“What is this charismatic enterprise they have and don’t know it? Something from the days before the war?”

“The Western entrepreneurs before the war were looking for oil and minerals,” he said, “and were unaware of the riches all around them.”

“You got any olives?”

“Olives? No.”

“That’s okay. But how do you know?”

“That I don’t have any olives?”

“That these riches exist? Abdul tell you?”

“Abdul,” he said, annoyed. “If Abdul had a chronometer, he wouldn’t tell me the time. It was because I knew that I tried to be his friend. To help him help his country—when the time comes.”

“Is he aware of these riches?”

“He is as oblivious to them as were the oilmen and the mineralogists.”

“You pointed it out to him?”

“I never got that far. I never got anywhere.”

“How did you learn about it?”

“I believe I told you RAT owns and publishes an international, interdenominational church quarterly. When I was young, and climbing the corporate ladder, I was for a time its editor. One day, across my desk came a piece submitted by a young clergyman in the Moravian Church, so fraught with possibilities that I bought it. And killed it.”

“Killed it?”

“Killed it. Deep-sixed it. In the pious eyes of the Moravians it was no more than an amusing exercise in exotic trivia. But I found it to be a clear and unmistakable statement of great significance to UGH, our parent organization.”

“What was the piece about?”

“Assama.”

“And its riches?”

“And its riches.” He fell silent, long enough for me to sip my martini until it was gone. Immediately he refilled the long-stemmed glass, but in that measureless passage of time, that lifeless, dry, unconditioned air, a curious psychological impasse seemed to have clotted the scenario and dampened its dialogue. I had been summoned to be told… something. Now Grady was concealing it, and the closer he came to the subject the more he seemed under some self-imposed prescription to avoid it.

I asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me what it is?”

No answer. His sleek hawk eyes were bright but empty, as though they were buttons and he were stuffed and mounted, a miracle of taxidermy.

“I like a good mystery,” I went on placidly, “but only if I’m in on it. If you’d care to clarify, fine; if not,” I got to my feet, “I’ll just leave.”

“No,” he said, galvanized at last, waving me back to my chair. “I… I must swear you to secrecy. There’s a fortune at stake.”

“I swear.”

“On your father’s grave.”

“On my father’s grave. If I ever find it.”

His eyes went sharp and found mine in the dusk. Across the room he looked like a figure etched in frosted glass.