Rogues

by George R. R. Martin

  “I wonder,” I say, “if you know Ollie Ramirez.”

  He looks blank.

  “He’s a kind of inventor,” I say. “He’s the person that the assassins have been trying to kill.”

  He seems surprised. “It was not Loni Rowe?” he says.

  “Loni’s death was accidental,” I tell him, though I’m confident he knows that already. “May I demonstrate something?”

  I go through the wine demonstration, just as Ossley had performed it in Yunakov’s suite. I let Germán taste the dreadful young wine, then put the cabernet in Ossley’s container, let the reaction take place, chill the result to room temperature, and hand it to him. His brows rise as he tastes the result.

  “This is only one of Ollie’s inventions,” I say. “Some of the others you can find online.” I give him a look. “If you look at some of these sites, you can see that he’s working on using this technology to print drugs.”

  A shadow passes over Germán’s eyes. I try not to shiver. He’s no longer the courteous host, not entirely, but the lord of a criminal empire. Very calculating, very hard. All the warmth in the room is gone.

  If my career as a major Hollywood action star weren’t at stake, I wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of him.

  “Your Mr. Ramirez wants to sell me this technology?” he says.

  “No,” I say. “That would be too dangerous.” He lifts his head in a kind of query, his eyes like stone. “Once this technology is known to exist,” I point out, “you can’t possibly control it. All people will need to fabricate drugs is a printer and some precursor chemicals and some instructions from the Internet. People in the States would make their own drugs and could sell them cheaper than you could.”

  Germán regards me as a young child might regard a housefly, just before he pulls off its wings.

  “May I ask,” he says, “where your interest lies in all this?”

  I’ve been on my feet demonstrating the technology. I return to the folk-art armchair and sit, looking at Germán evenly, at his own level.

  “I’m trying to get Ollie Ramirez out of trouble,” I say. “Someone’s trying to kill him, and it simply isn’t necessary.”

  He looks at me, unblinking. Because I’ve done my research, I know that his organization has killed maybe twenty thousand people in just the last few years. Not just killed, but tortured, mutilated, dismembered, blown up, and burned alive.

  But I’ve killed, too. It’s not something in which I take any particular pride, but it’s public knowledge, and if Germán has done his research, he knows this. Maybe on that account I’m entitled to a little of his respect.

  “Killing Ollie right now would be a mistake,” I say. “As soon as he realized someone was after him, he made sure that other people had custody of his research. People he could trust. A lawyer in one place, a friend in another. So if anything were to happen to Ollie, the information would be made public.”

  Which is true enough. Though what Bruce Kravitz, in his office high in the PanCosmos Building, made of the PDF file in his in-box could only be conjectured.

  Germán’s face seems carved of stone. “Do you know any of these friends of Ramirez?” he asks.

  “No. I don’t want to know their names, and I don’t understand the technology. I’m an actor, not a scientist.”

  And maybe, therefore, I won’t be tortured for information that I don’t have.

  “And what does Ramirez want?” Germán asks.

  “Fair value for his discoveries.” I take out a piece of paper, and put it on the table between us.

  I’ve done some calculations based on what I’ve been able to find out about Germán’s business. Each year, he makes a profit of around $6 billion on income of 20 billion. He has something like 150,000 people who work for him in one capacity or another, not counting the corrupt officials he has on his payroll.

  “In order to make certain that Ollie’s discoveries never see the light of day,” I say, “he asks for $25 million. That’s $25 million each year.”

  That figure doesn’t seem unreasonable. One of the difficulties of Germán’s business is finding places to put all the money he makes. Sometimes it just stacks up in garages or spare rooms. When cartel honchos are arrested, sometimes they’re found with $100 million or more, all in cash, just piled in some room because they can’t find a place for it.

