Dance with the Dragon (41 page)

“This is a tough business,” Gloria said. “Especially for a woman alone.”

McGarvey closed the compact and handed it and the purse back to her. “How long have you been on the stuff?”

“Since after Raul was killed,” she said. She gathered up her cigarettes, lighter, pistol, and silencer and stuffed them back in her purse along with the compact. “It’s under control.”

“How do you get past the Company’s random drug tests?”

“Just like everybody else.”

“There’s a lot of this going around?” he asked.

“This and worse,” she said. “More than the suits care to admit, which is why the random tests aren’t so random. They’re usually posted on one of the confidential in-house Web sites.”

This was news to McGarvey. When he’d been the director of operations and finally the DCI, he’d relied on his staff, especially Dick Adkins, to watch out for these kinds of things.

“It’s no worse than booze,” she said defensively. “And we all know that there are a lot of drunks out in the field, and even a fair share in the Building.”

“I’d rather have a drunk than an addict watching my back,” McGarvey shot back harshly.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s a lot harder to get a drunk to sell out.”

Gloria flushed. She opened her purse, took out the compact, and held it out to him. “Take it. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“You keep it,” McGarvey told her. “If you think you can hold yourself together, I want you to make a show of using it from time to time.”

She nodded.

“Even offer to share it.”

“It’s one way of making instant friends,” she said, putting the compact back in her purse. “Don’t worry. I can handle it. I never go overboard.”

SEVENTY-TWO

DOWNTOWN

A few minutes before midnight the music over at the compound suddenly stopped and the noise level of conversations and laughter began to decrease. McGarvey got the binoculars from the car and walked back down to the water’s edge where he could see the main gate and the cars parked along the road. Gloria came up behind him.

“Is this it?” she asked.

“We’ll know in the next few minutes,” McGarvey said. He raised the binoculars as the gate to the compound swung open, and a dozen men and a few girls came out and headed up the road.

The drivers hurried back to their cars and snapped to at the rear doors. None of them was dressed in uniform, and most of them looked like professional bodyguards. Mexico was a dangerous country for anyone, including high-ranking government officials, especially men like these, who were playing games with a Chinese intelligence officer.

“Maybe he’s staying put tonight,” Gloria suggested. “Could be the party is just breaking up early.”

“Has that ever happened before?” McGarvey asked.

Gloria gave him a sharp look. “How would I know?”

“You might have heard something,” McGarvey said. “Maybe Louis let it slip.”

“I told you that I didn’t know anything about Liu.” Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you getting at?”

McGarvey continued to study the activity on the road. “I don’t know,” he said. “The son of a bitch is up to something, but I can’t figure it out and it’s driving me nuts.”

“Is it worth all this trouble?”

It was an odd question. McGarvey lowered his binoculars and looked at her. “A CIA field officer was assassinated. I’d say that makes this worth an effort.”

“I suspect it was more of a warning than an assassination.”

“Well, I’m not giving a warning,” McGarvey said. He raised the binoculars again as the cars on the road started to leave. “Start the car, but don’t switch on the headlights.”

She walked back to the car and started the engine. Moments later two BMWs and a Jaguar emerged from the compound, followed by a big Mercedes Maybach and a black Mercedes AMG55.

Two other cars that had been parked on the road took up the rear as McGarvey raced back to his car and jumped into the passenger seat.

“Drive,” he told Gloria.

“Is it Liu?”

“I think so.”

Gloria pulled up onto the road out of the parking area in time to see the last set of taillights disappear around the bend a hundred yards away. She switched on the headlights and sped up.

“How do you want to play this?” she asked. She was suddenly hyped up.

“Get in close behind the last car, as if we belonged there.”

“Then what?”

“I’m betting he’s going to either the Wild Stallion or the Doll House. As soon as we know which, we’re going to get there ahead of him.”

“Cristo,”
she said softly, but she paid attention to her driving, and in a couple of minutes they had caught up with the big BMW at the rear.

Once they were away from Xochimilco and on the Avenida Insurgentes Sur, which was the main highway back into the city, they encountered some traffic, more than they had seen on the way down a couple hours ago. The city was starting to get its second wind.

