The man came up to the side of the bed, held out his right hand, then withdrew it. “Ah, I forgot. Sorry.”

Orteño pressed a button and the upper half of the bed rose until he was in a more or less sitting position. He could see the man now: a narrow, angular face with salt-and-pepper hair, a long, Roman nose, leading to lips that were as full as a woman’s. He had long, bony-fingered hands. He seemed ill at ease. Flix wondered whether he also had an aversion to hospitals.

“St. Vincent,” the man said. His voice was oddly high, almost as squeaky as the trolley the candy stripers pushed back and forth down the hall during meal times. “Luther St. Vincent.”

“Never heard of you,” Orteño said.

“I’m gratified.” St. Vincent cleared his throat. “I didn’t come in until I was certain you weren’t sleeping. May I have a minute of your time?”

Orteño laughed shortly. “Where am I going?”

“Thank you.” St. Vincent pulled over a chair, turned it around, and sat on it backward, his arms folded casually over the back. “How are you feeling?”

“Who are you and why do you want to know?”

“To answer the second question first, you interest me.” He had a megawatt smile. His cheeks were pink, clean-shaven, and a bit shiny, as if whoever had given him the shave had applied moisturizer afterward. “As to who I am, I’m NSA.”

“Universal Security has no business with the NSA. How d’you know about me?”

“We both know that to be a lie. In any event, I’m in the business of knowing everything there is to know about persons of interest.”

“Huh! Well, I’ll be as good as new in a couple of weeks’ time.”

“Yes, but how about now, this very moment?”

Orteño had trained himself not to shrug. “I want to get out of here.”

“Of course you do. But I wonder if that’s all you’re feeling. Are you sure?” St. Vincent sucked in his cheeks as if drawing on an ice cream bar. “No anger, resentment, anything like that?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sure you do. I imagine you’re pissed Sandy bought it. I imagine you’re pissed the brief failed.”

Orteño’s heart lurched in his chest. What the hell? he thought. His eyes narrowed. “What are you driving at?”

“Well, Felix—may I call you Felix?”

Flix nodded. It was not lost on Orteño that an NSA bigwig was treating him with courtesy extreme enough to be almost comical. He had never even met Omar Hemingway; that was Cutler’s department. He was strictly a field op.

“Okay, then. You’re from Texas, right? Is it true they grow ’em bigger and better in Texas?”

“I think you’d know that better than me.”

“Why would that be, Felix?”

Orteño regarded him for a moment as if he had grown another head. “That would be,” he said slowly and distinctly, “because you’re Anglo and I’m Latino.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Felix.”