Persuader

thousand dollars might do it." He said nothing to that. Just started up with the gazing thing again. This time, there was a little more focus in his eyes.
    "I've got some questions for you," he said. "Before you leave us. If you leave us. Two issues are paramount. First, who were they?"
    "Don't you know?"
    "I have many rivals and enemies."
    "That would go this far?"
    "I'm a rug importer," he said. "I didn't intend to be, but that's the way things worked out.
    Possibly you think I just deal with department stores and interior decorators, but the reality is I deal with all kinds of unsavory characters in various foreign hellholes where enslaved children are forced to work eighteen-hour days until their fingers bleed. Their owners are all convinced I'm ripping them off and raping their cultures, and the truth is I probably am, although no more than they are. They aren't fun companions. I need a certain toughness to prosper. And the point is, so do my competitors. This is a tough business all around. So between my suppliers and my competitors I can think of half a dozen separate people who would kidnap my son to get at me. After all, one of them did, five years ago, as I'm sure my son told you." I said nothing.
    "I need to know who they were," he said, like he really meant it. So I paused a beat and recounted the whole event for him, second by second, yard by yard, mile by mile. I described the two tall fair-haired DEA guys in the Toyota accurately and in great detail.
    "They mean nothing to me," he said.
    I didn't answer.
    "Did you get the Toyota's license plate?" he asked.
    I thought back and told him the truth.
    "I only saw the front," I said. "There was no plate."
    "OK," he said. "So they were from a state that doesn't require a front license plate. That narrows it down a little, I guess." I said nothing. A long moment later he shook his head.
    "Information is in very short supply," he said. "An associate of mine contacted the police department down there, in a roundabout way. One town cop is dead, one college cop is dead, two unexplained strangers in a Lincoln Town Car are dead, and two unexplained strangers in a Toyota pickup truck are dead. The only surviving eyewitness is a second college cop, and he's still unconscious after a car wreck nearly five miles away. So right now nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows why it happened. Nobody has made a connection to an attempted kidnap. All anybody knows is there was a bloodbath down there for no apparent reason. They're speculating about gang warfare."
    "What happens when they run the Lincoln's plate?" I asked.
    He hesitated.
    "It's a corporate registration," he said. "It doesn't lead directly here." I nodded. "OK, but I want to be on the West Coast before that other college cop wakes up. He got a good look at me."
    "And I want to know who stepped out of line here." I glanced at the Anacondas on the table. They had been cleaned and lightly oiled. I was suddenly very glad I had ditched the spent shells. I picked up my glass. Wrapped my thumb and all four fingers around it and sniffed the contents. I had no idea what they were. I would have preferred a cup of coffee. I put the glass back on the table.
    "Is Richard OK?" I asked.
    "He'll live," Beck said. "I'd like to know who exactly is attacking me."
    "I told you what I saw," I said. "They didn't show me ID. They weren't known to me personally. I just happened to be there. What's your second paramount issue?" There was another pause. The surf crashed and boomed outside the windows.
    "I'm a cautious man," Beck said. "And I don't want to offend you."
    "But?"
    "But I'm wondering who you are, exactly."
    "I'm the guy who saved your boy's other ear," I said.
    Beck glanced at Duke, who stepped forward smartly and took my glass away. He used the same awkward pincer movement with his thumb and his index finger, right down at the base.
    "And now you've got my fingerprints," I said. "Nice and clear." Beck nodded again, like a guy making a judicious decision. He pointed at the guns, where they lay on the table.
    "Nice weapons," he said.
    I said nothing back. He moved his hand and nudged one of them with his knuckles. Then he sent it sliding across the wood toward me. The heavy steel made a hollow reverberant sound on the oak.
    "You want to tell me why there's a mark scratched against one of the chambers?" I listened to the ocean.
    "I don't know why," I said. "They came to me like that."
    "You bought them used?"
    "In Arizona," I