Whiplash River (16 page)

Chapter 24

T
he seatbelt sign dinged a little after noon and they began their approach to SFO. The plane slid from the bright blue sky at thirty thousand feet down into a layer of dark heavy clouds. When they finally broke through those clouds, the next layer down was even darker, even heavier. They taxied to the gate through sheet after sheet of billowing rain.

“ ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco,' ” Quinn said, leaning over so he could peer out the window. “Mark Twain wrote that.”

Shake didn't say anything. He tried not to read too much into the weather.

During the flight, somewhere over West Texas, Quinn had asked Shake about their new partner. Shake told him her name was Gina.

Quinn had turned in his seat to study him. Shake's own nervous tell, he realized too late, was holding eye contact a little too long.

“This Gina,” Quinn said. “She wouldn't happen to be the same girl you were telling me about? The girl broke your heart a couple of years ago?”

“That doesn't matter,” Shake said.

“It doesn't matter.”

But Quinn left it alone for the rest of the flight. He read the airline magazine cover to cover and finished the crossword, driving Shake crazy.

In the cab from the airport, Shake finally had enough. “Let's hear it,” he said.

“Hear what?” Quinn said. Innocent.

“Let's get it over with.”

“It's just my experience,” Quinn said carefully, “but you need a clear head. The kind of angle we're working here.”

“My head is clear.”

“I never said it wasn't.”

“I know what I'm doing.”

“I've made the mistake myself, I'll be the first to admit it. Letting emotions cloud my judgment at a critical juncture in time. Putting myself in a position where I might potentially run that risk.”

“It's a deal breaker,” Shake said. “Either she's in or I'm out.”

Quinn held up his palms. “She's always been in. Did I ever suggest otherwise?”

The cab sluiced through the drowned streets of the Outer Mission. Shake hadn't been to San Francisco in ten, fifteen years, but he remembered these hills. He remembered trying to drive a stick on these hills, in the rain. It wasn't much fun, not when you were trying to clear out after a bank job without attracting attention.

He didn't know what he was going to say to Gina when he saw her. He wondered if he'd be able to say anything at all.

“I'm fine working with amateurs,” Quinn said. “Some people aren't, but I'm fine with it.”

“She's no amateur,” Shake said.

“Like I said.”

“First time we met, she'd just knocked off the meanest bastard in Vegas for three hundred grand. She made me think she was a Mormon housewife, drugged me, robbed me, and left me locked to a pipe in a hotel bathroom. And I still ended up falling for her.”

Quinn brightened. “I like her already.”

“So, no, she's no amateur.”

The cabdriver turned onto a block lined with old commercial buildings—auto-parts wholesalers and offset print shops—that had been converted to office space. He pulled to the curb in front of the last building before the street hit a dead end. Shake could just make out the faded paint on the grimy brick:
O'CONNOR INDUSTRIAL CLEANING.

Quinn started to unbuckle his seat belt. Shake stopped him.

“What? I don't get to meet her?”

“Not now.”

“Shake. Chef.”

“No.” Shake tapped the cabdriver on the shoulder. “What's the closest hotel?”

“I'll let you take the lead,” Quinn said. “I'll be the soul of discretion.”

“There's a Hilton on Guerrero,” the cabdriver said.

“Go there,” Shake told Quinn. “I'll meet you in a couple of hours.”

Quinn frowned, but clipped his seat belt back on. Shake got out of the cab and ducked under the overhang. He waited until the cab turned around and went sluicing off in the rain.

There was a small brass plaque bolted to the side of the building. It read:
TWO BIRDS INVESTMENT GROUP
.

The door was tinted glass. Shake checked out his reflection. He looked okay. He'd showered and shaved before they left Chetumal. At the airport in Cancún he'd bought a new shirt, a nice pair of jeans, shoes.

His plan, in its early stages back in Mexico, had been to use Quinn's scheme as an excuse to see Gina again. To entice her with it. Most women were happy if you brought them flowers or chocolate. Gina, of course, wasn't most women. Shake thought he'd show up with something more her style, something tricky and dangerous and fun.

Now that he was actually here, though, he was having second thoughts. Third and fourth thoughts. He'd assured Quinn he knew what he was doing, but really, when it came to Gina, Shake had no fucking idea. He never had.

Shake took a breath, pulled the door open, stepped inside. A receptionist was sitting at a desk. Behind her was a big open space, the entire interior of the building, with skylights, wrought-iron columns, nice wood floors. A dozen people, maybe more, at high-tech workstations.

“Hi,” the receptionist said. “Can I help you?”

Shake didn't know what he'd been expecting. Not this.

“Gina Clement?” he said.

The receptionist was young and pretty and wore stylish glasses that she probably didn't need.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

Shake was surprised again. He shook his head.

The receptionist pursed her lips in a sympathetic way. “May I ask what this is about?”

“Just say it's a friend here to see her.”

She waited for Shake to say his name. He didn't. The receptionist pursed her lips in a less sympathetic way and murmured something into her headset. She waited, murmured again.

