men’s business. Timmy Jessup thought he was the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. When the flood rose and rolled over him, he sucked in his breath and kept his finger where it was. Pity, really, because he was all alone. Everyone else in this culchie town is swimming in the flood–sunbathing beside it, windsurfing on it. Because it’s a flood of money, Mr Mayor, not water. And if you try to put your finger in the hole Jessup left…Well. What matters now is that he’s dead, and nothing can bring him back.’
As the initial shock of being surprised on my own doorstep begins to fade, my outrage boils over. ‘You sorry son of a bitch. Are you telling me you killed—’
Sands silences me with an upraised hand. ‘Quiet now, mate. You’re in more danger than you know.’
My mouth has gone dry. It’s not the screamers who scare me; it’s the men who don’t let emotion get in the way of what they want. They’re the ones who’ll kill without hesitation. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Grand. Because this is all the talking I’m going to do. After this, I act, immediately and irrevocably. Understood?’
I nod.
Sands puts his hands behind his back and looks down like an officer contemplating a job in progress. A born soldier was my immediate impression of the man when I met him, for his bearing seems altogether military, though somewhat more fluid than that of the regular officers I’ve known. Sands has little skin fat; his face looks like a skull overlaid with the optimum amount of muscle, and little else. He’s losing his hair in front, but his baldness gives no impression of weakness; rather, the heavy brow and blue-gray machine gunner’s eyes give one the feeling that hair was simply an inconvenience better dispensed with. He stands right at six feet, but his trim waist and thickly muscled shoulders give one a much more aggressive perception of his height.
‘I have a problem, Mr Cage,’ he says. ‘I’m here because I want you to solve it for me.’
‘What’s your problem?’
‘Your friend Jessup stole something from his place of employment.’
I blink slowly, a man trying to find an appropriate response.
‘You don’t look surprised enough to suit me, Mr Mayor. Not nearly.’
‘Tim wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout,’ I say as calmly as I can. ‘What did he steal? Money? Drugs?’
The Irishman gives me a tight smile. ‘You know better than that.’
‘What I know about Tim Jessup is that he was a fuckup. And I don’t know what any of this has to do with me.’
Sands takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. ‘I have a decision to make tonight, Mr Mayor. A decision about you. And you’re not helping yourself. Your family either.’
At the word family, something squirms in my belly.
‘The question,’ Sands enunciates softly, ‘is can I trust you? For example, you may already know what Jessup stole from my boat. Do you know that, Mr Cage? Don’t lie. If you lie, I’ll know it.’
By God, I just about believe you. ‘I have no idea.’
The blue eyes don’t waver; this man has spent a lifetime calculating odds. ‘Don’t you now?’
I shake my head deliberately.
After what seems a full minute, Sands says, ‘Would you bet your daughter’s life on that answer?’
An image of Seamus Quinn holding Annie prisoner upstairs fills my mind, and terror compresses my heart. I grab for the door handle, but before I can turn it, something white explodes out of the flower bed, and iron jaws clamp around my wrist, pinning it motionless in the air. I try to jerk away, but the jaws tighten, numbing my fingers as surely as a nerve block.
A white dog more than half my size stands like an apparition between Sands and me, its eyes cold and blue above the wolfish mouth locked around my arm. Hot saliva runs down my tingling fingers, yet I can’t quite accept the evidence of my eyes. No sound preceded this attack, not a growl or a bark or a word of command–only a quick swish of foliage from behind Sands.
‘Easy now,’ he says either to me or to the dog, maybe to both of us. ‘Your daughter’s just fine, Mr Cage. For the moment, at least. She’s sleeping soundly, with your sainted mother beside her in the scratcher. But if you step through that door before we come to an accommodation, that could change very quickly.’
I try to back away from the door, but the dog’s forelegs are braced like white-painted fence posts, its jaw locked like a steel wrench. After a few moments, Sands makes a clicking sound with his tongue. The dog releases my arm, then walks to his master’s side and sits at attention like an obedient soldier. I stare at the animal as I rub the circulation back into my hand. I’ve never seen its like before, not even a similar breed; an oversize pit bull might be its closest cousin, but this dog has a wrinkled face that throws me. White from nose to tail, he has cropped ears and a thickly muscled chest to match his master’s. The animal has an unearthly silence about him, as though spectral and not a thing of blood and flesh, but I can still feel the imprints of his teeth in my muscles; I’ll have blood bruises in the morning.
‘You’re not a stupid man,’ Sands says, rubbing the dog’s head affectionately. ‘Don’t start playing at it now. I make it my business to know who I’m dealing with. I know you put a lot of hard men in prison back in Texas. Rapists. Robbers. Murderers. Aryan fanatics. Got some of them executed too. I also know you’ve taken on men from your own side of the table. That FBI bastard, for example. I only mention this because you need to understand something. Despite your grand experience, you’ve never come across a man like me.’ A smug smile. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard that one before, eh? The innocent man on death row. The whore with a heart of gold. But every now and then you come across a bloke who knows what he’s on about.’ Sands smiles to himself. ‘That would be me. And this is how you know.’
He utters a low whistle, and suddenly the dog is upon me again, rearing on his hind legs and pinning me to my front door with his forepaws. His mass and strength are astounding, and the hot breath in my face triggers a primitive, almost subhuman fear. The dog still hasn’t made a sound, but it’s all I can do not to piss down my leg.
‘Starting this minute,’ Sands says, looking at this watch, ‘you have twenty-four hours to find the property your friend stole and return it to me. Use any resource at your disposal, but don’t mention me or my company to anyone. If you do, I’ll know it, and a penalty will be exacted. If you talk to the police or the sheriff’s department, I’ll know. If you contact the FBI, I’ll find out faster than you’d believe possible. If you talk to the state gaming commission, you’re fucked. You call the governor, a senator, or your old friend the district attorney of Houston, I’ll know that too. And if I find out you’ve done any of these things…I’ll kill the little girl sleeping upstairs.’
Sands moves up beside his dog and drags the cold barrel of his gun along my stubbled jaw. ‘And I won’t use a gun. I’ll use this.’
A needle point of steel pierces the skin just below my navel, sending a shock of fear through my intestines.
‘I’m
