As one of my enemies once put it, “You’re good, Win, but you ain’t bulletproof.”

I had tried to be careful, but missions such as this require a degree of rush. No one had followed us from the airport. I know that. But still Fat Gandhi knew that we were here.

“We need to talk,” Fat Gandhi says.

“Okay,” I say.

He spreads his arms. “Do you mind if I call you Win?”

“Yes.”

He still holds the grin. I still hold the gun. He glances at Zorra. “Does she have to be here for this conversation?”

“Who you calling she?” Zorra snaps.

“What?”

“Does Zorra look like girl to you, dreamboat?”

“Uh . . .” There is no good answer to this.

I hold up my hand. Zorra steps down, if you will.

“Both of you can relax,” Fat Gandhi says. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

“Wrong,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“You’re bluffing,” I say.

Fat Gandhi continues to smile, but I can see the light flickering.

“You know who I am,” I say. “That would take very little research on your part. You probably had a man watching the airport and another man watching the road. My guess is, it was the bearded guy in the Peugeot.”

“Zorra knew it!” Zorra says. “You should have let me—”

Again I stop him with my hand.

“You have eyes on us,” I continue, “but that doesn’t mean you have a sniper who would be good enough to hit us at this distance. I have two men out there. If you had someone, they would know. You have other men inside. Three to be exact. None have a long-range weapon pointed at us. We’d have spotted it.”

More flickers in that smile. “You seem very sure of yourself, Mr. Lockwood.”

I shrug. “I could be wrong. But the odds you have enough firepower hidden to take out all four of us before you die seems beyond remote.”

Fat Gandhi does a slow clap. “You live up to your reputation, Mr. Lockwood.”

Reputation. See what I mean by encourage, amplify, and intensify?

“I would go into an entire bit about this being a stalemate,” Fat Gandhi says, “but we are both men of the world. I came out here to talk. I came out here so we can make an arrangement and put this matter behind us.”

“I don’t care about you,” I say. “I don’t care about your enterprise.”

His enterprise, of course, involves teenagers being raped and abused. Zorra makes a face at me to indicate that maybe he cares.

“I’m here for Rhys,” I tell him.

The smile slips off Fat Gandhi’s face. “You were the one who killed my three men.”

Now it’s my turn to grin. I am buying time, drawing his eye. I want Zorra to keep checking the house and perimeter, just in case.

“You were also the one who blew that hole in my wall.”

“Are you looking for a confession?” I ask.