Whiplash River (28 page)

“So do you always do it this way?” he said. “The tag-team approach that's supposed to throw me off my game? Good cop, bad cop? Does it ever work?”

“Listen,” Gina said. “If he doesn't get this stupid speech, he'll pout and whine for months. He'll pout and whine to me.
Moi.
Come down a quarter and I'll make it happen. You still come out seven hundred and fifty grand ahead.”

Gina was good at this, if she did say so herself. She could play any part.

“I don't want to come out seven hundred and fifty grand ahead,” Porkpie said. “I want to come out a million ahead. And I want the infamous Roland Ziegler to understand that I'm smarter than he is. And what's wrong with Cairo?”

They had reached Porkpie's car. Gina was almost there, it was almost done.

“What's wrong with Cairo?” she said. “I just spent a week in Beirut. That's what's wrong with Cairo.”

Devane opened the car door and then stopped. Turned. Looked at her.

It was like all his nervous, coked-up, hand-waving energy had been suddenly condensed down to a single humming laser pinprick, aimed at the pupil of Gina's left eye.

“What did you just say?” he said.

Chapter 43

T
he girl blinked. That was all. That was enough. Devane knew he had her.

“What did you just say?” he said.

She smiled like she didn't know what in the world he was talking about.

Did she really think she could smile her way out of this one?

Mohammed Number One picked up Devane's vibe and moved closer to the girl. He grabbed her arm. He was the number one Mohammed because he had a gift. He could always read Devane's vibe. Devane never had to nod or point or murmur under his breath, “Hey, Mohammed, the bitch is trying to game me.”

Mohammed Number One nodded at Mohammed Number Two, who came around on the other side of the girl.

“Rabat,” Devane said.

“What?” the girl said.

“You said, the first night we met, that you'd just come from Rabat. Morocco. Not Beirut. Rabat.
Très charmant,
remember?”

“We did,” the girl said. She rolled her eyes, exasperated. Pretending to be exasperated. “We went to Rabat for a night after Beirut. Do you want a detailed itinerary? Do you want to know what I had for breakfast each day?”

“You're lying,” Devane said.

Mohammed Number One picked up Devane's vibe and squeezed the girl's arm harder. Devane had seen him break a girl's arm just by squeezing it. Another gift that Mohammed Number One had.

“I'm so not lying.”

“What's your game?” Devane said. “You thought you were so smart, didn't you?”

The girl rolled her eyes again. A convincingly exasperated roll of the eyes, but—Devane caught the nervous flick at the end of the eye roll, a nervous flick of a glance over his shoulder.

Devane turned.

There. The crazy old man in the purple galabiya. The crazy old man, purple galabiya and white hair, who'd pushed his way into the suite and hollered for his daughter.

He was walking away fast. Just about to turn the corner on the other side of the hotel. He must have used the hotel's side exit. And he was carrying, at his side, a black leather attaché case.

Devane stared at the old man. He stared down at the identical black leather attaché case in his own hand.

It was impossible. It was fucking impossible. There was no way they could have pulled a switch. Devane had kept his eye on the real attaché case the entire time.

His first thought—of course it had been his first thought, when the old man bulled his way into the suite—Devane's immediate first thought had been:
It's a distraction.
The oldest trick in the oldest book. Distraction, misdirection. It was the first trick a grifter learned. Look over
there,
while I do this over
here.
It was a trick that fucking pickpockets used. The wrench. The bump.

So when the old man in the purple galabiya had bulled his way into the suite, Devane had kept his eye on the attaché case. He didn't think the old man was really a bump. Who would try something that clumsy? But better safe than sorry. Devane lived by that motto. Guilty until proven innocent, and even then probably guilty. Right?

So he hadn't taken his eyes off the attaché case. He hadn't taken his hand off it!

Had he?

Devane watched the old man in the purple galabiya walking fast, almost to the corner, the black leather attaché case in his hand.

