The Looters (31 page)

“I know Golding and I don’t like him. He once promised to buy a piece if I could get it for him. When I got it, he didn’t go through with the deal. I may have information about another recent deal, but I need to know who sold him the Marduk head.”

She gave me the name of the dealer and I told her I’d call her back—and I hung up. I stared at Coby, the wheels turning in my head.

“Gilgamesh,” I said. “Gilgamesh Gallery.”

“You know the outfit?”

“It doesn’t exist. Look, the New York art world is a small cottage industry with a finite number of rich and superrich players. Everyone knows everyone else. If there was a Gilgamesh Gallery doing multimillion-dollar deals, I’d know about it.”

The name struck a chord with me. “Gilgamesh is the hero in a heroic poem about a Mesopotamian warrior-king. It was written back around 2000 B.C. It’s the Mesopotamian version of Homer’s Greek epics.” I stared at Coby, pursing my lips. “Neal has a fascination with the Gilgamesh tales. He even owns a piece of clay tablet with some lines of the poem on it. It’s his most expensive personal piece.”

“It sounds like Stocker and your pal Neal that you’ve been fucking are made for each other. Neal has all the connections in the world of Middle Eastern art and Stocker’s sitting on the biggest stash of Middle Eastern art to hit the market since Genghis Khan looted Babylon.”

He wanted a reaction from me about Neal and I passed on it again. “You seem to be having senior moments at an early age. I told you he didn’t take Babylon.”

“You did?”

Maybe it was Nunes I told. Anyway, a string of thoughts went off in my head like a string of firecrackers. “Jesus, he’s been behind everything.”

“Genghis Khan?”

“Neal, you moron. He’s been more than just a way for Lipton to auction the mask. I think he’s in it up to his neck. He’s the one who steered me into the Mesopotamian pieces coming onto the market, not to mention the mask itself. I told him I was going to Bensky’s. Bensky’s house gets burned down and he goes missing. I told him Abdullah was getting proof that the mask had been stolen. The poor man is murdered. I told him I was going to London. Ditto for Lipton.”

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
My God
—
he’s turned that homicidal bastard Stocker on to me, too
. I had lain in bed with Neal and shared my body with him… and he turns a homicidal killer on to me.
What a prick!
Stocker had timed his attack in London to get me, too. And in Malaga. Worse, Neal cost me my job and framed me with the police.

How could I be so stupid!

At least I had no emotional ties with him. Sex with him had just been pure business fucking. I felt that it was on a higher plane because there had been no passion in it.

“I’m glad I faked my orgasms with him, that bastard,” I blurted out.

“So you did fuck him.”

“Well, you wanted to know. There’s your answer. That make you horny? Are you the kind of guy who likes to watch a woman fuck another man? I could—”

I got out of the way of a flying jalapeño pepper. He grabbed me and pulled me to him. I tried to struggle out of his arms, but I couldn’t. He had one of my hands pinned behind my back.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me.”

“You know what I like; you’re a cock teaser.” He kissed me hard on the lips.

I felt the throbbing bulge getting hard against me. I got aroused as he kissed me. He slowly released his hold on me.

I pressed my body closer. “You’re making me horny now.”

“Good. That’s the way I want it.”

We retreated to the bedroom below and fucked our brains out like there was no tomorrow. When our sexual needs were satiated, we came back to the matter at hand even though we were still lying naked on top of the bed.

“Is Neal rich?”

“He’s well-off, but if you exclude people who actually earn a living from the definition of rich, no, he’s not. He earns a salary at Rutgers, a good one, but he’s still just an employee. He’s always bitching about how much he brings in and how little of it he sees himself. He makes up for it by putting buyers and sellers together in private deals. There was always talk about some of the stuff Neal peddled on the side, but the talk was never very loud, because it’s an industry in which few of us have clean hands.”

He grinned. “Most of the hands in my business are dirty, too.”

“We’re not outright thieves.”

“As my grandmother would say, that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

His grandmother was probably Ma Barker.

“I have a plan,” he said.

“What’s your plan?”

“We kill Stocker and Neal and get back the museum pieces.”

