Things I can’t remember without my coffee:

Does Patrick use his real last name? Or is little-boy-biodynamic Patrick thought to be dead / now known to have faked his death but has been living on the run and under an alias long enough that he’s never been traced?

Does Patrick actually know the names and abilities of dead targets, or is he just guessing from holes in the data? If they displayed enough for Patrick to detect them, they displayed them enough for the Conspiracy to detect them. If they didn’t display them enough to be detected, how does Patrick know they existed?

According to the cast page at the top: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/cast/
Patrick’s last name is Andrews.

While I do not have an eidetic memory, I do not remember knowing that fact from before I clicked that link

It would be worse than ironic if Patrick learned he owes his life to his abusive mother’s attempt to kill him..

Maybe they wanted to keep him around, heck, maybe his mother was working for the Con, wittingly or otherwise.

That makes sense, but…then why even talk to him?

If he doesn’t know, it doesn’t confirm that Menace doesn’t know it only confirms Menace hasn’t told him about it. Menace could tell any of his minions at any time if it suited his purpose. If he does know, I guess confirms that Menace is aware of the conspiracy, but it seems like they already thought that was the case. And even if they wanted confirmation that Menace knew, they didn’t put much effort into confirming Duval’s answer. Maybe they can’t read his mind, but have a way to determine if he’s telling the truth? But then that would be more reason to interrogate him more closely.

And they say, “a cold trail which implies they’re looking for something specific. Whether it’s to find and kill Menace or Menace is just a step on the way to whatever they want, the only importance Duval had was his knowledge from working with Menace and they didn’t find out any of that other than Menace *may* not have shared knowledge of that folder with him.

I can only guess that they thought Menace was too insignificant to bother with one way or another.

“Hey street level dealer, do you have any information on the head of your criminal organization which we can use? Don’t worry we can protect you.”
“No, I’m just a low level guy, and besides…” BLAM!
“Okay on to the next one.”

I agree he’s important, but the conspirators don’t seem to treat gun as important.

And since he takes his marching orders from Menace it’s not do important what he knows as what Menace knows. If they confirm that he doesn’t know anything about the conspiracy it doesn’t day anything about whether Menace knows, and Menace is the one directing the company, not Duval. If they confirm that Duval knows (which they didn’t) it does confirm that Menace knows, which is something, but they must have known he knew something about them (if only that they were a powerful secret group) or they’re talk about being shielded from Menace and protecting him from Menace would have sounded ridiculous.

I guess attempting – and failing – to confirm that Menace knows about the folder is worth something, but if finding out what Menacdle knows is so important, why kill Duval so causally? They didn’t even bother threatening him.

It’s possible. That’s an interesting idea. Maybe they always planned to kill Duval no matter what he said.

It still bothers me how he just walked in without any protection, but I guess he had his reasons.

He knew they were, “the society” and that they were powerful and important enough that was unusual for a mere CEO of a weapons manufacturing company to meet with them soon after taking over. And when they claimed that they could block telepathy he accepted it as plausible.

You’re right that maybe I assumed too much, I figured he was sent by Menace or at least would have reported and discussed his prospective meeting with Menace so even if he didn’t know everything he would have some idea of who they were.

But maybe not, maybe he just thought they were some kind of global business association for really major players or something, maybe he thought meeting them wasn’t significant enough to tell Menace or he did tell Menace, who told him to go to the meeting but didn’t tell him what to prepare for.

At also don’t even know that he didn’t know what the folder was. He lied about who Menace was* so he could have lied about recognizing the folder too. But the society called him a “fool” and a “believer” so it’s possible they had some way to see through his lies and recognize his continued loyalty. Though even then, that doesn’t tell us if they realized he was telling the truth or lying about the folder. They only mentioned a cold trail, not whether their secrets were revealed or not.

*Probably lied, for all we know that’s the origin story Menace told him. Though he definitely lied about the means of contact so the rest is presumably a deliberate lie too.

I thought he understood the visit was about meeting with the society and the party was just an excuse like setting up a golf meeting or something. But I may have misread it and he really did just think he was going to a party and schmoozing a bit with important people.

At first glance the society seemed like a European Bohemian Grove (a retreat for the most powerful people in the USA). Such a club has its own security so bringing his own would have been suspicious. When the president of the USA goes to the grove his brings the Secret Service, but a CEO bringing his bodyguards? That’s unusual.

The lady seems to be a lie detector. So just asking the question gets you that information.

Given that the boss said that Duval was a believer, I think they killed him BECAUSE he did recognize the folder.

Would the trickster really be able to replace Duval without Menace knowing? Presumably is in Duval’s mind often.

I really don’t think so. Even if Patrick/Menace can’t read the impostor’s mind, that in itself is a huge tell that it isn’t Duval.