El Inglés lounged in the leather chair across from Rico Lomas's desk. Lomas watched him, while Alejandro sat at the bar and finished his drink.

Incredible! The Englishman's nonchalance was blowing Lomas's mind away. With a tiny gold coke spoon Lomas shoveled a snort of the Santa Clara coke from a diamond-encrusted box.

"Señor?" he offered politely. "Santa Clara, pure, from los llanos?"

"Never use it."

"Only sell it." Lomas nodded. "Some think that is wise. Me? I like it, it likes me, why not?" He regarded the spoon and smiled. "What is it you say? 'Some men are born with a silver spoon in their mouths'? With me it was a golden one."

"In the nose," said Newcombe.

"Sí." Lomas sniffed it up, then sat back, dabbing at his nose. "I have heard, señor, that you had engine trouble yesterday, on your final approach to Whiskey Cay?"

Newcombe shrugged. He drew a pack of cigarettes from his shirt and lit one with a battered lighter emblazoned with the drooping wings of the RAF. Lomas suddenly coveted it as a souvenir. That would be easy enough.

"Bit of an engine problem, yes." He blew a cloud of smoke toward Lomas. "Some think I hit a flock of birds."

Birds? El Viejo would love the Englishman's dry wit. "But you, señor, know better?"

"I had the impression," mused Newcombe, "that there were hunters firing at the birds. Perhaps I flew into the line of their fire."

"Es posible, very possible," Lomas said with a nod. "Have you considered that they might have been firing at you?"

The Englishman's blue eyes widened. "At me?"

"At you, señor."

Newcombe rose. Lomas's hand crept closer to the gun behind el Viejo's photo, and he saw Alejandro's body tense. But the Englishman only moved to the welded figure Lomas had bought from the Rawson Street Gallery. "A piece of Carla Brody's work?"

"Mine now. And I have the hundred-dollar chip I gave her for a deposit too." He beamed. "The rich get richer, and the poor..." He shrugged. "Señor Newcombe, it is sad, but I think they were firing at you."

Newcombe turned back. "Now why would anybody want to kill a humble airplane jockey like me?"

"That is a question." Lomas nodded.

"Would you?"

"Me?" Lomas said with a laugh. "Kill a man who loses twelve grand at my tables and writes a check that does not bounce? Why would I do that?"

"Why, indeed?"

"Besides, you take me skydiving. So why would I kill you?"

"Because I wouldn't fly your coke?"

"Nah! Plenty others do."

"Perhaps," Newcombe mused, going back to his seat, "because I own Whiskey Cay?"

"You own it, señor?" Lomas laughed. "I think not."

The high from the coke was passing; the talk was growing thin. Unable to follow the conversation, Alejandro was jiggling his foot impatiently.