Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(32)

“How?”

“Ah.” He wagged a finger. “You don’t get that just yet. But trust me, I can. And for a fair price, too.”

“Go on.”

“You get your god. And then, by way of thanks and gratitude, and the fact that it was me who made it possible—you tear me off a chunk of it. Not much. But you do it. Sound good?”

I had had such offers other times—offers, or threats. But now, I looked at him, and a notion came into my head, and it would not let go. It was like all the pieces fell together, all at once. How many times had he done this, one place or another? How many little chunks of god had he collected, and sold on?

Personable, Melody had said. I could see that, at a pinch: Southern charm.

And the other thing: dark glasses . . .

“I cut you off a piece of this. And you do what with it?”

“Well, Chris, that’s kind of our business, y’know?”

He was smiling still.

“Sell it? Maybe to some old lady? Dying of cancer? That the plan?”

“I don’t follow you, man.”

“Someone scared? Weak? Vulnerable? That the kind of racket that you’re running here?”

“I don’t think you’re getting me.”

“Is this just business for you? Or is it something more? Looks like you’re doing well out of it, anyway.”

Eddie held his hands up. He looked to Silverman, to Angel. “Help me out, guys!”

I glared at him.

Then Angel handed me her phone.

There was a picture on the screen. It looked like a tourist site: some huge, palatial building, like Blenheim but a hundred times more intricate; the sort of place that Ludwig of Bavaria might have built, if he’d been born in the US. Beyond it there were trees, and fields, and green, rolling hills . . .

Horses . . .

“That,” said Angel, “is his daddy’s farm.”

“What?”

“The Ballington Estate. It’s actually quite famous.”

“Open to the public.” Eddie-boy was watching me. When I looked up, he had the smuggest smirk I’d ever seen.

I said, “They ever call you Mike? Mark? Anything like that?”

“I got the name my mom and Dad-o give me, Chris.”

He held his hands out, palms up.

I said nothing.

He said, “I guess we had a little mistaken identity thing going for a while there, didn’t we?”

I still said nothing. And Eddie must have thought I needed to cool off a while, because, smooth as silk, he turned his focus onto Angel. But if he thought he’d find an ally, then he’d got things very wrong.

“You’re looking at my claw, aren’t you?” he said.

“What?”

He fingered the talon hung around his neck, lifting it so she could see it better.

“Six-ninety-pound grizzly, six feet seven inches long, nose to tail. Most terrifying thing you ever did see. Did it the right way, too, just me and the bear. Man against Nature.” He raised his arms, holding an imaginary rifle. “When you hunt, you’re part of nature. You see your prey. You sight, take aim—boom!”

Angel said, “And that’s a fair fight?”

“I tell you. That guy—coulda torn me apart. One swipe of those claws, your guts are on the floor. I swear.”

“And the bear. Did the bear have a gun too?”

“Hey. The strong and the smart win out, the rest go down. That’s Mother Nature for you. I win because I am smart enough to use a Ruger Hawkeye. Bear just ain’t that smart.” He turned back to me. “You understand, I know, ’cause you hunt too.” We were man-to-man. “You hunt your prey, you gotta learn to think like it, to act like it—you gotta know it, inside and out. Am I right?”

There was some truth in this, but none that I was willing to allow him.

“Or the other way,” she said. “You kill the bear, just teeth and nails. I might respect that.”

He laughed. She didn’t.

“Hey,” he said. “You think it’s trophies, don’t ya? Nuh-uh. Trophy’s just the extra, just the icing on the cake. It’s about life. The way the world works.

“There’s a place out in Montana. I can take you, if you want. You pay two grand, you hunt whatever you want. Rhino, lion, elephant. Anything. They buy it in special, see?”

He smiled; he had beautiful teeth. Not bear-killing teeth, exactly, but clean, and even, and white as a toilet wall.

“OK,” I said. “So now we’ve had our little talk, you drive us back to our motel, OK? And we can all get on with what we’re meant to do.”

Silverman was sitting back, sipping a beer, the camera in the crook of his arm. Eddie seemed oblivious to its little red light.

“You guys are not convinced,” he said at last.

He looked at each of us in turn.

“You’re cautious. I don’t blame you. Good business sense. So—I guess I’m gonna have to sweeten things. Here’s what I’m gonna do, OK? I’m gonna act like we got a bargain. I told you: I can make this problem go away. And that, I will do. What you do is up to you. You come through with the goods—then we talk money, and we all go home happy. But it really is your choice now. Got that?” He rummaged in a small drawer that came out of his chair arm, handed me a card. “That’s my cell number. Gimme a call, OK?”