An Acceptable Sacrifice

volume. Most book collectors feel this way, more so than about paintings or cars or sculpture.”
    The businessman picked up The Maltese Falcon . “You are perhaps surprised I have in my collection spy and detective stories?”
    The agent recited a fact he’d read. “Of course, popular commercial fiction is usually more valuable than literature.” He hoped he’d got this straight.
    He must have. Cuchillo was nodding. “But I enjoy them for their substance as well as their collectability.”
    This was interesting. The agent said, “I suppose crime is an art form in a way.”
    Cuchillo’s head cocked and he seemed confused. Díaz’s heart beat faster.
    The collector said, “I don’t mean that. I mean that crime and popular novelists are often better craftspeople than so-called literary writers. The readers know this; they appreciate good storytelling over pretentious artifice. Take that book I just bought, The Old Curiosity Shop . When it first came out, serialized in weekly parts, people in New York and Boston would wait on the docks when the latest installment was due to arrive from England. They’d shout to the sailors, ‘Tell us, is Little Nell dead?’” He glanced at the display case. “I suspect not so many people did that for Ulysses . Don’t you agree?”
    “I do, sir, yes.” Then he frowned. “But wasn’t Curiosity Shop serialized in monthly parts?”
    After a moment Cuchillo smiled. “Ah, right you are. I don’t collect periodicals, so I’m always getting that confused.”
    Was this a test, or a legitimate error?
    Díaz could not tell.
    He glanced past Cuchillo and pointed to a shelf. “Is that a Mark Twain?”
    When the man turned Díaz quickly withdrew the doctored Schiller and slipped it onto a shelf just above Ulysses , near the drug baron’s armchair.
    He lowered his arm just as Cuchillo turned back. “No, not there. But I have several. You’ve read Huckleberry Finn? ”
    “No. I just know it as a collector’s item.”
    “Some people consider it the greatest American novel. I consider it perhaps the greatest novel of the New World. It has lessons for us as well.” A shake of the head. “And the Lord knows we need some lessons in this poor country of ours.”
    They returned to the living room and Díaz dug the iPad from the case. “Let me show you some new titles that Señor Davila has just gotten in.” He supposed P.Z. Evans was relieved to hear his voice and learn that he had not been discovered and spirited off to a grave in the graceless Sonora desert.
    He called up Safari and went to the website. “Now, we have—”
    But his phony sales pitch was interrupted when a huge bang startled them all. A bullet had struck and spattered against the resistant glass of a window nearby.
    “My God! What’s that?” Díaz called.
    “Get out of the room, away from the windows! Now!” José, the security man, gestured them toward the doorways leading out of the living room.
    “They’re bulletproof,” Cuchillo protested.
    “But they could try armor piercing when they realize! Move, sir!”
    Everyone scattered.

     
    P.Z. Evans didn’t get a chance to shoot his gun very often.
    Although he and Díaz had earlier commented about Cuchillo meeting with an “accident” in a euphemistic way, in fact staging natural deaths was the preferred way to eliminate people. While the police would often suspect that the death of a terrorist or a criminal was not happenstance, a good craftsman could create a credible scenario that was satisfactory to avoid further investigation. A fall down stairs, a car crash, a pool drowning.
    But nothing was as much fun as pulling out your long-barreled Italian pistol and blasting away.
    He was about fifty yards from the compound, standing on a Dumpster behind a luxury apartment complex. There wasn’t a support for the gun, but he was strong—shooters have to have good muscles—and he easily hit the window he was aiming for. He had a decent view through the glass and for his first shot aimed where nobody was standing—just in case this window happened not to be bullet proof. But the slugs smacked harmlessly into the strong glass. He emptied one mag, reloaded and leapt off the Dumpster, sprinting to the car, just as the side gate opened and Cuchillo’s security people carefully looked out. Evans fired once into the wall to keep them down and then drove around the block to the other side of the compound.
    No Dumpsters here, but he climbed on top of