Whiplash River

by Lou Berney

  Shake stayed cool. He sat down across from Gina.

  “Harry here was very convincing,” Gina said. “He’s quite a salesman.”

  “Well,” Quinn said. He tilted his head, modest.

  “We were just going over the deal points,” Gina said. “I want half, since I’m the one making the capital investment.”

  “The lady has resources,” Quinn said, “that I don’t have at the moment. I’m not embarrassed to admit it.”

  “So the other half split three ways now,” Shake said.

  “Plenty for everyone,” Quinn said. “No need to get greedy.”

  “What else do you want?” Shake asked her.

  “Whatever I think of, sport,” Gina said. “Whenever I think of it.”

  Shake almost smiled, but he hadn’t forgotten the ring. He felt it all over again, the wave of black nausea that ran over him when Gina first flashed the gold wedding band. He tried to get another look at it now. He did and he didn’t want to get another look at it. Gina’s left hand was under the table.

  “Is that all?” he said.

  “That’s all,” she said. “And a pony. With ribbons in his tail.”

  “This calls for a celebration,” Quinn said. “Why don’t I chase down a bottle of champagne so we can toast the beginning of a long and fruitful association?”

  He got up and headed to the bar. Shake stayed cool. Follow the bubbles. Don’t drown.

  “What about your husband?” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “He won’t mind? You run off to Egypt for a few days?”

  She laughed. And laughed.

  “ ‘He won’t mind?’ ” she said. “ ‘You run off to Egypt for a few days?’ ”

  A pretty good impression of someone trying to be casual but failing miserably.

  She laughed some more.

  Shake grimaced. “You’re not really married.”

  “Don’t you feel stupid?”

  Mostly he felt dizzy with relief, with joy. But also wary. Because he had no idea, not really, why she’d changed her mind about Egypt.

  “Why are you doing this?” he said.

  She stopped laughing.

  “I don’t know,” she said. She gazed off across the bar, serious now. “I don’t forgive you for what you did. But I guess, when I’m honest with myself, I guess I understand it. I just think—I don’t know. I’m not going to promise anything. You know? But if there’s something still there, between us, maybe we should see.”

  She was gazing at him now. Her hand was on the table, almost touching his but not quite.

  “Maybe we should see if there’s something still there,” she said.

  It was perfect. Shake wanted to believe it. He would have believed it, if he didn’t know her so well.

  “So I guess that’s why I’m doing this,” she said. “If you want the truth.”

  Oh, shit, he thought.

  Quinn returned to the table with a bottle of champagne and three glasses.

  “So what did I miss?” he said.

  Chapter 28

  Evelyn had been back in L.A. for less than twenty-four hours and already she was bored out of her skull. And still facing a full week of vacation that Mike, her ASAC, had suggested she take. Suggested as in, “Take it or I’ll give you beach time right here and now, after all the shit you pulled in goddamn Belize.”

  Irony: beach time was what the Bureau called getting suspended.

  Lucky for Evelyn, all the shit she pulled in goddamn Belize had ended happily. First she personally busted drug lord Walter “Baby Jesus” Jenkins in the act of multiple criminal transgressions, and then she put the screws to him.

  DEA hadn’t wanted to let her take a crack at him, but Cory talked them into it. He knew how good she was.

  “Walter,” she said.

  “What.” He sat across the table from her, handcuffed and pouting. They’d been at it, back and forth, for a couple of hours. Evelyn wanted Baby Jesus to think he was grinding her down.

  “I just want to be your friend, Walter.”

  “Why you think I need a friend?”

  “Because maybe you do.”

  “Go to the devil!”

  Evelyn caught a flash of triumph in his eyes and could tell he was feeling better about himself. He was no longer embarrassed that he’d been busted by a lone FBI agent, a lone female FBI agent. No, now he was grinding that bitch down and telling her where she could go!

  Evelyn sighed and pretended defeat. She gathered her notes and stood up. “Okay, Walter, you win. Have fun in Colorado.”

  She reached for the door handle and Baby Jesus said, “Wait.” She turned around. He was staring at her. “What do you mean? Colorado?”

