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“And how did you respond?”

“I probably wore the same expression you’re wearing now,” said Rybek. “Taking someone’s kids is about as low as a man can sink, next to taking their lives. This wasn’t the Wyatt I’d grown up with, and I told him so, but he said he hadn’t known.”

“Wait, he was engaged in an operation that required at least a month of preparation and he wasn’t aware of its purpose? That doesn’t sound plausible.”

“He claimed he’d been employed to steal artifacts, except the word used wastransfer. He’d been informed that those items properly belonged in a museum, except the museums down there had nowhere to display the stuff they already had, so they’d hardly be missed. They’d also been looted, which meant they were stolen property. Once they were in the United States, they’d be sold to private collectors. It was a victimless crime, unless you counted the original thieves as victims, which no one was in a hurry to do.”

We were in no danger of being overheard, but still we kept our voices low, as though even to speak of this was somehow shameful.

“Then he gets to the location that’s been targeted, and instead of looted treasure, he finds children waiting to be transported across the border?”

“Four of them,” said Rybek. “That’s the story, more or less. It began in Ruski’s and unraveled further at my place, so Wyatt was pretty messedup toward the end. We both were, and I might have missed some of the particulars. Plus, Wyatt was rubbing his face and mouth, and mumbling some, so I couldn’t always make out what he was saying. By the end, he didn’t even seem to be speaking to me. I think he was trying to apologize to those kids.”

“Were they to be ransomed?”

“I asked him if they’d wanted to leave Mexico,” said Rybek. “Like, whether it could have been a custody thing, with the kids taken south of the border against their will and one of the parents paying to have them snatched back to the United States.”

“How did Wyatt reply?”

“He told me the children didn’t say anything at all. Then he laughed, but not because he’d found something funny. He laughed because it was better than the other option.”

Rybek flicked his fingers, like a man casting seeds to the wind.

“Which was when Wyatt said he needed to stop drinking, stop smoking, and particularly, stop talking. We were done. He called an Uber to take him back to Zetta’s place. Like flipping a dime, he was sobering up. He warned me to keep my mouth shut before we parted, as if I needed telling. Not because of anything he might do—he wasn’t threatening me—but in case someone else might hear.”

“Did he give any indication of who that person might be?”

“I’m no detective, but whoever they stole those kids from would be my first guess.”

Rybek let that hang, along with the implication.

“The second,” I said, “being whoever employed Wyatt and the others to take them out of Mexico.”

I closed my notebook, less to signal we were done than that whatever was said next would not be recorded.

“Do you think Donna Lawrence was instructed to find a position for Wyatt at BrightBlown?” I asked.

“Wyatt knew about selling pot to college kids,” said Rybek, “and hecould roll a joint better than I can, which is no faint praise, but he wasn’t about to make employee of the month at BrightBlown. Unless he fell from the sky and was fortunate enough to land next to Donna on a day she was feeling uncommonly tolerant, which seems a stretch, I’d say that, yes, she was under orders to put him on the payroll.”

“Do you know who owns BrightBlown?”

“I know the name of the holding company listed on my pay stub, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not.”

“I didn’t think so. Yes, I know who owns BrightBlown ultimately: Devin Vaughn. I was one of the first hires and I did my homework before I signed the contract.”

“Were you uneasy?”

“That a criminal was the beneficial owner of a cannabis concern? Until recently, everyone involved in the industry was technically a criminal. I was a criminal, with a record that said so. There’s being particular and then there’s being hypocritical. I’ll concede that I had some questions, but I made sure to ask them quietly.”

“Of whom?”

“Donna Lawrence. She told me shortly after I joined that Vaughn was only one of a number of investors in the business, even if he was the major stakeholder. BrightBlown, like his motels and stores, was legit and she was determined to keep it that way.”

“Did you believe her?”

“I chose to. I don’t count the cash at the end of the day, and I don’t balance the books. Officially, I’m deaf, dumb, and blind, beyond checking on the plants and directing customers to their best high. Unofficially, I’d admit to suspecting that if BrightBlown has investors other than Vaughn, they’re all linked to him and do his bidding. Also, even with my math skills, I can tell there might be some discrepancy between the amounts of cash taken in and those declared, if not so much recently.”