“It'll be a few minutes,” she said, and motioned Shake over to a leather sofa.

Shake sat down. At the far end of the office a group of people in suits were gathered around a giant plasma screen, somber and nodding.

May I ask what this is about?

Shake had the same question. Was Gina working an angle? The place looked legit, and definitely overkill for your typical long con. The only thing he could think was that maybe she was putting together the pieces for an inside score.

A young guy with spiky hair came over. “Hey, bro,” he said.

Shake looked at him. “Hey,” he said. “Bro.”

“I'm Brady, Gina's assistant. Sorry, bro, she's totally jammed up today, back to back to back. But let's get something on the books?”

The meeting around the plasma screen started to break up. Two of the guys moved away and Shake saw Gina standing at the front of the group. Listening to two other guys and making them nod with whatever she said back.

It had been more than two years since Shake had seen her. Her hair was a darker blond now, and cut shorter, with bangs. She wore a tailored navy business suit and a white blouse open at the throat. Her shoes had heels, but they were barely an inch high.

The way she held herself seemed different too. Straighter, tenser, less cock to her hip.

For all that, though, she was still Gina. The strong-minded nose, dusted with freckles. The smile that managed somehow to be both wholesome and sly.

And she was still a knockout. Maybe even more so than Shake remembered, though he didn't know how that could be possible.

She glanced over and saw him. Shake thought her expression might have flickered with surprise, but she had it back together before he could tell for sure.

As Gina walked over, Shake finally placed the song that had been playing in the background when he called Jasper in Vegas. The song had been “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” but the girl singing it had been singing in French.

“Shake,” Gina said when she got there. “What a surprise.”

Her smile was easy, pleasant. She held out her hand and Shake took it. What was he supposed to do with her hand? He held it for a second and then let go.

“Brady,” she said. “Can you push back my lunch?”

“But, Gina,” he said.

“I know. But I think I can spare ten minutes for an old buddy.”

Brady gave a huff and a puff for Shake's benefit, then left.

“So,” Gina said. “Wow.”

“Not that old a buddy,” Shake said. Testing the waters. Seeing if she'd make her usual crack about their age difference. She'd never missed an opportunity.

“You know what I mean,” she said with a light laugh. “How have you been?”

Shake frowned. The laugh seemed genuine, the eyes matching it, but this was Gina after all. She could do genuine in her sleep.

Her eyes. A deep, clear, underwater green. Shake felt himself sinking.

“I don't mean to step on your action,” he said. “Just showing up like this.”

“My action?”

“All this is legit?”

“Venture investment,” she said. “I couldn't decide the one place I wanted to put my money, so I started a company where I could put it lots of places.”

“It was a lot of money.” Testing her again. Half the money she was talking about, their score from Panama, had been his.

Again, though, no reaction. She just kept smiling pleasantly.

“Can we go somewhere?” he said. “Talk in private?”

“Why don't we?”

She led him up a set of cast-iron stairs to an enclosed loft area at the back of the building. Her office had a spectacular view, looking out over the bay.

She closed the door behind them and crossed to her desk. He followed her over.

“I missed you,” he said.

He didn't know where that had come from. He'd been planning to say something else completely, about how spectacular the view of the bay was.

She turned back to him and smiled. A spark of light on metal caught his eye and he saw she'd picked a letter opener up off the desk.

“Oh,” she said. “You're so sweet.”

“Wait,” Shake said. “Shit.”

Chapter 25

H
er mistake, Gina realized, was trying to stab him in the face. He was six inches taller than she was, and the extra distance the letter opener had to travel gave him a split second to grab her wrist and twist it away.

“I should have gone for the stomach,” she said.

“Gina,” he said.

“And then the face next. Don't you think?”

She aimed the heel of her Louboutin pump at his foot. He danced out of the way, but she'd been expecting that, knew he'd have to drop her wrist to do it.

His mistake, this time. She stabbed at his stomach.

He danced away again, just barely. The blade of the letter opener ripped his shirt but didn't break the skin. He grabbed her wrist again, and her other wrist this time too. She tried to head-butt him but he pushed her back against the desk and twisted her this way and that, her arms held high. Finally she dropped the letter opener.

“You fucker!” she said. She was so furious it amazed her. Her ears rang and her skin prickled. She thought she'd been furious for the past two years, but that was nothing compared to this. When she'd glanced over and seen him, sitting there on the sofa in reception, it was like someone had stabbed
her
in the stomach. Like they'd cut her open and emptied her out.

“You fucker. You just show up out of the blue?”

“Jasper thought it wasn't the best idea either.”

“Let me go. I'm calm now.”

He tightened his grip on her wrists. That grip, still so familiar. Oh, God, she was furious. He was turned to make sure she couldn't knee him in the crotch. She tried anyway.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I was sorry the minute it happened.”

“It?”

“Gina.”

“Like you were in the audience? Just an observer?”

