took him to many places around the world, some of them strange."
"Business wasn't the only thing he had a healthy appetite for," Bourne said.
Ottavio Moreno nodded. "Too true. He had an eye for exotic women."
"Are there any other little half Morenos running around?"
Moreno laughed. "There very well might be, knowing my father. But if there are, I don't know about them."
Bourne decided there was nothing more to be gained by taking the subject of the elder Moreno's love life any farther. "Okay, you say that you were Conklin's contact in Marrakech."
"I don't say it," Ottavio Moreno said with a slight frown, "I was that man."
"I suppose you can't produce any canceled checks from the Treadstone account."
"Ha, ha," Moreno said, but it wasn't a laugh. He took out a pack of Gauloises Blondes, shook one out, and lit up. He stared at Bourne while he blew smoke at the ceiling. At length, he said, "Am I wrong in thinking we're on the same page?"
"I don't know. Are we?"
Bourne got up and went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of cold water. He was angry at himself, not Moreno. He knew he was at his most vulnerable at this juncture. He didn't like being vulnerable. More to the point, in his line of work he couldn't afford to be.
Returning to the living room, he sat down on an armchair facing the sofa where Ottavio Moreno still sat smoking slowly, as if in meditation. In Bourne's absence he'd turned on the TV to the BBC news. The sound was off, but the images of the Vesper Club were all too familiar. Lights were flashing off the tops of emergency vehicles and police cars. Personnel emerged from the club's front door carrying a stretcher. The body on it was draped in a cloth that covered its face. Then the scene switched to a newsreader in the BBC studios, mouthing whatever had been written for him moments before. Bourne gestured and Moreno turned up the volume, but there was nothing for them in the story, and Moreno muted the sound again.
"It will be harder than ever to get out of London now," Bourne said shortly.
"I know more ways to get out of London than they do." He gestured at the cop being interviewed on the screen.
"So do I," Bourne said. "That isn't the issue."
Moreno leaned forward, stubbed out the butt in an ugly free-form ashtray, and lit another. "If you're waiting for me to apologize, you're going to be disappointed."
"Too late for apologies," Bourne said. "What's so important about the laptop?"
Moreno shrugged.
"Perlis had the ring," Bourne said. "He killed Holly to get it."
"The ring is a symbol of the Severus Domna, all members wear it or carry it unobtrusively."
"That's it? If there's nothing else important about it, why did Perlis murder Holly for it?"
"I don't know. Maybe he thought it would somehow lead him to the laptop." Again Moreno stubbed out his cigarette. "Look, is all this distrust because Gustavo was my half brother?"
"I wouldn't rule it out," Bourne said.
"Yeah, well, my big brother was a fucking thorn in my side ever since I can remember."
"Then it's a good thing for you he's dead," Bourne said drily.
Moreno eyed Bourne for a moment. "Jesus Christ, you think I've taken over his drug business."
"I'd be a fool if the thought hadn't crossed my mind."
Moreno nodded morosely. "Fair enough." He sat back and spread his hands wide. "Okay, then, how can I prove myself?"
"Up to you."
Moreno crossed his arms over his chest and thought a moment. "What do you remember about the four of them: Perlis, Holly, Tracy, and Diego Hererra?"
"Virtually nothing," Bourne said.
"I imagine you asked Diego about them. What did he tell you?"
"I know about their friendship, their romantic entanglements."
Moreno frowned. "What romantic entanglements?"
When Bourne told him, he laughed. "Mano, your boy Diego dropped one steaming pile of shit on your doorstep. There was no romance among the four of them. There was only friendship - until, that is, Holly started wearing the ring. One of them, maybe Tracy, I don't know, became interested in the engraving on the inside. The more interested she became in it, the more Perlis's curiosity was piqued. He took a photo of the engraving and brought it to Oliver Liss, his boss at the time. This led directly to the tragedy of Holly's death."
"How do you know all this?"
"I worked for Black River until Alex Conklin recruited me as a Treadstone agent in place. That gave the old