I held the arms of the chair.

     “I'm not leaving until I see her. You can't make me go.”

     “You got to be joking,” Dalzell said. “This isn't a question of can we make you, it's what happens if you don't. You have a guy extremely pissed off at you, he isn't somebody you want to be on the bad side of. As a personal favor to Rick here and me, he's letting go of you. He doesn't owe us any favors, believe me, it's all the other way around. A personal favor, though, he's letting you go. That's as of this minute. Subject to change.”

     I said, “Do you realize what he's into? His people killed Collins.”

     “Not according to the reports,” Penney said.

     “The reports are a bad joke. Correon owns Orlando, and Orlando is running a bunch of killers. They murdered Collins and they murdered a priest. They tried to blame Collins on the Sparrows.” I kept going, running out of breath. “With the priest they tried to make him out to be a communist, but he wasn't even close. He died because he found out something about girls, prostitutes, four of them that disappeared from a club in Bacolod.”

     “Fascinating,” Dalzell said.

     “Ask him,” I said, gesturing to Penney. “He knows, he's in on it.”

     “Fuck you,” Penney said.

     “Furthermore, you two and Luis and his scum have got a war going over here.”

     “This is right by the numbers,” Penney said quickly, with some heat. “It's absolutely legal. Socorro is a private enterprise. We don't wage war. Advice and assistance, that's all. That's not breaking anybody's laws.”

     Dalzell was much calmer, almost bemused.

     “C'mon, don't get righteous on me,” he said.

     Penney said, “I'll do anything to keep our boys from getting in a real war over here. But maybe you're not enough of an American to see it that way.”

     “No, Jack's okay,” Dalzell said, easy and smug. “He's