Whiplash River (23 page)

“She'll consent if I tell her to.”

“I think you're foggy on the concept. Hey,” Gina said to the girl. “Whatever he's paying you, it's not enough.”

The girl said something back to Gina in a Slavic language, not friendly.

Devane smiled. “You know what she called you?”

“I can guess.”

Devane said something Slavic to the girl. The girl glared at Gina, fished her hand out of Devane's pajama pants, and stood up. She took her time shrugging on a red silk kimono. Hervé Léger, Gina guessed. What was it with Russian girls and Hervé Léger? The girl walked into the cabin, taking her time.

“She called you what you think she called you,” Devane said, “but an even nastier version of it. Leave it to the Russians, how many different versions of it they have.”

“So who are you, anyway?” Gina said. She was genuinely curious, how a douche bag like Devane had ended up dealing stolen antiquities.

He smiled again. “You're thinking I look like a spoiled rich kid.”

“Educate me.”

“I was a spoiled rich kid. You should have seen me in high school. I got kicked out of three different high schools. Drugs and girls and—other things. The last time, senior year, Dear Old Dad thought a change of scenery would behoove me. So he sent me to live with a college chum of his in Paris. A professor at the Sorbonne who, interestingly, had a town house in the Marais that no professor should have been able to afford. Imagine that.”

“Dad's college chum was a dealer in black-market antiquities. You learned the business from him.”

“Learned it? I
took
it.
Tout le kit.
The old fart didn't know what he had, the potential. He didn't have the stomach to make real money. He did look the part, you would have liked that. The tweed jacket, the pipe. But not my style.”

Gina didn't need to ask what had happened to the old fart. She suddenly wanted this conversation to be over.

“Mr. Ziegler would like to examine the merchandise you have for sale,” she said.

Devane's smile shifted just a little. “Ziegler? That's the mute's name you work for?”

“He loves it when you call him that.”

“Roland Ziegler?”

“Does tomorrow work?”

“Roland Ziegler.”

“At a time and place of your choosing, of course.”

“I heard Ziegler got locked up again.”

“He did.” She smiled. He studied her. “You've got the number I called you from,” Gina said. “If you want to pursue this opportunity, let me know.”

She turned to go.

“Wait,” Devane said.

“What?”

“You better not play with me,” Devane said. “I know all the plays.”

“I'm sure you do,” Gina said.

 

SHAKE TRIED CALLING GINA BUT
she didn't answer. He and Quinn ate lunch at a little restaurant on a hill overlooking the city. Shake counted two dozen minarets before he stopped.

Hummus, two different kinds of kebabs, french fries. Some kind of glop made from beans, onions, tomatoes, and chickpeas. Not bad, but come on. Shake promised himself that the next time he got tangled up in a hopelessly tangled scheme, he would do it in Italy, or maybe Thailand.

Gina phoned back during dessert, some kind of custard with cinnamon. Shake told her about their conversation with Mahmoud. “Now it's just wait and see,” he said.

“Same here,” she said, and told him about her meeting with Devane.

Shake asked where she was. She told him she was at the hotel spa and planned to spend the rest of the day there.

Was she really at the hotel spa?

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “How can I put your mind at ease? Oh. Mmm.”

“What?”

“Mmm. That feels good.”

“What does?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Let's have a romantic dinner together tonight.”

“So you can torture me some more.”

“Okay.”

“Fine.”

“Nine o'clock in the lobby.”

“Can we find someplace with Italian food? Or Thai?”

“You can have whatever you want. Even me. No, wait. Except me. No, wait.”

“I love you,” Shake said.

She didn't answer. He waited. She still didn't answer.

“Did I mention that Mahmoud lives in a tomb?” he said.

“Of course he does. See you at nine.”

She hung up. Shake and Quinn finished lunch and took a cab back to the hotel. Shake went to his room and fell asleep watching CNN. He didn't wake up until after seven.

At nine he took the elevator downstairs and found his spot on the red velvet couch. He leaned back and closed his eyes and listened to two oil sheikhs chattering excitedly in Arabic. One of them must have just won big at the casino. You didn't need to speak the language to guess that.

A second later he felt someone sit down next to him. Shake caught a whiff of perfume. Gina didn't wear perfume, and this—delicate, expensive—wasn't the kind of perfume a Ukrainian hooker would wear.

He opened his eyes. Sitting next to him was the woman from Belize, the mysterious dark-haired woman with the amazing smile who had saved his life on the beach.

She gave him the amazing smile. The lights in the lobby dimmed.

“So,” she said, “what's a shithead like you doing in a place like this?”

Chapter 35

S
hake was so surprised to see Evelyn that his jaw dropped. Just a little, but still. How often did you actually see that? Someone's jaw dropping with surprise? Evelyn didn't think she'd ever seen it. She was delighted.

She'd arrived in Cairo yesterday and picked up his trail this morning. Easy. He was registered at the hotel under the name on his fake passport. Probably he thought no one knew about the fake passport. Probably he thought that no one, even if they knew about the passport, would ever be crazy enough to follow him to Egypt.

