by R. J. Jagger
“So all this was for nothing?”
Alexandra nodded.
“It was for right now,” she said. “We’re going to have to come back after dark.”
THEY TURNED AROUND and headed back. The man with the binoculars disappeared and they never saw him again. Alexandra said, “A weird thought—maybe he’s not a local after all. Just out of curiosity, who knows that you came to Egypt?”
No one.
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
No.
She didn’t.
Well, wait a minute.
That wasn’t exactly true.
She did tell one person.
“Who’s that?”
Her boss at the law firm.
A man named Yves Petit.
“But I told him not to tell anyone and he said he wouldn’t,” Deja said.
“Yves Petit, huh?”
Deja grunted.
“He’s not involved in anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he isn’t, that’s how.”
Silence.
“Didn’t you say before that the guy who hired the P.I. was a client of the law firm?” Alexandra asked.
Right.
He was.
A man named Nicholas Ringer.
He lives in Nice.
He owns a shipyard.
Ringer Yachts.
“Do Yves Petit and Nicholas Ringer know each other?”
Deja nodded.
“Yves is Ringer’s attorney,” she said. “Why? What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know,” Alexandra said. “I’m seeing something, but it’s too vague to know what.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, Alexandra said, “Maybe Yves Petit put Nicholas Ringer up to hiring the P.I., as a way to keep track of you and, by association, me. And by double association, the treasure. Maybe the guy with the binoculars is Yves Petit’s eyes.”
Deja laughed.
“Everything’s a conspiracy with you. Why is that?”
“Because in this business, everything is a conspiracy, darling.”
Deja wasn’t impressed.
“Yves would never be involved in anything,” she said. “I mean, the man’s getting me into law school, and I didn’t even ask him. That’s the kind of person he is.”
Well, that’s weird.
“Tell me about that,” Alexandra said.
Deja did.
And when she finished, Alexandra said, “Maybe he did that so you’ll be indebted to him. That way you end up talking to him more. You end up telling him things that you might not otherwise.”
That’s nuts.
“You already told him about me and our treasure hunt, right? Or, if not him directly, you told Nicholas Ringer, who obviously talks to him. Yves Petit has a direct line into everything that’s going on.”
Deja was about to protest but didn’t and instead thought about it as they walked.
“You’re thinking about it,” Alexandra said.
True.
She was.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re right,” Deja said.
“It doesn’t mean I’m wrong, either,” Alexandra said. “Tell me about Yves Petit. Who is he, deep down? What else don’t I know?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
DURAND GOT A CALL FROM HIS CLIENT who said to look on page 5 of Tuesday’s paper, because the man pictured there bore a striking resemblance to the man in the sketch that Durand faxed over—the sketch of the man who killed Luc Trickett, the boxer, while Durand hid behind a door upstairs.
Durand ran down a copy of the paper.
His first reaction, when he saw the picture, was that the guy did indeed have a resemblance to the man who shot the boxer. His second reaction was that the guy looked even more like Anton Fornier.
The caveman.
The taxi driver.
The hitman.
He read the story. The man was a suspect in the murder of someone named Tracy White and the disappearance of her roommate, Michelle Berri.
Interesting.
Anton was the kind of guy who could do something like that all day long.
Is it possible that Anton was actually the man Durand saw through the crack in the door at the boxer’s house, but he didn’t recognize him at the time?
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
The man Durand saw that night had seemed familiar in some intangible way. Anton always had a beard, so Durand wouldn’t have recognized him with it gone. The boxer’s death was clearly a hit, and Anton was a hitman. Anton was the right size.
Interesting.
DISTURBING, TOO.
Durand always pictured finding out who the man was who killed the boxer and then anonymously giving the information to the police, if the need arose—which it likely would, since the cops had a witness placing Durand at the murder scene. But now, for that plan to work, Durand would have to give up Anton—a friend; a friend who had just landed him a very lucrative assignment for Blue Moon to be precise.
Durand exhaled.
Nothing was ever easy.
Nothing.
Ever.
Chapter Forty-Six
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
THE FLOATER WAS MISSING ONE HEAD and two hands—they’d been sawed off. A large section of flesh was missing from his left arm. He’d been shot in the upper chest.
“He’s definitely dead,” Teffinger said.
Fallon studied the arm wound.
“That’s not from a prop,” she said.
“Want me to tell you what it’s from?” Teffinger asked.
“Yeah, tell me.”
“What do I get if I do?”
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
“You.”
“You already have me,” she said, “unless you’re talking about me being your sex slave or something like that.”
Teffinger cocked his head.
“I hadn’t thought about it in terms like that,” he said. “But that sounds reasonable.”
