The gate was closed tight and presented a face of impenetrable, impassive steel. A stack of cinder blocks—left over from the construction—was already being overwhelmed with vines. I wondered when the house had been completed.

“Maybe we can get a better look if we walk around,” said Inchoy.

“Around? Around where? This place is a fortress and this wall is like the Great Wall of China.”

Inchoy said wryly, “Maybe it was built by the Chinese.”

At close range the wall was even more obscuring of the house than it had been when we’d driven past. There wasn’t much to look at.

“Satisfied?” I asked Inchoy. He nodded. We turned back and were heading down the road when we heard the iron jaws of the gate being opened. Inchoy grabbed my arm, pulling me behind the stack of cinder blocks. Together, we crouched in its shadow. The cinder blocks reeked, as if soaked in urine, and I wondered if this was where the workers had relieved themselves when the building was in progress.

“This is ridiculous,” I whispered. Inchoy gestured for me to be silent. The first person out of the gate was Top Gun. He looked both ways, then waved to the others, still hidden by the wall, to follow. The second out was Rocco Basilang, who quickly crossed the street in the direction of the helipad. The helicopter had just stirred to life and the blades were churning the air, drowning all the silence. Rocco’s heavily lacquered hair lifted in the artificial wind like the lid of a trash can, revealing the smoothness of his bald pate. The next person out of the gate was Chet, who was looking at his phone, but before I could react to this, Gumboc walked out right behind him. I had never seen Gumboc before. He looked bloated with what might have been power but also might have been illness—some slow rot poaching his innards. What was Chet doing with Gumboc? I wanted to head to the taxi but knew I should stay put, that whatever it was we were doing was no longer fun but undeniably stupid. After Gumboc, the next person out of the gate was a woman who I recognized as an actress of some notoriety, believed to be Basilang’s mistress. She was wearing Prada sunglasses and a low-cut Grecian sundress that was blown around by the chopper blades. And then there was a man—tall, with good bearing—who followed with careful steps behind her. It took me a minute to register that it was Laird. Or maybe it was someone similar, but no. He had his shoulders thrown back, a posture that I’d always thought was defensive, but that I now read as arrogance. Yes, it was Laird, very much alive, hazarding a quick look up the street and then hurriedly donning a pair of sunglasses.

“Oh my God, Inchoy,” I said. “Laird’s alive.”