  Evelyn pretended innocence. “You didn’t know? ADX Florence. The federal supermax near Colorado Springs.”

  “Supermax?” he said, alarmed.

  Evelyn knew he’d been thinking, worst case, that he might do a few years of soft time at Hattieville Prison outside Belize City. Where he was probably related to half the guards by blood or marriage and would be cock of the walk.

  Evelyn had been happy to let him think that, until just the perfect moment. “They call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies,” she said. “Shank Central.”

  “No!”

  “No?” She frowned. “I’m pretty sure they do.”

  “No, you can’t do that! You can’t take me to America!”

  “Sure can,” she said. “Ever since September of 2009. The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters?”

  There was only about a 1 percent chance they’d be able to extradite Baby Jesus to the United States, but he didn’t have to know that. Evelyn reached again for the door handle.

  “Wait!” Baby Jesus said.

  Evelyn smiled and sat back down. Thirty minutes later—she pinched hard, she stroked gently, she pinched and stroked simultaneously—Baby Jesus had agreed to name names, detail details, and become a confidential informant for DEA.

  “I am a businessman after all,” he said. “What other choice do I have?”

  Shitheads, bless their hearts—they always seemed to need her validation at this stage of the game, a final face-saving benediction. Who was Evelyn to deny them?

  “Absolutely, you’re a businessman,” she said. “Exactly. And you know what, Walter? I genuinely like you. I do.”

  “Thank you, Evelyn,” he said.

  “What was the name of that book again? I’m going to order that book on Amazon.”

  “The 4-Hour Workweek.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Evelyn couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to work only four hours a week. All that time left over for just you and—yourself. No, thanks.

  After she finished with Baby Jesus, the DEA guys flexed their giant biceps and acknowledged, grudgingly, that they’d never seen such a skillful flip. This was the Zeta cartel, after all, that Baby Jesus worked for, some very scary hombres.

  Evelyn let DEA and Cory Nadler take all the official credit, of course, for both the bust and the flip. She was no dummy. Her last night in Belize, the DEA guys took her out drinking and said to give them a call if she ever needed a favor. She told them to start counting the minutes.

  Now, though, a favor from DEA couldn’t save her from a full week of boredom, a full week alone with herself. Sarah was no help, in school all day and training therapy dogs for the disabled at night. Brokering a peace accord in the Congo. When Evelyn had raised the possibility that the two of them might drive up the coast for a few days, a mother-daughter road trip, Sarah had rolled her eyes.

  “Mom,” she’d said. “Finals week?”

  Evelyn was confused. “That’s next week, I thought.”

  “It is. Hello?”

  Of course. Her switched-at-birth daughter studied for finals the week before finals. Evelyn should have been happy about that. She was happy. Just bored.

  “You’d be climbing the walls if we drove up the coast too,” Sarah said.
/>   Her daughter. Always right, never wrong.

  Evelyn squeezed the steering wheel of her Subaru and watched her knuckles flex and roll. She was stuck in line at the Bank of America ATM on Fourth and Colorado, behind some nimrod in a Porsche who appeared to be transferring his life savings to offshore accounts, one dollar per transaction.

  She honked. The nimrod whipped around, furious. A Hollywood-agent type, black suit and blue shirt. Evelyn smiled sweetly and honked again.

  Her cell phone rang. She answered. “Cory?”

  “Hi, Evi.”

  “I thought you were delighted to be finally rid of me.”

  “I was. I am. Believe me.”

  “I believe you. Are you still in Belize? Are you still wearing that quote-unquote tropical wool suit? I am so incredibly bored right now, Cory, that this conversation is the shining highlight of my day.”

  “I’m back in Mexico City now. Shut up, Evi. I’ve got some information for you.”

  “Information?”

  “About Shake Bouchon.”

  The nimrod in the Porsche ahead was working the ATM in exaggerated slow motion now, glancing back every now and then to smirk at her. Evelyn ignored him.

  “Really,” she said.

  “This is all off-the-record. That part is very important. Okay?”

  “You have to ask, Cory?”

  “The passport he’s using, I asked customs to flag it. Since, you know, you helped us out in Belize.”