“So what do we do when we catch up with him?” Gloria asked.

“Make him notice us,” McGarvey said. He had turned the exterior rearview mirror on his door so that he could see if anyone be-hind them was taking an interest. But so far as he could tell they were clean.

“Then what?”

They could see the skyscrapers downtown in the distance, and traffic started to pick up.

“The next move will be his,” McGarvey said. “But he knows that I’m here, and he’ll want to find out who you are when you show up with me.”

“He’ll realize it’s a setup.”

“But he won’t know why, and that’ll drive a man like Liu around the bend,” McGarvey said. “He’ll have to try to get to you.”

“Which I’ll make difficult.”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later Liu’s choice became clear when the Maybach and his entourage of a dozen cars turned left off Avenue Chapultepec through the park, near Los Pinos.

“He’s going to Polanco,” McGarvey said.

“What’s up there?”

“The Doll House.”

“Do I follow them?” Gloria asked.

“No,” McGarvey said. He watched as they passed the exit of Avenue de los Constituyentes, until the last BMW had made the turn. “Do you know the way?”

“No.”

“Turn at the causeway, but you’ll have to hustle if we’re going to beat them,” McGarvey told her.

She glanced at him. “Why did you have me drive?”

“You know the city better than I do,” McGarvey said. “Just get us to Polanco. The club is on Avenida Horacio.”

“I’ll find it,” she said, and she sped up, threading through traffic as if she had been doing this sort of thing all of her life.

*   *   *

They pulled up in front of the Doll House a few minutes later, and the valet parkers opened the car doors for McGarvey and Gloria. There was a great deal of traffic now. The action inside had picked up in the last couple of hours and there was a line outside the door. A pair of beefy bouncers was letting only a few people inside. The rest were not important enough for the moment. If the club did not fill up by one, more of them would be allowed to pass.

“Welcome back, Mr. McGarvey,” one of the bouncers said. He opened the velvet rope to allow McGarvey and Gloria inside.

The same hostess as before led them inside. McGarvey’s table had been held for him, and at the same time that he and Gloria sat down, the sommelier brought over a bottle of Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket as their waitress brought them fresh glasses.

“Thank you,” McGarvey said.

“You were here before,” Gloria said when they were alone. “When?”

“A couple hours ago,” McGarvey said, his eye toward the entry from the reception area.

The classical guitarist had been replaced by a very good combo playing American soft jazz. The dance floor was nearly filled with couples, mostly old men with young women from the club. The lights were lower than before, and the atmosphere had come alive. The night was just starting to get interesting.

Two wine stewards and several waiters were hurriedly setting up a round table, large enough for a dozen or more people, just off the dance floor fifteen feet from where McGarvey and Gloria were seated. Several of the scantily clad club girls hovered nearby.

Gloria nodded toward the table. “Liu?”

“Looks like it,” McGarvey said. “And unless I’ve miseed my guess, he should be showing up any minute.”

A short Mexican man with a round, pretty face, wearing an Armani tuxedo, appeared at the entry from the reception area. Rencke had identified him as Miguel Roaz from the pictures McGarvey had taken at the Xochimilco compound. He was the owner of the club. He stepped aside with a flourish as General Liu came in at the head of the entourage from the compound. The Chinese intelligence officer was a movie-star handsome man, and tall for an Oriental. He wore an obviously expensive sport coat over an open-collar white shirt.

Most of the people in the club looked up as Roaz led Liu and his party across the room to the large table.

They passed within a few feet of McGarvey, who raised his champagne glass in salute.

Liu was startled. It showed on his broad face and wide, dark eyes, for just a moment, along with something else; maybe fear or perhaps anger, it was difficult to tell. But then the moment was gone, and he nodded.

Roaz had noticed the exchange, and as Liu and the others were taking their seats, he bent to say something into the general’s ear. Liu shook his head and waved off whatever Roaz had said.

“Well, he knows we’re here,” Gloria said.

McGarvey smiled and sipped his champagne. “Indeed he does.”

