"For example, by contacting Vicente to bail you out of trouble, you put him in a position of having to ask a favor of me. Out of respect for your uncle, I then felt obliged to offer bribe money to a petty government bureaucrat, some of which filtered down to the magistrate in charge of your case, with smaller amounts trickling in dribs and drabs to a federal prosecutor, and then, I suppose, to a police clerk in an evidence control room who conveniently made the proof of your transaction disappear. These are markers, my boy. And they may lead an astute and determined opponent from you to Vicente, from Vicente up to me, from me down to a lackey officer, and then finally back to you--a connective loop that could theoretically cause me trouble without end."

He paused a moment. "Are you still following, Eduardo?"

Eduardo nodded agitatedly again.

DeVane's eyes bored into him with such awful, palpable force he thought his knees would finally give out.

"Open your mouth and answer me," he said. His expression was brittle. "Find that much strength."

Sick, dizzy, Eduardo again struggled to speak. He knew that he was standing at the brink of Hell, and if his silence were perceived as defiance, he was finished.

"Yes," he said in a faint, cracked voice. "I--I understand."

DeVane sat back in his chair and put his fingers together in a steeple again, resuming the relaxed, self-assured posture in which Eduardo had first seen him.

"Good," he said. "Then you should finally understand something else. I am here, now, as a gesture of respect for Vicente, for whom I know your punishment will be difficult. Were it not for him, it would have been unworthy of my attendance. I would have ordered it done from the comfort of my home, and devoted no more thought to it than I do to blinking my eyes."

With that, he looked at Kuhl, who had turned partially in his direction. There was an unspoken interaction between them--a brief meeting of their gazes, barely perceptible nods.

Then Kuhl reached back around his right hip and pulled something from his wide leather belt. Squinting in the semidarkness, Eduardo could see that it was some sort of wooden club or nightstick.

He looked beseechingly at DeVane, but he was staring at his own hands as if contemplating some unrelated matter. Beside him, Vicente sat with his head still lowered.

Kuhl stepped toward him, his hand gripping the stick.

"Please," Eduardo said. He cowered backward, came up against Ramon's solid body and the unyielding gun-metal pressed to his neck. "Please."