“Paramilitary groups mostly. He’s been in Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia, Lebanon and Gaza.”

“What about closer to home?”

“Yes, there are rumors that he’s done select work here before.”

“Okay. Next question, Wetherby, and I want the truth. You tried to recruit him. Who was it for?”

“I can’t disclose any details about my clients. You can’t expect me to do that.”

Rink picks and chooses his time to speak, but when he does his words mean something. “Unless you want us to have another falling out, we do.”

Wetherby threw his hands in the air. “You realize what my name will mean if this gets out?”

“Shit?” Rink asked.

“Exactly.” Wetherby ran his hands over his face. He probed the spot where I’d punched him earlier and it was a catalyst for his anger. “Why the hell should I tell you anything? I don’t owe you a goddamn thing.”

“No one will get anything from us,” I said. “You have my word.”

He made a noise in his throat like he was being strangled. The anger went out of him like he was a deflating balloon. With resigned deliberation he leaned down and slid open a drawer in his desk. It was a good place to conceal a gun, but I was at an angle where I could see that that wasn’t the case. He pulled out a folder and opened it on his desk.

“I don’t have a name, just a number. Maybe you have better resources than I do and can trace it.”

That was a given fact but I made him none the wiser. I borrowed a pen and jotted the number on a slip of paper that I pocketed. “So what were your feelings?”

“About what?”

“About the people who wanted Rickard to work for them?”

Wetherby rolled his head on his shoulders. “Like I told you: I don’t use criminals.”

“But you were happy to make the introductions between the two parties?”

Wetherby’s pause told me that I’d struck a nerve. “It will please you to know that I got nothing from the deal. Yes, I put Rickard in touch with them, but that was it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Did you know why they wanted him?”

Wetherby sat there straight-faced. “No.”

Standing up I looked down at him with a face equally flat. “We’ll leave things at that, then.”

“You didn’t get that from me, right?” Wetherby nodded at my pocket where I’d slipped the note.

I patted him on the shoulder. “As long as we’re good now.”

“We’re good,” he said.

Rink came up and dug a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket, which he placed on the desk. “Buy your guys a beer when they get back from the hospital, Wetherby. Forget all about us. Everything will feel so much better afterward.”