“And what do they want?”
“He wouldn’t say. Just that he has information he thinks you might find interesting.” Harrison’s gaze flickers to me, and his meaning is clear: he thinks he might have interesting information about me. Fernando’s eyes roll. He sighs like a frustrated father being pushed to his limit by a persistent son. Taking the phone from Harrison, he walks away slowly, holding the device to his ear. He speaks, but his voice is lulled, low and soft, and I can’t make out what he’s saying.
“I’m going to sleep so well tonight, motherfucker,” Harrison hisses out of the side of his mouth. “Like the dead. Like a baby. Like a stone. It’s going to be the most peaceful night’s sleep I’ve had in years, and it’s all thanks to you. I owe you, man.”
Damn. That sounds worrying. Harrison knows I was in the military. What if he’s gone snooping? What if he’s discovered I’m not Sam Garrett, but Cade Preston, vice president of a motorcycle club hell bent on bringing down sex trafficking rings and murdering people like his boss? Doubt that would go down well. Then there’s the matter of my sister. Julio’s men know exactly who I am, and who I’m looking for. If they know I am the one who killed Julio, then what’s the stop them from spreading the word? Someone already told Fernando a guy on a motorcycle killed the bastard. How many pieces of this puzzle need to be put together before they figure out who I really am?
“The fuck are you talking about?” I snap.
Harrison bounces on the balls of his feet like a live wire, full of energy. “I couldn’t possibly say,” he tells me. “It’s just too fucking good. I’ll let Fernando explain, I think.”
Fifteen feet away, still with his croquet stick in his hand, Fernando goes still, standing like a life-size statue of someone who just heard something entirely unbelievable. He turns, his eyes fixing on me. He doesn’t say anything else. He listens, and then he hangs up the phone.
He holds the cell out to Harrison, who goes to take it from him. Fernando moves quicker than lightning, snatching hold of Harrison by his neck. For such a thin, frail-looking man, Fernando’s a hell of a lot stronger than he seems. Or maybe Harrison tolerates him grabbing hold of him. Either way, Fernando maintains a grip on him as he walks in between the metal loops of our croquet game, driven into the ground.
I try not to act surprised as Fernando shoves Harrison away from him, growling under his breath. “My friend in America just told me something interesting, Kechu,” he says.
“Oh?”
“He went to pay a visit to your employer in New York. To check in with him on my behalf, to see if his personal matter is almost resolved so that he can come and meet with me. He said that the office assigned to your Louis James Aubertin was unoccupied. Can you explain why this might be, Kechu?”
I shrug. “Sure. His office is a front. He needs an address for tax purposes. A place where he can have certain mail delivered. If you’d told me you wanted to call in on him, I could have arranged a meet in New York, on mutually safe ground. It wouldn’t have been a problem.” The lie comes quick and easy. I sound so nonchalant that it seems obvious that this would be the case, that Jamie would never keep an official business address where anyone could drop in and see him.
Harrison’s cheeks redden. “That is such bullshit, Fernando. Bullshit!”
Fernando shoves Harrison away, groaning in disgust. “Why would you come to me with something as insignificant as this? You are grasping at straws. Honestly, I am growing sick of this nonsense.”
Harrison looks dumbfounded. “I’m just trying to prove a point. They’re keeping secrets. This man is not who he’s pretending to be.”
“He is not a representative of this businessman?”
“Yes, but—”
“And he did he not give us fifty thousand dollars as a show of good faith?”
“He did.”
“Then I’d say he’s representing himself fairly accurately.”
“Fernando—”
Fernando spins, teeth bared, his hand gripping his croquet mallet tightly in his hand. For a moment I think he’s going to use it the way I had envisioned myself only a few minutes ago, bringing it down on Harrison’s head. He doesn’t, though. He throws it down on the ground, snarling like one of his wolves. “No! No more! I am sick and tired of this conversation. How many times have I told you I do not wish to discuss this with you?”
Harrison doesn’t answer. He glares at the ground in front of him, his chest quickly rising and falling as he pants; he’s desperate to argue, to talk back, to plead his case further, but Fernando looks like a pot about to boil over. Riling him up was surely Harrison’s intention when he came hurrying out here with that cell phone in his hand, but he definitely didn’t intend for his boss’s anger to be directed at him.