The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(28)

“Who’s Schrader?”

“Some big-time hedge-fund manager and political donor. Lots of low friends in high places. Diaz is making a case against him for trafficking underage girls. So either the interference with Diaz is a favor to a friend, or it’s more they’re afraid of being associated with a guy whose hobby is raping children.”

Something must have shown in Manus’s face, because Dox looked at him and said, “Any of that mean anything to you?”

During his first week in the juvenile prison, three older boys had raped Manus. He killed two of them and crippled the third. That helped. But still.

Manus looked at him. “I don’t like rapists.”

Dox waited a beat, then nodded. Manus had said so little. Had Dox . . . understood?

“Anyhow,” Dox went on, “maybe they’re afraid Schrader would offer information about other powerful people in exchange for a reduced sentence. Whatever the explanation, Schrader is likely why they want Diaz gone. She’s the one carrying the football, and without her playing, the game’s over.”

Manus considered, then said, “Why not kill Schrader?”

Dox frowned. “You mean, why don’t we kill him? As a way of protecting Diaz?”

“No. I mean, why wouldn’t they kill Schrader? If your speculation is right, Schrader dead would solve their problems permanently. Diaz might be carrying the football. But Schrader is the football.”

Dox glanced at Larison, then back to Manus. “Well, that’s a good question. I should have thought to ask it myself. I mean, he’s in custody . . .”

Larison turned to Dox and said something. Manus couldn’t see his face.

“Hey,” Manus said. “You need to look at me. Even when you’re talking to him.”

Larison turned back to him. “I don’t need to do anything.”

Manus wasn’t worried. He’d seen Larison adjust his carry for quicker access when they sat. But he knew he could have the Espada open and its seven-and-a-half-inch blade through the man’s xiphoid process and into his diaphragm before the gun would be in play. Action beats reaction.

“I can’t understand you if I can’t see your face. So when you turn away it means either you’re hiding something, or you’re a rude asshole. Which one?”

Manus watched. Any tiny tell—a narrowing of the eyes, a thinning of the lips, a subtle shift of the hips—and Manus would kill him.

A beat went by. Larison stared into Manus’s eyes. Manus couldn’t tell what the man was thinking. He couldn’t even tell if he was afraid.

And then Larison surprised him by laughing. He leaned back—which was fine with Manus, as it made access to the pistol more difficult—and said, “Maybe both. But okay. Point taken.”

Manus relaxed a little. Consciously or unconsciously, had the man been testing him? If so, it seemed Manus had passed.

“What I was saying,” Larison went on, facing Manus now, “is that custody could cut either way. Depending on where they’re holding him, what the security arrangements are, who the guards are, etc. Maybe it would be easy to get to him. Maybe it would be hard. If it’s hard, they look at Diaz as an acceptable Plan B.”

Manus nodded. He didn’t like Larison, but the man wasn’t stupid.

“And there’s another possibility,” Larison added. “Schrader might have something on his ‘friends.’ With a dead-man switch set to release the compromising material if anything happens to him.”

That also made sense to Manus. And the confidence with which Larison had suggested the possibility made Manus wonder whether the man had ever employed a dead-man setup himself.

“It might not matter,” Dox said. “Maybe they can’t get to Schrader, maybe they just won’t take the risk. Either way, it’s Diaz they’re focused on. But look, Mr. Manus—”

“Manus is fine.”

Dox nodded. “Manus then. The thing is, my partner can be a little more direct than I am, but he was right when he said the reason we were sent to talk to you instead of killing you, or trying to kill you—in fairness, who can really say how it might have turned out, though I’m sure we all would have acquitted ourselves heroically no matter the results—is because our handler didn’t like what Rispel was up to here and was hoping you could shed some light on it. But now it seems we’re all in deeper water than we’d anticipated, and in it together, too. So whatever you can tell us about who approached you, when, what they said, all that . . . Well, in my experience we could kill a lot more bad guys if we share information instead of siloing it.”

Manus waited. Dox was obviously a talker, but it seemed he also knew when to shut up. And Larison, too, had enough sense, or discipline, not to be drawn in by silence.

After a few more seconds, Manus said, “There were two of them. I don’t know who they were. They felt like former military to me. Contractors. They knew a lot about me. About my life. They told me if I didn’t take the Diaz job, they would . . . do something to hurt people I care about.”

It was strange. He hadn’t once felt anything from Larison other than menace. But for an instant, something shifted in the man’s expression. His jaw tightened, or his eyes narrowed. It was too subtle for Manus to be sure. But . . . something.

He’d planned to stop there but found himself adding, “I haven’t done these things in a long time. And I knew once they saw they could pressure me into one job, they would try to pressure me into others. I was trying to buy myself time.”