She walked Lett through the kitchen into a front room, Lett eyeing a hallway but hearing nothing, seeing nothing. It smelled like nothing apart from a whiff of something fried hours ago. Shadows filled the room, sliced by orange rays of light coming through the barely open blinds. Inside, even in the front room, no one could see them from the street. It was too high up.

Lett had his Colt pistol out.

“Do not worry,” she said. “No one else here.”

Lett held the pistol at his hip, pointed down, finger off the trigger and on the slide for the woman to see. He wouldn’t bother with the suppressor.

“There’s a boat waiting for us,” he said. “I’m to bring you back.” He spoke his words slowly in case she didn’t understand. He sounded motorized this way, like some movie hit man; it couldn’t be helped.

“Oh,” she said, “I see.” Her face had hardened. She spoke good enough English. “They tell you what I did?” she said. “I do many bad thing, many, many. But not what they tell you.”

“They don’t tell me anything. They tell me to do a job.” Lett thought of the tunnels below camp now as he spoke.

“Sure, Joe. You their messenger man.”

“Don’t call me Joe.”

“I didn’t kill people. I was liaison for them. Middleman, you call it. Drugs. Treasures.”

“For who?” Lett blurted. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to ask questions.

“The Japanese. Imperial Army. You ever hear of Golden Lily?”

“No, and I don’t want to. Let’s go. Get a robe on or your clothes, your choice.”

“Wait. Please . . .” She lowered to her knees.

“Don’t do that. You won’t like where it leads.” Lett stood inside a shadow. From there he tried to sound tough, but his voice creaked.

“I won’t go with you,” she said. “They send you here to kill me. Yes? If I don’t go?”

“You got about one minute.”

Lett’s instructions were to make her drive the two of them down to the harbor in her car, the modest two-door Ford in the carport. But his stomach prickled, as if threads were being yanked through it by needles. Finally, he said, “We go in your car. We get your car keys.”

“You hear of the name Kodama?”

“No.”

“Lansdale?”

“No.”

“Frankie Baptiste?”

“Shut up. Shut your trap, will you?” Lett bounded out of the shadow and towered over her, again acting just like a hit man.

“They send you here to kill me, only kill me. Because they know I won’t go. They give you order. I no come, so I die. So kill.” She gritted her teeth and bared them to Lett.