her out.

“I was told in Washington that if they’re arrested on American soil they can only be charged with violating the U.S. neutrality laws. Conspiring against a foreign government. That’s a slap on the wrist. My son was murdered in Mexico—I want to know what the official Mexican position is. Legally it’s their case.”

Crobey said, “Forget the Mexicans.”

“Why?”

“There’s no material evidence he was killed there. The body was dumped there but for all we know he was killed out at sea aboard a boat—and wouldn’t that be a nicety for a few dozen lawyers. In the second place even if the Mexicans had it airtight they wouldn’t touch it with a rake. The rightists would condemn them if they convicted, the leftists would condemn them if they didn’t. If you want an opinion, the only way you’re going to get revenge on these bastards is to kill them yourself.”

“No. I don’t just want them punished. I want them punished publicly, in the eyes of the world. I want justice, and I want the world to see it. I’m not about to go to jail for murdering Rodriguez. I don’t want it to be a joke, Crobey. I want it to be a memorial to my son.”

“You don’t get it, ducks.” His voice was softer now. “The kind of justice you’re asking for is out of stock. It was rendered obsolete by reality. The Mexicans won’t touch them. I explained that. And nobody else has jurisdiction.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Am I? Show me.”

“I’ve had time to think it out,” she said. “There’s one government that will be sure to execute them with full-scale publicity. All we have to do is catch them and turn them over.”

Crobey looked at her, baffled.

“Castro, Crobey. We deliver them to Fidel Castro.”

Crobey scowled. His mouth prepared for a speech but he subsided; finally he cocked his head, reluctantly pleased. “My God. It might work.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, obviously pleased with herself.

“Anything else up your sleeve?”

“A thought or two. For instance—you must know a few of the black-market arms dealers in this part of the world.”

“You want a bazooka for Christmas.”

She said, “Suppose you’re a terrorist gang and you’ve just collected ten million dollars in cash ransom. Where do you spend it?”

Crobey didn’t answer for a moment. His face changed a bit. Finally he said, “I hadn’t thought of that one. I wonder if Anders has.”