SEVENTY-THREE

THE DOLL HOUSE

By two the club was in full swing, all the tables filled, the bar area crammed to overflowing, and the dance floor so packed that it was nearly impossible for anyone to move, and still people kept arriving. The jazz combo alternated with strip acts, the dancers all very young, very beautiful, and extremely talented, most of them Oriental, probably from Bangkok or the geisha schools of Japan. Dozens of club girls, some of them dancers, circulated around the floor from table to table until they found customers, whom they led to a curtained doorway into the back rooms. Roaz had a thriving business.

Gloria had gone to the ladies’ room and when she came back she was bright and animated, her eyes sparkling. She’d obviously done another line of coke. “This is fantastic,” she told McGarvey, taking her seat, her back toward Liu’s table. “Did he notice me?”

“He spotted you, and so did half the guys in the club,” McGarvey said. “But you’d better pace yourself with that shit if you’re going to be any good for me tonight.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Did you meet anyone in the bathroom?”

“No one from his table,” Gloria said. “When one of them heads that way let me know. I’ll see what I can find out. But so far they don’t seem to give a damn that we’re here.”

McGarvey had been watching Liu’s table for the past hour and a half, making his interest obvious. But neither Liu nor anyone else had glanced his way. “It’ll happen sooner or later,” he said.

“Does he know who you are?”

“I’m sure he does. But I told his people that I was here looking for my girlfriend, nothing else.”

“Shahrzad,” Gloria said. “Do you think he bought it?”

“Probably not. But he has to be curious.”

Roaz, who’d been working the room, stopped at the big table. Liu, a young girl on his lap, kissing him on the cheek and neck and his perfectly shaved head, looked up and said something. Roaz nodded, then came over to McGarvey’s table.

“Good evening, Mr. McGarvey,” he said pleasantly. He turned to Gloria. “Ms.—?”

“Ibenez.”

He nodded. “The general is wondering if he could offer you and your lady a bottle of champagne. We have a very good Krug. His favorite.”

“It’s vinegar,” McGarvey replied coolly. “I’ve always preferred Cristal, or when I’m slumming, a decent Dom, which, as you can see, I already have.”

Roaz’s features darkened. “The general is a generous man, but he has his limits.”

McGarvey sat back and smiled. “Are you asking us to leave, Señor Roaz?”

“I’m begging you to take care, Mr. McGarvey. For your sake as well as for Ms. Ibenez’s.”

“You might ask him about a friend of mine. She’s disappeared and I’m worried about her.”

“I’m sure we know nothing about that.”

“Her name is Shahrzad Shadmand.”

Roaz returned the smile. “Never heard of her,” he said. “Enjoy your evening.” He nodded politely to Gloria, then turned and went back to Liu.

“That’ll get his attention,” Gloria said. She was loving it.

“Go to the powder room now,” McGarvey ordered. “I want to see if he sends someone after you.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That I’m an asshole. A macho bastard who likes to beat up women.”

Gloria laughed lightly. She got up, gathered her purse, and sauntered past Liu’s table on the way to the ladies’ room, giving the general a pretty smile.

Almost immediately Liu said something to the girl on his lap. She jumped up and headed after Gloria. He turned and gazed at McGarvey, a calculating look on his face. He was a man who was used to giving orders and having them followed. This was the third time McGarvey had sidestepped him, and it was apparent that he was getting irritated.

The stripper onstage finished her act for an audience that was mostly indifferent, caught up in their own sexual fantasies. As soon as she was gone the jazz combo came out and began playing a Stan Kenton piece, and more couples went out onto the dance floor.

Gloria was gone for nearly ten minutes, and when she returned she was flushed and unsteady on her feet. She slumped down on her chair and knocked back her glass of champagne. “Relax,” she said sweetly. “This is mostly an act.”

“Fair enough,” McGarvey said. “Did you find out anything?”

Gloria shook her head. “The girl’s a fucking idiot. Liu doesn’t know who I am or what I’m doing with an old guy from the CIA, but he wants to know. She’s his main girl at the moment, and she warned me off. Said she’d send her friends to get me.”

“She doesn’t look more than fourteen or fifteen.”

“Try twenty-three,” Gloria said. “She just looks young. She’s been in the business since she was ten. Mostly German tourists in Bangkok. Liu, she told me, is a gentleman.”