“Hmmm.” I nodded. “Not bad, but I have a better one. We catch Stocker and Neal red-handed and turn them over to the FBI along with the artifacts so I can go back to my life and start rebuilding my career.”

“Good idea. We’ll go with your plan. Okay, now that we’ve solved that problem, I have another plan.”

He grabbed me and pulled me on top of him.

“You’re a horny bastard.”

“You’re a horny bitch.”

“You’re lucky I really like you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have to fake my orgasms.”

I really did like Coby. But I also didn’t totally trust him. I had a feeling that his acquiescence to my plan was about as real as my moans of ecstasy with Neal.

As I spread my legs and Coby entered me, sending a sensation of pure delight, it occurred to me that I had to watch my back with him.

Chapter 48

“Okay, first on our agenda is to find Stocker,” Coby told me forty-eight hours later when I joined the other five members in a powerboat and headed for Neal’s weekend beach house on Fire Island. The sand barrier island was off Long Island.

Up to now, the SEALs had huddled together debating tactics and gathering weapons equipment that they had stowed in a rented storeroom.

“Had them stored there just in case,” Coby told me.

I never got a straight answer out of him as to what “just in case” meant or even where the hoard was stored.

I had spent many weekends with Neal at the Fire Island beach house. We confirmed he was there by having Gwyn call and speak to his housekeeper at his Manhattan apartment, pretending she was with the auction house.

Although there were small year-round communities on the narrow, thirty-two-mile-long sand pit, Fire Island was comprised mostly of state and federal parks and seashore. The only vehicle traffic was in parking lots at the end of the two bridges that came over from Long Island.

“It’ll be easier to get to his place and away again by boat,” Coby told me. “Besides, we’re creatures of the sea. That’s why they call us frogmen.”

I had a few other names for the band of underwater pirates, but I reserved them for a time when I had time and distance between us.

The plan was to hit the beach after dark, with GPS guiding us to the right house. We towed a rubber boat behind us that Coby and I would use to land on the beach. Two other SEALs would swim ashore in their wet suits… and pull the rubber boat I was on ashore if Coby needed help, so I didn’t get my feet wet. That was my idea.

“Why don’t they just ride with us?” I asked Coby.

“Recon. They’re going ashore first to make sure the way is clear.”

“That’s a good plan. Neal might be lying in wait to attack us with his laptop and cell phone.”

“Or his pal Stocker might be waiting with a rocket launcher.”

“Good thinking.” I smiled in defeat. “I guess that’s why they call you frogmen.”

***

Coby drove the boat in fast enough for it to belly onto the sand. He quickly leaped out in water lower than his boots and pulled the boat onto dry land so I could step out without getting wet.

Fernando, one of the two men who preceded us, appeared out of the darkness. “All clear. I got a look at the guy through a window. I’m certain he’s alone.”

“Okay,” Coby said to me, “let’s go visit your friend.”

“He’s not my friend anymore,” I said.

We went around to the front and I knocked on Neal’s door. Fernando had disappeared and his partner was no doubt somewhere playing lookout.

Coby stood a couple feet off to the side so he wouldn’t be seen when Neal looked through the door’s peephole to see who was knocking at his door. In the city, you’d have to get by the 24/7 door staff and surveillance cameras. On Fire Island, the weather was more of a threat.

I wondered what Neal’s reaction would be when he looked in the peephole and saw me. I found out quick enough. The door flew open.

“What are you doing here?”

I smiled. “Good evening, you lying fucking bastard.”

The minute Coby stepped into sight, Neal tried to slam the door, but Coby muscled his way into the house with me behind him. Fernando suddenly appeared through the doorway and closed it behind him.

“I’m calling the police.”

“I don’t think so, pal.” Coby pulled a lethal-looking black semiautomatic pistol from inside his jacket and stuck it in Neal’s face.

Neal stared at the gun in pure terror.

“Do you want him dead?” Coby asked me.

Coby’s question caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure he was acting. “Not yet,” I croaked.

I had never seen Neal when he wasn’t calm and collected, even when he was up at the podium doing multimillion-dollar deals. Or coming in bed. Now he was clearly terrified. I guess I would be, too, if I had a gun pointed at me.

Neal gaped at me. “Why are you doing this?”

