- Chapter 26 - end - Page 232

     His English was fluid and unaccented. I went over and sat a few feet away from him. He was thirty or so, as close as I could tell. There was little light, but there hadn't been much light for the last hour or more.

     “American,” he said.

     “That's right.”

     “Not the American who's been coming to Lanao.”

     “That's me.”

     “Luis's hospitality isn't what it used to be.”

     I didn't know him, and from the upturned lines around his face, he seemed amused that I didn't know.

     Even in full light I might not have recognized him. In all the world he was the last man I expected to see.

     “Your night isn't a total loss,” he said. He waited a couple of beats. “I'm Lito Sanchez.”

     When he said it I knew. He was Lito, and he was there, grinning at me, and the grin infuriated me. It was as if my troubles were embodied, having a good laugh at my expense.

     I said, “You little twerp, if I could put my hands on you, you'd be a dead man.”

     “Precy'd get her money, anyway.”

     “Laugh,” I said. “People are dead because of you.”

     “I know.” He got serious. “When I saw what was happening, I wanted to stop it. But by then there was no stopping it. There were other lives involved, too.” When he stopped talking I could hear the plink of water into a puddle, somewhere in the dugout.

     He said, “Believe it or not, I had my reasons.”