He turned.
"For Christ's sake," he said, "don't you get anything into your head? I told you I was expecting you to tip off the fox. Do you think I'd have expected that, and left you alone to do it, if I hadn't figured that you'd be doing something for me? I wanted you to make the fox break cover. I wanted him rushed into doing something that would give us a view of him. I wanted to force him into making the mistakes that are going to qualify him for his seat on the griddle. He's already made one of them, and any minute now he's going to make another. You've done that much to help him, and now you're doing your damn best to help yourself right into the soup with him. If that isn't devotion, I don't know what is."
13
He saw the stunned shock petrifying her face, but he didn't wait for it to complete or resolve itself. He didn't have time. And now before she collected herself might be the best chance he would ever have.
He moved quickly across towards her and sat on the next chair, and his voice was as swift and urgent as the movement.
"Listen," he said. "This man is a crook. He is a thief — and stealing iridium is no different from stealing jewels or coffee or anything else. And in just the same language, he's a murderer."
"He never killed anyone—"
"Of course not. Not personally. He didn't have to. A crumb in his class doesn't need to pull triggers himself, or knot ropes around an old fool's neck. He has other men to do that — or other women. But that doesn't make him any less a killer. There was murder done in the first stealing, at Nashville. Two guards by the name of Smith or Jones or Gobbovitch were shot down. Just a couple of names in a newspaper. Probably they had families and relatives and friends here and there, but you don't think about that when you're reading. You click your tongue and say isn't it awful and turn on to your favorite columnist or the funnies. But Mrs Jones has lost a husband who was a hell of a lot more real to her than your boy friend is to you, and the Gobbovitch brats are going to have to quit school after their primary grades and do the best they can on their own — just because your big-hearted glamor boy hired a couple of cannons to go out and do his shooting for him."
"Please don't," she said.
"I want to be sure you know just what kind of a man you're shielding. A cold-blooded murderer. And a traitor on top of that. Maybe he hasn't even thought of it that way himself. Maybe he's been too busy thinking about the money that was helping to keep you in that splendid apartment. But it's still just as true as if you both had your eyes open."