“No, the question is why did you frame me and get all those people killed?” I looked at Coby. “Why don’t we just start by hurting him.”

He kicked Neal in the balls.

I winced. My former business lover went down on his knees gasping with pain. I wanted him to suffer a little after what he’d put me through, but I couldn’t handle watching someone actually getting beaten.

When Coby looked at me, silently asking if he should really give Neal a beating, I shook my head.
Jesus, what a wimp I am. Neal has people murdered and I can’t stand to see him get knocked around.

Coby and Fernando picked Neal up by his arms and legs and slammed him onto the couch. Each man pulled out a roll of duct tape. In seconds, they had Neal bound hand and foot.

Coby sat down on the arm of the couch and looked down at him. “We need to know where Stocker and the museum pieces are. And we don’t have much time. You can avoid further pain… and permanent disfigurements… by telling us right now. Or… show him, Fernando.”

Fernando pulled out a wicked-looking knife.

“Tell him what you do with that knife.”

Fernando sat down next to Neal. “My old man has a cattle ranch in the Philippines. When you raise cattle on a ranch, you have to keep the young male calves from growing up to be bulls. You can only have one bull for a bunch of cows or there’s trouble, you know what I mean? So you have to cut off the balls of calves, you know. We rope the calf and pull it down. Grab the sac and… just takes one quick slice,” he made the motion in the air, “and the young bull is turned into a steer.”

Coby said, “In other words, we turn you into a eunuch. A ball-less bastard, you understand, asshole?”

Neal spit in Coby’s face. “Fuck you.”

Wow! I was impressed. I didn’t think Neal had the balls—excuse the pun. Coby wiped his face with his sleeve. He looked disgusted.

“Bitch!” Neal snarled at me. “If Stocker doesn’t get you, the feds will. Either way you’re fucked.”

I was numb more from hurt than anger. How had I misjudged him so? Somehow the words flew out of my mouth. “
Kill the bastard
.”

“You heard the lady.” Coby put tape over Neal’s struggling mouth.

“I-I-I didn’t really mean… kill him.”

“I think you’d better go into the other room,” Coby said. He winked. “This could get pretty ugly.”

I started for the dining room but stopped and looked back. Fernando was cutting open the crotch of Neal’s pants.

“You’re not really?” I mouthed almost soundlessly to Coby.

He got up and led me through the dining room and into the kitchen.

“You’re not really going to castrate him, are you?”

“Not unless he doesn’t tell us what we want to know. Don’t worry; it doesn’t hurt as much as you think. We stop the bleeding instantly.”

“That’s insane. You can’t just—”

He saw the look of horror on my face. “I’m just kidding. We’re going to bluff him, scratch him, and let him think it’s for real. But I can’t have you out there trying to stop us. Your pal has got to think we’re going through with it.”

“I didn’t really mean kill him. Not all the way dead, at least.”

“Don’t worry.”

He closed the door behind him.

But I did worry. I waited a few seconds until I was sure he had crossed into the living room before I opened the door and snuck across the dining room to get a peek of what they were doing to Neal.

They had Neal down on the floor. Coby was sitting on Neal’s upper body while Fernando had Neal’s legs pinned and was doing something I couldn’t quite see because a coffee table was in the way.

After a moment Fernando straightened up with a wide grin on his face. He held a bloody object in his hand. “You’ll sing soprano now.”

My God! They had actually done it. But wait a minute—Fernando was Filipino. Filipinos were famous for that medical trick where they pretended to pull bloody objects out of sick people’s bodies to cure them. I remembered seeing a TV show about the routine, and the bloody mass they’d pulled out of someone’s stomach. It looked like what Fernando was now holding.

I knew everything was okay, but I suddenly felt queasy and sat down at the dining room table. A moment later Coby was at my side.

“Did you…?”

“We’ve got the info. Let’s get outta here.” He ran out before I could finish my question.

I followed them out the back of the house without looking at Neal. Fernando and the other man, Vince, joined us in the rubber boat. As we were racing back to the larger boat, I quietly asked Coby, “What happened?”

“Stocker has the pieces stashed at an old warehouse at the Brooklyn shipyards. We’ll head for there tomorrow after we plan our approach.”