The stocky man approached the walled villa on foot when the plain, black metal gate trundled into motion. He did a quick about-turn, back in the direction he had come from. The MG blew past, followed a few moments later by the minivan, minus a rear window. He waited until both cars were out of sight before breaking into a run.

Some forty minutes later, following the winding road through the mountains, the stocky man spotted the MG parked by a wooded copse. While debating whether to risk getting out and proceeding on foot, a loud explosion shattered the bucolic silence.

Thick black smoke rose over the top of the green firs. Had Vic's body gone up with the minivan? Surely, those two brain-deads would have exercised more caution when disposing of a corpse. Then again, what kind of dumb ass sons-of-bitches set fire to a vehicle in a wooded area? And where was the other man, this Christian? Probably back at the villa, guarding Vic. That was a logical conclusion. Yet, not much by way of logic had occurred in the past twelve hours.

* * *

Phil parked the Jag by the curb, switched the engine off. And sat staring out the windscreen, like a writer waiting for inspiration. In his head, he pictured his ex-wife, imagined how the conversation would go. Conversation implied a spoken interchange of thoughts; this promised to be a screamed exchange of abuse, with the majority of said abuse directed at him.

The longer he sat there, the more reasons he came up with to drive away, but none more compelling than his family's safety. He looked at his unshaven features in the rear-view mirror, moistened his fingertips with saliva and fixed his wayward, steel gray hair into place. Ran a finger over the black sacks under his eyes that made him look older than Greek mythology. At least they complemented the fading bruises. Sighing the sigh of a beaten fighter, he reached for the door handle.

Lucia answered the intercom on the third ring and buzzed him through the side-gate. She was already out on the steps, hands on her hips, before he'd made it halfway up the drive. Somehow, she looked younger than she had a year ago. Make-up free, but her olive-skinned face looked fresher than he remembered. Must be that Mediterranean diet doctors and health gurus were falling over themselves to recommend. Funny, he had existed on legumes, salads, and veg, drowned in olive oil for years, and he had gained more wrinkles than a Rhinoceros' scrotum.

"Hiya, Lou," he said, upbeat, friendly, showing he wasn't here to cause an argument.

"What happened your face?" Lucia asked with a hint of concern.

"The Botox didn't take."

"I have to be back at work in," Lucia said, glancing down at her bare wrist as though looking at a watch, "forty minutes. Whatever it is you want, make it snap."

"Snappy," Phil snapped. How many times did he have to correct her on that one? "It's—" He closed his eyes, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"What is it you want." The coolness in her tone could give you goosebumps on a sweltering Summer's day.

"We need to talk. Can we go inside?" Lucia turned on her heel and strode back into the white villa. Phil followed, psyching himself for the inevitable explosion.

He spied his World's Best Dad mug stood on its own under the wooden cup rack. Jennifer had gotten him that for his fortieth birthday. The handle broke off, where Phil had knocked it from the table, stretching to reach for his ringing cell phone.

"Old place looks the same," Phil said.

"That's because the only thing needed changing in this house was you," Lucia said in that sharp, cutting tone she seemed to reserve especially for him.

Phil drew a deep breath. "I messed up."

"Really? I'd always assumed she tripped up and landed straight on your—"

"Lucia! Please, you have got to listen to—"

"Listen! I've spent the best part of my life listening to your lies and your excuses. Go tell it to your fancy woman, see if she'll listen to your mierda."

"How many times to I have to keep telling you—that's over." Phil ground his teeth. "It was never even a thing. It—"

"Was a onetime thing," Lucia said in a halfway decent impression of him. "Si, si, you are like the skipping CD."

"It's a broken record."

Again with the glance at the imaginary watch.

"Lou, get out of here. Take Jennifer, go to your sisters and—"

"What are you..." Lucia looked into his dark-ringed eyes, "Phil, what—"

"I've screwed up." He shook his head furiously, "You're in danger, you need—"

"Tell me," Lucia said, angry, panicky. So he did. Every disturbing detail of his monumental cock-up, including Max's threats to assault their daughter. Let Lucia come at him with arms swinging. Took the stinging slaps, didn't interrupt the tearful screams. Allowed her to vent her fury until she broke down in tears, voice hoarse.

He held her tight, kissing her crown, repeating, "I'm sorry," like a Tantric mantra. As though the words contained some magical property that might cleanse his soul.

"I will figure a way out of this," he said, as much for his benefit as Lucias. She reared her head back. "How?" He stared at her blankly. "I don't know yet, but I will. I always do."

"Do you?" Lucia said, looking at him with a mixture of pity and anger. "If you did, we wouldn't be in this mess." She shook her head. "That's always been your problem. You think because you are the smartest man in the courtroom, that makes you the smartest man in life. You might manipulate the justice system, find a loophole in the law, but outside the corridors of justice, a different law exists. The law of the jungle. I see it every day with the kids in the shelter. Some of those kids could buy and sell you in an act. A college degree is useless against animal instinct. You're a paper tiger in a land of lions."

Phil walked stooped-shouldered to the Jag, got behind the wheel and shed the tears he couldn't shed in front of Lucia.

He stopped at a convenience store and bought a bottle of whiskey. A Spanish brand. No substitute for the Scottish and Irish brands he was accustomed to. But he hadn't purchased it for the flavor, rather the high alcohol content.

