Frankie had arrived in a gleaming coupe after the engineer types left. Lansdale and the Japanese brute called him by name. Frankie loomed even larger inside the tent, his broad shoulders and big paws casting wild shadows on the canvas. His neck was as thick as two, and Lett saw the pointy tips of another tattoo shooting up that trunk, snaking up inside kinky black hair that was parted down the middle. His face was a block, with cheekbones so pronounced Lett could practically see the coarseness of the bone itself through the skin in the lantern light. His lips were thin and hard and purplish.

Lett’s bad feeling was even worse inside the tent. Lansdale, Lett figured, had ordered them inside to help keep the pressure on.

Seeing Lett, Frankie’s eyes lit up and he wagged a finger. “Mister Lansdale told me about you,” he said, grinning now, giving Lett the eager once-over. “He told me you something special—special army guy warrior man.”

Lett was beyond any shock at this point. He was only glad that Kanani didn’t have to deal with Frankie. He, this, they, were the distraction she likely needed while she maneuvered away back at The Preserve. So be it.

Frankie had Filipino blood too, so at first Frankie simply spoke Tagalog to the man in the folding chair. Lett had heard Lansdale call the man “de Garza” outside, but he and Frankie used the name “Reuben” to his face. The Japanese brute meanwhile piled on incomprehensible grunts and words that, from the sound and spit, Lett could only assume were an insult to someone’s mother.

Lett and the commando held their M1s unslung as ordered, but they kept their backs pushed against the forgiving canvas walls of the tent. Nothing else could forgive here. Reuben’s one good eye widened, and he tried to straighten up. But then he passed out again, slumping over. Frankie propped Reuben back up. After a couple rounds of slumping and propping, Frankie stood close to Reuben, his feet apart. He said things in Tagalog to Reuben. Reuben nodded—or at least tried to nod—and then shook his head, followed by more Tagalog, then sobbing. Eventually, Frankie said to Reuben, seemingly for Lansdale’s benefit, “This wasn’t all of it, Reuben. Not even close. You are tricking us. There is more.”

More head shaking and nodding and Tagalog and sobbing. Frankie held his ear close to Reuben, who, after several failed starts, whispered something in his ear before passing out again, his head so far to one side that his neck looked busted.

Frankie nodded. He walked over to Lansdale, whispered to him, and the two strode outside, leaving the Japanese brute confused and then glaring at the floor in something like sadness—as if left out of the ball game once again.