Selfer pressed both hands to the desktop. He glanced around at all the ticker tape as if her orders were in there somewhere. “Right. The orders for you are clear. They want you in Honolulu. You’re to report to a new special office there, another new agency, what they’re calling the CIA—Central Intelligence Agency.”

“They’re sending me back, you mean.”

“That’s all I know.”

“It’s just going in a circle.” She kicked at the ticker tape. “Back where I came from. All I am to them is their goddamn honey pot.”

“Their what?”

She glared at him, baring all her teeth.

“Okay, okay, take it easy. I get you: it’s back to the boogie house for you.”

She flung the soggy towel across the floor, it gathered paper. She turned to leave.

He shot up and came around the desk, grabbed her elbow. “Wait, where you going?”

“Leaving. Getting the hell out of here. I’m not sticking around for Frankie and his boys to complete his assignment, uh-uh, no way.”

“Assignment?”

“Sure. Why you think they brought him in, him and his goons?”

“Enforcement? I don’t know. It’s not . . . in the paper trail. He takes orders from others. Lansdale maybe. It’s—”

“I tried to tell you. They brought him in to clean things up.”

“You sure? Oh, God. Of course.”

“He’s known for that. Has the knack.”

“Who’s he going to clean up?”

“Everyone. Everyone left, that is.”

Selfer pressed a hand to his chest. “Including me.”

“Especially you. And that paper trail, it incriminates you.”

“In what?”

“In whatever they decide—whatever fits. Just in case. That’s my guess.”

Selfer turned away. He muttered, “This is what those German leaders must’ve felt in those final days, with us closing in from all sides. You know? The last man standing, you’re Hitler’s best friend.”

“Or Tojo’s. We in Asia, bruddah.”

Selfer kicked at the ticker tape and papers and scooped it up and dumped it in the garbage can. He patted his pockets and peered around the desk, pushing papers and folders off it.

“Lighter?” he barked at her. “Give me that lighter of yours.”

“No.”

He grabbed the rum bottle and took a long swig, then poured the rest on the paper in the garbage can. He wobbled a moment. It made him lean on the can’s edge, clenching it with both hands, his knuckles white. He vomited into the can and half the stream shot over the opposite edge. A stench of stomach juices and rum hit Kanani, parching her skin like a vapor, and she turned away holding her nose.

“For God’s sake, get ahold yourself,” she told him.

He nodded, wiping away dribbles of vomit hanging from his lips, leaving them on his trousers. “Oh, if only dear old dad could see me now.” Something made him grin at her.

She only glared back at him.