I thought about that. Just for a few seconds, because that’s all it took. He definitely had all the cards. Oh, sure, I could’ve thought up a couple of cutesy things he’d skipped if I felt like a smart-ass. Or maybe gone with some tired, barf-inducing pablum like, “Where there’s life, there’s hope” or some kind of New Age bullshit about Positating My Image Reality into a New Nexus of Tangible Affirmation. But I never did go for that crap, and the truth was, I was chained to a stone wall in the basement of a huge rock that was in the middle of some unknown body of water, surrounded by heavily armed mercenaries, every possible kind of lethal security, and a sadistic bitch who loved to “persuade” people held in reserve. And one hand was temporarily out of commission. Yeah, he had the high ground. Boniface was in charge, and that was all there was to it. So I did what anybody with a three-digit IQ would’ve done.
I smiled. “How can I help you?” I said.
Bernadette looked disappointed, but Boniface nodded, to show this was pretty much what he’d expected. “I would like you to steal something for me,” he said. “Something rather . . . special.”
My first thought was relief, because I was back on familiar turf. Stealing I can do. And if it was something so hard to get at he had to get me to get it, well, that was exactly the kind of challenge I live for.
But my second thought was that the way he said that word, “special,” was exactly the way I thought Bernadette would say a word like “scalpel.” A little too eager, like, “Here comes something that will hurt a lot and I am going to totally love watching you scream and bleed.” Like I said, I love a challenge, but there are limits. I mean, I am the best there is, but I’m not Superman. I’m not even Deadpool. There’s plenty of things that are just flat-out impossible. Sometimes there’s just no fucking way, even for me, and I’m man enough to admit it. I mean, I haven’t found anything like that yet, but I’m a realist. I know damn well that sooner or later something will come along that’s just flat-out no-fucking-way impossible. And I had a nasty little feeling that Boniface was about to hand it to me. Because if he’d gone to all this trouble to get me to steal it, it had to be a total motherfucker.
On the other hand, it didn’t look like I had a whole lot of options here. And if it was something completely impossible, trying to do it was still better than a date with Bernadette.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
Boniface studied me for a few seconds, like I was a horse he was thinking of buying and he wanted to find any flaws. Finally, with no change of expression, he said, “I wonder how much you may have heard about me.” He waited, so I would know I was supposed to tell him.
“You are the biggest, baddest, most successful arms dealer in the world,” I said. And just to show I wasn’t blowing smoke up his ass, I added, “On top of making a profit by helping to kill large numbers of people, you don’t seem to mind getting your own hands dirty, taking out anybody—everybody—who pisses you off.”
Boniface frowned.
“What?” I said. “What’d I miss?”
“Almost everything,” he said. And he actually sighed, which was kind of like hearing Dracula say, “Can’t we just be friends?” “Perhaps I should hire a—what do they call them? Image consultant?” He shook his head, and he looked thoughtful, maybe a little sad, which was just as weird. “People think a man like me is without finer feelings.”
“Maybe they don’t know about your Louis XVI chair,” I said.
The two-millimeter smile again. It lasted about half a second, and then he went on. “Some would even say I have no soul. The very fact that I sell weapons, that I promote and even indulge in such massive and brutal violence, makes me . . . immune to finer human sentiments. And so they assume I am coarse, unfeeling, unable to experience spiritual joy or beauty.” He pursed his lips slightly. “They are wrong.”
“Of course they are,” I murmured.
Boniface ignored me. “As I said, I am a businessman.” He shrugged. “The object of commerce is to make as much money as possible, to maximize your profit. Selling weapons was the surest way to do that. But,” he said, holding up a hand to stop an objection I wasn’t going to make, “to me, it has always been a means to an end.” He paused, glanced at his fingernails. They looked fine to me. “The true measure is how a man uses his wealth, whether he chooses to regard money as an end in itself—or as a tool to accomplish something else. For me—?”
Boniface frowned, like he’d found a bad spot on his fingernails. “I’m a collector, Mr. Wolfe,” he said. “I love beautiful things, and I love to own them, to look at them and touch them.”
I tried as hard as I could not to look up at Bernadette, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked up—and she was looking right back at me, waiting for me to say something, make some joke about “beautiful things.” I didn’t say anything. I just looked away. I didn’t fall off a cabbage truck, like Mom used to say.
Boniface didn’t seem to notice. He just flicked his glance up off his nails and back at me. “In some ways, it’s rather amazing that our paths haven’t crossed before now. You have quite a reputation among a small circle of people who don’t mind going outside the law to acquire a treasure. Of course that includes me.” The two-millimeter smile. “But for the most part, making sure I was the high bidder has been enough. When it isn’t, I have one or two other means of persuading buyers.” I couldn’t help it; I looked at Bernadette again. She smiled. “One way or the other, I usually get what I go after,” Boniface continued. Three-millimeter frown. “Until now.”
Here it comes, I thought. “Which is why I am here,” I said. Just like I’d thought. He wanted something nobody else could get for him, because even the thought of stealing it was impossible. And so, like any intelligent, thoughtful man of the world, he’d said to himself, This looks like a job for Riley Wolfe! I wished I’d brought my cape.
“Exactly so,” he said. “One of the keys to my success is that I know my limits.” He glanced behind him. “When I fail to recognize one, Bernadette is quite adept at pointing out my inadequacies.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“I have conceived a passion for something of unearthly beauty,” Boniface said, turning back toward me. “Even more, it feeds my soul.” One shake of his head. “The soul that so many think I lack.” He turned one hand over, palm up. “Perhaps my acquisition of this treasure will persuade them otherwise. If not—”
He shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I must have it, and I believe you are the only man on earth who can get it for me.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. I mean, not cocky or anything. It’s just a fact. I do stuff that everybody else thinks is impossible. “What is it?”