Inside Outt

be in business for himself now, and believe me, you don’t want to be the subject of that business. The last was a part-Japanese guy named Rain, and no one knows what happened to him. Larison is in that league. He killed Carlos about as casually as I spit tobacco. And Juan, too. Snuffed them out and then evaporated like some evil fucking mist. Like I told Juan before he went and threw his life away, we were lucky. With a guy like Larison, it could have been worse.”
    Paula said, “So you never saw him again.”
    “No. And I sure as hell haven’t been looking.”
    She said, “You don’t know what he was doing here?”
    “I don’t know if he was on holiday, or he had a mistress, or if he wanted to go hiking in the fucking rain forest. I don’t know how long he was here or whether he’s ever been back. I don’t know anything more than what I just told you. And I don’t really want to, either.”
    They were all quiet for a moment. Ben said, “I want to know something.”
    “What?”
    “Why’d you tell us all this?”
    Taibbi glanced at Paula. “Because your partner asked so nicely, remember?”
    Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    Taibbi took a swallow of whiskey. “I told you, I don’t want to cross paths with Larison again. But that doesn’t mean I want him to live happily ever after, either. So whatever you’re planning to do with him, I figure now it’s your risk, and maybe my reward. That’s a division of labor I can live with.”
    Paula frowned. “What do you mean, ‘whatever we’re planning to do with him’?”
    Taibbi laughed. “What I mean is, if you’re FBI, I’m Doris Day.” He nodded at Paula. “You, maybe.” Then he looked at Ben. “But you? No way.”
    “Yeah?” Ben said. “What am I?”
    “I don’t know, exactly. But I’ll tell you what you look like. You look like him.”

CHAPTER 16
Not a Comforting Thought
    I n the van on the way to San Jose, Paula was fuming in the passenger seat. “I told you I was going to take the lead. Why can’t you listen?”
    “We got what we wanted, didn’t we?”
    “Despite you, not because. Every time you open your damned mouth, you antagonize people.”
    “Yeah, and then you got to do your sweet southern girl routine. Isn’t that what you guys call ‘good cop, bad cop’?”
    “That’s right, ‘you guys.’ That was an FBI ID you showed Taibbi, wasn’t it?”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “I want to know who the hell you’re with.”
    “That doesn’t make any difference, either.”
    “Then why won’t you tell me?”
    “Because it doesn’t make any difference.”
    “It’s all personal for you, isn’t it?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You say it’s the job, but it’s not. You’d already gotten past that bouncer, but no, you had to make fun of him afterward, also. And Drew—you’d already disarmed and disabled him, why’d you have to sass him, too? Does the sass help you get the job done?”
    He frowned. It was like Hort again, asking him why he went to that Burgos bar.
    “Look, a Zen monk can’t do what I do, okay? Not that you would know.”
    “Oh, those are the only two possibilities? Zen monk, and you?”
    He didn’t answer. He’d never longed to be working alone as much as he did right then.
    They drove for a while in silence. Ben said, “Did you catch what Taibbi said about the wallet?”
    “Of course I caught it.”
    “I mean, what did you make of it?”
    “Just what Taibbi said. Larison was trying to make the second killing look like a robbery.”
    “Wrong. Larison didn’t give a shit what the second killing looked like. He’d already vanished like a ghost and no one was going to connect him to the body whether the guy died of blunt trauma or a heart attack or was abducted by aliens.”
    “Why, then?”
    “Because once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”
    “Will you please stop talking in riddles?”
    “Put yourself in Larison’s shoes. You arrive at the airport. You’re good—you’re the best, in fact—so you remember faces, especially ones that belong to anyone who puts out any kind of operational vibe, no matter how slight. At the airport, you log dozens of faces, knowing most of them, probably all, will turn out to be false positives. The ones you see now are happenstance. Then, a half hour, a bus change, and five miles later, one of those faces pops up again behind you. The guy definitely has the vibe. Okay,