He remembered, back in the suite, the old man and Mohammed Number Two almost falling on him. Devane having to shove them off. A split second when he'd taken his eyes off the attaché case, when he'd taken his hand off it . . .

“Get him!” Devane told the Mohammeds. The Mohammeds looked confused. They didn't understand. Mohammed Number One tightened his grip on the girl's arm and she spiked her elbow into his stomach, hard.

Mohammed Number One was a brick wall, he barely moved. But the girl had slipped her leg behind his leg before she spiked him, and he moved enough backward to lose his balance. The girl chopped him with her other hand, the side of her palm to his Adam's apple. He dropped her arm and stumbled backward, gagging.

The girl bolted. Mohammed Number Two started to go after her.

“Forget her!” Devane screamed. He'd been screaming for a while and hadn't even realized it. “The old man in the purple! He's got the real case!”

Mohammed Number One understood, but he was still gagging. Mohammed Number Two looked even more confused. Devane grabbed Mohammed Number Two's gun and took off after the old man. The old man was just turning the corner, just about to disappear.

Mohammed Number Two finally understood and sprinted after Devane. Mohammed Number One sprinted after them, slower, still gagging.

Devane whipped around the corner. The old man in the purple galabiya was up ahead, turning another corner, down a tight alley. He was walking fast but not fast enough. There was no way he would get away.

Did those fuckhead Americans think they were going to pull this off? Typical arrogant Americans. Though they would have pulled it off, Devane realized, a chill rippling through him, if the girl hadn't fucked up the one tiny detail about Rabat and Beirut.

That fuckup was going to get them killed. Because once Devane had his case back, once he shot the old man right there in the street like a dog—the Egyptian cops? What Egyptian cops?—once he had Roosevelt's speech back, he would sell the speech and use every dime of the money to hunt down the girl, hunt down the other guy. After he hunted them down, Devane would let Mohammed Number One have them. Devane would bust a few rails, find a comfy seat in the theater, and watch the show.

They had to be magicians! To switch the cases that fast, that clean, in the one single split second that Devane had looked away.

Devane whipped around the next corner. The old man was boxed up at the end of the alley, trying to get past a couple of fruit carts.

You're a dead man,
Devane thought.
Your friends will wish they were.

He reached the old man and slammed him against the stone wall. He yanked the attaché case away from him. Devane was so locked into that, getting the case back, that it took him a second to realize that the old man in the purple galabiya had a mustache.

A mustache. A mustache?

Mohammed Number Two put a gun to the old man's head and then looked at Devane, surprised. “He's got a mustache,” Mohammed Number Two said.

The man had white wavy hair, but also a mustache and dark eyes. He was Egyptian, not American. He looked like he was about to faint.

“It's not him,” Mohammed Number Two said. “This isn't the man that was upstairs.”

“Who are you?” Devane screamed at him.

The old man started mumbling and jabbering in Arabic. Devane had to slap him.

“Ask him who the fuck he is!” Devane screamed at Mohammed Number One. Devane's Arabic was good, but he wanted to make sure he got this exactly right.

“He says he's a waiter. He says he works at a restaurant in Giza, by the Sphinx. He says a man paid him a hundred dollars if he would wear this galabiya and carry this case.”

That's what Devane thought he had said.

“He says he doesn't understand what's happening,” Mohammed Number One said.

Devane didn't understand what was happening. He was starting to understand.

“Let him go,” Devane said. He shoved the old man away. Devane was starting to understand. He bent down and popped the clasps on the attaché case that the old man had been carrying. His heart was beating so hard he could barely breathe. It was like he'd done way too much coke. He opened the lid of the attaché case. Inside were a few bottles, small plastic bottles, of shampoo.

Mohammed Number Two looked confused. “That was not the man from upstairs,” he said. “This is not your case.”

“No,” Devane said. He understood now what had happened. “No. No. No.”

Chapter 44

S
hake picked up the attaché case.

The real case, the case with the speech that had saved Teddy Roosevelt's life.