“Gina.”

“You left me a fucking note!”

Until that note, two years ago, Gina had never in her life been dumped. The possibility, to be honest, had never occurred to her. She didn't mean to be snotty, but—why would it ever occur to her? The closest she ever came to getting dumped was when a man proposed marriage on the second date, not the first.

That Shake might dump her, Shake of all guys, with a note, and then just disappear—it still seemed so stupidly inconceivable she wanted to laugh.

“Let me explain,” he said.

“You don't have the right to explain.”

“It was the biggest mistake I've ever made.”

“The note? Or dumping me? I just want to be clear.”

“Both. All of it.”

They had been living together in Santa Monica. A cute little Craftsman bungalow just north of Montana Avenue, seven blocks from the beach. Every evening at sunset they strolled down to the Palisades to watch the sun set.

And then one morning she woke up and went to make coffee. Wondering, in only the most fleeting of ways, where Shake was. Thinking that maybe he'd driven out to Pasadena for a farmers' market. He did that a lot, coming home with fresh strawberries or designer garlic, grabbing her from behind and kissing her neck.

Instead she found the note on the kitchen table. The note said he was sorry, he had to go, he loved her. Terse, like one of the bad Bruce Springsteen songs he liked. Like he was checking items off a fucking list. He'd given her the number and password for the account in the Bahamas where he kept his half of the Panama score, three million bucks. She was sure he considered that the most gentlemanly of gestures.

“Did it make you feel all warm and fuzzy and noble?” she said. “Giving me the money that was really mine to start with?”

“I was scared you might leave me,” he said.

She stared at him.
“What?”

“Sooner or later. I thought it was just a matter of time.”

She kept staring. “You thought I might leave you. That's why you dumped me?”

“Take it easy.”

“Okay,” she said, and tried again to head-butt him.

“The other kind of easy.”

She tried again to knee him in the crotch.

“Walking away from you was the biggest mistake of my life,” he said.

“Let me have that letter opener back and we'll make sure it was.”

That made him smile. Which, even furious as she was, almost made her smile too.

“You fucker.”

“Consider the mistakes I've made in my life,” he said. “You should be impressed.”

“You can let me go now.”

He let go of her wrists, no hesitation, he knew her that well. The bastard.

She went over and sat down on the sofa next to the big picture window. She smoothed out her skirt. “So,” she said brightly. “What's new with you?” Because she refused to give him the satisfaction, if she could help it, of seeing her so furious.

“Stop doing that,” he said. He touched his side, where the letter opener had torn his shirt, and winced. Gina was hopeful that maybe she'd punctured something after all.

“Did I get you?”

“No. My ribs have had a long week.”

“Stop doing what?” She gave him an even brighter smile.

He walked over to the desk chair, wincing, and eased himself into it. She started to ask if he needed a walker, a fella his age, but stopped herself.

“You don't really want to kill me,” he said.

“No. Of course not. I want an expert to do it. You think Jasper might come out of retirement for one last hurrah?”

“I tried calling you, Gina. You know how many times I tried calling you?”

“Why are you here, Shake?” She felt tired, suddenly. Hollow.

She watched him think. She remembered how much she used to love watching him think, always taking his time. She turned her head and looked out the window at the bay.

“I've got a job lined up.”

“A job.”

“I thought you might be interested.”

“In a job. With you.”

“Six million, split four ways. In Cairo.”

“Cairo?”

“In Egypt.”

“I know where Cairo is, dumb-ass.”

She gazed out at a freighter moving toward the port in Oakland. The water was almost the same pale gray as the sky, hardly any seam at all between them.

“Why would I want to do a job with you in Cairo? For—a million and a half? Have you looked around this place? My place? Does it look like I need to do a job for a million and a half?”

“It'll be tricky and dangerous,” he said. “It'll be fun.”

Gina turned back to him. She couldn't believe it.

“Really?” she said. “That's what you thought would work on me?”

“I don't know what I thought.”

“You're such an idiot.”

“That's been established.”

He smiled, crooked. His eyes were warm and wry and clear. She wanted to walk across the office and kiss him. Just to see how it felt, if it would feel the same. But she knew it wouldn't feel the same.

“You had no right coming here.”

“I know.”

They sat there in silence for a minute. The rain had eased up a little and the office was washed in a pearly gray light.

“I'm not going to Egypt with you,” she said. “Or anywhere. You understand that, right, even though you're an idiot?”

He nodded. She hated that about him. She loved it.

Gina smoothed her skirt and stood up. “Okeydokey,” she said. “It's been great catching up. See you at the next class reunion?”

He stood up too, slowly. Brady knocked on the door. Perfect timing.

“Coming, Brady,” she called.

But then the door opened and she was surprised to see it wasn't Brady. It was an old guy in khakis and a cream-colored polo shirt, tan and tall and handsome, with waves of perfect white hair.

Gina had no idea who the old guy was, but he grinned at her like he'd known her his entire life.

“There she is!” he said.