If you were the type of person who knew for sure what to do here, if you could make the call to spy or not spy without qualms or caveats, you’d be the kind of person Myron would find somewhat suspect.

Life ain’t that black-and-white.

“There’s one more thing,” Ema said.

“What?”

Ema glanced uneasily at Mickey.

“What?” Myron said again.

Mickey gestured for Ema to go ahead. Ema sighed and reached into her purse. She pulled out a small clear plastic bag, the kind you used to get your toiletries past TSA. “Here.”

Ema handed the bag to Myron. He held it up in the air. There was a toothbrush and strands of long hair. He put it down and waited a moment. “Are these . . . ?”

Ema nodded. “I got the toothbrush from Patrick’s bathroom,” she said. “Then I sneaked down the hall and grabbed the hair from Francesca’s hairbrush.”

Myron said nothing. He just stared at the contents in the plastic bag.

Mickey stood. Ema followed suit.

“We figured maybe you could run a DNA test on them or something,” Mickey said.

Chapter 25

We are inside the farmhouse now.

It is just the two of us, Fat Gandhi and moi. Zorra now stands guard by the front door. Fat Gandhi’s traveling companions—two of the men Myron had described as the “gamers” from his visit and one male who could possibly be underage—are in the front yard with him.

“Your friend Zorro,” Fat Gandhi begins.

“Zorra.”

“Pardon?”

“His name is Zorra, not Zorro.”

“I mean no offense.”

I just stare at him.

“I’ve made us tea,” Fat Gandhi says.

I don’t touch it. I think instead about the young male, the one who may be underage. In movies, one often hears the bad guys talk about how “this is only business.” I for one rarely believe it. Be you good or bad, you tend to gravitate toward what interests you. Most drug dealers, for example, partake of their wares. The people I’ve encountered who work in the porn industry have a predilection for the same. Those who run protection rackets enforced by violence rarely have an aversion to injuring others or the sight of blood. In fact, for the most part, they relish it.

I look at my own role in this without irony, by the way.

My point? Fat Gandhi may talk about how this is all business and profit to him, but I am not sure that I believe it. I wonder whether there is a personal and unsavory explanation for his chosen line of work.

And I wonder whether I should do something about it.

“I can’t give you your cousin,” Fat Gandhi says, “because I don’t have him.”

“That’s very unfortunate,” I say.

He does not meet my eye. This is good. He fears Zorra. He fears me. As he said before, he does not want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. This is why I believe in massive and disproportional retaliation. It makes your next enemy think twice.