Page 57 of Lone Wolf

A long, dry pause. “Since when did you learn how to have anything to say worth listening to?”

“It’s a spell. It’ll pass.”

“All right, enough throat clearing, Señor Nowhere Man. Talk. My aunt is ‘putting dinner on soon’ as these pinche Texans say, and I’ll get an earful of the anger if I’m late.”

“There’s a CEO named Allman, founder of Solventry.”

“Haven’t heard of him.”

“I need to talk to him. But I don’t think I’ll get what I want if I talk to him the normal way.”

“Tying him to a cactus?”

“Some variation of that, sure.”

“So you want, what? To have a bocci-ball date with him?”

“I don’t know how this works. How to meet with a billionaire mogul…”

“When you’re not torturing him.”

“Your words, not mine. Can you arrange something for me?”

“That isn’t my world,” Aragón said. “It is too legitimate.”

“If you had any idea how much dirtier the legitimate guys are.”

“Oh, I do. Those hijos de sus chingadas madres have just as much grift and corruption as the streets. The streets are just more honest about what we’re doing. That world up there? I don’t understand their fancy rules and etiquette. It’s all too … removed from reality.”

“They make their own reality.”

“Yes,” Aragón said. “Don’t you know any legitimate billionaires who you haven’t killed?”

Evan gritted his teeth. In fact, a person did spring to mind, a man whom Evan had hoped to avoid for the rest of his life. He was the kind of person you had to look in the eye, and this was the kind of ask that had to be made in person.

“I suppose,” he said. “But I’ll need to borrow a jet. I have to get to the Hamptons.”

31

A First-Rate Mind-Fucker

Southampton’s Meadow Lane, called Billionaire’s Row for the obvious reasons, ran like a luxurious jetty between Shinnecock Bay and the North Atlantic. Evening darkness augmented the edge-of-earth sensation, giving Luke Devine’s sprawling mansion the feel of an island unto itself.

In a rented car, Evan drove past the sign with tartan-patterned letters announcing the estate as TARTARUS, a bit of wordplay from the previous owner, who’d been a Scotsman. The tires crunched across the quartz stone of the circular driveway. Evan parked in front of the unreasonably giant front door and stepped out into a bracing wind laced with salt and seaweed.

He rang the bell, which chimed richly within.

A majordomo in a black suit answered, backed by four uniformed security guards.

“Please tell Mr. Devine that the Nowhere Man is here to see him and ask if he’ll receive me.”

The majordomo blanched and the guards sidled back a step or two and did their best not to look terrified.

The last tranche of security here had not fared well at Evan’s hand.

“Very well, sir,” the majordomo said. “Would you mind waiting here?”

“I would not.”