Whiplash River

by Lou Berney

  “Fucker,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything. They were walking down the street, his arm around her. He’d put it there and she’d let him, because that was the plan.

  “Let’s go walk down by the river,” he said.

  “Let’s go back to my room,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything, but at the next corner he turned right, toward the hotel entrance and away from the river.

  In the hallway, outside the door to her room, she turned and put her arms around his neck again. Her boots had three-inch heels, so she only had to lift up onto her toes a tiny bit.

  She brought her lips close to his. She could feel his thumbs resting lightly on her ribs, through the silk of the dress. Through the silk of the dress, she could feel him rocking a serious boner.

  Gina had spent half the day in Cairo looking for a dress the same shade of green as the one she’d worn in Panama, that first night they’d had dinner together.

  “You can’t have me,” she breathed into his mouth.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Sorry, Charlie,” she breathed. “You blew it.”

  He looked down at her. Gina didn’t know how long she could stay like this, up on her toes, her lips so close to his.

  “That’s my real name,” he said. “Charlie. Charles.”

  “I know that.” She had known that, she’d just forgotten.

  “You blew it and you can never, ever have me again.” Their lips almost touching. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “This little trick will only work on me one time, you know.”

  “Doubt it.”

  He smiled. She wanted him so much. The flaw in her genius plan to teach him a lesson was becoming more and more apparent to her. “Maybe just one kiss,” she said.

  He hesitated, then sighed. “You almost got me again.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I probably won’t bang Devane just to teach you a lesson. I know that’s what you were worried about.”

  He blinked. She smiled. He was worried about it now.

  “And you can trust me on the business end too. I won’t be looking for an opportunity to screw you over when you’re at your most helpless and vulnerable. Probably.”

  She went into her room and shut the door and left Shake standing alone in the hallway. She peeped through the peephole and liked what she saw. She might be making herself miserable by making Shake miserable, but it was worth it. She just hoped he didn’t think it was worth it too, because then where did that leave them?

  “Rest easy, partner!” she yelled through the door. “See you at breakfast!”

  Chapter 32

  Meg checked into a fancy hotel in the business district of Guatemala City. It was the kind of fancy hotel Terry had always wanted to stay at. He said he’d heard that some fancy hotels had girls in little uniforms by the pool, and all they did was walk around and clean your sunglasses for you.

  “Can you believe that?” he’d said.

  “I believe there’s somebody fool enough to do anything,” Meg said.

  Terry chewed on that. “You mean fool enough to put on a little uniform and walk around the pool and clean folks’ sunglasses?”

  “I mean fool enough to want to stay in a place like that.”

  But now here she was. She took the elevator up to the roof of the fancy hotel to see if Terry was right about the girls in the little uniforms. The pool was closed, though, because it was dark outside.

  Meg went back down to her room and ordered a shrimp cocktail from room service. That was another thing Terry had always wanted to do. Meg had never let him, because room service in a hotel, whether it was fancy or not, cost you an arm and a leg.

  She had plenty of money now. After she shot Jorge, she’d helped herself to the cash he had in his desk. Close to ten thousand U.S. dollars. Meg didn’t feel bad about stealing the money. Jorge couldn’t use it anymore. They didn’t sell orange Fanta and greasy goat-smelling tacos in hell, did they? That was Meg’s position on the matter.

  Meg ate half the shrimp cocktail even though she wasn’t hungry, and then rode a taxi out to where the rich people in Guatemala City lived. Not the very richest people, but the people a step or two down from that. She went to the address Jorge had scrawled on the greasy goat-smelling paper bag. Jorge’s boss lived in a nice big house with flowers spilling down off all the walls. There were lights in the yard pointed up at the house. That way you wouldn’t miss how nice the house was, how pretty the flowers were, even though it was dark.

  Meg stood on the porch. She was here to make Jorge’s boss tell her where she could find the man he’d sent to kill Terry. She’d planned to kill that man, and Jorge’s boss too, for sending the man in the first place. But now it was like all the stuffing had gone out of her, like she barely had the energy to take one breath after another. She couldn’t stop thinking about that room-service shrimp cocktail, and how much Terry would have loved the little forks that came with it.

