“Ah, well. I was a failure as a communist. Maybe it’s my karma to fail at all my passions. A monster without conviction in my own wickedness.”

“You sound like one of those men who says his wife doesn’t understand him. What do you mean, you were a failure as a communist?”

He brushed her throat with his knuckle, looking at her eyes, her hair. His pale eyes were so narrowed they looked reptilian. “What do you know about men whose wives don’t understand them? You forget, I know who you are. Pathetic in your inexperience. You take chances, Amy, and you don’t even know how you do it.”

“I’ll bet you were a great communist.”

He kissed her neck. She stared at the shadow-mark on the wall, wondering about the paintings again. Why were they down? Why would anybody take his paintings down? What did you do with them then? What else did she know about all this?

He seemed to feel her distraction and he moved away. “I was a failure as a communist because I could see the group psychosis of it. Only one real process develops among human beings when power is at stake. The usual gossip and backbiting are only background for all the subterfuge, betrayal and naked egomania to do their nasty little turns.”

“You’re ranting again.”

“So be it. Look at what has happened since the death of communism. What was the Soviet Union has collapsed into a dungheap of criminality, the withered Chinese leadership clings to power almost completely through crimes against its own people, and of course old Fidel Castro has always been a thief ready to run at a moment’s notice.”

“The important thing is, what does that make you?”

“It doesn’t make me anything. I am what I choose to be.”

“You choose to be a common money-launderer —”

“The best! That is exactly the point! We are entering an age of world-wide rampant criminality, and once again your American criminals, the worst of all, and all your allies mean to close us out of it —”

“Us? Who are you talking about?”

“Those of us you insult by calling ‘The Third World.’ You’re going to take what you want, just as you’ve always done, and leave us the crumbs. Let’s just say that I am an even bigger opportunist than the manipulators who made such capital out of your husband’s so-called heroism. They will realize how helpless they really are.”

“Why is your house so big? And so empty? It’s such a waste of space. I know you said people wanted you to have it, but it makes no sense.”

Chino smiled. “You’ll have all the answers soon enough.”

“You’ve caught Sam again, haven’t you?”

He grinned. “Oh, yes. This time he’s well and truly caught. And so that’s why we have a little more time, you and I.”