He thinks I’ve come to him for protection. Instead I plan to take his money—but first, I think, a little flattery.
“I’m impressed,” I say. “You speak extremely good English.”
He lets the compliment pass without changing expression. “I used to work with your Drug Enforcement Agency,” he says. “When I was with the police.”
I think about asking him if he knows Special Agent Sellers, and then decide against it.
“My children and I enjoyed Escape to Earth,” he says. “We watched it together.”
My heart warms as I picture this charming domestic scene, Juan and his children absorbed in the drama while the chieftain’s followers go about on their murderous errands, smuggling, stabbing, shooting, and cutting off heads.
“Thank you,” I say. “Those projects were very special.”
We chat a bit about the picture business, and the current production here in Mexico. He expresses condolences on Loni’s death. He seems to know all about Desperation Reef, and appears moderately amused by the story line. I’m pleased that he doesn’t seem to want to cut my head off.
“I wonder,” I say, “if you know Ollie Ramirez.”
He looks blank.
“He’s a kind of inventor,” I say. “He’s the person that the assassins have been trying to kill.”
He seems surprised. “It was not Loni Rowe?” he says.
“Loni’s death was accidental,” I tell him, though I’m confident he knows that already. “May I demonstrate something?”
I go through the wine demonstration, just as Ossley had performed it in Yunakov’s suite. I let Juan taste the dreadful young wine, then put the cabernet in Ossley’s container, let the reaction take place, chill the result to room temperature, and hand it to him. His brows rise as he tastes the result.
“This is only one of Ollie’s inventions,” I say. “Some of the others you can find online.” I give him a look. “If you look at some of these sites, you can see that he’s working on using this technology to print drugs.”
A shadow passes over Juan’s eyes. I try not to shiver. He’s no longer the courteous host, not entirely, but the lord of a criminal empire. Very calculating, very hard. All the warmth in the room is gone.
If my career as a major Hollywood action star weren’t at stake, I wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of him.
“Your Mr. Ramirez wants to sell me this technology?” he says.
“No,” I say. “That would be too dangerous.” He lifts his head in a kind of query, his eyes like stone. “Once this technology is known to exist,” I point out, “you can’t possibly control it. All people will need to fabricate drugs is a printer and some precursor chemicals and some instructions from the Internet. People in the States would make their own drugs and could sell them cheaper than you could.”
Juan regards me as a young child might regard a housefly, just before he pulls off its wings.
“May I ask,” he says, “where your interest lies in all this?”
I’ve been on my feet demonstrating the technology. I return to the folk-art armchair and sit, looking at Juan evenly, at his own level.
“I’m trying to get Ollie Ramirez out of trouble,” I say. “Someone’s trying to kill him, and it simply isn’t necessary.”
He looks at me, unblinking. Because I’ve done my research, I know that his organization has killed maybe twenty thousand people in just the last few years. Not just killed, but tortured, mutilated, dismembered, blown up, and burned alive.
But I’ve killed too. It’s not something in which I take any particular pride, but it’s public knowledge, and if Juan has done his research, he knows this. Maybe on that account I’m entitled to a little of his respect.
“Killing Ollie right now would be a mistake,” I say. “As soon as he realized someone was after him, he made sure that other people had custody of his research. People he could trust. A lawyer in one place, a friend in another. So if anything were to happen to Ollie, the information would be made public.”
Which is true enough. Though what Bruce Kravitz, in his office high in the PanCosmos Building, made of the PDF file in his in-box could only be conjectured.
Juan’s face seems carved of stone. “Do you know any of these friends of Ramirez?” he asks.
“No. I don’t want to know their names, and I don’t understand the technology. I’m an actor, not a scientist.”
And maybe, therefore, I won’t be tortured for information that I don’t have.
“And what does Ramirez want?” Juan asks.
“Fair value for his discoveries.” I take out a piece of paper, and put it on the table between us.
I’ve done some calculations based on what I’ve been able to find out about Juan’s business. Each year, he makes a profit of around $6 billion on income of 20 billion. He has something like 150,000 people who work for him in one capacity or another, not counting the corrupt officials he has on his payroll.
“In order to make certain that Ollie’s discoveries never see the light of day,” I say, “he asks for $25 million. That’s $25 million each year.”
That figure doesn’t seem unreasonable. One of the difficulties of Juan’s business is finding places to put all the money he makes. Sometimes it just stacks up in garages or spare rooms. When cartel honchos are arrested, sometimes they’re found with $100 million or more, all in cash, just piled in some room because they can’t find a place for it.
“You can make this investment or not,” I say. “You know your own business best.” I nod at the piece of paper. “That’s an account in the Cayman Islands,” I say. “If the money appears there, we’ll know that you find Ollie a good investment, and he’ll find some other line of research that has nothing to do with you or your business.”
Juan looks at the paper but doesn’t touch it. The Cayman account is mine, as it happens, an attempt at tax avoidance by yours truly. Some of the money behind Desperation Reef is French, and some Japanese, and at Bruce Kravitz’s suggestion I stashed most of my pay in an offshore account. The money’s never been in the States, and I won’t have to pay taxes on it till I bring it home.
“There’s only one point I should make,” I add. “This technology … it’s going to happen sooner or later. Someone’s going to duplicate Ollie’s research, and then—” I shrug. “Then you stop paying. You’ll have bought some years.”
Juan’s look is unreadable. “If this printing technology should break free,” he says, “how do I know it’s not Ramirez behind it?”
I wave a hand. “You have resources,” I tell him. “You’ll find out. Besides, it’s not like any of these people can keep a secret—my guess is that whoever does it will be bragging in every online forum he can find.”
Juan looks at his brother, and his brother looks back. Then Juan turns to me.
“I don’t know this Ramirez,” he says. “But what you say is interesting. I understand why someone is shooting at him.”
I rise from my Mesoamerican chair. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I say.
And then I shake hands with the Germán Contreras brothers and leave, carrying the printer. I’d leave it as a gift, but it belongs to the property department.
I’m modestly surprised at my own survival, and so are my bodyguards. By the time I get back to the hotel, I’m convinced the whole trip was deranged, and that the Germáns were sitting back in their bungalow knocking back bourbon and laughing at their idiot visitor.
Which is why I’m surprised when, the next day, I check my bank balance and find that $25 million has been deposited to the Cayman account. In cash, no less, which means that Juan not only had the money sitting in the Caymans, but was able to get someone to physically carry the money from his stash to my bank.
I go to Cancun, where Ossley’s hiding in a hotel under yet another alias, and I tell him the money has arrived. In another day or two, he’ll fly to Cayman, where he’ll open a bank account, and I can transfer his share of the money.