  She remembered the thought she’d had back at Jorge’s, when he told her that his muy poderoso boss, the heavy man, would kill her.

  Maybe I want him to kill me, Meg had thought.

  Now, on the porch of the boss’s house, she had a thought that was even shorter and got right to the point. It was just: Kill me.

  She felt so tired. She felt heavy, though not the kind of heavy Jorge was talking about. Meg’s kind of heavy was in her arms and legs and most of all in her heart. Like she had a bag of something dead and wet inside her, and there was just no way she could keep dragging it along, not for one more second.

  An aunt of Meg’s had told her once that life was like a movie and everybody thought they were the star of it. That’s why dying was hard. People didn’t want to accept it, that the movie would go on without them.

  Meg lifted her heavy, heavy arm and rang the doorbell.

  BABB SAT ON A BENCH on the bank of the river.

  I am sitting on a bench on the bank of the River Nile, he told himself.

  He tried it in third person:

  Babb sat on a bench on the bank of the River Nile.

  Crazy!

  Less than twenty-four hours ago he had been sitting in the Belize City airport. He had traveled, in less than twenty-four hours, across time and space and history. It boggled the mind. What would the emperors and popes and philosopher-kings of yesteryear have given to possess such power? Anything!

  It was dark, after midnight. He had followed the bodyguard, Shake, and the woman he was with, back from the nightclub to the hotel.

  Now he was just waiting for Gardenhire to call and give him the goahead. He would tell Babb the time line and explain what arrangements would be made.

  Gardenhire, rumpled and ruffled, balding, bustling from conference room to conference room, drinking pots of bad coffee. He was under an enormous amount of stress at the moment. Big developments afoot.

  The man who worked for the Man Who Would Be Senator. That was Gardenhire. Which made Babb the man who worked for the Man Who Worked for the Man Who Would Be Senator.

  Big boats festooned with lights plied their way up and down the River Nile. Dance cruises. Music and laughter floated through the warm night air. The lights of the boats shimmied across the water. Babb thought the dance cruises looked like fun.

  He felt his phone vibrate. He took it out of his pocket and checked caller ID. He was surprised. It was not Gardenhire calling with the goahead, as Babb had expected. Calling instead was the liaison Babb used in Guatemala City, Edgar Ramales-Llende, a real up-and-comer in the Guatemalan justice department. The Man Who Worked for the Man Who Worked for the Man Who Worked for . . .

  The real surprise was that Gardenhire had not already called with the go-ahead. Babb sensed that Gardenhire was struggling with the decision. Babb didn’t know why and didn’t want to ask. It really wasn’t any of his business.

  “Hello,” Babb said.

  “I have news,” Ramales-Llende said.

  “Great.”r />
  “The other account has been closed.”

  Babb thought for a second. “The girl’s dead, you mean?”

  Ramales-Llende was silent.

  “It’s okay,” Babb said. “You’re using an encrypted phone, aren’t you? I am.”

  “Yes,” Ramales-Llende said. “She is dead. She killed Jorge.”

  “Really?” Babb had definitely called that one—the girl was a firecracker.

  “And then she came to my house,” Ramales-Llende said.

  “Did you kill her yourself? Did she put up a fight?”

  “My bodyguard did. No, not really. She had a gun, but she did not shoot.”

  “Huh,” Babb said. “Interesting.” The complex workings of the human mind never failed to fascinate him. But he also felt a little disappointed. “I guess this is good news. But I feel left out, I guess is my immediate reaction. Though why should I feel that? It’s stupid.”

  Ramales-Llende was silent for another moment.

  “You would like a souvenir?” he said. “It can be arranged.”

  “A keepsake,” Babb said. “That would be fun. If it’s not too much trouble? The girl, I remember, she was wearing a silver ring on her ring finger. Was she wearing a silver ring on her ring finger?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “If you could maybe FedEx me the ring she was wearing, that would be great.”