Surprise!

Evelyn had tailed Shake and the old guy, Quinn, when the two of them took a cab from the hotel to a slum in the city center. Evelyn had a great private driver that her hotel had hooked her up with, an enthusiastic Egyptian named Mohammed. Mohammed thought it was a blast, playing cops and robbers. A couple of times he was a little too enthusiastic and they almost blew the tail. But Cairo—the traffic, the general chaos—had to be the easiest city in the world to not blow a tail.

Evelyn and Mohammed had tailed Shake and Quinn to lunch and then back to the hotel. Evelyn had waited, waited, waited. She wanted to pick the absolute perfect moment to catch Shake off guard.

And she had, judging by the dropped jaw and the sustained speechlessness on his part.

Well, he had a lot to process.

Who is this woman?

Why is she here?

Did she just call me a shithead?

Whoever she is, she's even cuter than I remember, isn't she?

Well, maybe that last one was a bit of wishful thinking. Evelyn knew she wasn't at her absolute cutest. Who would be, after flying coach across six or seven time zones?

He cleaned up pretty well. In a suit! No tie, white shirt untucked, as seemed to be the style here in Cairo.

She kept smiling. She wondered which of his many questions he'd hit her with first.

He surprised her by not asking a question at all.

“You know,” he said, “I thought all along you might be a cop. My original thought, back in Belize that first day, I thought your dad or brothers might be cops, and you picked up the demeanor from them.”

“That's totally sexist,” she said.

He smiled, wry. Evelyn couldn't believe how cool, after that first little jaw drop, he was able to keep himself.

“Which is it?” he said.

“My dad,” she said. “Seattle PD. One of my brothers too.”

“It's kind of a watchful demeanor I noticed you had.”

“Like a professional wheelman might have too?”

“I did my bid. Three years. I'm a free man.”

She laughed. A free man. He was a riot.

He knew why she was laughing and sighed.

“Did you call me a shithead earlier?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I'd appreciate it if you called me Shake.”

“How about Charles? Charlie?”

“That's fine. Charlie is. I think the last person who called me Charlie was a cop too.”

“Was he a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

She showed him her creds.

“Impressive,” he said. “Special Agent Evelyn K. Holly.”

“You can keep calling me Evelyn. You're dying to know why I'm here, aren't you, Charlie?”

“I think I prefer Shake. If you don't mind, Evelyn. Charlie makes me feel like I'm ten years old and the parish priest is yelling at me because I nodded off during Mass.”

“A choir boy.”

“Altar boy. Big difference.”

“No doubt. Shake, I'm here because I want to be your friend.”

“I can use all the friends I can get.”

Evelyn laughed again because ninety-nine out of a hundred shitheads, guaranteed, would have tried to lay something tough on her, like Baby Jesus had.
Why you think I need a friend?

“Is that why you ended up with Harrigan Quinn, international man of mystery?”

“Was he really in the CIA? He makes it sound like he was, but I don't know if he's full of shit or not.”

“Who knows? The CIA is surprisingly secretive about their employment records, go figure. Probably he was. If you read between the lines. Hey, by the way, Shake—what are you and Mr. Quinn up to here in Cairo? Just some sightseeing? I'd love to hear the details.”

She saw a faint ripple spread across the pool of his cool. The first ripple. Nice.

“I like your perfume,” he said. “And your smile too, but I think I told you that back in Belize.”

“I don't get tired of hearing it. But it can be hard too. Like in high school, when you're known as the girl with the great smile. Because, excuse me, nice eyes too. Right? And a brain. And come on, please. Has anyone even noticed these legs?”

“What else do you like about yourself? Self-confidence is always attractive in a woman.”

“You should have seen me play drums in an all-girl high school punk band. I was entirely adequate at that.”

“No doubt.”

The danger with a guy like this, Evelyn knew, he could waste your time and you didn't even mind. You enjoyed wasting time with him, and then before you knew it, time was up and you hadn't gotten anywhere.

“I don't mind if you try to charm me, Shake. It's working. I am charmed, totally. But I feel like we've got a star-crossed thing going on here. Like you love the Giants and I'm all about the Dodgers? I just don't see a fairy-tale wedding in our future. Do you? I think we work better as friends.”

He didn't say anything for a second. “Is this about the Armenians in L.A.?”

“Yes. I want you to help me take them down.”

“You followed me all the way to Cairo because you want me to help you take down the Armenians in L.A.?” He laughed, amazed.

“I was on vacation and I was bored,” she said, a little defensively. “I had a ton of frequent-flyer miles. My daughter's the kind of girl who studies for finals the week before finals, so she didn't want to drive up the coast for a mother-daughter getaway.”

“So you followed me to Cairo.”

“You've got everything on the Armenians, Shake. I know you do. If you help me, I can slam them. And then I can help you.”

“Evelyn,” he said. Mildly. “You know I did my full bid at Mule Creek because I wouldn't dime out Lexy Ilandryan?”

“You won't be stupid twice. I can tell you've grown as a human being.”

“Stupid.”

