He jammed the gun hard into the small of Bosc’s back. Bosc gasped, but kept his voice cool. “Your shrink friend Delaware. You switched cars, but he didn’t. Still driving round in that green Caddy. I put a satellite tracer on it days ago, know exactly where the dude goes. It feeds into a computer, and I get the data, I know where the feed is. And let me tell you, man, he’s been a traveling fool. Did he tell you he was gonna improvise?”

“Where’d he go?”

Long silence.

Milo poked even harder. Used his other hand to clamp the back of Bosc’s neck.

“Uh-uh, no way,” Bosc gasped. “You can fucking blow out my spine, do whatever bad stuff you want, but I’m not giving up my trump card. And something else. And this is the main issue: I’m not the only one knows where the dude is. Other people know, by now. Or they will, real soon. The bad guys. ’Cause the plan was to tell them, leave them one of those anonymous phone calls. We fucking set up your buddy, man. Not to hurt him, necessarily, just to use him, to get everyone together. Converging, you know? It was supposed to be perfectly timed, you were supposed to be in on it, too. That’s what I was doing at your place today. I was gonna have another try at tagging your car, then you’d be called, too. To motivate you. But you weren’t home, so I figured I’d try you later.”

“Bullshit,” said Milo. “You were settled in for the night, work was the last thing on your mind.”

“Bullshit, yourself, I’m a night owl, fucking Batman-Dracula, come alive when the sun goes down. The plan was perfect, only you screwed it by being too smart and switching cars, and now Delaware’s out in the cold, man, and if you want to help him, there’s only one thing you can do and you better do it quick.”

Milo twirled Bosc around, clamped Bosc’s gullet at arm’s length, aimed the gun at Bosc’s groin.

“Go ahead,” said Bosc. “Do your thing. I’m gonna hold on to my dignity.”

Staring back defiantly.

Sincere.

If the word could be applied to the bastard.

CHAPTER

40

Bert said, “Yes, Aimee, the world is nice. Now how about you and I go over to the café, see if we can bake up something.”

Aimee smiled, kissed Bill on the forehead, and padded out of the room without a glance at me. Bert said, “We’ll be back in a short while. I’ll bring you a sugarless brioche, Bill. Alex, what can I get you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll get you something. You may be hungry later.”

I sat on the bed, opposite the wheelchair. “Good to meet you, Mr. . . .”