  Silence. Ramales-Llende cleared his throat.

  “No!” Babb said. He laughed. “Not with the finger in it! I’m not some maniac.”

  “Of course not,” Ramales-Llende said.

  “Can you hold for just one second?” Babb asked. He had another call beeping in, the go-ahead coming in from Gardenhire. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter 33

  Quinn ate like a horse the next morning, dipping back twice into the hotel buffet and knocking down a pot of purple Egyptian tea that smelled like flowers. Shake wondered if the old son of a bitch had managed to get lucky again last night when Shake and Gina were off chasing Devane.

  When Shake, more precisely, was off chasing Gina.

  “Try this,” Quinn said. “It’s called karkade. Hibiscus tea. It’ll lower your blood pressure.”

  “Do I need to lower my blood pressure?” Shake said. “Or do you?”

  Quinn gave him a wink. “I did meet a nice lady at the hotel bar last night, yes. A corporate something-something from London, retired. A very nice lady, I’m a sucker for the accent. Any accent, tell you the truth.”

  Gina made her way across the dining room. She gave them both big friendly hugs, then sat down next to Shake, looking as dewy and innocent as a fresh-plucked rose petal.

  “I like it,” Quinn said after Gina filled him in on what happened at Devane’s club. “It’s perfect. Sometimes the best angle is the simple angle. Point A to point B, don’t get fancy. Ask me about my time in Lisbon sometime, when I’m in an expansive mood.”

  “No,” Shake said. “It’s not perfect. This guy Devane, he’s the real deal. He’s smart. The suspicious type. He’s gonna be thinking a step or two ahead, every step he takes.”

  Quinn looked at Gina. Gina nodded. That annoyed Shake, both the look and the nod.

  “What?” Shake said. “You need confirmation?”

  “Is baby cranky?” Gina said. When Quinn turned to flag down the waitress for another pot of tea, she whispered in Shake’s ear. “Didja wake up with a big achy boner this morning? That would make me cranky.”

  Shake ignored that. “And those bad boys working for Devane,” he said. “If we’re still on the subject of why this isn’t perfect. We don’t want to tangle with them.”

  Quinn nodded. “Former SSI. State security. That’s what my buddy Mahmoud says. After the revolution, the military broke up the SSI. All the meanest bastards in the Middle East out on the free market to the highest bidder. We do not in fact want to tangle with them.”

  “Great,” Shake said.

  “It’s pretty perfect,” Gina said. “It’s as close to perfect as we’re gonna get. Porkpie thinks we’re buyers because he was the one who thought of it. Don’t you see? He pulled, so we didn’t have to push. So he’s not suspicious now.”

  “He’s suspicious,” Shake said.

  “You know what I mean. We’re over the wall, at least. That’s what I mean.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Quinn said.

  “Fine,” Shake said. “We’re over the wall. He thinks we’re buyers. Now what?”

  “We use that to get him on the move,” Quinn said. “We get the item out of the safe, out of the house.”

  Gina nibbled at the base of her thumbnail. Shake had never seen her do that before. Maybe she’d picked up the habit when she quit smoking.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “A different situation, I’d say maybe that was enough. But Porkpie is totally the suspicious type.”

  “And Egyptian state security working for him,” Shake said. “Let’s not forget.”

  She nibbled her thumbnail. “He has to carry it in something,” she said finally. “When he takes it around to show buyers. A briefcase or whatever. He’s not going to carry Teddy Roosevelt’s seven-million-dollar speech folded up in his back pocket.”

  “Aha!” Quinn said.

  Shake saw where Gina was headed too, but wasn’t sure it deserved an Aha!

  “Harry,” she said, “can your buddy Mahmoud get us the specs on the case Porkpie carries the speech in?”

  “Mahmoud can get us the specs. He can get us measurements, pictures on his telephone, the whole shebang.”

  “It has to be exact,” Shake said. “The specs. We’ll have to hunt down an identical case.”