“She tried to have you killed a couple of years ago. That's what I heard.”

“We worked that out. She had her reasons, actually.”

“And I heard that the two of you, before that, were something of an item.”

“It was star-crossed. You know how that goes.”

Evelyn caught him glancing at his watch. He wanted to wrap this up for some reason, probably nefarious. That gave Evelyn the advantage. She could keep this going until he sweated through his shorts.

He'd caught her catching him glancing at his watch.

“How old's your daughter?” he said. Like he had all the time in the world to sit and chat. “What's her name?”

“Seventeen going on thirty-nine. A mature thirty-nine. Sarah.”

“In high school I never studied for finals at all.”

“Neither did I. I have this theory that she might have been switched at birth. Do you want to hear it?”

“I'm not going to dime out the Armenians.”

“Somebody's trying to kill you, Shake.”

“Not the Armenians.”

“Somebody is. I was there, remember? I can help you with that.”

“There's the carrot.”

“What makes you think there's a stick?”

“That's been my experience.”

“The Armenians won't be happy if they find out we're friends.”

“I think three years at Mule Creek buys me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Let me try another one.”

“Another stick.”

“It's your fault. You don't want to hear about my carrots.”

“Whack away.”

“Well, whatever you and the international man of mystery are doing here in Cairo, the Mysterious Mr. Quinn, my hunch is it's sketchy and delicate. My hunch as the daughter of a cop. My hunch, Shake, is it might suck for you if somebody clumsy like me barged around and upset the applecart.”

Another ripple across his cool pool. Nice.

“The watermelon cart.”

“Okay.”

“You don't have jurisdiction here. Even if we were doing something sketchy.”

“Which you're not. Yada yada.”

Evelyn left it at that. He knew, and she knew, that she only needed jurisdiction if she wanted to arrest somebody. She needed no jurisdiction to barge around and ask questions and upset something delicate.

“Is her father in the picture?” he said. “Sarah's?”

“Define ‘father.' Define ‘picture.' Didn't you ever want to settle down?”

“I tried. Somebody blew up my restaurant.”

“I can help you try again.”

“Thanks for saving my life, by the way.”

“My motives were mostly selfish.”

“I'm never gonna dime out Lexy Ilandryan.”

“Give me one good reason why not. Two good reasons.”

He smiled, but then one corner of his smile lost energy. He shifted on the sofa. Evelyn glanced over. The elevator door had opened while they were talking. A woman stood inside, watching them. She was very pretty. Maybe thirty years old, slender, great boots, great bangs. Her boots and her haircut probably cost more, separately, than Evelyn's Subaru.

The woman walked over and looked down at Shake. She looked down at Evelyn, at Evelyn's arm along the back of the sofa behind him. She looked at Shake again.

She was even prettier up close. Howzah. Evelyn felt suddenly self-conscious. She felt too tall, awkwardly jointed, jet-lagged. But she also could tell, Shake shifting around on the sofa, that she'd discovered another one of his pressure points. This woman was it, somehow. Nice.

“Hi,” Evelyn said. She gave the woman a big friendly smile. “Who the fuck are you?”

 

THE MINUTE THE ELEVATOR DOOR
opened, Gina made the tall brunette as a cop. So why, then, was she snuggled up next to Shake on the red velvet sofa? Why—
the fuck
—was he giggling like a schoolboy and mooning all over her?

“Hi,” Gina said. “My name's Gina. You have the prettiest smile!”

“Evelyn. I love your bangs. I can never pull off bangs.”

The brunette cop's face looked to Gina like one designer had started the work but then another designer with a different aesthetic had been brought in to finish up. Asian contemporary over here, American traditional over there. Somehow, improbably, it all worked. Her smile brought it all together.

“Your forehead is wrong for bangs,” Gina said. “It takes a certain kind of forehead.”

“I know!”

Gina couldn't decide if it made her feel better or worse that the cop was at least ten years older than she was. Faint lines around her eyes, the line of her jaw starting to soften. But she still looked great. She was the kind of woman who would still look great at fifty, sixty, forever.

So what—
the fuck
—did it mean that Shake had been mooning over an attractive woman his own age?

Shake was trying to catch Gina's eye. Gina was making a point not to let him.

“So what kind of cop are you?” she said.

The question didn't seem to surprise her, but she waited a while before she answered.

“I'm trying to think of something funny to say but I can't,” the cop said.

“Don't you hate that?” Gina said.

“FBI. I give up.”

“FBI. Neat!”

Gina finally let Shake catch her eye. Now that he had it, he had no idea what to do with it. He gazed off into the distance.

“We've been chatting about the sketchy shit Shake and the Mysterious Mr. Quinn are up to in Cairo. You're not mixed up with them in any sketchy shit, are you? I just know you're not.”

Gina turned to Shake. “You're mixed up in some sketchy shit? How many times have I warned you?”

“Let's go to dinner,” Shake said. He stood up.

“Why don't you join us?” Gina asked the cop. “We'd love it if you joined us.”

Gina thought that Shake was going to have an embolism trying to stay cool. The cop saw it too and laughed.