  “You can make this investment or not,” I say. “You know your own business best.” I nod at the piece of paper. “That’s an account in the Cayman Islands,” I say. “If the money appears there, we’ll know that you find Ollie a good investment, and he’ll find some other line of research that has nothing to do with you or your business. “

  Germán looks at the paper but doesn’t touch it. The Cayman account is mine, as it happens, an attempt at tax avoidance by yours truly. Some of the money behind Desperation Reef is French, and some Japanese, and at Bruce Kravitz’s suggestion I stashed most of my pay in an offshore account. The money’s never been in the States, and I won’t have to pay taxes on it till I bring it home.

  “There’s only one point I should make,” I add. “This technology … it’s going to happen sooner or later. Someone’s going to duplicate Ollie’s research, and then—” I shrug. “Then you stop paying. You’ll have bought some years.”

  Germán’s look is unreadable. “If this printing technology should break free,” he says, “how do I know it’s not Ramirez behind it?”

  I wave a hand. “You have resources,” I tell him. “You’ll find out. Besides, it’s not like any of these people can keep a secret—my guess is that whoever does it will be bragging in every online forum he can find.”

  Germán looks at his brother, and his brother looks back. Then Germán turns to me.

  “I don’t know this Ramirez,” he says. “But what you say is interesting. I understand why someone is shooting at him.”

  I rise from my Mesoamerican chair. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I say.

  And then I shake hands with the Germán brothers and leave, carrying the printer. I’d leave it as a gift, but it belongs to the property department.

  I’m modestly surprised at my own survival, and so are my bodyguards. By the time I get back to the hotel, I’m convinced the whole trip was deranged, and that the Germáns were sitting back in their bungalow knocking back bourbon and laughing at their idiot visitor.

  Which is why I’m surprised when, the next day, I check my bank balance and find that $25 million has been deposited to the Cayman account. In cash, no less, which means that Germán not only had the money sitting in the Caymans, but was able to get someone to physically carry the money from his stash to my bank.

  I go to Cancun, where Ossley’s hiding in a hotel under yet another alias, and I tell him the money has arrived. In another day or two, he’ll fly to Cayman, where he’ll open a bank account, and I can transfer his share of the money.

  “If you go back into the drug business,” I tell him, “I’ll kill you myself.”

  He should devote himself to his wine project, I tell him. Stay away from anything illegal.

  I leave my cabana after supper and take a stroll through the hotel grounds. I avoid the beach or ocean views, since I spend my working day on one or in the other. I’m looking in a vague way for a gathering where I can relax, but Yunakov isn’t in his room, and so I wander up to the open-walled bar by the pool and order myself a Negro Modelo.

  When my eyes adjust to the murk in the bar, I see Special Agent Sellers standing in a corner, trying to communicate with the green-and-red talking parrot the bar has installed on a perch. Sellers is still wearing his Jungle Jim outfit. I stroll over with my beer in hand and take a look at the parrot.

  “Got him to confess yet?” I say.

  Sellers glances at me, then gives a little start—yes, I am indeed a disturbing and ominous figure to find looming over one’s shoulder—and then he turns to me.

  “The parrot’s not talking,” he says. “
I think he wants his lawyer.”

  “Motherfucker!” the parrot shrieks. His vocabulary seems to have been strongly influenced by drunken American tourists.

  “Obviously a hardcase,” I point out. “Why don’t you take a break and have a drink?”

  He joins me at the bar and orders a vodka tonic.

  “Did you ever find that man you were looking for?” I ask.

  “He kept dodging the interview. Then someone shot into his room and he split.”

  “You were looking for the props guy?” I ask in feigned surprise. He nods. “Do you know who shot at him?” I ask.

  “That’s confidential,” he says, which I figure means he has no clue.

  I decide to change the subject. “Any progress on who killed Loni?” I ask.

  He looks a little uncertain whether or not he should be sharing any news, but then he decides to let his vodka tonic do the talking.

  “Remember when I said it might have been an accident?” he says.

  I nod.

