“Chess analogy,” said Milo. “How erudite, Bobby Fischer. Now tell me why you ripped off my car and put on that show at the hot dog stand and rented a post-office box under Playa del Sol and were snooping around my house today.”

“All in a day’s work,” said Bosc.

“At John G.’s request?”

Bosc didn’t answer.

Milo pulled out his gun and pressed the barrel into the soft, tan flesh under Bosc’s chin.

“Details,” he demanded.

Bosc’s lips jammed shut.

Milo retracted the weapon. As Bosc laughed, Milo said, “Your problem, Craig, is you think you’re a knight, but you’re a shit-eating pawn.” He rapped the butt of the gun against Bosc’s shin, hard enough to evoke an audible crack.

He waited for Bosc to stop crying, then raised the gun again.

Bosc’s panicked eyes followed the weapon’s ascent, and he scrunched his eyes and sobbed out loud.

Milo said, “Craig, Craig,” and began to lower the weapon.

Bosc yelled, “Please, please, no!” Began jabbering.

Within minutes, Milo had what he wanted.

Good old Pavlovian conditioning. Would Alex be proud?

CHAPTER

38

Bert Harrison placed a hand on the shoulder of the man in the wheelchair. The man rolled his head and hummed. I saw my image doubled in his mirrored lenses. A pair of grim strangers.

I said, “My name’s Alex Delaware, Mr. Burns.”

Willie Burns smiled and rolled his head again. Orienting to my voice the way a blind man does. The skin between his white beard and the huge lenses was cracked and scored, stretched tight over sharp bones. His hands were long and thin, purplish brown, the knuckles lumped arthritically, the nails long and yellowed and seamed. Across his legs was a soft, white blanket. Not much bulk beneath the fabric.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. To Bert: “Am I, Doc?”

“He won’t hurt you, Bill. He will want to know things.”

“Things,” said Burns. “Once upon a time.” He hummed some more. High-pitched voice, off-key but somehow sweet.

I said, “Bert, I’m sorry I had to follow you—”

“As you said, you had to.”

“It was—”

“Alex,” he said, quieting me with a soft palm against my cheek. “When I found out you were involved, I thought this might happen.”

“Found out? You sent me the murder book.”

Bert shook his head.

“You didn’t?” I said. “Then who?”

“I don’t know, son. Pierce sent it to someone but never told me who. He never told me about the book, at all, until the week before he died. Then one day, he brought it to my house and showed it to me. I had no idea he’d gone that far.”

“Collecting mementoes.”

“Collecting nightmares,” said Bert. “As he turned the pages, he cried.”

Willie Burns stared sightlessly at the treetops, humming.

“Where’d Schwinn get the photos, Bert?”