"He may not want to," he said softly, his eyes steady on hers. "But to live his life, he has to come out of his shell."

On the bulkhead a clock struck four times: Ding, ding...ding, ding....

She swallowed. "Meaning?"

He tossed the conch back in the tank, smiled, and squeezed her close. "Meaning it's time for chow."

***

Rico Lomas leaned back in the creaking old swivel chair in the office of his nightclub.

He was a slender young man with a thick neck from pumping iron, and soft brown eyes and black hair that fell in curly locks over his collar. The eyes could turn rock-hard in a moment. He knew this and used it happily when he could.

It was all a matter of presence. His grandfather had taught him that at his knee. Power, macho, cojones... you acted the part and became it.

He stared at the big man sweating before him. He tried to hide his scorn and anger behind a facade of sadness.

"You missed el Inglés? Newcombe? On Kingston Street? At the height of the sun? You are joking! No es posible," he muttered. And then, in English, "There is no way!"

"Lo siento," muttered the assassin. "I regret it."

He would shortly regret it more, thought Rico. The old hit man's hair seemed to have grown whiter overnight. His snow-white mustache drooped, and his eyes were red and moist, as if he had been crying.

Lomas sighed. In this godforsaken outpost he got nothing but the dregs. Carlos Flores looked like exactly what he was: the family's oldest cocaine cowboy, unemployable for anything but murder, not bright enough for a coquero leader or even to use as a traficante.

Useless. And el Viejo—Rico's grandfather, el Gran Mafioso of Rancho San Marcos, in the lush coca regions of los llanos—knew it, and had sent him here.

The Old Man had a strange sense of humor, thought Rico, or was testing his grandson's guts. Well, he'd send him back or kill him here—let el Viejo chew on that.

Either way, the has-been before him was not fated to grow much older than he was.

"Jesus," he said again. "This Newcombe is my only problem between here and Great Inagua. He is trying to do on Whiskey Cay what I have done on Galleon. And you had him right between your sights. And missed him?"

"I am sorry, amigo. Just as I fired, Alejandro made the motor scooter move! It will not happen again."

Rico arose from his massive desk, which had been his grandfather's on the rancho. El Viejo had shipped it up the long Bahamian passage, probably hoping that some of his own business sense would rub off on his grandson if he used it.