by Lou Berney
“Count on it,” Gina said. She followed Shake out the door. Halfway down the stairs, Shake could still hear Marvin kicking the walls of his room.
Chapter 34
They covered three of the shops on their list in an hour. Shake was surprised there was such a big market for antiques. Or rather, as he’d been corrected by the owner of one such shop, a haughty middle-aged woman with the profile and manner of a Roman emperor, “antiquities.”
They hit the fourth one just before it closed for the day.
“Buenos tardes,” Shake told the shop clerk, a girl in her late twenties with hair corkscrewing in every different direction and enough metal bracelets to sink a ship. Or build one. A small, pale scar parted her upper lip, which made her even more attractive than she already was.
“How may I help?” she asked.
“We’ll take one of you to go,” Gina said with a wink.
The girl smiled back, confused.
“We’re just browsing,” Shake explained.
“I will bring the proprietor to you,” the girl said.
Shake and Gina moseyed over to the nearest glass case. Inside, on a bed of crushed crimson velvet, were several necklaces that even Shake could appreciate as beautifully crafted and seriously old.
A courtly guy with a rakish black mustache had glided noiselessly over to join them at the counter.
“The French,” he said, “when they came to build the canal, there was such enthusiasm, such certainty of success, they brought their families with them, all their most prized possessions.” He touched one long, reverent finger to the glass of the case. “Alas.”
“The French?” Shake asked. He had been under the impression it was the Americans who built the Panama Canal. Then again, he also hadn’t known the difference between antiques and antiquities, and had thought that some guy in London owned the real Holy Grail.
“You have not yet seen the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps? It is a fascinating story.”
The rakishly courtly guy introduced himself—Antonio Cornejo, proprietor—and told them the story. How it was the French who started the canal in the 1870s, with grand plans based on even grander delusions. De Lesseps was the charismatic entrepreneur who’d built the Suez Canal a decade earlier. But the Egyptian desert had been flat and dry, and the Panamanian jungle, the Panamanian mountains, were definitely not that. Malaria and yellow fever killed tens of thousands of canal workers. The French company bled money, then went bust, which caused a national financial panic, ruined thousands of small investors, and brought down the government. Later on, it was discovered that de Lesseps’s canal company had spent massive amounts of money to bribe newspapers for favorable editorials and pay off high-ranking government officials. In the end, the French didn’t finish even a tenth of the canal they’d set out to cut.
Give it up to the French, though. A couple of decades later, it was another charismatic French hustler, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who convinced Teddy Roosevelt and the Americans to forget about the canal they were planning to build in Nicaragua and pick up where the French had left off. Bunau-Varilla arranged for the Americans to buy what remained of the French canal company. In which, just a coincidence, he happened to own a shitload of stock.
“Mais oui,” Gina said, and Shake remembered she could speak French. He didn’t want to guess what other hidden talents she had.
He remembered what she’d looked like last night, sliding the strap of that green dress off her shoulder.
“Your American Congress had been fixed on Nicaragua,” Cornejo said, “but Bunau-Varilla frightened them with the prospect, in that land, of erupting volcanoes. He gave each congressman a postage stamp of the time, from Nicaragua, to illustrate his thesis.”
“There was a picture of a volcano on the stamp?” Shake guessed.
Cornejo nodded and led them to another glass case. He pointed to the very stamp.
“A beautiful addition to any collection,” he said.
“Actually,” Shake said, “we’re not interested in stamps.”
“We’re interested in something like that.” Gina pointed to an old rosary coiled on the velvet. Set into the center of the cross was a small glass bubble. Inside the small glass bubble was a tiny pale splinter of what appeared to be bone.
“Mais oui,” Cornejo said. He started to unlock the case. “The young lady has exquisite taste.”
“It’d go great with our foreskins,” Gina said. Cornejo stopped moving. Shake could hear him breathing.
“I thought we were gonna sell those damn things, buttercup,” Shake said.