  “Oh, Cory. I’ll never make fun of your suit again.”

  “Bouchon is traveling with that guy you asked me to check out, by the way. Harrigan Quinn? He’s an intriguing guy. Very intriguing.”

  “Cory! Get to the point!”

  “They flew into San Francisco three days ago.”

  San Francisco. Evelyn looked at her watch. If traffic wasn’t too bad on the 405, she could be in San Francisco by dinnertime. She jammed the Subaru into reverse and started to back out of the bank parking lot.

  “And then they flew out again yesterday,” Cory said.

  “What?” Shit. “Do you know where they went?”

  “I do know. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “Where they went,” Cory said.

  EVELYN DROVE HOME, OPENED HER laptop, and clicked on Google Maps.

  Cairo.

  She didn’t know anything about Egypt. She knew about the pyramids, and Tutankhamen, and Mubarak getting kicked out. She also knew, because Sarah had done a project on them when she was in elementary school, that fennec foxes lived in the Egyptian desert. She wondered how hot Cairo was this time of the year. Her brainiac daughter would probably know.

  Evelyn clicked over to the Delta Web site. That she was checking her SkyMiles balance, that she was even considering the possibility of following Shake Bouchon halfway across the globe, was probably enough evidence to get her officially beached, if not committed.

  She sent Sarah a text. U remember the fennec foxes in Egypt?

  Sarah’s answer came back. Sure.

  Do u think Cairo is hot this time of year?

  June, July, and August are worse.

  And then, a second later: Why?

  No reason.

  Mom!?! Why are you asking about Cairo?

  Sarah, who knew her so well.

  Just looking at colleges for u, Evelyn texted back. U would look so cute in a

  Evelyn thought for a second.

  What r they called?

  Burkas. Or hijabs. Mom?!?

  Evelyn had over a hundred and sixty thousand Delta SkyMiles banked. Flying back and forth to D.C., over the years, back and forth to New York. She clicked around to see if any award flights were available. Just for the hell of it, just for a laugh, she wasn’t actually going to take one.

  Cory had filled her in about Harrigan Quinn. He was an intriguing guy. Cory couldn’t be positive, but reading between the lines of Quinn’s résumé, he thought Quinn had probably done contract work for the CIA back in the eighties and nineties. And/or contract work for the kind of people that the CIA spied on.

  And now Shake was on his way to Egypt with him. Shake, whose restaurant had just burned down, who someone was trying to kill, who needed money and fast.

  Evelyn had a nose for stinky cheese, and this was definitely stinky cheese, whatever Shake and Quinn were into in Egypt.

  One could make the argument, just for the hell of it, that Evelyn had an opportunity here. If she managed to catch Shake in the act of something untoward in Cairo, then she’d have some leverage on him. He’d have no choice but to give up everything he knew about Alexandra Ilandryan and the Armenians in L.A.

  Mom! You are NOT going to Egypt?!

  Evelyn saw that there was award availability on Delta to Amsterdam via JFK. And then from Amsterdam to Cairo on KLM, proud member of the SkyTeam Alliance.

  What!? Evelyn sent back. U think i’m nuts?

  BABB THOUGHT IT WAS JUST great. Mennonites! In Belize, of all places! He smiled as he watched the little girls in bonnets frolic in the square. He wished he had some candy to give them. Marathon bars. Did they even make Marathon bars anymore? Marathon bars had been Babb’s favorite as a child, chocolate and caramel twisted into an interesting shape.

  The old lady required a translator. Her English, she apologized, was poor. The translator was a teenage boy with his hair parted on the side and slicked down.

  Mennonites! So fun!

  The old woman told Babb that the two men had spent the night in her home. They had enjoyed her fried chicken. She was astonished to learn that they were dangerous fugitives. They had seemed like such nice men.

  “They always do,” Babb said, nodding gravely. The old woman thought he was Special Agent Kevin Coover from the FBI. She thought that Babb’s target, Quinn, and the target’s Armenian mob bodyguard, Bouchon, were escaped murderers, fleeing justice. “You’d be surprised,” Babb said, “how often someone who seems nice really isn’t.”

