“Oh, yes. It has to be. I can’t tell them you left the building with it. Please hurry.”

“I’m on my way.”

Nick showered quickly, and put on a gray suit. In a strange way it pleased him to have some mission in life, even if it was only to deliver the file.

He’d been turning over what he’d learned in his head. He remembered the strange message the man who may have been the Salvadoran secret policeman Eduardo Lanzman had crawled into the bathroom to leave for him. ROM DO was the message in the blood, in the split second before it was obliterated. Possibly the beginnings of the words Romeo Dog, which was early-sixties Army radio code for the letters R and D and the Bay of Pigs invasion force call sign in 1962? R and D. Ram and Dyne. RamDyne…

It was almost something. But it was still nothing. Why didn’t he write RA DY, why ROM DO, what was there about the radio codes of the Bay of Pigs? If it was from the Bay of Pigs?

He shook his head, feeling an ache begin in it somewhere. He now believed that he had an indication – but no legally constituted evidence, another matter entirely – that this RamDyne was in some way involved in the murder of Eduardo Lanzman and possibly the murder, therefore, of Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez. He knew he’d ventured into very hazy areas, the vaunted wilderness of mirrors, where it was possible to lose your bearings in a second, and become so riddled with paranoia that nothing made sense anymore. Everything in him told him to back off, it was none of his business.

But the idea…those guys running around on their own special mission. Who watched them? Who paid them? Shreck, Payne, the others? To whom did they give their accounts? To some Lancer Committee. Who founded them? Where did they come from in the year 1964, suddenly rich and influential enough to get the deal going with fifteen hundred Armalite rifles. Who were they?

Annex B would tell him.

I’ve got to get Annex B, he told himself.

But what the fuck is Annex B?

“There he goes,” said Tommy Montoya in the van, “that’s my little Nicky.”

Jack Payne, watching through the scope as Nick Memphis walked from his little suburban house to his Dodge, and climbed in, just grunted.

“Take him now, Payne-O?” asked Tommy.

“No. They’re expecting him. Let him return the fucking file, then we’ll nail him on the way out. What I want is someone in his house. He’s got to have a piece in there. If it ain’t a piece, he’ll have a kitchen knife or a razor or something. I want it lifted. We’ll use it when we chill his bones out after our little chat.”

“Jack, man, it’s no sweat, I can do the house,” said one of the other team members.

“Yeah, Pony, that’s fine, you do it. We’ll wait on you.”

“You don’t want to tail him?” asked Mr. Ed, the driver.

“Nah. Let Pony get into the house and pick out a nice toy. No prints now, Pony, you got that?”

“Sí, Jack, sure, got it.”

“Okay, go to it, son.”

Pony stepped out of the back of the Electrotek 5400 surveillance van parked a discreet distance down from Memphis’s house. Jack watched him go. He was dressed like a workman. He went to the house, knocked on the door, then blandly went around back.

“He’ll get in,” said Edwards, always called Mr. Ed. “I seen him do locks. He’s like a fucking genius with locks.”

“Great,” said Jack.

It was true. Pony was back in thirty minutes. His trophy was a little Parkerized Colt Agent.

Payne, wearing plastic gloves, popped it open and gently plucked one round out.

“Ooooo,” he said, “Glaser safeties,” looking at the blue-tipped bullet nested in the brass case and imagining the clusters of lead suspended like bunches of grapes inside the jacket. “These nasty suckers make instant spaghetti,” he said.

“Oh, Nicky,” said Tommy Montoya. “You in the shit now, my friend.”

“Hi, I – ”

“Shhhhhh!” she whispered, her small pretty face knitting in anger. “Put it there,” she commanded in the same conspiratorial whisper.

“Yeah, sure.”

He set the box with the RamDyne file on her desk and backed away. She didn’t look at it directly. He just stood there and could feel the sense of furious betrayal radiating off her neck, which was all he could see.

“Sally, I’m – ”

And finally she looked up.

Her face was compressed with pain. She was trying to show him how much he’d hurt her. Hurt her? He didn’t even know her! The abrupt envelope of intimacy somewhat befuddled him. It occurred to him suddenly that this pretty, idiotic girl conceived herself as being in love with him, one of those crush things, nurtured from afar down through the months. He could not have begun to engineer such a turn of events and now that it was here, it embarrassed him; he felt as if he’d trounced on a fragile secret thing of hers. He felt unworthy. But also irritated. Hey, I never knew I meant anything to you, do you see?

“Did you have any trouble?” she finally asked. “I mean, getting back into the building?”

“No. No, you know it’s funny, even though I don’t have an ID or anything, they just let me back in. You know, what’s his name, Paul on security, he just waved mildly, like he has every day for the past four years. I guess some people didn’t get the word.”

“I’ll say.”

He let the silence sit between them for a while, trying to figure out how to deflate it.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I should have told you. This case was tantalizing me, though. It had nothing to do with my screwups of the last two months. I just hated to let the goddamn thing die, even if the career was shot. You handed me the damned file. I just didn’t have the strength to walk away from it.”

She swallowed.

“I’m sorry for what they’re doing to you. I’m sure it’s not your fault.”

“Ahh, it is. I thought I was so smart, and I just kept blowing it. Look, I have to get out of here before I get you in any trouble. You’ll be okay?”

“I think so. As long as I get it back to them by tomorrow. And I have to sign a form saying it never left the office.”

“So you have to lie for me?”

“Yes.”

“See, I’m great luck for women. Look, Sally, it was a crummy thing to do. I apologize. Could I – I don’t know, make it up? Would you like me to buy you dinner or something?”

“I have a date tonight.”

“Sure, I understand. Okay, I’m sorry again, now I’ll get out of – ”

“I don’t have one tomorrow night.”

“Oh. Uh, well, then. Um, can I pick you up in front of the building here at, say, six? Maybe we’ll go down to the Quarter and get oysters before it fills up with tourists.”

“Six,” she said. “And don’t worry about the lying. It’s no problem.”

“Thanks, Sal. Thanks a lot.”

It was a glorious day out. Nick walked through the tall buildings of downtown New Orleans. He had nothing to do, and nothing but time to fill. So task-oriented all his life, he suddenly felt buoyant. Exhilarated, he thought he might walk on down to the Quarter now, have a nice lunch, then head on back to the house and take a nap. He felt cured of his depression. He had a date with an attractive girl, he was still young enough. He knew people. He’d be all right. Hey, maybe this wouldn’t suck so bad after all. He had enough money to get through another couple of weeks or so.

Live a little, Nick. Don’t have to be a Feeb grind your whole life. Maybe Sally would find him attractive, maybe she wouldn’t. If it happened, it happened. But a world had just opened up. Amazing how good a woman’s smile can make you feel.

It was at this moment in his ruminations – he was lost in the shadows of the tall commercial buildings and jostled by the anonymous lunchtime crowds – that he heard his name called.

“Nicky! Hey, Nicky, Nicky!”