He had looked into my finances. Of course. He owned a private detective agency, after all. And he had looked into them so he could do the exact same thing that Rogan had done. Except Rogan had beat him to it.
“I offer a professional alliance, Nevada. A mutually beneficial partnership. If you scroll down, you will see a sign-on bonus. It will take care of your immediate debt obligations and permit you to put a down payment on a reasonable residence, should you choose to move out of the warehouse and begin a more independent lifestyle. Again, I’m not doing it as a charity. I’m doing it because I would like you to be professionally happy. In my experience, happy employees mean a stable, healthy business.”
He smiled again. “I understand that right now things are chaotic and this is a big decision. Take all the time you need. There is no expiration date on this offer.”
I smiled back at him, trying to show no emotion except light amusement. “You’re confident Rogan won’t offer me more?”
“He may offer you more. The question is, what will you be expected to do for that money?”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“I didn’t mean a sexual engagement,” Augustine said. “Rogan may try to seduce you, but unless his personality has undergone a very drastic change, he’ll never pressure you into a sexual relationship against your will. Do you know what Rogan does for a living?”
“A great many things, from what I understand.”
“No, he owns many things. There is a difference. I also own a great many things, but I run MII. It’s my day-to-day business. Rogan is a warlord in a very real sense of the word. His people are mercenaries. He does have one of the best private armies in the world, I’ll give him that, and on the surface he does fun things with it like hostage rescue, security detail for aid workers, and stabilizing operations. However, we’re both adults. You know as well as I that the most profitable operations are rarely white knight affairs. Even more interesting is what he does in the city of Houston.”
“He owns a private security firm, from what I understand,” I said.
“He owns Castra. It’s an ancient Latin word for military fort. Every day Roman legionnaires would march twenty miles in full gear and then they would set up camp and build fortifications of dirt and timber around it before going to sleep. Castra is a shelter in an inhospitable land, a wall of protection impenetrable to outsiders. Rogan’s Castra provides security to Houses. Do you need to meet with your rival? Don’t trust him or your own people? Are you afraid of an ambush? Castra will secure the site for you. They are elite, expertly trained, and incorruptible. They are the reason why Rogan knows every major player in the Houston underworld and why he is well informed about most major feuds between the Houses. He takes time to cover his tracks really well. I know of it because I was involved in a complex transaction between two parties, secured by Castra, and I recognized one of his people.”
It didn’t surprise me. Rogan had said before that when he wanted someone found, his people brought that person to him within hours. That wouldn’t be possible without an extensive network of contacts among the shadier side of Houston, and one didn’t get those contacts by being an altar boy.
“Does he know you know?”
Augustine shook his head. “I wasn’t present as myself. With me, your work would be legitimate and legal. I can’t promise that once in a while you won’t run across a situation that will compromise your principles, but such situations would be an anomaly, not the norm. What kind of work would you be doing for Rogan? Who would you question for him?”
All valid points. Except Rogan didn’t want to hire me. He wanted me, in every sense of the word. He wanted me to be with him. It was more than lust. I wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.
Augustine smiled. “It might pay to consider your options carefully.”
The limos slid up the curving driveway past lush gardens and beautiful granite terraces.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Piney Point Village,” Augustine said.
Piney Point Village was officially the wealthiest place in Texas. Like many of the neighboring communities, it started as a small city that had been gobbled up by Houston’s sprawl. I had cause to briefly visit it last year in connection with a runaway case. Part of the Memorial Villages’ wealthy bedroom community, Piney Point restricted businesses of any kind within its borders, employed an urban forester, and regulated everything, including the format of the For Sale signs. According to the census, the tiny municipality had only three thousand residents. The taxable value of real estate they owned totaled two billion dollars.
The limo slid into a roundabout, circling a breathtaking fountain. At the other end of the parking lot a huge white mansion rose from the trees. From here the massive building resembled an eye. A large round tower sat in the center, like an iris, guarded by towering white columns supporting a circular balcony above. Two curved wings stretched from the tower, gracefully couched by the greenery. Arched glass doors and windows glowed with inviting amber light. I could almost hear some luxury-home Realtor’s voice: “Built in an elegant fusion of Italianate, French, and early Disney styles, this magnificent estate offers a thousand bathrooms for all of your executive Cinderella needs . . .”
“How big is this house?”
“Thirty thousand square feet,” Augustine said. “Baranovsky built it specifically for the gala a few years ago. The tower houses the central ballroom, the right wing has a restaurant space and a presentation auditorium, the left contains the living quarters. He rents it out as a corporate retreat when he isn’t here.”
The limo slid to a stop. Here we go.
“No worries,” Augustine said. “You will do well. Be yourself, Nevada.”
The driver opened my door. Augustine walked around the limo and held out his hand. I leaned on him and stepped out of the car. He offered me his arm. I shook my head. The point was to make a statement and stand out. Being attached to Augustine as his date would cause most people to overlook me. We walked up the wide staircase to the arched entrance between towering Corinthian columns. A man and a woman, both in severe dark suits, waited by the entrance. Augustine made eye contact with the woman and held up a small card.
She inclined her head. “Mr. Montgomery. Welcome.”
“Good evening, Elsa.”
The man raised a scanner. Red laser dashed across the card.
The male guard touched his headset. His voice sounded in two places at once, from his mouth and from the speaker somewhere within the house. “Augustine Montgomery of House Montgomery and guest.”
They probably knew my name, weight, and shoe size. But next to Augustine, my name meant nothing. I became “and guest,” and that was precisely how I liked it.
We stepped through the arched entrance onto the granite floor polished to a mirror shine. White walls rose high, decorated with long banners showcasing the various exhibits of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: a woman in an impossibly wide mother-of-pearl dress with an equally wide hairdo and the caption “Habsburg Splendor: Pieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections”; a ceramic statue of a man in a round helmet sitting cross-legged with his hands resting on his knees, labeled “Ballplayer: Arts of Ancient Mexico”; and an insane-looking plastic bracelet in orange and red, with a pattern of black dots encircled with white and multicolored spikes, marked “Ronald Warden’s Enigmatic Jewelry.”