“Foreskins, did you say?” Cornejo asked.
“Just some silly old Catholic thing Grandmama left us when she passed on. Back in Belgium? They’re supposed to be quite old, but who knows?”
“We’d like to find a home for them,” Shake explained, “but that’s hard to do without a good broker, you know.”
Cornejo smoothed his tie. He’d forgotten all about trying to sell them that rosary or anything else.
“You must,” he said, “entrust only a gentleman in such matters, where discretion is of the utmost importance.”
“We’re at the Bradley Hotel,” Shake said. “Mr. and Mrs. Boxman. You’ll give us a call if you hear of anything?”
“Most certainly,” Cornejo murmured, distracted by the effort, Shake suspected, of calculating the commission on a $5-million deal.
Chapter 35
It was dark by the time they left Cornejo’s shop and began the stroll back to their hotel. The streets were crowded. Salsa pumped from jerry-rigged PA systems on the balconies and Carnaval revelers were out in force, drinking and dancing and laughing. A lot of people were in costume—homemade devil masks were popular, as were feathers and tropical wraps dyed vibrant shades of crimson, indigo, sunshine yellow. Everyone seemed local, and every five feet or so, someone stopped Shake and Gina to offer them a beer or a dance or a greasy paper plate of tapas. Shake compared this to what the Mardi Gras back in his hometown of New Orleans had become—drunk out-of-town idiots flashing their tits at other drunk out-of-town idiots—and did not find it lacking.
“This is nice,” Gina said. “It feels real.”
It was like she’d read his mind. Shake hoped she couldn’t really read minds, or he was in over his head for sure.
Yes, I know, he acknowledged wearily to himself. When it came to Gina, he knew he was already in over his head.
“Look.” Gina pointed to the full moon floating over the water.
“Blue moon,” Shake said.
“It’s yellow.”
“Second full moon of the month,” he explained. “Very rare.”
She slipped her arm through his. “What are the odds?” she said.
“Long,” he admitted. “You can’t have two full moons in February, not even a leap year.”
“I was talking about us.”
“Maybe even longer than that. I’m not sure.”
She smiled. “Maybe there are forces bigger than us at work here.”
Before Shake could answer, a guy pushing through the crowd, moving fast in the opposite direction, bumped hard into him.
“Sorry,” Shake said, because he was smart enough, in situations like this, to avoid confrontations with bumpers who outweighed him, as this guy did, by a hundred pounds or so.
Shake continued on for several steps then stopped. Wondered. Turned.
The guy who outweighed him by a hundred pounds had stopped, too. Had wondered. Was turning.
The guy who outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Who had a bald head shaped like a bullet. Who had a face like a bullet flattened against a concrete wall.
Dikran.
He and Shake stared at each other. With a disbelief, Shake guessed, that was mutually profound.
Then Dikran pulled a gun tucked against the small of his back. Shake grabbed Gina, who was eating a tapa and dancing with a devil.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A force bigger t
han us,” Shake said.
SHAKE LIKED THAT, THAT GINA didn’t have to be told an important thing twice. Run. They ran. The heavy crowd slowed them down, but Shake knew it would slow down Dikran—larger, less nimble—even more.
Unless, of course, he decided just to bulldoze right through the Carnaval revelers, slamming them aside. Which was exactly what, Shake confirmed with a glance over his shoulder when he heard the alarmed shouting start, Dikran was doing.
He didn’t think Dikran would open fire on a crowded street. Not because he’d be afraid of accidentally hitting innocent bystanders, but because he’d be afraid of accidentally killing Shake before he had a chance to go to work on Shake with a pair of needle-nose pliers and a quart of drain cleaner.
“Run faster,” Shake told Gina.
