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Evan did. Aragón listened with powerful focus.
“Is he a psychopath?” Aragón asked when Evan was done.
“That’d be much simpler.”
“He likes spouting all this heaven-and-hellmeshugas.”
Evan half grinned. “Meshugas?”
Aragón coaxed one shoulder forward in a sheepish shrug. “My lawyer.” He ran his fingers through his dense silver-and-black hair. “He makes everything complicated, your guy. But it’s simple. Heaven is when you have a romance with your wife, your job, and your house—and your children make you laugh.”
“And hell?”
“Hell, well, helliscomplicated. It looks different for everyone. This mission, it’s a mess. Many tentacles.”
Evan said, “I know where it starts and ends for me.”
“With one young man,” Aragón said. “And one young woman.”
“If they’d died at his hands or at his command, I’d know what to do.”
“Yes,” Aragón said. “That is an easy story. We know how that story ends.” He gave Evan a few moments of silence. “But you don’t think that’s the case?”
“I’m not sure what to think. There’s so much to be reckoned with. There’s … a lot to him.”
“This man, he sounds like a force to be reckoned with. And it seems … it seems he got his first taste of wisdom. It can be intoxicating. There’s so much to see that you were blind to before. The problem? He thinks hehasit. Wisdom. But no onehasit. We just wear it from time to time when we’re lucky.”
“He knows things I don’t,” Evan said. “He sees things I don’t.”
“And that rattles you?”
Evan considered. “I’m smart enough to be scared of him. And smart enough not to let that influence what I need to do.”
“What do you need to do?”
Evan bit his lip, noticed he was doing it and stopped. He shook his head and then shook it again.
Aragón said, “Maybe that’s okay.”
“What?”
“Not knowing how this story will end. Until you get there.”
A faint vibration in the cabin drew Evan’s attention. The pilot finished mounting the steps, stooping on his way through the door and saluting casually with a flare of his fingers. “Are we ready to go,Patrón?”
“I’ll be staying in Los Angeles, attending to some business. I’m having Arturo pick me up tonight in the Embraer Lineage 1000.” A wink to Evan. “My new toy.” Aragón gave Evan’s knee a solid pat with his hand and rose, pausing by the cockpit to face the pilot. “But please take good care ofmi hermano.” His face was at once rugged and patrician, weathered beechnut skin and regal jowls. His rich brown eyes held great affection and perhaps even admiration. “He is heading into uncharted territories.”
55
A Cityscape of Unguency
The top nightstand drawer held a medley of sex toys.
The middle one was devoted to crops, paddles, floggers, and other S&M accoutrements.
Flavored condoms filled the bottom drawer to the brim.
Flavored condoms seemed to Evan about as subtle as flavored vodka, but he hadn’t broken into Derek Tenpenny’s condo to pass judgment on prophylactics.
