King of Swords

immediately,' he stammered. 'She's a — a — a girl. Look, I didn't do this. I swear?

'Who did?' Max asked again.

Ismael took a deep breath and stared at Max with the eyes of a man who has just heard the ground starting to

give way beneath his feet and the roof caving in above him.

'Carmine,' he said very quietly, the name coming out of him reluctantly. 'It was most likely Carmine. He's been working in the store.'

'Carmine, as in Carmine Desamours?' Max prompted.

'That's right.' Ismael sighed.

'Eva Desamours' son?'

Ismael nodded.

'I thought he was a pimp. What's he doin' in your store?'

Max asked.

'He — he changed jobs.'

“What? He get promoted? Joe laughed.

'No. The opposite.'

'And this Risquee - was she one of his girls?' Max tapped the head pic.

'Yeah. He owed her money.'

'He owed her money. What kind of pimp is thai? Max laughed.

'Carmine isn't any more a pimp than I am,' Sam said bitterly. 'And he isn't a killer. It was probably an accident and he panicked.'

'No accident about a dismembered corpse,' Max said, putting the bag of oranges down and looking at Joe. They'd talked tactics in the car, on the way over. All was going to plan. Bamboozle Ismael, push him to give them a name, then really push him for what they wanted to know. Joe nodded slightly to Max: Ismael had cracked, now he was ready to break.

But he beat them to it. The panic and fear suddenly left his face. He sat back and smiled at Max.

'Something funny?' Max asked.

'What were you doing in my store?'

Max didn't miss a beat. He'd been ready for this.

'I wanted to see what Solomon Boukman's money

I

launderer looked like. And I was very interested — w pounds — he motioned to Joe — 'were very interested in the person who supplied some of the ingredients found in the stomachs of Preval Lacour and Jean Assad. Calabar beans and a very expensive tarot card - the King of Swords from the de Villeneuve deck — both of which came from your store.'

The smile didn't leave Ismael's face.

'I suppose you're going to offer me a deal. Witness protection and a new identity if I tell you everything? Life or death?

Something like that?'

'Something like that,' Max said.

IsmaePs smile turned into a smirk.

'You think your witness protection's going to protect me from Solomon Boukmari? Ismael said to Max. 'He can reach through any wall and close anyone's eyes. Doesn't matter where or who they are. And he'll kill my whole family too — even if they're completely ignorant of my affairs — because that's what he does.'

“You're assuming we won't get him first,' Max said.

'You're assuming you will. You know he has a — how should I say? — guardian angel?' Ismael pointed upwards with his free hand.

'Who?' Max asked. 'Lucifer?'

'Before you knocked me out in the bathroom, you know where I was? I was with Solomon on the top floor of the Fontainebleau. Suite 467. He won't be there now. You know what I was doing? I was looking at another set of photographs. Headshots. From the Miami police personnel files, trying to identify the plainclothes cop who'd walked into my store. And I did: Detective Sergeant Max Mingus.

He knows who you are. That makes us both dead men talking.'

Max went numb inside. He looked at Joe and saw surprise and a lot of worry on his partner's face.

Then he looked at Ismael — his smirk, his thin, sweaty

face, his small eyes, his huge curved nose — and he was lost for words. An icy cloud settled on the middle of his back and its chill travelled the length of his spine and then went into his bones. He saw Sandra. He thought of losing her.

And he shuddered.

'Where d'he get his information?' Joe asked.

'I don't know. And if it's none of my business, I don't want to know. I launder Solomon's money and front his construction schemes. That's it,' Ismael said. 'But I did overhear him talk about a contact once - a while ago - with Eva. No names mentioned, but she referred to him as the Emperor. As in the tarot card. So I knew this was someone important, someone big, someone whose name they didn't want to broadcast.'

'The Emperor's in the Major Arcana. The dominant cards, the deciders in the deck,' Max said, taking his cigarettes out of his pockets and lighting one. The Emperor didn't signify a person, but a desire to control one's circumstances or surroundings, have dominion over them, influence fate.

'That's right. This isn't just anybody. Like every major drug player in Miami, Solomon's got plenty of cops on his payroll, but the Emperor's in a different league. Either he's an equal partner or he's Solomon's boss. And he's very powerful. He's the one who wipes Solomon's prints off everything.'

'Tell me about that conversation you overheard. What was said exactly?' Max asked.

'It was something to do with an FBI operation Solomon had heard about. Eva said “Talk to the Emperor, he'll make it go away,”' Ismael replied.

'Did it?'

'Of course. Everything's always gone away. Solomon