| standing in front of his desk, staring at his heaping in
I box.
Staring at it with eyes that burned fiercely with anger and frustration.
Ricci. Tactical issues. Field’s where he’s most at home.
His hand shot out with sudden violence, sweeping the
^ in box off his desktop. It struck the wall with a crash, papers spilling from it, littering the floor. Thibodeau felt (he vicious urge to take a giant rushing step over to the box and kick it across the room like a soccer ball, to Stamp it to pieces before getting down on his knees and tearing up its scattered contents as he came upon them, ; flinging the tiny shreds of paper into the air, watching
”. them drift down on his office furniture like tiny bits of confetti….
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And then he got hold of himself. All at once, got hold. The red haze of anger peeled from his vision to leave him looking at the strew of forms and documents that had flown from the overturned in box, his expression marveling and horrified, hardly able to believe his eyes.
What had he done?
What in God’s name was wrong with him?
Thibodeau stood there as if waiting for an answer.
When it didn’t come after a long while, he knelt and slowly began gathering the papers off the floor.
In his navy blue blazer, olive golf shirt, and dark khaki slacks, Enrique Quiros might have been a particular brand of contemporary executive: Ivy League, thirtyish, perhaps the founder of some Internet-based corporation. The cut of his wavy black hair was short, neat, and un- fussy. The glasses through which his intelligent brown eyes peered out at the world were lightweight tortoiseshell with wire stems. His slender build was that of a careful eater and dedicated exerciser.
He was, indeed, an alumnus of Cornell Business School. The prismatic lettering on the door of his third- floor office suite in downtown San Diego read Golden Triangle Services, a corporate name apparently referring to the area northeast of La Jolla, where it was clustered in among many of the city’s upstart, high-tech businesses.
The office decor was bright and open, with smooth plexiglass surfaces, beige carpeting, some muted abstract prints on the walls, and a spacious conference corner where a pair of his bodyguards now sat on a raw-sienna leather sofa, looking respectable and respectful, eyeing
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Quiros’s visitor indirectly, as feral wolves might to signal cautious nonaggression.
The slight bulges of the firearms hidden under their sport jackets would have been unnoticeable to the average observer, but Lathrop had discerned them immediately as he arrived for his appointment. He wasn’t at all bothered. The guns were solely for their employer’s protection, and Lathrop intended no threat. Also, he him; self was carrying and had confidence he’d be able to take both men out before their hands got anywhere near their weapons, in the unlikely event of a problem.
“Nice new office, Enrique,” Lathrop said, approaching his desk. “You’re moving up.”
Quiros smiled and indicated the chair opposite him.
“The economy chugs along, whistle blowing,” he replied. “Like everyone else, I try my best to ride the curve and, if possible, stay a little ahead of it.”
Lathrop sat. He could remember when Enrique’s speech had been thickly accented with what they called Spanglish on the peninsula. This was before he had gone off to school, when his father was still alive and running the operation. Now he sounded like a TV news announcer, having acquired the flavorless pronunciation and intonation that was known as General American Dialect in college diction courses, absent any trace of ethnicity or regionalism. The benefits of a higher education.
Quiros shrugged his wristwatch from under the sleeve of his jacket and checked the time.
“You called just at the right moment, Lathrop,” he said. “A half hour later, and I’d have already left for an appointment.”
“I won’t be long.”
“Frankly, I was surprised to hear from you at all.
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You’ve been doing a lot of work for the Salazars, and it made me wonder if you’d chosen to give up your independence for steady employment.”
Lathrop shook his head.
“Freelance is more enjoyable,” he said. “Make your own rules, don’t have to radon your sick days.”
Quiros was smiling again. “I’d have thought Lucio and his brothers would run a looser ship than your former taskmasters.”
Lathrop shrugged.
“Life gets confusing when people think they know things that they don’t,” he said.
Quiros looked at him. “What do you have for me?” he said, dropping the banter.
“Information more valuable than any dollar amount I can lay on it.”
Quiros’s eyes came alive with interest behind his lenses.
“If I can depend on its accuracy,” he said, “you can depend on being satisfied with my money.”
Lathrop took a moment to review the latest modification of his story line. It was becoming a little complicated, and he needed to stay on his toes.
“Four nights ago, your nephew Felix and his friends grabbed a shipment the Salazars were bringing up from Mexico,” he said, getting right to it. “I’m talking sixty kilos, maybe more, a major load. Took out a bunch of Salazar’s people and cut up a few of them to send him a message.”
Quiros had immediately begun shaking his head in denial.
“You’ve got to be mistaken,” he said. “Felix has been
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troublesome in the past, but doing something like that isn’t in him.”
Lathrop shrugged mildly.
“I’m telling you what happened. You don’t want the rest, fine.”
Quiros studied him a moment, then gave out a long exhalation.
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
Lathrop hadn’t expected any other answer.
“Since you started running with the top dog in South America, word from my sources is Felix has been acting like he’s untouchable,” he resumed. “When he got tipped off about the product that was being muled over, it hyped him up to where he couldn’t resist pissing in the Salazars’ front yard to mark territory.”
“What are you saying? That knowing I’d be opposed to an action that rash, Felix went ahead and moved without my consent?”
Lathrop nodded. “So you wouldn’t interfere.”
Quiros was still trying to push off acceptance. “Felix is impulsive and sometimes acts in ways that aren’t very smart, but he has enough sense to realize I’d find out about the theft. And I won’t question his loyalty. If you’re suggesting he didn’t tell me because he means to keep the profits to himself-”
“You didn’t hear me say that, Enrique. Maybe he figures to make a quick turnover on the product, impress you with a surprise jackpot. All I know is, he did this thing. I don’t know why he did it. And I’m not here to speculate on his motives or put myself in the middle of your family business.”
Quiros was frowning unhappily.
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“Okay.” He produced a sigh that was even longer than the first. “What else can you give me?”
Lathrop prepared to cinch his knot of deception.
“Like I said before, Felix made a mess at the scene of the rip-off, but from what I hear, one of the Salazars’ men lived long enough afterward to tell who was responsible,” he said. The lie sounded good as it left his mouth. “Lucio holds you personally to blame. He can’t see Felix having the cajones to go ahead with something this heavy without you ordering it or at least giving it your blessing.”
Visibly agitated, Quiros didn’t say a word for perhaps a full minute. The fingers of both his hands were outspread on the desk in front of him, arched as if he were pounding chords on a piano, pressing down hard enough to make them white around the nails.
Lathrop waited. He was sure now that Enrique had bought his story, and could practically visualize the question forming in his mind. The trick was not to show he saw it coming.
“I’d like to find out how Felix learned about the shipment,” Enrique said at length. Clearly, he understood that there would be dire repercussions if Salazar was truly convinced the hijack had been done with his authorization and if he didn’t move quickly to correct that impression. “Do you have anything on that?”
Lathrop shook his head no. Convincingly. And thought about the meet he’d set with Felix to ensure Enrique never found out.
“You want me to do the research?” he said.
“It would be helpful.” Quiros abruptly checked his watch again and straightened. “We’d better put a wrap on this. I have to be going.”
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Lathrop’s head tilted back a little, the hinges of his jaw relaxing, his lips parting as if to taste the air. Upset as Enrique had been a second ago, he’d managed to compose himself-outwardly anyway-and Lathrop gave him credit for that. But the way he’d almost jumped from his seat when he looked at his watch seemed very peculiar. If the appointment he’d remembered was pressing enough to cut their business short, given the significance of what they’d been talking about … well, it would have to be pretty important itself, wouldn’t it?