“Not all societies are as plain-speaking as ours … . Anyway, Mr. Lopez, I didn’t drop by tonight to rehash old ground. I came to ask for your help.”

“You have a pretty damn funny way of asking for it. And if I don’t help, what are you going to do? Sic the DEA on me?”

“No. But what do you think might happen if that DEA report somehow ended up with a reporter and a story came out? Imagine it: local bar owner once advised CIA-backed drug traffickers. I suspect the District liquor board might be interested. And so would all those community activists who claim the CIA has been working with drug dealers and flooding inner-city neighborhoods with shit and pain. You can read this stuff all the time in the local black papers—which you may not get around to. You see, Mr. Lopez, these people are desperate to explain the devastation that’s struck their communities. You and I know they overstate the argument. But what would happen if they had a real-life symbol of their dark speculations? One living and working in their own neighborhood.”

Dunne did not actually possess a copy of the DEA report. A friend at DEA had read him portions over the phone. But judging from the look on Lopez’s face, he concluded the report was accurate. Paper wars—that’s what we fight in Washington, Dunne thought. Bloodless battles of leaks.

The tension in Lopez’s body lessened. He dropped his shoulders.

“Fucking extortionist,” he said. “I don’t deal with scum.”

“Not asking for a deal. Just asking for help.”

“I don’t help people who think they can blackmail me.”

His pride was talking now, Dunne thought. Not his head.

“I’ll say please, then,” Dunne said. “Please tell me where to find him. That’s all. Then he can tell me whatever he wants to. You know him? You worked together?”

“Semper fi, man.”

“You knew Raymond DeNoefri?”

“Yeah.”

“Heard what happened to him?”

“Yeah … . That fucking black kid who came in here—he’s part of this, too?”

“He was helping me. Raymond ever talk to your friend, the one with the glass eye?”

Lopez did not reply. Dunne asked again.

“They say Raymond pissed off the wrong people,” Lopez said. “Told them he didn’t want any partners. You don’t do that.”

“Maybe. Maybe it was something else. Was he a friend of yours?”

“Shit, man, you stand behind a bar in a straight joint and every god-damn sad-sack you pour a glass for thinks you’re his A-number-one best bud of all time. What do you think happens in a gay bar?”

“And I’m guessing that friend of yours might know something about Raymond, too?”

“You do a lot of guessing, man.”

“These days I have to. Have you asked him about Raymond? What does he think?”

Lopez tugged on his beard.

“I don’t speak for nobody but me.”