‘I’ll ask you again,’ said Louis. ‘What is it you want from me, Agent Ross?’

He fixed Ross with his gaze, like a snake mesmerizing an animal before striking. Ross didn’t blink. He’d taken the ‘three guys having a beer’ approach, and that hadn’t worked. He must have known that it wouldn’t, but it never hurt to try. As Angel watched, he transformed himself, sitting up straighter in his seat, his face tightening, the years seeming to fall away from him. In that moment, Angel understood why Parker had always been so careful around Ross. Like Cambion, he was a creature of concealment, a repository of secrets.

‘I came to warn you that I won’t tolerate a campaign of vengeance, even for your friend. I won’t tolerate it because I’m concerned that it might interfere with my own work, with the bigger picture. For every man or woman you kill, a potential avenue of inquiry closes. That’s not how this thing works.’

‘And what is the “bigger picture”, Agent Ross?’ asked Angel. ‘What is “this thing”?’

‘The hunt for something that’s been hidden away since before the appearance of life on earth,’ said Ross. ‘An entity, long buried. Is that big enough for you?’

Angel picked up his beer.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘maybe I will have this second one after all.’

He drained half the bottle.

‘And you believe in the existence of this “entity”?’ said Louis.

‘It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters are the beliefs of those who are looking for it, and the havoc they’ve created, and will continue to create, until they’re stopped.’

‘So you want us to step back and do nothing?’ said Louis.

‘I’m not a fool,’ said Ross. ‘Doing nothing isn’t an option where you’re concerned. I want cooperation. You share what you find.’

‘And then you tell us if we can act on it?’ said Louis. ‘That sounds like the worst fucking deal since the Indians got screwed for Manhattan.’

‘It also sounds like a good way to end up in jail,’ said Angel. ‘We might as well just sign a confession in advance. We tell you what we’d like to do, you say, “Hey, that sounds like a fucking great idea. Be my guest!”, and next thing we’re all staring awkwardly at one another in front of a judge.’

‘He has a point,’ said Louis. ‘No deal.’

To his credit, Ross didn’t appear particularly surprised or disappointed. Instead he reached into his pocket and removed a manila envelope. From it he slid a single photograph and placed it on the table before them. It showed the symbol of a pitchfork, crudely carved into a piece of wood. Louis and Angel knew it immediately for what it was: the sign of the Believers. Parker had crossed paths with them in the past, Angel and Louis too. The Believers hadn’t enjoyed the encounters.

‘Where was it taken?’ said Angel.

‘At Parker’s house, immediately after the attack. Now do you understand why I’m asking you to tread carefully?’

Louis used the edge of his bottle to turn the photograph so that he could see it more clearly.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

It was Louis’s turn to produce an envelope from his pocket. He handed it to Ross without comment. Ross opened it, and glanced at a typewritten list of names, places and dates. He didn’t need Louis to tell him what it meant.

‘From Cambion?’ said Ross.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did he give them to you?’

‘He thought I could act as the go-between in his contract difficulties.’

‘What did you get in return?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Ross folded the list and returned it to the envelope.

‘Why are you giving this to me?’

‘It’s what you wanted, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you don’t need to cut a deal with him, and you can call off your surveillance.’

‘Leaving him at your mercy.’

‘I don’t have any mercy for him.’

‘Should that concern me?’

‘I don’t see why.’

Ross balanced the envelope on the palm of his right hand, as though judging its weight against the cost to his soul.

‘You went to Cambion because you thought he knew something about the hit on Parker,’ said Ross. ‘I’ll bet a shiny new quarter that he gave you a taste of what he had, but you believe that there may be more. Negotiating on his behalf was part of the deal. Don’t bother telling me if I’m warm. I wouldn’t want you to feel compromised.’

‘I’m a long way from feeling compromised, Agent Ross,’ said Louis.

‘But now you’ve got nothing,’ said Ross.

‘Except a clear run at Cambion, if I need it, right?’

The envelope stayed on Ross’s palm for a few seconds longer, then vanished into his pocket.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘And Parker?’

‘If it leads us to the Believers, I’ll let you know through the rabbi, Epstein. Otherwise, you stay out of our affairs.’

‘You’re an arrogant sonofabitch, you know that?’

‘At least you didn’t call me uppity. That might have caused serious friction.’

Ross stood and dropped a fifty on the table.

‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen,’ he said.

‘Likewise,’ said Louis.

‘You’re sure you can’t help with parking violations?’ said Angel.

‘Fuck you,’ said Ross.

‘I’ll hold on to your number anyway,’ said Angel. ‘Just in case.’

46

Angel and Louis did not speak again until they were back in their apartment, as Louis was concerned that Ross might have decided to cover himself by bugging their car, although a subsequent sweep of the vehicle revealed nothing. It didn’t matter: Louis had not survived this long by being careless, and Angel really didn’t have anything better to do than sweep the car for listening devices, or so Louis told him.

They were greeted on their return by Mrs Bondarchuk, the old lady who lived in the apartment below theirs. Mrs Bondarchuk, in addition to being their sole neighbor, was also their sole tenant, the building being owned by one of Louis’s shelf companies. Mrs Bondarchuk kept Pomeranians, on which she lavished most of her love and attention, Mr Bondarchuk having long since departed for a better place. For many years Angel and Louis had labored under the misapprehension that Mr Bondarchuk was dead, but it had recently emerged that Mr Bondarchuk had simply bailed in 1979, and his better place was Boise, Idaho – ‘better’ being a relative term in an unhappy marriage. Mrs Bondarchuk did not miss him. She explained that her husband had left rather than be killed by her. The Pomeranians were a more than satisfactory replacement, despite their yappy natures, although Mrs Bondarchuk raised exclusively male dogs, and made sure to have them neutered at the earliest opportunity, which suggested to Angel and Louis that Mrs Bondarchuk retained some residual hostility toward Mr Bondarchuk. Mrs Bondarchuk defended the noisiness of her Pomeranians on the grounds that it made them good watchdogs, and hence they constituted a virtual alarm system of their own. Louis took this with good grace, even though the building had the kind of alarm system that governments might envy, and usually only governments could afford.

Some years earlier there had been what Mrs Bondarchuk continued to refer to as ‘the unpleasantness’, during which an effort had been made to access the building through hostile means, an effort that ultimately concluded with the deaths of all those responsible. It was an incident that failed to trouble the police, once Angel had explained to Mrs Bondarchuk, over milk and chocolate cake, the importance of sometimes avoiding the attentions of the forces of law and order, such forces perhaps not always understanding that there were times when violence could only be met with violence. Mrs Bondarchuk, who was old enough to remember the arrival of the Nazis in her native Ukraine, and the death of her father during the encirclement of Kiev, actually proved very understanding of this point of view. She told a startled Angel that she and her mother had transported weapons for the Ukrainian partisans, and she had watched from a corner as her mother and a quartet of other widows castrated and then killed a private from the German police battalion ‘Ostland’ who had been unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches. In her way, as a Jew whose people had been slaughtered at Minsk and Kostopil and Sosenki, she knew better than Angel the importance of keeping some things secret from the authorities, and the occasional necessity of harsh reprisals against degenerate men. Ever since then, she had become even more protective of her two neighbors than before, and they, in turn, ensured that her rent was nominal and her comforts guaranteed.