Alejandro was Rico's speedboat driver, valet, and bodyguard. He had been driving the Vespa when Carlos had missed.

The old man was breathing heavily. Rico hoped he would not have a heart attack: He wanted the family to kill him, as a lesson.

Rico shrugged. "Maybe Alejandro. Maybe just family gossip. El Conejo, though, it is."

"You would not dare call me that, señor, if you weren't your father's son. And the favorite of el Viejo, hombre! You would die!"

"We all die." Rico shrugged. "Some young, some old."

He pulled down the blind on the window and moved back. Suddenly he grabbed the old man, who towered over him, by the lapel.

"Why do they call you el Conejo Grande? Because you are afraid like a rabbit, old man?"

The old man glared at him but did nothing. Rico felt the thrill of power. He shoved him against the desk. "I think they call you that because you have a rabbit's guts!"

"My guts are as good as yours," growled Flores.

"No. I think you lost them. I am sending you back. Let el Viejo worry about you. I'll kill the Englishman myself."

"Not in broad daylight, señor," the hit man reminded him shakily. "And that is how you say it must be done."

That was true. He wanted Hoagie Newcombe destroyed on Kingston Street in broad daylight, as a warning to the traficantes the Englishman was dealing with. He himself was too well known in the Bahamas to risk anything so wild.

The old man was sweating for his life. "Señor, you must not send me back until I kill this man." He was genuinely scared. "I owe it to el Viejo, to your family."

Rico studied him. Carlos must have failed el Viejo once before and been sent here for a last chance.

"You missed before, somewhere," he guessed suddenly. "No es verdad?"

"No. Never."

He was lying. As Lomas studied him an idle rumor tugged at his memory. There had been a coquero guard, assigned a shipment of coca paste on the Santa Clara run, who had deserted the load and fled from battle when surprised by a Leopard force of drug agents the previous July. He had even ditched his gun.

An old guard, it was said, who had worked for el Viejo for years. Was this the man? Yes. Of course.

"Perhaps you did not miss," he conceded. "Worse! You ran from a fight?"

"No!"

"Sí, I think so."

And now, if he sent him back to el Viejo, Carlos would end up rotting in the bottom of some campesino's well.

Not bad leverage. If Rico gave him another shot at the Englishman, he wouldn't dare fail, for the alternative was death.