‘Man,’ said Louis, ‘you quite the pair.’
‘I like to think that Edmund’s exposure to me enables him to put his own problems into some kind of perspective.’
‘It would do, if you hired a bodyguard who can see right.’
‘Edmund’s not just my bodyguard. He’s my nurse and my confidante. In fact’ – Cambion waved his right arm, displaying the stump – ‘you could say that he’s my righthand man. My left, though, continues to have its uses.’
He displayed his left hand for the first time. It still had three fingers and a thumb. They were currently wrapped around a modified pistol with an oversized trigger. The muzzle of the gun pointed loosely at Louis.
‘We was going to kill you, we’d have done it already,’ said Louis.
‘Likewise.’
‘You were hard to find.’
‘Yet here you are. I knew that you’d get to me eventually, once you’d exhausted all other avenues of inquiry. You’ve been tearing quite a swathe through the city, you and your boyfriend. There can’t be a stone left unturned.’
It was true. Within hours of the shooting, Angel and Louis had begun asking questions, sometimes gently, sometimes less so. There had been quiet conversations over cups of coffee in upscale restaurants, and over beers in the backrooms of dive bars. There were phone calls and denials, threats and warnings. Every middleman, every fixer, every facilitator who had knowledge of those who killed for money was contacted directly or received word through others: Louis wanted names. He desired to know who had pulled the trigger, and who had made the call.
The difficulty was that Louis suspected the shooter – or shooters, for Louis believed that the combination of shotgun and pistol used pointed to a team – had not been sourced through the usual channels. He had no doubt that they were pros, or at least he had started off with that assumption. It didn’t smell like amateur hour to him, not where Parker was concerned, and the likelihood of two gunmen reinforced that belief. If he was wrong, and it turned out that some enraged loner was responsible, then it would be a matter for the cops and their investigation. Louis might get to the shooter first if the information leaked, but that wasn’t his world. In Louis’s world, people were paid to kill.
But the detective’s connections to Louis were well known, and nobody of his acquaintance would have accepted the contract, either as the agent or the trigger man. Nevertheless, it had been necessary to check, just to be sure.
There was also the distinct possibility that the hit was related to Parker’s movements through darker realms, and with that in mind Louis had already made contact with Epstein, the old rabbi in New York. Louis had made it clear to him that, if Epstein discovered something relating to the hit and chose not to share it, then Louis would be seriously displeased. In the meantime, Epstein had sent his own bodyguard, Liat, up to Maine. She was, thought Louis, a little late to the party. They all were.
A third line of investigation pointed to the Collector, but Louis had dismissed that possibility almost immediately. A shotgun wasn’t the Collector’s style, and he’d probably have come after Angel and Louis first. Louis suspected that the Collector wanted Parker alive unless there was no other option, although he did not know why, despite Parker’s efforts to explain the situation to him. If he ever did manage to corner the Collector, Louis planned to ask him to clarify it, just before he shot him in the head.
Finally, there was the case on which Parker had been working before the hit: a missing girl, a dead man in a basement and a town called Prosperous, but that was all Louis knew. If someone in Prosperous had hired a killer, then it brought the hunt back to Louis. He would find the shooters, and make them talk.
Which was why he and Angel were now standing before Cambion, because Cambion didn’t care about Louis or Parker or anyone or anything else, and he dealt in turn with those who were too vicious and depraved to care either. Even if Cambion hadn’t been involved – and that had yet to be established – his contacts extended into corners of which even Louis was not aware. The creatures that hid there had claws and fangs, and were filled with poison.
‘Quite the place you have here,’ said Louis. His eyes were growing used to the dimness. He could see the modern medicines on the shelves behind Cambion, and a doorway beyond that presumably led to where Cambion lived and slept. He could not visualize this man making it up a fight of stairs. A wheelchair stood folded in one corner. Beside it was a plastic bowl, a spoon and a napkin. A china bowl and silver soup spoon sat on the desk beside Cambion, and he spotted a similar bowl and spoon on a side table to his right.
Curious, thought Louis: two people, but three bowls.
‘I was growing fond of my new home,’ said Cambion. ‘But now, I think, I shall have to move again. A pity: such upheavals drain my strength, and it’s difficult to find suitable premises with such a gracious atmosphere.’
‘Don’t go running off on my account,’ said Louis. He didn’t even bother to comment on the ambience. The apothecary’s old premises felt to him only a step away from an embalmer’s chambers.
‘Why, are you telling me that I can rely on your discretion, that you won’t breathe a word of where I am?’ said Cambion. ‘There’s a price on my head. The only reason you’ve got this close is because I know that you declined the contract on me. I still don’t understand why.’
‘Because I thought a day like this might come,’ said Louis.
‘When you needed me?’
‘When I’d have to look in your eyes to see if you were lying.’
‘Ask it.’
‘Were you involved?’
‘No.’
Louis remained very still as he stared at the decaying man. Finally he nodded.
‘Who was?’
‘No one in my circle.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
Although it was only the slightest of movements, Angel saw Louis’s shoulders slump. Cambion was the last of the middlemen. The hunt would now become much more difficult.
‘I have heard a rumor, though …’
Louis tensed. Here was the game. There was always a game where Cambion was concerned.
‘Which is?’
‘What can you offer me in return?’
‘What do you want?’
‘To die in peace.’
‘Looking at you, that don’t seem like an option.’
‘I want the contract nullified.’
‘I can’t do that.’
Cambion placed the gun, which had remained in his hand throughout, upon the desk, and opened a drawer. From it he produced an envelope, which he slid toward Louis.
‘Talking tires me,’ he said. ‘This should suffice.’
‘What is it?’
‘A list of names, the worst of men and women.’
‘The ones you’ve used.’
‘Yes, along with the crimes for which they are responsible. I want to buy the contract back with their blood. I’m tired of being pursued. I need to rest.’
Louis stared at the envelope, making the calculations. Finally he took it and placed it in his jacket pocket.
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘Those names will be enough.’
‘Yes, I think they will. Now, the rumor.’
‘A man and a woman. Married. Children. Perfect Middle Americans. They have only one employer. A handful of hits, but very good.’
‘Their motivation?’
‘Not money. Ideology.’
‘Political?’
‘Religious, if what I hear is true.’
‘Where?’
‘North Carolina, but that may no longer be the case. It’s all I have.’
Behind them, the yellow-clad giant named Edmund appeared. He handed Louis a slip of paper. On it was written a cell phone number. The meeting was over.
‘Soon I’ll be gone from here,’ said Cambion. ‘Use that number to confirm that the contract has been voided.’
Louis memorized the number before handing the paper back to Edmund. It vanished into the folds of the giant’s hand.