“And what?” Bojing said. “You’ll hand yourself over? You’re already here! No, August. There are no more deals to be had.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Snow,” Jimmy said with a wheeze. He tried to raise his head to look at me; his right eye was swollen shut, and his bottom lip was split open and bleeding. “I for real didn’t really expect to make it past the age of eight, so, like, every year since has been a blessing. You and me? We cool, boss man. God gonna take real good care of you, Mr. Snow. Me, too, I hope.”

Another of Bojing’s men brought in a laptop and positioned it at the end of the dining table.

Bojing suddenly looked both angry and confused and started yelling at the guard in French. The guard turned the laptop on and a well-dressed, erudite-looking, grey-haired man with a dark and well-groomed mustache appeared. When the man’s image appeared, Bojing suddenly came to attention.

“Well,” the man said with a thick French accent. “Looks like even more of my money has been squandered. I, at the very least, hope the wine is French?”

“Oui!” Bojing said.

“And you?” the man said, looking at me. “You must be Monsieur Snow—the man who has cost my point man so much of my valuable time and money.”

“Tha’d be me,” I said. “You remind me of somebody. Pepe Le Pew?”

“In my business, I can afford to lose neither time nor money,” the Frenchman said. “Let me show you what happens to those who cause me such grievous losses, Monsieur Snow. Xiang, if you please?”

“No, goddammit!” I yelled.

Xiang pushed Jimmy to his knees, then dramatically brought back his sword.

“Love you, Mr. Snow,” Jimmy said.

Just before the length of blade went through Bojing’s back, coming out through the middle of his chest.

I watched the Albino’s red blood fan out across his white tuxedo before he fell facedown into the beet elote and seafood fideuà.

38

38

“Thirty million dollars in cash and bearer bonds,” the Frenchman said. “Poof! Enough to warrant Bojing’s demise. He had once been quite effective. Strange, isn’t it, how success makes some men sloppy? His public displays of incompetence—mostly involving you, Mr. Snow—had become unforgivable.”

“Is this where you bore the shit out of me with your grandiose super-villain plans?” I said. “If so, I’m gonna have a seat and eat some of this food. At least the stuff that hasn’t been bled on.”

“This is all about business, Mr. Snow. Nothing more, nothing less. A burgeoning seven-billion-dollar-a-year business providing high-end clientele with a worldwide assortment of convenient and luxurious properties that are simply off the grid. Away from prying legal eyes and governmental ears. Clientele like, say, Mr. Jeffrey Epstein?”