John Sandford - Mortal Prey

Then, in the government GMC Suburban that Martin himself drove to Mйrida, Mallard scrambled into the back with Malone, and Lucas noticed that their shoulders touched during much of the ride, and he thought, Hmmm. The two FBI agents pushed the questions even when it was obvious that they were running in circles, as though they were playing a ranking game with each other…

Martin was unfailingly polite through it all. Halfway to Mйrida, the FBI questions ran out, and they rode in silence for a while.

Martin eventually turned to Lucas. "If I might ask… where did you get your jacket? It's very nice. Also the shirt, although it's not my style."

"Got it in San Francisco. One of the gay men's boutiques-my fiancйe would know the store," Lucas said. He opened the front lapel and read it. "It's a Gianfranco Ferre. I liked the fabric for hot weather, although it does get some pulls in it."

"Hmm." Martin nodded, pursing his lips. "Large people like yourself look authoritative even in casual clothing. I'm afraid my body was made for suits."

"But that's a great suit," Lucas said. "I saw one like it, I think, a friend of mine had one. Ralph Lauren, the Purple Label? Though it was in blue."

"Exactly, this is what it is," Martin said, looking pleased, touching his necktie knot and lapel. "Some people in America think brown suits look bad, but I think, with brown people, they look not-so-bad." And a moment later: "Have you ever looked at a suit by Kiton?"

Lucas said, "I saw some, at a show…"

They talked about suits for a while, then about shoes. Martin told Lucas that he'd paid $1,100 for a pair of semicustom oxblood loafers by an English cobbler named Barkley, only to find that every time he went through an airport metal detector, the steel shanks in the shoes set off the alarm. "So, when I go to the States, my beautiful shoes stay at home. It is the only way I can assure myself of the sanctity of my…" He searched again for the word, came up with "rectum," and smiled brilliantly over his shoulder at Malone.

"Don't like those body-cavity searches, eh?" Lucas asked.

"American security is sometimes… unusual," Martin said.

When they got out of the truck in Mйrida, Malone took Lucas by the elbow and stood on tiptoe, her mouth by his ear, and said, "If you talk for one more fuckin' minute about fashion, I'll fuckin' shoot you."

"Hey…"

Raul Mejia's house was surrounded by an off-white stucco wall, with access through what appeared to be a simple Spanish wrought-iron gate. As they were passing through, Lucas noticed that the bolt was electronic, that the wrought iron was actually steel, and that the black faux wrought-iron leaves at the top of the gate, eight or nine feet up, were essentially knives. If anyone were to scale it, he would need serious protection-like a Kevlar quilt. Without it, a climber's fingers would be lopped off like so many link sausages.

Inside the wall was a small, neatly kept yard, grassy in the North American style, with a stepping-stone walk to the front door of the house. The house itself, from the front, seemed as modest as the outer wall, a high single-story, and was made of the same off-white stucco, pierced by tall dark windows.

Martin led the way through the gate, up the stepping-stone walk, and pushed the doorbell. A moment later, a young man opened it, smiled, and said, "Come in, come in-I'm Dominic Mejia. My father's waiting in the library."

The house was much larger than it appeared from the outside, Lucas realized. From the outside, there was no way to see how far back it extended-but once inside, Dominic led them through a public reception room, across a large interior courtyard, open to the sky, with a small swimming pool, into the back of the house and down another hallway to a library. The library looked as though it might be a hundred years old, all of dark wood with thick shelves set at different heights, to accommodate the books. The bottom two feet of each wall was taken up by cupboards. The books themselves were varied, and included several hundred paperbacks and perhaps three thousand hardcovers. The room smelled faintly of lemon-scented furniture polish and leather soap-it smelled good.

An old man was sitting in a wheelchair at a library table, a book in front of him. He smiled when they entered, pushed back from the table, and said in English, "Colonel Martin, a pleasure, as always. Your friends, as well. Come in. Sit." He gestured at a circle of chairs at the back of the room: two leather reading chairs, and three easy chairs that had apparently been brought in for the guests. Mejia wheeled himself over.

Lucas went along the shelving and said, "This is a good room. I'm building a house now, with a library." He was looking at the books-they all appeared to have been read. Most were on history, culture, and economics, with a selection of Latin American and Spanish novels; all the bindings were modern. Mejia was a reader, rather than a collector.

Mallard was settling into one of the leather chairs, while Malone took the other. Mejia wheeled to get a better look at his shelves, then said, "A library. I envy you the task; the thought. The difficulty is to make the library comfortable and distinguished at once. Much thought and a good architect." He tapped his temple as he said "Much thought." Mejia spoke English well, but not quite as well as his son. He looked at his son: "Dominic-open the folding doors. And find Anthony."

At the far end of the room, two large, four-panel folding doors dominated the center of the wall. Dominic opened them and revealed a built-in desk with a computer console, and an overhead shelf lined with software boxes, then went to find Anthony, whoever that was. "Internet," Raul Mejia was saying. "A wonderful thing, even for an old man. I have this beautiful library where I can sit with my books… and a high-speed Internet connection behind harem screens made in Andalusia."

Lucas took one of the fabric chairs as Mallard asked, "Have you ever put 'Clara Rinker' into a search engine?"

"Three thousand references now, on Google, beginning with the investigation in your Kansas and Minnesota," Mejia said. "There is discussion of a movie or perhaps a television show."

"You were surprised to see them all? The references?"

"I was…" Dominic came back into the room, trailed by a man who might have been a year or two older, but was obviously his brother. Raul Mejia looked at his sons and said, "Asombrado?"

"Astonished. Amazed," Anthony said. His English was as good as his brother's. They sounded Californian.

"More than surprised," Mejia said. He sighed. "I wish she had the baby. This is the real assassination. A baby from my son and a woman like this. This would be a baby."

Malone jumped in: "As we understand it, you have had enemies in business, but can find no sign that these enemies made the attack on your son and Rinker. With the St. Louis connection, it seems now that the attack was aimed at Rinker and your son was killed accidentally. Does this change your… your… feeling toward Rinker?"

The old man shrugged. "Of course. But. I can also understand this attachment. Paulo was a good boy, but wild. Crazy, sometimes. This woman, Clara Rinker, there must have been a fire between them. She must also have this craziness somewhere inside. I could feel it myself when I spoke to her. So. I am angry that she did not tell us, but I understand why she did not. Now… what is to be done?"

"You could help us catch her," Mallard said. "You have commercial connections everywhere in Mexico. She needs money and shelter, and she will go places that the police may not see."

"We would also like to know from you… this man who was murdered at the airfield-what is his connection with these criminals in St. Louis? He is a Mafia?"

"He has connections with St. Louis organized crime," Mallard said.