“I had nothing to do with that, Anton, I swear. I’ve got my own hardware—I didn’t need to buy any from him.”

“But you admit to going behind my back.”

“Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.”

Anton hadn’t been expecting an admission of guilt. It threw him off guard just a bit, Ellie could tell.

Paul said, “I had something in the works—something major. I’m talking life changing. That’s the reason why I asked you to meet, so we could—”

“You mowed him down.”

“I didn’t ask him to hang out, go for a swim. He was supposed to leave.”

“You killed him. My guy.”

“He got caught in the cross fire when the cops arrived—which, as I mentioned in that note I gave you, I had nothing to do with.” Paul studied Anton for a moment. “It couldn’t be helped, what happened to Tyree. An unforeseen consequence. As someone who has survived in this business a long time, you should under—”

“The next words outta your mouth better be about helping my bottom line.”

“How much to settle it?”

“I’m thinking a million,” Anton said.

“That’s a lot of scratch for an orphan kid who was living on the street and giving out hand jobs.”

“That’s what Sebastian’s offering for you.”

“I thought it was half a mill.”

“He bumped the reward up. It’s half a million now for your head, a million if you’re brought in alive.”

“Wow. I’m surprised the cheap bastard bumped up the bounty.”

“Tyree,” Anton said.

“I’m not going to give you a million,” Paul said. “But I’ll give you two.”

Anton stood in profile; Ellie could see his eyes narrow in thought behind his sunglasses, Anton searching for traps hidden in the bullshit.

Paul said, “But why settle for two million when I can give you more money than you can possibly imagine?”

“Yeah? I can imagine quite a lot.”

“Then go ahead and pick a number and it’s yours.”

Anton snorted. “Whatever plan you’ve got cooking, Frank and Sebastian are not going to hand over their business to you.”

Their business, Ellie thought. Were Frank and Sebastian equal partners?

Paul smiled. He had the look of someone who knew every single answer on a final exam.

“They will,” Paul said. “I guarantee it.”

“How? What are you going to do, rat him out to the Armenians? You do that, he’ll turn around and rat you out. They won’t stop looking for you.”

“Sebastian is going to hand over everything to me. He’s—”

“He’ll never hand over his donors.”

“I don’t need them. He can go live with them, for all I care. I just need his infrastructure. The product I have is—”

“Better than Pandora. Right, you mentioned that in your little note.”

“And that, my friend, is God’s honest truth. Come on—let’s take a walk.”

“What’s wrong with right here?”

“Nothing,” Paul said. “But, all due respect, I asked you to come alone, so we could discuss those business matters I mentioned in my note, and you brought along someone—someone I don’t know.”