  He’d had an easy time tracking Quinn and Bouchon to Three Butterflies. The man who’d given them a ride in his truck heard about the money on their heads and called Babb’s liaison in Guatemala. Babb wished the liaison had called a little sooner, but that was just the way the cookie crumbled.

  The old woman told Babb, through the translator, that the two dangerous fugitives had a long conversation with a certain Mr. Benjamin Finley, who lived half a mile outside town. The old woman had not understood any of the conversation. Her poor English, you see. Babb asked how he might find Mr. Finley’s place. The old woman said Mr. Finley was not there. He’d taken the bus to Mexico yesterday and would not be back until tomorrow.

  “No problem,” Babb said. “Is there a place I can stay in town overnight? I’d love to have a word with Mr. Finley when he gets back from Mexico.”

  The old woman said she’d be happy to rent him her spare bedroom. The same bedroom, in fact, where one of the dangerous fugitives had stayed, the younger of the two. Perhaps Special Agent Coover might find a clue in the spare bedroom.

  “Where did the other fellow sleep? I wonder,” Babb asked. “The older one?”

  The teenage boy translated. The old woman pretended not to understand the question. Babb laughed.

  “I’d be delighted to spend the night in your spare bedroom,” he told the translator to tell the old woman.

  The arrangement was perfect. Babb needed a place to stay for the night. And he wanted to ask the old lady a few more questions in private. He thought she might speak better English than she let on. He thought she might recall some of the conversation that Mr. Finley had had with Quinn and Bouchon. Sometimes people needed to be properly motivated to remember things that they thought they’d forgotten. Proper motivation didn’t always work, but it never hurt to try!

  Babb’s cell phone rang. He checked caller ID. Gardenhire. The boss. Gardenhire, who had hired Babb to work in the garden. To do some pruning.

  “I’m really sorry,” Babb told the
translator to tell the old Mennonite woman. “Do you mind if I take this?”

  He stepped off the porch and away from the little girls in bonnets, still frolicking away.

  “We got a hit on the passports,” Gardenhire said.

  “Where?”

  “Cairo.”

  “Great!”

  “Great?”

  “The pyramids!”

  Silence. Then: “Just get it done.”

  Gardenhire hung up. Babb climbed back onto the porch. He gave the old Mennonite woman his card and asked her to call him if she remembered anything about the two dangerous fugitives.

  She said something to the teenage boy. The teenage boy asked Babb if he would still be staying the night.

  “I’m sorry, no,” Babb said. And he was sorry. He’d been looking forward to staying the night. “I’m afraid I have to run.”

  PART III

  Chapter 29

  Shake had never seen traffic like the traffic in Cairo. No lanes, no lights, a thousand grimy cars locked tight together on a street that would have been crowded with half that many. Creep and lunge, creep and lunge, horns beeping. Every beeping horn on earth, it seemed. Shake, in the backseat of the cab with Gina, was closer to the guy in the car next to them than he was to her. Shake could have reached through the guy’s open window and picked the dandruff flakes off his shoulder, that’s how tight the traffic was locked.

  Pedestrians, when they wanted to cross the street, waded in and took their chances. They darted when the cars crept, they dodged when the cars lunged.

  Shake saw a grimy old Peugeot that had bumped into a wooden cart full of watermelons. A few watermelons had spilled onto the street and broken open, dark green rinds and dark red fruit. A guy in a long gown down to his ankles was trying to calm the donkey who’d been pulling the wooden cart.

  Because, sure, the traffic in Cairo included donkeys pulling wooden carts.

  “It’s called a galabiya,” Quinn said, turning around in the front seat of the cab. “The dress he’s wearing. But don’t call it a dress, he’ll kick your ass.”

  What was kicking Shake’s ass was jet lag. He felt fogged and loopy. They’d landed in Cairo last night around midnight. Shake had tried to sleep when they got to the hotel, but he was still on Belize time. And his mind was still working, trying to figure out what Gina had in store for him. He didn’t nod off until almost dawn. When Quinn pounded on his door a few hours later, it was like being wrenched from the dead.