She chuckled.
“Okay, you have a deal,” she said. “Now tell me.”
“No reneging,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Tonight,” he said.
“Whenever you want. Now tell me.”
“You’ll notice that this particular person is missing a head and two hands,” Teffinger said.
Right.
She noticed.
“That’s so he can’t be identified,” Teffinger said. “The wound to the arm is there for the same reason. He had a tattoo there, a tattoo that got cut off and thrown away.”
She smiled.
“So what are you going to do to your little sex slave, now that you have one?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “What are my limits?”
None.
Not a one.
“You can even invite your little friend Sophia if you want.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure.”
THEY WORKED UP A GENERAL IDEA of the floater’s height, weight and age, and compared that to missing person reports.
Negative.
Then there wasn’t much more they could do without knowing who he was. Maybe his head would show up tomorrow, although they doubted it. It probably got buried somewhere or bagged up and thrown in a dumpster.
“I have a confession to make,” Fallon said.
“What?”
“I already figured out the tattoo thing before you told me,” she said. Teffinger must have had a look on his face because she added, “Don’t worry, you still won.”
“Good, I’m already making plans.”
“You’re so evil.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Day Five—July 16
Friday Evening
______________
AT SUNSET FRIDAY EVENING, Deja and Alexandra armed themselves with a bottle of wine and hiked down to the Nile where the air was cool and the water was magic. Deja always pictured it as muddy brown and filled with sharp yellow teeth looking for something to chomp on. In reality, it was blue and beautiful and, according to Alexandra, relatively safe in this stretch.
They didn’t bring glasses and passed the bottle.
The alcohol dropped warm and tingly into their stomachs.
Everything softened.
Deja didn’t have to ask what the plan was for tomorrow. They had already talked about it three or four times The plan was that they’d sneak out of the hotel tomorrow morning while it was still dark outside and get to where they were today by the crack of dawn. In other words, they’d walk the whole way they did today, except in the dark.
“Got a question,” Deja said. “How do we see the snakes?”
“We won’t need to,” Alexandra said.
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll see us.”
“Not funny,” Deja said.
“A little funny,” Alexandra said. “Hey, I just thought of something, speaking of snakes—two to one.”
Two to one?
What did that mean?
“That’s the score now,” she said. “I’m going to count that snake thing this afternoon as a save. Now you’ve saved me twice and I’ve saved you once.”
“You still owe me one,” Deja said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of chances to even the score. Maybe tomorrow.”
Enough chitchat.
Was the treasure really there?
Was all this brain damage and body damage worth it?
SO FAR, ALEXANDRA had kept the details sketchy, but now told Deja more. Alexandra was with her parents, eighteen years ago when she was ten, west of the West Valley. At that time, the East Valley was being explored to death because that’s where all the tombs were being found. Alexandra’s parents were the only archeologists straying so far to the west, off the beaten path, way off the beaten path, stupidly way off the beaten path according to everyone who had half a brain.
One day her father—Victor Reed—spotted something strange on the face of a craggy cliff, a considerable ways above the valley floor, twenty meters or more.
It looked like a small opening, possibly the mouth of a cave.
It also looked like someone had tried to hide it by filling the opening with rocks. Because it was wedged into the cliff, between outcroppings on each side, it wasn’t visible from an angle. The only way to see it was to be directly in front of it, look up at that exact moment, and then be alert enough to detect the slight variation in texture between the cliff itself and the smaller rocks that filled the opening, assuming it was an opening because it might also be nothing more than a ledge where falling rocks accumulated.
“Anyway,” Alexandra said, “it was interesting enough that dad wanted to climb up and take a look. He got a third of the way up and got bitten by a viper.”
“You’re kidding,” Deja said.
No she wasn’t.
The area was full of them, even then.
“My mom treated him as good as she could at the scene, then we climbed on the camels and headed back to civilization to get proper medical treatment,” Alexandra said. “He turned out to be fine, with no permanent damage. Unfortunately though, we never ended up back at that particular part of the universe again.”
“So you haven’t been back there in eighteen years?”
“Correct.”
“Do you remember where it was? I mean, you were only ten—”
Alexandra nodded.
“I was already an archeologist,” she said. “A baby one, admittedly, but even then I used to make mental maps of where I was, based on vantage points, rock formations and things like that.”
Interesting.
“Where we turned around today, that was about a half kilometer short of where we were going.”
“So we were almost there.”
Yes.
Almost.
Deja frowned.
“It seems to me that even if it turns out to be a cave, it’s too high up and is too inaccessible. Remember, our theory is that the father took everything there by himself. Maybe he piled everything on a camel or two and made the trip by moonlight. But, even then, how would he get everything up the cliff? Especially a coffin—”
Alexandra chuckled.