It did not take him long to find a pension with a vacancy. He paid the bored, balding concierge and collected the room key. Walked back down the street to where he had parked the Jag and gathered his things from the trunk.

The room was as sparse as the concierge's hair. A single bed, a nightstand, and a portable TV. A smell of cheap bleach cloyed the air, and mop streaks were visible on the brown tiles.

Phil propped up the two long sausage-like pillows against the iron bed frame and climbed onto the mattress. Unscrewed the bottle cap and gulped fiery liquid, as bitter as his emotional state. He retched, burning firewater swishing in his empty stomach. This stuff could make a filthy fifty-year-old copper coin shine like new.

He drew another long pull straight from the short bottleneck.

He needed time to think. Needed to get a decent night's sleep. He couldn't remember what it felt like to wake up refreshed, confident, and on top of the game. Each night followed a depressingly familiar pattern; toss and turn for a couple of hours before dropping into a fitful sleep, interrupted by more bathroom breaks than a child at a creche got. By the time he'd attained REM sleep, the sun's crown would be peeking over the horizon. And his body clock would remind him that the time had come to crawl out from beneath the covers. That's if the ghastly vivid dreams he was having hadn't ejected him back into the land of the living, drenched in layers of sweat. Assailed by visions and visitors from his past on the mind's glorious technicolor screen, showing a movie directed by his unconscious mind. Nightly masterpieces of nightmarish visions David Lynch would be proud of.

He swallowed back another generous swig of whiskey. Not tonight, tonight he would sink into a heavy, dreamless sleep. Just one night where he didn't have to worry himself sick about a sociopathic, ear-burning, daughter-violating Dutchman. Was that too much to ask for?

A couple of loud, truncated knocks echoed through the small hotel room.

"Marco," the voice outside said in a cheerful tone. "Marco... C'mon now, mister Greene, you know the rules..."

Phil rolled onto his side and leaned down to hide the whiskey bottle beneath the iron bed frame. Rolled onto his back and said in a tired voice, "Polo," before forcing himself off the bed.

The stocky man, chewing gum, gave him a bunched jaw-muscled grin when Phil opened the door. "They must have gotten the one straight interior-designer they could find to do this place, huh? Our old barracks was less spartan than—"

"How did you find me?" Phil cut across him.

"I'm in the business of finding people that don't wish to be found."

"You're a bounty-hunter? I've been laboring under the misapprehension that you were a federal agent? Same thing, I suppose."

"Don't be facetious, mister Greene. It's not your strong suit."

"What, pray tell, is my métier, in your considered opinion?"

The stocky man smirked. "People who pepper their speech with French words are usually masking some failed ambition. Did one miss out on a Cambridge education perchance?"

"I could have gone, but—"

"I could have been a ballerina, except I was born with a cock and two left feet." The stocky man grinned, the grin slipping quicker than a pickpocket's hand. "Now, would you mind explaining how you fucked up—if you'll pardon my French—a perfectly simple assignment?"

"I didn't—" Phil said, before catching the stocky man's severe stare, "I don't know... It all happened so fast."

"My sister said the same thing to my mom when she got pregnant. My mom didn't buy it, and I'm not buying it either."

"Max's guys were waiting in the bushes when the minivan pulled up. I went over to check who was in the vehicle when that Christian character took one look at me and floored it. Caught Max's guy as he stepped out in front of him. Took him clean out. The other shooter emptied a clip into the rear of the minivan as they were getting away."

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know. As I told you last night, I didn't see Vic up front, but that doesn't mean—" He stopped when the stocky man shut his eyes.

After a moment, he reopened them. "Conjecture, counselor, let's stick to the relevant facts, shall we? The first shooter—did he make it?"

"He was alive when we brought him to the hospital, and cognizant enough to curse ever making my acquaintance all the way there. He's probably in traction—as far as I know, he's still alive, yes."

The stocky man ran a finger along the pleat in his pinstriped pants. "And we can assume Max wasn't best pleased, which explains your relocation to this dive."

"If I had to hazard a guess," Phil said.

"You don't know?"

"I didn't stick around to find out. Soon as I carried the injured shooter into A and E, I dumped him on a plastic seat, slipped out a side door and jumped in a cab."

The stocky man slapped his hand on his thigh. "Reminds me of the one about the blind rabbit and blind snake who bump into each other in the forest. Snake rubs up on the rabbit, says, You're soft and fluffy, you must be a rabbit. Rabbit puts its paw on the snake and says, You're cold and slithery, you must be a lawyer."

Phil looked the other man in the eye. "Sorry, I don't know any good CIA jokes." He flashed a grin, "Oh wait, I do have one."

The stocky man smiled indulgently.

"The bay of pigs."

"They say dead men don't tell tales," the stocky man said. "But it appears they got jokes."

"Do you know what the worst thing about waiting to die is?" Phil said.

"The waiting."

"Exactly, so if you are going to do it, just do it."

The stocky man chuckled. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to offer you a way out."

"Oh, you plan on giving me your gun so I can kill myself?"

"Very droll, mister Greene."

"The closer I arrive near death, the funnier I get. Pity there is a pandemic, or I might have done a stand-up gig."

"If you'd shut your pie-hole for a goddamn second, I might just tell you where to find Vic and Christian."