Free Trader of Secrets: A Paul Madriani Novel by Steve Martini Page B

Can’t go home cuz Liquida may be waiting for us.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ve thought about it. I can’t speak for either of you, but I don’t intend to sit around growing old, waiting and hoping that somebody snags the crazy bastard before he kills me or murders my daughter.” I look at both of them. “He came within a breath of killing Herman. He’s made one attempt on Sarah’s life and murdered one of her friends.”
    Liquida killed Jenny, one of Sarah’s girlfriends, after following the two of them to a club in San Diego. It was Liquida’s twisted way of sending a message that my family and I were next.
    “So you think he’ll try again?” says Joselyn.
    “Hell, yes,” says Harry. “Unless he dies of cancer or gets hit by a truck.”
    Harry, Herman, and I had become entangled with this psychotic as a result of a case that turned out to have connections with terrorism south of the border. Ever since then Liquida has been crossing our path with the constancy of an orbiting death star, making it crystal clear that he has declared war on us even if we refuse to realize it.
    “It’s cultural,” I tell her. “Liquida has his roots in the Mexican cartels. These are people to whom vengeance is a religion. Only heretics allow the flame of revenge to go out.”
    “What did you do to him?” she asks.
    “I don’t know. But it wouldn’t matter even if I knew. Assuming I could undo whatever it was, it would make no difference to Liquida. He has no sense of proper proportion. Look at him without genuflecting and he’ll kill your entire family, shoot your dog, and burn your house. When he’s finished, he’ll dig up your ancestors and grind their bones to dust for fertilizer. He may have gone upwardly mobile and branched out to service the international terror trade, but his instincts come from the cartels.”
    “So what do we do?” says Joselyn. “Stay here? Hope the FBI will provide protection? Pray they’ll catch him?”
    “For how long?” says Harry. “We’ve been through this before. Hiding out in an FBI safe house. You weren’t with us.”
    “Harry’s right. And when we came out into the open, Liquida came back. He killed Jenny. While we were looking for him he was busy hunting down Sarah. He’s smart and he’s very patient. He knows sooner or later we have to surface again. He’ll simply wait. When we feel safe, when we get into the routine of life with the illusion of security, that’s when he’ll hit us. And this time we may not be so lucky.”
    “I can’t disagree with your logic, but it still doesn’t answer the question of what we do,” says Joselyn.
    “Simple, we find him before he finds us,” says Harry.
    “Unless you have a better idea,” I tell her.
    “We tried that; it didn’t work, remember? Herman very nearly got killed,” says Joselyn. “It’s too dangerous. We don’t have the resources. Look around the table. There’s three of us. None of us has a gun or, for that matter, knows how to use one. Herman was your only real backup in terms of security and he’s down. Let the FBI do it.”
    “We could die of old age hiding out in this hole,” says Harry. “The FBI’s got a full plate, and Liquida probably doesn’t even show up on their list of hors d’oeuvres. We could be here for years. I’m not that patient. You want to know the truth, I’d just as soon be dead.”
    “If you go after him, you probably will be,” says Joselyn.
    “I don’t intend to go toe to toe with Liquida. But if I can find a lead, hand it off to Thorpe, or let the local police take him down, I’ll settle for that,” I tell them.
    “Only if they lock him up at Supermax and I can swallow the key,” says Harry. “On the other hand, there’s nothing more permanent than death.”
    “Listen to him,” says Joselyn. “Dirty Harry wants to kill him?”
    “Why not? He wants to kill us.”
    “Harry is a different kind of criminal defense lawyer,” I tell her.
    “And how would you go