Well, shit. And there I was, all set to believe that he was actually offering me help. My anger came back in a rush.

"Just a second," I snarled.

"How do you spell 'conflict of interest'? Are we talking about the same thing? I'm supposed to work for them and report to you?"

If I gripped it any harder, the receiver was going to crumple.

"No, you idiot," he retorted. I'd finally succeeded at pissing him off.

"Damn it, Brew, what would it cost you to jump to a harmless conclusion every once in a while? I'm not asking you to violate professional ethics. Or confidentiality."

With both hands, he shoved exasperation through the phone at me.

"You'll be working for the IAMA and the hotel. You won't be working for Anson Sternway. And his wife is my client. I'm supposed to protect her. If he goes ballistic and does something crazy, I don't want to be taken by surprise. All I'm asking you to do is warn me if you pick up any hints of trouble.

"You want the truth? I don't trust either of the Sternways. They both have perfectly reasonable explanations for wanting to hire me. And I haven't heard any disturbing rumors about them. If either of them is nuts, I don't know about it. But coincidences like being approached by both of them make me nervous."

In his place, I probably would've flayed my skin off. But he was too fucking professional for that. He'd already recovered his equanimity.

Which gave me one more reason to hate his guts.

"I'm doing you a favor here," he finished patiently.

"But I'm also covering my ass."

Somehow he'd outmaneuvered me again. I didn't want to admit it, but the bastard had a good point. I was starting to wonder if he was ever in the wrong.

"All right," I muttered, trying to slow my heart down.

"Maybe I was out of line. You're doing me a favor." Then I objected, "But I don't understand why."

"You said you wanted a job." He sounded puzzled by my attitude.

I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me.

"That's not an answer." Hyperventilating discreetly, I took a more dangerous tack.

"Ginny must've said something to convince you I'm worth the risk."

That made him chuckle again.

"It wasn't her. I talked to one of your buddies in Puerta del Sol.

Detective-Lieutenant Acton."

He was making fun of me. I didn't have any cop "buddies" in Puerta del Sol. They all hated me. I'd killed one of them once and the fact that he was my brother only made it worse. Acton was just honest.

Still, it seemed to imply that Marshal hadn't talked to Ginny.

"By coincidence," he went on, enjoying himself, "I knew Acton years ago. When I asked him for a reference, he fell on the floor laughing.

Then he gave me his version of your adventures with el Senor. That convinced me you aren't really as stupid as you try to look."

I felt a surge of irrational gratitude, an almost transcendental relief that whether or not I got this job didn't depend on Ginny. But I tried to ignore it. Marshal still hadn't answered my real question.

"You say you want me to warn you if I think this Sternway might be dangerous to your client. That's pretty slim. What do you really get out of helping me like this?"

"Think of me as your agent," he suggested. He was having too much fun to take me seriously.

"They get ten or fifteen percent. I want you to be polite to me at least that much of the time."

Damn, he was slick. For a man who talked as glibly as he did about professional ethics and conflicts of interest, he sure knew how to avoid questions.

But I didn't have the energy to keep pushing. I needed most of my resources just to manage the way I felt about a chance to work, so I conceded the field. Politely.

"I'll try. You aren't an easy man to be courteous to. But I want the job. I'll do whatever it takes."

Then I added, "Just tell me one more thing." Mostly because I didn't want to get my hopes up.

"Why do you think this might turn into something more?"

"Pure speculation at this point." Marshal talked faster now a man who wanted to get off the phone.

"While Sternway was trying to talk me into his security job, he implied it might lead to more work, maybe with the IAMA, maybe with a developer named Alex Lacone. It seems Sternway works with Lacone as a consultant of some kind.

"Let's take it one step at a time, shall we? First things first. Are you in?"

Oh, I was in, all right. I hadn't left myself a lot of choice. So he told me names, addresses, and times. Also how much I'd get paid. Then he wished me luck and hung up.

After listening to the dial tone for a while, I put the receiver down carefully and spent a few minutes just letting my squeezed head throb.

The job paid less than Ginny made in Puerta del Sol, but it was still more than I'd expected. Garner was beginning to sound like the Promised Land, flowing with milk and money.

I didn't trust it. Promised Lands have a way of turning into war zones when you aren't looking.

But I needed the work.

Torn between gratitude and distrust, confusion and hope, I

checked my watch. Fortunately my interview was still three hours away.

I could use the time. Once my skull moderated its complaining, I heaved myself into motion.

I wasn't hungry, but I ate something anyway. Practicing self-discipline. Then I left the apartment and coaxed ignition from the Subaru's timid engine. While the belts squealed to wind up the air-conditioning, I unfolded my map to figure out where the hell I was going.

Four.

The Luxury Hotel and Convention Center wasn't what you could call centrally located. In fact, it was more convenient to the airport than to the rest of Carner which made some sense, considering that The Luxury's more expensive competitors already occupied most of the prime real estate near the stadiums. At least it was easy to find.

I was still a couple of hours early when I spotted the hotel. By Garner's standards it wasn't particularly huge. Nevertheless it could've swallowed the population of a sizable town. At first glance, it looked like The Rubik's Cube that Ate New York, partly because it was a cube, as wide and deep as it was tall, but mostly because some stoned hotel designer in a moment of perfect hallucination had decided to paint the damn thing with uncoordinated colors in random blocks maybe forty feet square.

In front of the entry-portico a required feature for modern hotels a fountain sprayed sheets of water that never seemed to reach the ground.

Since I didn't like the building, I hoped this wasn't really where the LAMA meant to hold its tournament. Unfortunately a tall stream of running lights around the rim of the hotel identified it as The Luxury Hotel and Convention Center, and a blazing marquee between the fountain and the street announced: