Whiplash River (25 page)

Chapter 38

G
ina had forgotten to pull the drapes in the new room last night. Dawn went off like a bomb. She groaned and lifted her head off the pillow and squinted. She peeled a strand of her hair off her lips. Jet lag. She'd just about had it up to here, sister, with jet lag.

Their new hotel was even swankier than the last one, with fantastic toiletries in the bathroom. It had been Gina's idea last night to switch hotels, but the guys had been thinking the same thing too. Their new hotel was across the bridge and closer to the center of town, just off the main square.

She reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and drank. “Want some?” she said.

Shake was awake too, squinting and groggy. “We forgot to pull the drapes.”

“Wonder why?”

“Give it.”

She handed him the glass. He drank what she'd left him.

Last night they'd taken a cab to their new hotel and booked three rooms using the name on Gina's fall-back passport.
Katherine Keel.
Quinn had made a beeline for the hotel bar while Gina and Shake had taken the elevator upstairs together. They hadn't said a word to each other the whole way up.

“So?” Shake said when they got to their rooms. His room was across the hall from hers.

“So what?” she said.

“So are you gonna take Quinn's advice? Finally tell me it's over between us and put me out of my misery?”

“I like your misery.”

He kissed her. She let him. Well, she did more than let him.

“What was that other thing Quinn said we should go ahead and do?” he said. “Something about the sack? Jumping in it?”

“I'm not jealous of Little Miss FBI. I want to make that clear.”

“It wasn't already?” He looked genuinely surprised. He better have.

“It's over between us,” she said, then kissed him again.

“That's a relief,” he said, and kissed her back.

It took them about half a heartbeat to get from the hallway into her room and across the room and into the sack. It was like they'd teleported there, and out of their clothes.

Now, this morning, Gina didn't know how she felt about what had happened. It was hard to know how you felt about anything with a hard bright desert dawn exploding in your face.

She knew how she felt about the sex itself. The sex had been good. She'd been aching to feel Shake's weight pressed against her again, inside her, through her. She'd been aching to kiss him and taste him and burn her lips on the stubble along his chin. Plus she'd been pretty horny in a general sense too. It wasn't all soft-focus curtains billowing in the breeze.

Shake hadn't learned any new tricks in their two years apart. Or he was smart enough not to show them to her. She showed him a few new tricks of her own, just to make him suffer. Okay, okay, she doubted the new tricks had made him suffer much.

“This doesn't mean what you think it means,” she said.

“What do I think it means?”

“That all is forgiven and forgotten and we're back together now.”

He didn't say anything.

“If you buy me an engagement ring like Harry told you to,” she said, “I really will kill you.”

“Is it such a bad idea?”

“It is.”

She got out of bed and walked to the window. Stretched. The warmth of the sun felt good on her bare boobs.

“Put your boots on,” he said.

She turned, surprised. This was a first in her experience, if she did say so herself. “You want me to get dressed?”

“I didn't say that.”

He smiled. She got back into bed.

Later, quite a bit later, they ordered room service and ate in bed.

“Next time I'm not going anywhere that doesn't have really good food,” Shake said. “Italy or Thailand. Mexico.”

“Next time.”

“The hummus is decent. But I just can't get excited about hummus.”

“This brings back memories, doesn't it?” she said.

“Yes.”

“That was your plan.”

“Yes.”

“But last time, remember, everything ended up sideways.”

She wanted to see how he'd respond to that. He went for the safe play.

“I think we can pull this off,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts, but Devane is too smart for his own good.”

“Harry's a liability. You know that, right? I love the guy, Shake, but.”

“All he has to do is stay on script.”

She looked at him. He didn't say anything.

“Is it worse than I think?” she said.

“That first time in my restaurant, he kept calling the guy a punk, the guy who was trying to shoot him.”

“While the guy was trying to shoot him?”

“And he hijacked a snorkel boat.” He moved the room-service tray to the floor. “I need a shower.”

“Shake,” she said.

“What?”

“Tell me you haven't even considered it.”

“What?”

He knew very well what she was talking about.

“I'm not cutting a deal with Logan James,” he said.

“He wants Harry, not you. Give Harry up and it could save your life.”

“That's debatable.”

“It's worth a try.”

“No.”

“Why? Is Harry the father you never had?”

Shake laughed. “God help me.”

“He drives you crazy.”

“You think?”

“But you haven't considered giving him up to Logan James, not for a minute.”

“I haven't.”

She believed him. It astounded Gina, but she believed him. It also astounded her, it really did, that she wouldn't want Shake any other way. She scooted closer and laid her head on his chest.

“Tell me why it's such a bad idea,” he said. “Getting you an engagement ring.”

“You were right,” she said after a minute.

“About what?”

“I would have left you.”

He took hold of her chin and tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes.

“What?” he said.

She sighed. “You said you left because you were scared I'd leave you first.”

“Go on.”

“I mean, I wasn't planning to leave you. It wasn't, like, impending. And I wouldn't have just dropped a fucking note on the kitchen table and hopped a plane, by the way, let's get that clear.”

“But.”

This was the problem with the truth, Gina thought. Fuck the truth! When did telling the truth, or admitting it to yourself, ever make you feel anything but shitty?

She'd been so happy back in Santa Monica with Shake. She couldn't have been happier. But.

She twisted her chin loose from his hand and laid her head back on his chest.

“I was scared too,” she said.

“That I'd leave you?”

“No! Are you kidding? I never in a million years thought you'd be that big an idiot.”

“Okay. So what were you scared of?”

She had been scared of getting bored. She had been scared that she might already be bored. There was one kind of happiness that was a state of equilibrium, there was another kind of happiness that was—the opposite of that. That was the kind of happiness that Gina had always known and loved.

“You remember how we'd walk down to the Palisades every night and watch the sunset?”

“You didn't like watching the sunset?”

“I did. But sometimes you'd watch the sunset and I'd watch the planes taking off from LAX. I'd watch a plane take off for parts unknown and I'd get, I don't know, a tingle.”

“Why didn't you say something?”

She just laughed.

“And now?” he said.

“I think I've changed.”

“You're ready to settle down?”

“Exactly. It's just exactly that simple.”

His warm hand rested on her shoulder. Her cheek rested on his warm chest. Underneath the smell of hotel soap and sex and swanky cotton sheets, he had a very distinct smell. Shake's smell was like coming home.

“You know I'm aware,” he said. “What you might be doing right now. You should be aware that I don't care. I'll take it.”

“I'm not doing it right now,” she said. She needed to pee, but it felt so nice lying here with him. “Yesterday at breakfast, you were up at the buffet, Harry was telling me his whole big plan for fertility tourism.”

“Lucky you.”

“It's not the world's worst idea, actually.”

“Gina,” Shake said. “We're right for each other.”

“So what if we are?”

“Would you say yes if I bought you a ring?”

“Probably not.”

“But you don't know what you'd say.”

“Don't buy me a ring. That puts a girl on the spot.”

“Maybe I want to put you on the spot.”

“Did you know it at the time, that I was watching planes take off from LAX and not the sunset?”

“I thought you were watching the Ferris wheel down on the pier. It was hard to tell, you always had sunglasses on.”

“Sometimes I was watching the Ferris wheel. Most of the time I was watching the sunset.”

Her burner cell, on the nightstand, buzzed. Devane was the only one who had the number.

“Looks like we're on, sport,” she told Shake. “Better get your head in the game.”

Chapter 39

S
hake checked his watch. It was going to be a busy day.

Devane had told Gina he'd be at the hotel at three to show them Roosevelt's speech. Gina had tried to bump him back a few hours to buy them time, she'd tried her best, but Devane had said take three o'clock or leave it. Shake knew Devane wanted to put them under the gun. It was the smart, suspicious play. He deserved a tip of the porkpie hat.

So that gave them—Shake checked his watch again—less than five hours to make sure they had all their corners squared away.

Five hours. Like this wasn't gonna be hard enough already.

On the other hand, this kind of pace gave you less time to worry about one of Devane's Egyptian ex–secret service goons shooting you in the face. That was the silver lining.

Quinn's job was to hunt down Mahmoud. Who had not yet produced the exact twin of Devane's black leather attaché case as he had promised. Who had not returned the voice-mail messages that Quinn left him.

“I'm not worried,” Quinn said, looking worried.

Gina was going to contact her computer hacker guy back in San Francisco. Devane had demanded they have proof, the minute he walked in the door, that Roland Ziegler possessed the necessary funds for a minimum bid. Seven and a half million dollars. Most of Gina's ready cash was tied up in her business, so she needed her computer guy to work his magic. Shake didn't understand the details, not a single one of them, but the gist was the computer guy would create some kind of shell account. A shell within a shell on a mirror. With lots of smoke blown across the surface of the mirror. Devane would open his laptop between 3:00 and 3:09 Cairo time, punch in some numbers, a password, and then see—“see”—that Roland Ziegler—“Roland Ziegler”—had plenty of cash ready to transfer.

Maybe. Fingers crossed.

Gina looked a little worried too.

“What is it?” Shake said.

“He'll need a little coaxing,” she said. “My hacker. Hackers are total sociopaths, but they're scared to death of doing time.”

Shake had his own job to do. Two jobs, both critical. Three jobs. What wasn't critical, at this point?

He walked through the lobby of the hotel and out into the heat, the honking. He stood there for a second before he remembered to wave for a cab.

He was trying to keep his head in the game, but it was hard not to drift back to last night with Gina, this morning, everything. He had hope. He was practically bouncing off the walls with it.

But that, in his experience, was when you needed to be most careful. When everything seemed to breaking just right for you, when the morning sun lit up a beautiful woman's naked body right in front of you, the woman you loved.

Shake remembered the real Roland Ziegler. The real Roland Ziegler had been feeling pretty good about himself back in Panama City three years ago, about to walk away with both the money and the merchandise, back to his private island in the Caribbean. Next thing he knew, his hopes had gone up in smoke and he was staring at twenty years in the federal lock.

It was like poker. You might be zooming right along, a killer hand, picking up speed on the flop and the turn. But the game wasn't over yet. That last card, the river, it could jerk you around fast. Shake knew it.

 

EVELYN SLEPT TILL NINE, HAD
some coffee, and called Mohammed. She asked him to meet her in half an hour at the hotel.

“Your hotel?” he asked.

“Their hotel,” she said.

Mohammed was alarmed. “No, Evelyn. I will pick you up!”

She told him no, she was going to walk. She needed the fresh air and cardio, what with all the secondhand unfiltered Camel smoke she'd sucked down yesterday.

Her hotel, as luck would have it, was only a couple of blocks from the new hotel that Shake and Company had checked into. Their hotel was much swankier than hers. Was it true that crime paid? If Evelyn had to break it down, based on her experience in law enforcement, she'd say it probably paid a fair amount of the time.

It took her half an hour to walk the two blocks. Cairo traffic—so much for fresh air.

Mohammed was waiting for her, parked down the block and across the street from the new hotel. They took their seats on the hood of the Mercedes. Mohammed stripped the cellophane off a fresh pack of Camels and Evelyn sent Sarah a text.
What time is it there? Luv u bunches.

The reply came back a second later.
Midnight. Mom, I cannot believe you actually went to Egypt.

Midnight!?! U r not in bed yet?! i m so disappointed in u!

I AM in bed. You woke me UP.

You forgive me.

Sarah didn't text back for a long time. Evelyn wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

Dad is mad at you. For going to Egypt and not telling him.

Why the fuck does he give a fuck?
Evelyn thought.

OK,
she texted back.

He said I could have stayed with him and Lilly instead of Aunt Katie.

What a responsible, attentive, considerate parent Andre was! The asshole.

Every guy has a mustache here. It's like Magnum PI wherever you turn.

Don't be mad at him, Mom.

Mohammed nudged Evelyn with his elbow. Evelyn had already seen: Shake standing outside the hotel entrance, looking kind of stupefied. Finally he raised his hand to hail a cab.

Gotta go. Yella beena! Love you bunches.

They tailed Shake's cab through town and across a bridge. His cab dropped him off at the pyramids.

The pyramids! “My daughter would flip out,” Evelyn told Mohammed.

He double-parked behind a tour bus. Evelyn got out and tailed Shake on foot. She gave him a block, just to be safe, even though there were tons of tourists milling around. He walked down the street and stopped in front of the Sphinx.

The Sphinx!

He stood for a long time in front of the Sphinx, just staring up at it. Then he walked over to a little café and took a seat at a table. He ordered coffee, or tea. Evelyn couldn't be sure which, from a distance.

What the hell was he doing? Sipping his coffee, or tea, and gazing up at the Sphinx. He didn't look like a guy mixed up in sketchy shit at all. After he finished his drink, he paid the waiter and found another cab. Evelyn and Mohammed tailed this cab back over the bridge. It dropped Shake off on the edge of a small crowded square, across from a big mosque. Shake crossed the square and turned down an alley.

“Ah,” Mohammed said, peering through the windshield of the Mercedes. “Khan el-Khalili.”

“Khan el-Khalili?”

“Yes! Very famous.”

“For what?”

Mohammed pondered. “Souvenir.”

What? A little sightseeing, some souvenir shopping. What the hell?

Evelyn started to get out of the Mercedes.

“Wait,” Mohammed said. “Listen to me.
La shukran.
”

“What?”

“La shukran.”
He said it slowly. “Say it to me.”

“
La shukran.
Why? What is it?”

“It means ‘No, thank you.' Say it again, please.”

She thought he'd lost his mind.
“La shukran,
Mohammed,
la shukran.”

Evelyn crossed the square and turned down the alley that Shake had turned down. The alley was insanely narrow, crammed with shops and shoppers and shopkeepers. All the shopkeepers were men, with mustaches, most of them wearing the long cotton caftans that a lot of Egyptian men wore. They spotted Evelyn and, oh, wow, it was like the running of the bulls, but at her.

“Where you from?”

“Please look! No cost to look!”

“Special price! One pound only!”

“You like this, I promise!”

“No cost to look, please enter!”

“Where you from?”

“La shukran!”
Evelyn said.
“La shukran!”

The nearest shopkeeper feigned surprise. “You are from
la shukran
? I do not know this place! Where is this place?”

“
La shukran!
Hey! Watch it!
La shukran!
”

They didn't touch her, but if she stepped left, so did they. If she faked left and stepped right, so did they. Evelyn saw that Shake, about a hundred feet up the alley, had been waylaid too. A shopkeeper had dragged him over to his shop.

“Here, special price, you may hold it,” a shopkeeper told Evelyn. He forced a stone jar into her hands before she knew what he was doing. The lid of the jar was the head of a—dog? Coyote?

“La shukran,”
Evelyn said, trying to hand the jar back. But her shopkeeper had his hands behind his back now, and she couldn't just drop it.

Shake's shopkeeper was showing him one of the long cotton caftans, a sort of dusty lavender color, holding it up so Shake could see how snazzy it would look on him.

“Please, miss,” Evelyn's shopkeeper said. “I make a special deal for you. Ten pounds. Have pity, miss. I must feed the mouths of my family. You have a very good eye, miss, you select the very most excellent jar. I see you know this business. This price, I lose money, I barely feed the mouths of my children. The quality is excellent, you can see that, I see. The jar is yours now, you have picked it, I cannot take it back. Please do not waste my time, I am a very busy man.”

And then he gave her a wink, like this was all in good fun, of course.

And then he frowned, like of course it wasn't, he had to feed the mouths of his family.

And then he frowned differently, like she better buy the jar or else, all the time of his she'd wasted.

Evelyn was impressed. “You're good,” she said. “You should go to Hollywood and be an agent.”

“You are from Hollywood! I know Hollywood! My cousin lives there. I give you a special discount.”

“How much is it?” Evelyn sighed. She knew when she was beat. “Ten Egyptian pounds? It's like two dollars, isn't it? I only have American.”

“Ten pound
British,
” the shopkeeper said. “Oh, no. You have mistaken me.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Evelyn said. She handed over an American five. Her shopkeeper looked scandalized, then wounded, then resigned. He trudged back into his shop to wrap up her dog-headed stone jar in newspaper. He brought back three more jars that he said completed the set, an extra five bucks each, how could she refuse, she had already agreed in principle, had she not, and he had already gone to all the trouble of wrapping them too.

Evelyn saw Shake buying one of the lavender caftans. Apparently his shopkeeper was as relentless as Evelyn's. Then Shake pointed to something inside the shop. The shopkeeper nodded. Evelyn watched Shake step into the shop and disappear.

 

EVELYN WAS GOOD. SHAKE GAVE
her that. She did almost everything right. But of course he spotted her, about thirty seconds after he left the hotel. Shake had spent most of his professional life making sure he didn't have a tail, and shaking them when he did.

She'd surprised him once, yesterday. She wouldn't do it again.

The cabdriver who picked Shake up at the Sphinx was a young kid, midtwenties, his English as good as Shake's. Probably better. Shake said something about it and the kid told Shake that he had an engineering degree. With the economy tanking since the revolution, though, he was lucky to have a job driving a cab. Still, he was glad the revolution had happened.

Shake asked him if he knew where he could buy a—he forgot the word for a second. A galabiya.

“Sure,” the kid said. “I know a place. It's close by. And it's quality stuff, not like most tourists buy. Locals shop there. It's just up the street. You could probably just walk, if you want.”

“You need to get the hang of this cab-driving racket,” Shake said.

The kid grimaced. “Tell me about it.”

“Listen,” Shake said. “Is there a place, like a shopping area, lots of shops, crowded? Lots of tourists? Is there a place like that where I can get a galabiya? As far away as you want, keep the meter running.”

The kid checked him out in the rearview mirror. “Sure,” he said.

He dropped Shake at a square across from a mosque and pointed him down an alley. Shake made sure Evelyn had time to catch up. He couldn't see her, she was good, but Shake knew she was there.

Shake walked up the alley. It was nuts. Tourists wall to wall and the vendors were ferocious. He wondered how they'd do with Quinn. Probably, five minutes with Quinn, these guys would be down on their knees in surrender, begging Quinn to just take the goddamn plaster pharaoh head, on the house, mister, just shut up about the one time you met a pharaoh and gave him the idea for the pyramids, unofficially, of course.