“Remember, this happened more than three thousand years ago,” she said. “The cave might very well have been on or very close to the valley floor at that time.” She stood up. “Come on, let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow we either find the treasure or go back to Cairo and try to trace Remy’s footsteps.”
Deja muscled to her feet.
“Snakes,” she said. “It’s almost like they’re guarding the place.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Day Five—July 16
Friday Night
______________
PRARIE THE WAITRESS lived in a tiny apartment within walking distance of the Laughing Hat Café. Durand knocked on her door at eight Friday night with a pounding heart, still not sure where to take her. He had money and she didn’t, that was the problem. If he treated her like a queen, he wouldn’t be sure if she liked him for him or for the good times. On the other hand, he wanted to be someone special to her, which meant someone who didn’t ply her with cheap wine at a dive bar and then slip a hand between her thighs.
She opened the door.
The usual ponytail was gone.
In its place were thick flowing locks.
Behind black glasses, plain eyes now had makeup.
Plain lips were now sultry pink.
The usual tattered jeans had turned into a short white dress.
Her legs were nice, nicer than most in fact.
“I’m in love,” Durand said.
She diverted her eyes.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “I didn’t know if you would.”
Durand smelled wine on her breath and said, “Of course I would.”
“I know that now.”
“So what do you want to do?”
She didn’t care.
Whatever he wanted.
DURAND TOOK HER to a five-star restaurant on Champs-Elysees and spent more money than she made in a week. From there they went to a high-society bar two doors down and drank exotic drinks until the giggles came. Then they walked down the boulevard, soaking in the Arc de Triomphe, the traffic, the bright lights and the Parisian buzz with their arms around each other.
Drunk.
Groping.
Alive.
THEY ENDED UP BY THE SEINE.
Prarie reached under her dress, pulled white cotton panties off and twirled them on her finger in front of Durand’s face. Then she threw them into the river.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“I want to.”
“You sure?”
She scouted around, then took his hand and led him to the darkest place she could find. And there, on the shadowy banks of the Seine under a perfect Paris night, Durand’s life changed.
Just like that.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Morning
______________
LAST NIGHT TURNED OUT TO BE a great big, dinosaur-sized waste of time. Teffinger and Fallon watched the houseboat from the shadows across the river. No one came to stake it out, no one walked past it suspiciously and cast an evil eye in the windows. At one in the morning they gave up, climbed aboard, stuffed the blankets of the main bed with cushions—just in case—and went to sleep in the aft cabin.
Nothing weird happened.
No gunfire shattered the windows.
No firebombs landed on deck.
That was last night.
Now it was morning.
THEY SLEPT UNTIL NINE, jogged and showered. The firs
t pot of coffee was almost gone when Fallon’s phone rang. Teffinger studied the curves of her body as she talked in French and stuck her tongue out at him. She hung up, looked at him and said, “You feel like going to see a head?”
He shrugged.
“Whose?”
“Mr. Floater’s.”
“How do you know it’s his?”
“Because it’s not attached to anything,” she said.
Forty-five minutes later, they pulled up behind several police cars parked on a country road south of Paris. The head had been found in a black plastic bag, fifteen meters off the road, where someone had thrown it into the woods. It got discovered by a man who stopped to water a tree and then wandered over to see what the stench was all about.
The crime unit was already there.
Photographing.
Processing.
They were the same guys who fished the body out yesterday.
The head was still lying on the ground, eerily staring at the sun with open eyes through a rip in the plastic. Fallon moved a flap with a twig to get a better look. A mean pot-marked face with a chipped tooth came into fuller view.
“Cute,” she said.
“Recognize him?” Teffinger asked.
“Yeah. He looks like you before your first pot of coffee.”
While she talked with the crime unit in French, Teffinger walked up the road for a couple hundred meters, then returned and walked in the other direction. Fifty steps later he came to what he thought he might.
He got Fallon and brought her over, not telling her why.
Then he pointed to a second plastic bag in the brush, fifteen meters off the road, a bag with a foul stench. “If you want to shake the guy’s hand for giving you job security, I’m guessing that you can reach inside that bag and do it.”
She looked at him, shocked, and said, “Damn you’re good.”
He chuckled.
“Leave my sexual abilities out of this. We’re at work.”
She punched him on the arm.
“You need to be professional,” he added. “Stay focused on the scene.” Then he got serious. “There are at least two people involved. Someone was driving and someone else was flinging the bags. The flinger was a man, given the distance. Either a man or a woman could have been driving.” A pause. “Or a donkey or a midget, which reminds me of a dream I had last night—”
