“Even evil people have moments of good.”
“I appreciate you offering that. It speaks well of you.”
“And you will no longer worry about my mother and her little trips to the park?”
“I can’t promise you that.”
“But I have told you—”
“Yes, you have told me,” he said. “But can I make a frank observation?”
She sighed. “Go ahead.”
“Your mother is smart, cagey, ruthless, sees the whole chessboard, correct? I mean, it’s how she’s wired.”
“I don’t see where—”
“Correct or not?”
“Yes, correct,” she exclaimed, looking tired.
“Then can I ask a question?”
“Would it matter what I said?”
“It would. I work for you.”
“Go ahead and ask your question,” she said resignedly.
“Then why would such a woman be so blatantly obvious about what she is doing? So obvious to use a clumsy maneuver like notes in an ice cream container picked up by someone who I could easily spot? Does that strike you as something Masuyo Steers would do? Because it could easily have been the police watching her. Why not just pick up the phone and call the person about your business with them instead of playing these stupid spy games?”
Steers blinked rapidly three times and then she looked far more engaged. “And what isyouranswer to this, Dillon-san?”
“Remember what you said about your ruse in using what I thought was my gun to ‘kill’ Lynn Ryder.”
“What of it?”
“You said a magician’s tricks of the trade were sleight of hand and psychological manipulation.”
Steers’s lips parted. “You. . .mean. . .?”
“Maybe your mother made us look to the right with this ‘ice cream in the park’ subterfuge, when what she was actually doing was occurring on the left.”
CHAPTER
46
STEERS’S HOME WAS SITUATED INthe hills about two miles from the Temple estate along a winding road. Nash had been in Hong Kong for a long while, and when he’d left America he hadn’t been certain he would ever return.
When they passed through the estate’s broad gates in a passenger van, Nash asked her how long she had owned it.
“Sixteen months, Dillon-san,” said Steers. “It required renovation, which is now completed.”
Neither of them noted that Masuyo appeared jolted by her calling him Dillon-san.
“Why so close to Rhett Temple?” he asked.
“Because he and I have further business. And I like to watch most carefully over myinvestments.”