A Billion Ways to Die by Chris Knopf

learn from us,” I said.
    “I tried, but even these imbéciles knew better than to talk too much in front of us.”
    “You said your job was to capture us, then provide security during the interrogation,” said Natsumi. “What about after?”
    He caught himself tapping the pencil again. Annoyed, he tossed it into a nearby trash can with a quick flip of the wrist. Then he leaned forward on his elbows, his hands clasped almost prayerfully.
    “There was no after. Not for you. They told our team leader to snap your necks on the way back to your boat, which we were ordered to burn at anchor with you in it.”
    Another silence gathered in the spare conference room. Rolando sat there and looked at us and we looked back at him. Then, as before, he answered the question hanging in the air.
    “No way were we doing that,” he said. “What, do they think we’re murderers? It’s insulting.”
    “You towed our boat to Virgin Gorda and dropped us on the beach,” I said, “to make sure no one fell overboard in a drug-induced haze.”
    “Our team leader was a little embarrassed for getting us into this shit operation, though we all got paid pretty well at the end of the day. And you can be as mad at me as you want, but we did save your lives.”
    “So the Fontaine people think we’re dead,” said Natsumi.
    “Sure,” said Rolando. “That’s how we got the bonus. Felt good to stick it to those amateurs. Feels good to talk about it.”
    After a few more probing questions, it was clear he was finished sharing, and there wasn’t much left to share. Natsumi also looked ready to let it go, so like a pair of reasonably satisfied financial clients, we stood up from the table and this time shook his hand, thanking him for his time and candor. He gave a little bow when he thanked us in return for understanding that business was business, and offered his apologies for any inconvenience.
    We just returned the bow and headed for the door, though on the way I had one more question.
    “You didn’t happen to get their names, did you?” I asked him. “The Fontaine guy and the woman?”
    “They called themselves Chuck and Alberta, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “But, when they weren’t looking, I did snap their pictures.”
    He thumbed around his smartphone, then held it up. On the screen was a clear image of the two of them in conversation.
    “I have some good individual shots, too,” he said. “You want them?”
    Back out in the parking lot, I forwarded the photos from my text mailbox to a secure e-mail address. I checked the time. We’d been in Rolando’s office for less than an hour, yet it felt like months had passed.
    “Often,” said Natsumi, “if you simply ask someone for something, they’ll just give it to you.”

C HAPTER 9
    W e were back in our hotel room in South Beach. Natsumi was in the bathtub. I sat on a desk chair dragged in from the bedroom. The bathroom was all white and she was beneath a white-bubble quilt. In fact, the prevailing whiteness of the scene turned the red wine in the glass a bloody red.
    The air in the bathroom was not unlike the Miami air outside—hot and humid. I slumped down in the rolling chair and put my feet up on the edge of the tub.
    “Score one for Gestalt.”
    “Gestalt’s not a person. It’s a thing.”
    “You knew the mercenaries had let us go,” I said.
    She shook her head.
    “No. I knew we needed to talk to him right away. That we’d learn something important. I didn’t know what.”
    “What are you thinking now?” I asked.
    “That Rolando or the general will drop a dime on us.”
    “Not a chance. They’re not that mercenary.”
    “What do we do now?” she asked.
    “You keep soaking. I’ll go deliberate.”
    “Check on me once in a while. I could drown in here.”
    I left her for my computer, waiting in the other room, untethered and eager to fly.

    A FTER HOURS of fruitless searching using every legal and extra-legal people-finder program I