A/N: Thanks so much, you reviewers! I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to each of you. Vickevire, I hope this update is quick enough for you.

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Outside the door, the dog whined and scrabbled.

"I want . . . Why is the dog inside?"

"Oh, did you want a mean dog? You keep a dog tied up outside and it'll turn mean on you, or hadn't you noticed. Even that slavering sycophant will go all vicious and mean. But we can do that if you like."

"Dogs belong out of doors."

"Dogs are pack animals. They belong with the pack. But, hey, he's your dog. Now what did you want? And it better not be a change of diapers."

"I want to see the diamonds."

"Is that all? Like that's gonna happen. Why?"

"It's. . . there was a flaw. Who is The Red Spider?"

"A flaw? What kind of flaw?"

"I don't remember. I have dreams about a spider in a . . . a diamond, and then you said . . . Just hold the fucking diamonds so I can see them. How do you think I am going to rob you?"

Sands appeared to consider that.

"It's after dawn," El told him. "Other people might be here soon."

Sands muttered something under his breath and turned away. When he turned back he held the small velvet bag Julio Delgado had used to carry his fortune. "Do you need light?" he asked, grudgingly.

"Si," El said. Sands flipped the light switch by the door. He approached El's bed, but stopped a healthy distance from him. He removed a diamond from the bag and held it up.

"No, not that one," El said.

Sands held up a second.

"No," again.

Sands took out a third one.

"Wait," said El. "Let me see that one."

"You can see it from here."

"Let me have it. I want to see it better." El held out his hand before realizing that meant nothing to Sands.

"You return it to me," Sands said with steel in his tone, "or I'm letting the dog in."

El swallowed. The threat was real. He hadn't forgotten how painful his attempt to sit up had been. The exuberance of the dog would be agonizing. "All right, all right," El said. If he complained to any of his other caretakers, Sands could just play innocent. Reuniting a man with his loving dog.

Sands placed the velvet bag next to the remains of the radio, well out of El's reach. Then he approached again, holding out the diamond. His steps were a bit uncertain, as if he couldn't quite judge how close to come. El took the diamond when he could reach it, and Sands snapped his hand back.

El held it up to the light. There, beneath the facets, was the spindly-looking flaw he almost remembered. The diamond was also remarkable in that it had a faint reddish cast to it. El didn't know enough about gems to say whether the stone he held was more or less valuable for its color and cracks.

"Here," El said. Sands came forward with his own hand out, and El placed the stone on his palm.

"Well?" Sands asked.

"Well, what? I've seen it now."

"What does it look like?"

"Who is The Red Spider?"

"God damn it, Mariachi, answer the question!"

"You answer mine first."

"I'm letting that dog in here."

"Go ahead. You can always show the diamond to someone else and have them describe it for you." Sands was reaching for one of his guns, his hands shaking. El eyed him warily. "Or shoot me. That will get you what you want to know. Why does it matter so much?"

Sands left the guns alone and whirled back to face the bed. "What does the diamond look like?" he repeated tightly. "You really shouldn't fuck with me."

El considered that. Sands really had shot that cook in Culiacan, El had learned. Not that he'd doubted the man would - El had seen the insane glee simmering in the agent's eyes. No, Sands had been far from stable then, and now, how much worse was his mental state? Still, El felt instinctively that Sands could be bargained with. It was showing weakness that was a bad idea.

"Who is the Red Spider? Tell me, and I'll tell you. I know you've already guessed, but you can't know for sure until I tell you, right?"

Sands spun and paced, one hand cocked just a little in front of him. When he reached the wall, he kicked it. "I hate you," he said, like a temperamental child.

El laughed. "Yes, I am such a bad man."

Sands raised a fist and pummeled the wall. Then he turned his back to the wall and slid down it until he was sitting inches from the crumpled blanket and pillow he had been using in front of the door. "The Red Spider," he said, conversationally, as he extracted a cigarette and his lighter, "was an international crimelord. Russian, originally. Espionage, drugs, guns, any commodity that would sell. He moved his main base to somewhere in Portugal. As hard as we tried, we never found it. He was also a Class A twisted sicko. Not in the usual ways." Sands lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. "I think he did trade in girls, and maybe boys, but so far as we could tell, not for himself. Sometimes we did business with him - his intelligence was always good, but ultimately he was too much of a pain in the ass." He took another drag.

"Why?"

"He liked to play games. He'd send you on treasure hunts, or set up some huge scheme that turned out to be a pun. A multi-lingual pun. He was a collector of really weird shit. The crushed bike Evil Knieval killed himself on. Vladimir Komarov's space suit."

"Who?"

"Cosmonaut whose 'chute didn't deploy on his way back from space. Crashed and died in the steppes of Russia. Everyone has a bad day."

"Morbid."

"He'd go out of his way to own pyramids, crystals, stolen tomb treasures. He was going through a Dumas phase when he evaporated about ten years ago. We never heard a thing from him again."

"Why was he called The Red Spider?"

"He was Red back when the Reds were Red, you know? He picked up the name Spider in Portugal because of all the webs he was part of. He liked the name and started signing his shit with it. I wonder what he'd give for a diamond with a spider in it. Is that what I've got?"

"Yes. The diamond is reddish-colored, too."