“No,” I say. I walk past him and into the room where we’d met before. Letitia sits in a corner looking at me with concern. Peter’s poured the whiskey, hands me a glass as I come inside.

“Jesus, Eric,” Letitia says. “What the hell happened to you?”

I down the whiskey in one gulp. “Long day at the office.”

“You’re bleeding,” Peter says, nodding toward my chest. I don’t bother to look.

“I’d be surprised if I wasn’t.” I’d bandaged things as well as I could. Sometimes you miss something.

Chu comes into the room. “Considering how your day’s gone, I’d say you got off light. There’s a been a scramble from the Cleanup Crew to cover up a few things.”

“They find the cop at the Bowl?”

“Yes. He’s being handled by someone in the Medical Examiner’s office. Please tell me that was Sastre.”

“Sadly, no,” I say. “Ran into some guy who thought I’d murdered his dad. Maybe he was after the bounty. His friend probably was. The cop was collateral damage.”

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Chu says. “They only found two bodies. Shouldn’t there be three?”

“As dead as it is possible to be,” I say. “And they can stop looking. They won’t find him. Doesn’t really matter, anyway. We have bigger problems.”

Peter gives me a skeptical look. “We?”

“Yes, we. As in the whole fucking city.”

“Quetzalcoatl?” David says. Peter frowns, passing a look between us, clearly out of the loop.

“I’m keeping that quiet for the moment.”

“Obviously,” Peter says.

“Apologies,” Chu says, ever the diplomat. “I only found out myself a little while ago and I thought it would be best if we had Mister Carter here to talk to before going into detail.”

I take that as my cue. “Short version, I pissed off an Aztec god who is now up here burning shit down and blaming me for it. Sastre works for him. But I don’t think I’m the reason he’s here. If he wanted me dead, he’d just kill me outright.”

“Why do you think he’s here then?” Letitia says.

“No fucking idea. And honestly I don’t really care. We just need him and his pet sicaria gone.”

Peter takes all this in stride. Whether he believes me or not doesn’t seem to matter. Chu believes and that’s enough for him.

“He’s a god,” Peter says. “What does he need a cartel assassin for?”

“Something he can’t do,” I say.

“Like pull a trigger?” Letitia says. “Light a fire?”