  “There was some problem with the evidence at first,” Sellers says, “but it got straightened out, and now it looks as if the shot was fired from the land. Maybe at someone on the tennis courts, from someone hiding in the jungle across the highway. And it punched through the wall and killed Loni purely by mistake.”

  It isn’t hard to look shocked. I’d thought I was really clever working that one out all by myself.

  “I’ve been thinking and thinking,” I say. “And I couldn’t imagine why anyone would—” I succeed in summoning a tear to my eye. “And now you say it really was an accident!” I blurt.

  He nods in what is probably meant to be a comforting way. “That’s how the physical evidence lines up,” he says. “I said before that it could be random, but you disagreed.”

  “I don’t know what I think anymore,” I say. I think about putting a quaver in my voice, but decide against it. I don’t want to overact when my audience is only three feet away.

  I sip my sweet, dark beer. Sellers says nothing. “Motherfucker!” says the parrot.

  There’s a stir, and then a half dozen film crew come into the bar. They’ve obviously just come in from dinner somewhere, and among them I recognize Chip, the man who is here because he’s somebody’s cousin. And for some reason a memory of Germán rises to my mind. I don’t know this Ramirez. But what you say is interesting. I understand why somebody’s shooting at him.

  It suddenly occurs to me that maybe Germán was telling the truth.

  I nod toward the group. “Do you know the tall one there?” I ask. “The blond?”

  “I was there when he was interviewed,” Sellers says.

  “He’s not part of the crew,” I say.

  “He’s here on vacation,” Sellers says. “He’s related to, ah, I think it was the assistant greenskeeper.”

  I consider Chip from the vantage point of the bar. “Do you know what he does for a living?” I ask.

  Sellers pulls out his handheld and pages through his files. Which is probably something he wouldn’t do if he hadn’t had more than a couple vodka and tonics.

  “He works for Porter-Bakker Pharmaceuticals,” he says. “In marketing.”

  It’s like an explosion in my mind, only in reverse. All the smoke and flame and debris fly together, the bits assembling to form a complete whole.

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s interesting.”

  It turns out that Chip is a golfer, and goes out most days to one of the many courses in Cancun. I watch him when he comes back from one of his trips, his golf bag slung over his shoulder. He walks into his suite, and he immediately realizes that someone has broken into his rooms and scattered his belongings everywhere. He drops his bag and runs to the settee in his front room, and pulls out a long box from underneath. He looks relieved to discover it’s still there.

  “Right,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  I and my four bodyguards leave my cabana, where I’m watching Chip’s antics on video, and then stroll across the compound to Chip’s suite. Two guards precede me through the open door.

  “Hold on there, cowboy,” I say. “We’ve got to talk.”

  Chip spins around, his face alight with what I believe is called a “guilty countenance.” He stares as my guards approach him.

  “What do you have in the box there?” I ask, and then—because he looks as if he’s going to attempt desperate resistance—I add, “No point in fighting. A video record of this is already on a server in New Zealand.”

  Which is true. My guards and I broke into Chip’s suite earlier in the day, put video cameras everywhere, then tossed his belongings all over the room all under the assumption that he would lead us to the box hiding under the settee—which of course we had discovered in the course of our search.

  My guards, I am pleased to remark, seem to be brigands only slightly disguised in tropical suits. They would probably have taken Chip to sea and drowned him if I’d asked.

  One of my guards takes the box from Chip’s nerveless fingers. I look at the box with all my Klingon intensity.

  “What do you want?” says Chip. His face is stony.

  “Let’s go outside and talk.” Away from any recording devices.

  My guards pat Chip down for weapons, and then we all stroll to the pool, where Chip and I sit at a wrought-iron table. The sun dazzles on the water. There is the scent of chlorine. One of my guards adjusts the table’s red-and-yellow umbrella to keep us in the shade, and then the guards withdraw out of earshot.

