"Dominic," he said.
"Victor." Dominic's voice was flat. Not hostile, flat, the way a surface is flat before something is placed on it.
They sat. The room was small, four chairs around a table, a single door, no windows. Someone had thought carefully about this room.
I had thought carefully about rooms like this. I sat where I could see the door.
Salas looked at me with the expression I recognized from the ballroom, the precise assessment, the careful filing. But there was something underneath it now that hadn't been there before. Not urgency exactly. The texture of a man who is operating with less time than he would prefer.
"I appreciate you coming," he said.
"You said the conversation would be mutually beneficial," I said. "We're listening."
He looked at me for a moment. Then, with the manner of someone setting something on the table and stepping back from it: "I know about Tchoupitoulas."
The room held.
"I see," I said.
"I want you to understand that my interest is not adversarial." He folded his hands on the table. "What my father did, the decisions he made, I have carried the weight of those decisions for twenty-five years. I am not my father."
"No," Dominic said. "You're more patient."
Salas looked at him. Something moved briefly in his expression, almost respect. "Yes. I am." He paused. "Which is why I'm having this conversation instead of a different kind of conversation." He looked back at Avery. "What happened to your mother was wrong. I want to say that plainly."
I held his gaze. "All right."
"I was seventeen. I understood what was happening and I was not in a position to stop it and I have not, I want to be clear,I have not made similar decisions in the time since." He paused. "That distinction matters to me, even if it doesn't change what happened."
"It doesn't," I said. "What are you offering?"
He looked slightly surprised, the first genuine surprise I had seen from him. I had moved past the preamble faster than he'd planned for.
"Your father," he said. "I don't know where he is. I want to be honest about that. But I know who does."
I kept my face still. "Who."
"Fosse." He said it evenly. "Gerald Fosse has been managing certain, loose ends, for the past fifteen years on a retainer that originates with my father's estate. Your father's disappearance is one of those loose ends." A pause. "I can give you Fosse. Location, current alias, documentation of the retainer. Enough to find your father, if he's alive. Enough to charge Fosse with whatever role he played, if he isn't."
Silence.
"In exchange for?" Dominic said.
Salas looked at him. "In exchange for the understanding that the documentation you found tonight pertains to my father's operation. Not mine. I will not obstruct the federal process as it applies to Ramón Salas's history." His voice was careful. "I am asking for the same clarity in return."
I looked at him.
I thought about the drive. About Tran, who was already working. About the fourth folder, which documented Victor Salas's involvement starting in 2000, when he was nineteen. About the fact that what he was offering was information I might be able to get through other channels, for a price I could not pay.
I thought about my father.
I said: "Write down where to find Fosse."
Salas reached into his jacket and produced a folded paper. Set it on the table.
I picked it up. Did not open it.
"I'm going to be straightforward with you," I said. "The documentation is already with federal authorities. What's in it is not something I can redact or negotiate on your behalf. That process is now outside both of our hands." I paused. "What I can tell you is that I have not made any claim about what you did or didn't know. I documented what I found. What I found pertains primarily to your father's operation."