  “I know we’ll have to hunt down an identical case.”

  “Then all we have to do is throw the bump,” Gina said.

  Shake shook his head. “If it doesn’t go like clockwork, he’ll know it’s a switch.”

  “Bet your ass he will,” Gina said.

  She waited. Shake had to smile.

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “When have you ever heard of something like that working?” he said.

  “We turn a negative into a positive.”

  Shake noticed that Quinn was frowning.

  “What’s wrong, Harry?” Gina said. “It might work.”

  “Look here,” Quinn said. “It’s a good idea, but I don’t like it that Devane thinks Shake’s the buyer. No offense, Shake. But you’re not my idea of a wealthy collector of illicit antiquities.”

  Shake didn’t take offense. He doubted he was anybody’s idea of a wealthy collector of illicit antiquities.

  “Porkpie was tuning out,” Gina said. “I had to get his attention. I had to put the buyer right there in front of him so he’d take us seriously.”

  Shake didn’t know if that was true. Maybe it was. He knew it was more true that Gina had just wanted to fuck with him when she’d ambushed Shake by telling Devane that he was the buyer.

  “You did a helluva job, young lady,” Quinn said. “Don’t get me wrong. I wish I’d seen you in action. What I’m saying is, it should be me. It’s not too late. We call Devane up, we move the furniture around a little.”

  “It’s too late, Harry,” Gina said. “You know that. You’re the bump. You have to be the bump. You’re the only one he hasn’t seen yet.”

  “The bump.” Quinn scowled. “The bit part, you mean.”

  So that was it. Shake let Gina take this one. Have fun, young lady.

  “Harry. Sugar pie. Suck it up, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  Now Shake frowned. He’d expected Quinn to put up more of a fight. He’d expected Gina to emerge at least a little worse for the wear.

  “We have to move fast,” she said. “What do we have? A couple days max?”

  “That’s probably the window,” Shake said. “The other bid isn’t great or he would have taken it. But it’s a bid.”

  “I’ll go s
ee Mahmoud right now,” Quinn said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Shake said. The specs on the case had to be exact. That point had to be communicated very clearly to Quinn’s guy.

  “Fine,” Quinn said. “Maybe there’s a lightbulb you can help me change afterward.”

  “And I’ll go see Porkpie,” Gina said. “Make arrangements for the show-and-tell. I can get to know him a little bit, soften him up.”

  She gave Shake a sweet, rose-petal smile. Shake remembered her threat last night about sleeping with Devane. Not like he’d forgotten it.

  “Why don’t I go see Porkpie?” Shake said. “And you go with Quinn.”

  “No, I can handle it,” she said. She leaned over to whisper in Shake’s ear. “His boner, I mean.”

  “He’ll start digging, you know,” Quinn said. Ignoring them or not ignoring them, Shake couldn’t tell which. “Once he has the name of the potential buyer.”

  Gina nodded. “Suspicious type that he is.”

  “Not to mention, look at our potential buyer,” Quinn said. Meaning, Shake was nobody’s idea of a wealthy collector of illicit antiquities.

  “Harry.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “My IT guy back in San Fran, I can have him put up a fake Web site, hack around and create a footprint. You know, for whoever Shake is supposed to be. John Q. Dingus, whoever. My guy can hack it so our John Q. Dingus shows up top of the page on Google. No, fuck it, hold on.”

  “Devane will dig deeper than Google,” Shake said.

  “He’ll call around. Shut up, I know.”

  “Use a real name, for chrissakes,” Quinn said. “Don’t make one up. Find a shoe that fits, don’t build one from scratch. That’s how we always did it.”

  Shake and Gina looked at each other.

  “Roland Ziegler,” she said.

  The Wall Street swindler Shake had channeled last night. I collect stories, not objects. Roland Ziegler was a doughy, pretentious weasel who made sure you knew in the first thirty seconds of a conversation that he owned two private islands off the coast of Panama and a building on Park Avenue. He was exactly everybody’s idea of a wealthy collector of illicit antiquities.