Rink looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy, his hair almost blue under the overhead lighting. Harvey always looks snappy. They both had a new set of clothing like mine. In comparison it was Walter and Bryce who came across as a little rumpled.

“Food’s coming,” Bryce announced. But none of us was interested yet.

I looked at Walter. “Hubbard’s running the show now? I didn’t expect him to show up.”

Walter had claimed a huge easy chair but it struggled to contain his bulky body. With his bald pate and fringe of gray hair around his ears, he looked a lot like my grandfather. All that was lacking from the picture was the smoldering pipe, but Walter helped by taking out his cigar, which he wedged between his teeth. He didn’t light it: he never did. He chewed it as he spoke. “Nothing I could do about that. My power isn’t infinite, you should know that.”

“You normally have more say than a feebie SAC does,” I said.

He sniffed as though my comment came with a nasty smell. “Orders came direct from the J. Edgar Hoover Building this time. All the way from the top, and even I don’t tramp those corridors. It’s enough that I’m still being given the courtesy of being kept in the loop.”

“How does this affect our arrangement?”

“Things stay the same as far as I’m concerned, son.” He indicated my friends. “All of you. But I can’t promise that anyone else will see things my way.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

Walter laughed, tugging out the cigar to emphasize his point. “You’ll probably do things your way as usual. It doesn’t matter if I give you official sanction or not.”

“I’ve a man looking to kill me. The way I see it is I’ve a right to protect myself.”

“Self-defense won’t be any defense if you go looking for trouble, Hunter,” Bryce chipped in.

“That’s why I’m going to let Rickard come to me this time.”

The food arrived but the bodyguards took it from the hotel staff and wheeled it into the room on a trolley. They eyed the coffeepots wistfully, but Walter ushered them out of the room again. At my frown, Walter told one of them to order themselves a pot brought up, which elicited me a grateful nod from one of the men. I’d just scored myself some points, which was good: I’d been at the other end of this scenario on so many occasions that sometimes I thought that the mark saw me as an invaluable piece of furniture to be ignored. The occasional small kindness reminded a BG that you were worth taking a bullet for.