It was on the pavement next to Devane's car, in front of the hotel, right where Devane had left it when he and his bodyguards went running after the dummy case.

There was nobody around Devane's car. The car looked like somebody had jumped out for a second to deliver a package to the hotel. The front door of the car was ajar. The door-ajar warning bell was going
ding . . . ding . . . ding.

Shake dropped the attaché case in a big plastic shopping bag. He'd already changed out of his suit and put on a baseball cap, sunglasses. He crossed the street, not rushing, and got into the cab that was waiting for him.

Quinn was in the backseat. He'd changed out of the purple galabiya and was back in a polo shirt and khakis. “I'll be honest,” Quinn said as the cab drove off. “Now that we've come up roses. I didn't know if he'd go for it or not.”

Shake hadn't known if Devane would go for the dummy case either. Devane was no dummy. But that was why, in the end, he went for it.

“Hoisted by his own petard, wasn't he?” Quinn said. “Too suspicious for his own goddamn good. Let me have a look.”

Shake slid the attaché case out of the plastic shopping bag and opened it. Quinn ran a finger along the edge of a bullet hole.

“I don't understand it myself,” he said. “It's a mystery. Why some people get so worked up by something like this. But I'm happy for them, if it makes them happy. God bless 'em.”

“How do we sell it?” Shake said. “If Devane's the main dealer for things like this?”

“The main one, not the only one. Hell, we'll sell it back to him if we have to. It's the way the world turns, Shake. You should know that. We'll sell it to the real Roland Ziegler when he really cuts a deal with the feds and gets out of prison. How would you like that?”

Stranger things, Shake knew, had happened.

The cab took them deep into the Christian Coptic area of Cairo. Fewer minarets, but just as much traffic, just as many donkeys pulling carts loaded with watermelons, honeydews, big green flopping bunches of sugarcane.

Shake and Quinn got out of the cab across from an old Coptic church with a bronze dome. They went past the church, turned down a deserted cobbled street, turned down an even more deserted cobbled street, turned into the courtyard of an abandoned building.

Gina was sitting on a plastic bucket in the middle of the courtyard, eating a slice of watermelon. “It's not bad,” she said. “But I've been to this place that has the best watermelon in the world. Rush Springs, Oklahoma. The watermelon capital of the world.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Quinn asked her. “Now that we've come up roses. Did you think he'd go for it?”

“Porkpie?” Gina said. “Sure. Well, I wasn't totally sure. I thought he'd go for it, but I also thought he might check the real case first.”

“He was so sure he'd figured it out,” Shake said.

“He was hoisted by his own petard.”

“His what?” Gina said. “I never touched his petard.”

Quinn started to say something. Gina laughed. “I'm kidding,” she said. “Sheesh, Harry. I know what petard is. It's gunpowder, isn't it? It's when you get blown up by your own gunpowder.”

“You sold it, young lady,” Quinn said. “You came up all aces. Brava.”

“You too, Harry. Now that we've come up roses, I can say you had me a little worried.”

“I guess I just stood around and watched,” Shake said. “I guess you two did all the work.”

Gina came over and gave Shake a big, sticky watermelon-flavored kiss.

“I was a little worried about you too,” she said. “Now let me see it again.”

Shake handed her the shopping bag with the attaché case inside. She took the case out and started to open it.

“Pardon me,” a voice said.

Shake turned. A man stood behind them, at the entrance to the courtyard. He had popped up like a ghost, not a sound. It was quiet here in the courtyard. The cobbled street that ran past was quiet. They should have heard him coming. They should have heard something.

The man had the tallest, longest forehead that Shake had ever seen. He was wearing cargo shorts and sandals and a T-shirt that said
YOU BETTER BELIZE IT!

He had a pleasant, mild expression on his face. And a gun with a silencer in his hand.

“I don't mean to interrupt,” he said. He stepped into the courtyard and looked around. “This is the perfect place!”