  I look at Chip, still using my Klingon face. “Let’s open the conversation by agreeing that you’re an idiot,” I begin.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. Because from what I can see, you came here to kill Ollie Ramirez, only you missed him and killed a movie star. Which brings heat and publicity down on this whole production, making it difficult to complete your mission, and so you while away your time playing golf. And you did this in Mexico, where the authorities won’t even need to open that box, and find there a rifle covered with your fingerprints, to beat a confession out of you and throw you in jail, which you will very likely not survive because it’s going to be full of violent cartel killers who will torture you to death simply for the fun of hearing you scream.”

  There is a moment of appalled silence, and then Chip summons the fortitude to ask a question.

  “Why would I kill this Ollie Ramirez?”

  I sigh. “On behalf of Porter-Bakker Pharmaceuticals, who’ve clearly made up their minds that Ollie’s discoveries are a threat to their bottom line. I looked them up—last year they made a profit of 6.3 billion on income of 49 billion. They could hardly keep that up if people could print their own prescriptions in their basement.” I give a contemptuous laugh. “They’re also idiots, by the way.”

  Chip just glares at me. I reach into my pocket and take out a piece of paper. A piece of paper very similar to that which I’d given Germán only a few days before.

  “If you don’t want your rifle given to the PFM, along with a suitably edited copy of the video, I want $50 million sent to this account. By tomorrow. And another 50 mil. every year, on the anniversary of Loni’s death, to guarantee that Ollie Ramirez won’t continue his researches.”

  He stares. His lips move but nothing comes out. He’s beyond speech.

  “That may seem like a lot to you and me,” I say, “but on profits of 6.3 billion, it’s not so much. Plus of course there’s the matter of evading all the investigations, bad publicity, and the collapse of your company’s stock. Along with jail for everyone concerned.”

  I lean back in my chair and consider the possibilities. “Of course,” I say, “your superiors may decide that their most sensible action now is to kill you. So I suggest you stay in your room, under guard, until the money is delivered.” I smile. “And since I don’t trust you or your company in the least, the evidence will be hidden, and released
automatically if anything unfortunate should happen to me.”

  I stand. My bodyguards look in my direction. Chip hasn’t said anything in a long time.

  “Maybe now,” I say, “you should go find a phone or something.”

  Chip goes back to his room, and one of my guards goes in with him. And as for me, I think I shall raise a magic editing wand, perform a cinematic dissolve from this scene by the pool, and go straight to the happy ending.

  Porter-Bakker Pharmaceuticals paid up. Some of their lower-level executives resigned, but by that point I wasn’t very interested because I was busy rescuing my movie. I shelled out 10 million in cash, received executive producer credit and a percentage of the gross, and Bruce Kravitz provided Loni’s replacement, a fine actress named Karen Wilkes. She didn’t fill a bikini as well as Loni but added a kind of crazed evil to the part of the gangster’s girlfriend that made the role memorable. The wicked Mrs. Trevanian was foiled and gathered up her cloak of evil and went back to Los Angeles.

  I didn’t split the Porter-Bakker money with Ossley. After all, he was already being paid not to continue his drug research.

  So everything ends really well for me. It’s unfortunate that justice wasn’t meted out to Loni’s killer, but even if Chip went to jail, it wouldn’t bring Loni back. And of course I’m sorry that Loni had to die—but if she had to die, at least it was in a way that got me both publicity and a fortune. And a good movie, which is nothing to sneeze at.

  Plus of course, I didn’t die. Which is always a plus.

  And the best part comes later, in a meeting with Hadley and Tom King. We’re in Hadley’s cabana, eating seafood tacos, drinking iced caramel macchiatos made by his barista, and hashing out the shooting schedule. We’re trying to work out how and where we’re shooting the ending.

  I finish a taco and lick my fingers.

  “And by the way,” I tell Tom, “I’m not going to shoot that second chickenshit ending, the one where I give the drugs to the cops instead of selling them and living happily ever after. That’s just not my character. My character keeps the money.”