They cut down another crowded street. Dikran was about fifty feet behind them. He wasn’t gaining, but they weren’t losing him either. They reached the corner and turned onto a wide avenue. But fuck, there was no way to cross it. A Carnaval parade was in full swing, inching down the avenue—homemade floats on the backs of flatbed trucks, strutting salsa bands, platoons of dancing marchers in matching costumes. Shake pulled Gina up the avenue, trying to find a gap in the action they might be able to dart through.
Dikran rounded the corner and spotted them.
“Come on,” Shake said. They plunged into the middle of the parade, into the middle of what seemed like a fifty-piece salsa band. Spinning, gyrating, knocking Shake sideways. He ducked, squeezed, turned, got pressed between two musicians playing instruments he didn’t recognize. Almost got impaled by one of those instruments. Shake spun to avoid that fate and collided with a tall, salsa-dancing woman in an even taller, teetering, flame-red turban. This was the group following the musicians: an entire battalion of tall, salsa-dancing women in turbans. The first turban woman shoved Shake playfully aside, into another turban woman who grabbed him and swung him around. A third turban woman joined the fun and started grinding Shake from behind.
He’d lost Gina. He’d lost Dikran. Shake didn’t even know exactly what direction he was facing. In the madness he spotted Gina’s hand and grabbed it, pulled her finally out of the parade and across the avenue.
The far side of it, thank the lucky blue moon that really wasn’t one. Shake, no time to look behind him for Dikran, pulled Gina toward a diablo rojo, a few yards down the side street, that had just lurched to a stop. The bus was painted purple and green and orange, with a bus-length portrait of what appeared to be a man in pinstripe pajamas backstroking through a sea of baseballs.
Shake wondered if he’d feel Dikran’s bullet before it blew his brains out.
“Really run now,” he said.
He dragged Gina behind him up the steps of the bus just before the doors creaked shut.
Shake looked out the window as the bus pulled away. Dikran was only a few yards behind. He lumbered after the bus—for longer, and at a faster clip, than Shake would have thought possible. Then the bus picked up speed, and the giant bald bullet head fell bobbing behind. Just before the bus rounded a corner, Shake saw Dikran slow, wobble over to the curb, bend over with the gun against his knee, and puke from exhaustion.
Shake bent over, too, with exhaustion and relief.
“What are the odds?” he said, and turned to Gina.
It wasn’t Gina. Shake discovered that the hand he’d been holding belonged to a tall woman in an even taller turban.
And she wasn’t a woman. She—he—was a man, a young guy in a dress and expertly applied makeup.
Shake had thought, now that he considered it, that the members of the turban battalion had seemed awfully tall.
“Hola,” the turbaned transvestite said warily.
Shake checked the leather day pack slung over his shoulder. It was unzipped. Empty.
Gina was gone, and so were, no coincidence, $5 million worth of foreskins.
“I don’t believe this,” Shake said, though he knew he really should have.
“You speak English?” the turbaned transvestite said. “I speak English, too. I know! I don’t believe this either. It is maybe like fate, yes?”
Shake noticed that the turbaned transvestite was holding a straight razor in one hand.
He saw Shake looking at the straight razor and quickly tucked it away into the folds of his dress. He shrugged an embarrassed apology.
“One can’t be too careful, no?” he said.
“No,” Shake agreed.
THE TRANSVESTITE IN THE TURBAN, who’d introduced himself as Ramón, pointed out the stop that Shake wanted. Up ahead.
“Thanks,” Shake told him. “Sorry about the mix-up.”
“No problem,” Ramón said. “But still, if you need a place to stay tonight …”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got an empty hotel room waiting for me,” Shake said.
Ramón nodded wisely. “This chica of yours, she sounds … how do you say? Like a trouble with a capital T?”
He handed Shake a flask. Shake took a swallow. Rum. Pretty strong stuff.
“You could say that,” he said.
Ramón nodded wisely again. “But she is worth it, yes?”
Shake took another long draw from the flask and didn’t answer.
Chapter 36
The desk clerk recognized Shake when he returned to the hotel.
