“When my family’s future is at stake, I need to know who I am dealing with.”

Knight suddenly realized who was standing before him. “Sky Dragon . . .”

The old man smiled in acknowledgment.

Knight raised his glass to the old man before bringing it to his lips and forcing down a gulp of the murky brown liquid, which burned like battery acid.

“You will join me for dinner,” the old man insisted.

As the waiter delivered the food to the table, Knight used his chopsticks to inspect the plate of sautéed meat before him, uncertain what species he was pushing closer to extinction. Fuck it. He took a bite. It reminded him of rabbits he had shot as a boy.

“My son speaks highly of you. He thinks you could be the missing piece of our operation.”

There was something calming about the Sky Dragon’s voice. It reminded him of afternoons with his grandfather at the track when he was a child.

Knight was careful to choose his words, oozing respect. “I believe I can help you build your business.”

“What do you think of tiger?” Sky Dragon asked nonchalantly.

The question caught him off guard. “Um . . . what do I think of tiger ?”

“Your meal. There are only a few restaurants in the world where you can eat tiger.”

Knight resisted the urge to vomit as he forced the bolus of endangered wildlife down his throat. Now was not the time to show disgust or disdain.

“I eat McDonald’s, so who am I to judge, right?”

The Sky Dragon laughed at the quip, his eyes twinkling. “Here, they say we eat everything with four legs except the table.”

“And everything that flies that isn’t a plane,” Knight countered, familiar with the old joke about Chinese dietary habits.

“In the West, you decide that some animals are friends and some are food.”

Knight saw his opening. “I believe that animals are a product, and there is good business and bad business. Dealing in products like heroin that kill your clients and land you in hiding in Myanmar is bad business. Your son is trying to build an empire for your family that will take your operation out of the black market and into the global economy. In my opinion, that’s good business, and the kind of business I want to help build. So if you want to know what I think of tiger meat, honestly, I think it tastes like cat urine, and that tiger wine just tastes like cheap sake. But we aren’t here to discuss food. We are here to discuss the future of your family.”

The seconds felt like hours as the Sky Dragon considered the words. Knight’s brutal honesty had landed him in trouble before, and he began to wonder whether he was about to end up in a Burmese rubber-tree plantation with a bullet in his head for his impudence.