“If only it could be so, my friend, but it cannot.”

Juba said nothing, wondering where this was going. Had the Jews found out and offered Menendez more money for Juba’s head than his sponsors had paid for their assistance?

“You are aware that I control a considerable empire. I have built it from nothing, I have learned on my own and from my peers all the hard lessons, my discipline for security is intense, my arrangements have been brilliant, my mastery of many elements that people frequently take for granted has been exemplary. And so I have power.”

“I have assumed as much.”

“In all this time, I have never been seriously threatened. Neither by competitors nor by law enforcement.”

“But now?”

“It’s the turning of luck. You can plan for everything except bad luck. And now by a stroke of misfortune, it seems I am in jeopardy. I, me, myself. And if it comes to pass that I am arrested and put in jail, even for a few years, things become tenuous. It cannot be then ever again as it is now. The system I have built will erode without me, its caretakers—good men all—will make wrong decisions, competitors will see weakness, potential defectors will be emboldened, law enforcement efforts will double and redouble. You can see why I am concerned.”

“I can,” said Juba. “But you must know that my mission is a mandate from God Himself. I cannot be deflected from it due to your concerns.”

“Alas, it seems I need a man of your skills. Badly.”

“What about this fellow right here, in the mask. He is said to be a technical of the highest degree.”

The man in the sock made no acknowledgment.

“He cannot do what you must do. And that is, kill a man, from afar.”

37

The Doll’s House, Route 16, Grapevine, Texas

Whack Job was gone. The agents had no urge to sit in the squalid motel room, not when there was a squalid titty bar next door. So they ambled over to The Doll’s House, found it three-fourths deserted, and a blonde cogitating onstage in lights that showed off every blue vein and stretch mark, her inflated breasts a-tumble, her hips equally active, but her face a mask of lacquered ennui. She’d had better days.

The men sat at a back table, ordered Lone Stars and Buds, with Bob doing his Diet Coke routine, asked the waitress to ask the boss to turn down the disco tunes a bit, as it wasn’t the ’70s anymore, plus they had serious talk ahead. They all looked so cop—short hair, beefy, badly fitting sport coats—that this wish was swiftly granted.

“Okay,” said Nick. “Streibling, you’re up. Tell us about Menendez so we don’t look stupid tomorrow when we go through the files.”