“Buenas noches, Señor Boxman,” he said.
Shake paused on his way to the elevator.
“Any messages?” he asked. “From Señora Boxman?”
The desk clerk looked puzzled. “No, sir, I am afraid not.”
Shake crossed to the elevator and took it upstairs. He unlocked the door to the room, stepped inside, looked around.
Both beds were empty. The chair by the door was empty. The other chair was empty. There was no one on the balcony. The full moonlight from the windows was bright enough so he could see what he needed to see; he didn’t even bother turning the lights on.
“Gina?” he called.
There was no answer. Shake hadn’t expected one.
He let the empty leather day pack slide from his shoulder onto the floor and dropped worn out into the chair by the door. But he stood up again right away, because he wasn’t in the mood, right now, to be reminded of what almost happened in this same chair last night.
Then he heard what sounded like the soft thrum of running water.
He turned and saw, beneath the closed bathroom door, a thin ribbon of light.
The bathroom door was unlocked. He pushed it open and saw Gina in the big antique claw-foot tub, up to her neck in bubbles. She was sipping from a can of Diet Coke.
“Surprised to see me?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” he lied.
“I figured it was smarter to split up in case one of us got pinch-arooed.” She tapped her temple with the lip of the Coke can. “Always thinking.”
Shake crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious, how happy he was to see her. He hoped as well it wasn’t too obvious that he was also considering, seriously, dragging her out of that tub, tying her up with the phone cord, and calling Lexy to tell her where to find her.
“And you thought the foreskins would be safer with you, of course.”
“If I’m gonna screw you over, Shake, I’m gonna wait till we have the cash.”
“I’m useful for the time being.”
She blew some bubbles his way. “You’re earning your keep so far.”
“So where are the foreskins?”
She pointed behind him. He turned. The padded envelope sat on a stack of towels, on the counter next to the sink.
“You realize,” Shake said, “I could take those right now, walk out the door, disappear forever, and you’d have absolutely no foundation for complaint?”
“But if you did that, you wouldn’t be able to come take a bath with me, then, would you?”
He considered. She smiled.
“Your choice,” she said.
/>
He wanted to make her wonder about the outcome for a minute, but who was he fooling? He started taking his clothes off.
“I’m so glad,” she said, “you picked curtain number two.”
“The foreskins aren’t even in the envelope anymore, are they?”
She smiled, and he slid into the tub with her. He kissed her, then kissed her again. The second time their front teeth clicked together hard.
“They’re under the bed,” she said, just before he kissed her a third time. “I’m not a total moron.”
THEY DIDN’T ATTEMPT SEX IN THE TUB— they’d both been around the block enough times to know that would be better in romantic theory than actual practice. So they dried off in a hurry and headed for her bed, the one by the window. They made it only as far as his bed, the closer one, and barely there.
The first time was nice but unspectacular, rushed and awkward, like a handshake with someone you don’t know if you should be hugging instead. Or vice versa.
“Sheesh!” Gina said when she rolled off him. “Is that the best we can do, you think?”
He rested for a few minutes and then they did it again.
The second time lasted a lot longer. It was not unspectacular.
THE SOFT PINK GLOW OF SUNRISE spreading over her woke Gina. They were in her bed by the window. She didn’t remember exactly how they’d gotten from Shake’s bed to hers. She didn’t remember at all how she’d ended up with four small dark bruises on her inner thigh, like fingerprints. Oh, well. Never mind. She sighed happily. She remembered.
She wanted a cigarette, but her pack was on the dresser, a mile away, and she was too lazy. It felt too nice just to lie here with her head on Shake’s shoulder, one of her cheeks warm against his skin and the other early-morning cool.
“You awake?” she asked.
“Mmmm,” he said, drowsy.
“You’re an old guy, I know. You need your rest.”
“I need my rest after last night. That’s for sure.”
“Do you think he’ll call?” she asked.
She felt his chest shift a little under her cheek.
