“So I heard,” said Jeff. “How did he manage to conceal it so well in such a tiny space? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“I told you.” Tiffany shrugged. “The general’s a brilliant man. He’s smarter than he looks.”
“He must be,” said Jeff.
AFTER THE CRAMPED CONFINES of the Eastern and Oriental Express, Bangkok’s Peninsula Hotel was the last word in luxury. The food was exquisite, the service faultless and the beds so soft and capacious that General Alan McPhee could have wept with relief. Freed from the prying eyes of his fellow train passengers, the general had decided to dispense with the subterfuge and install Miss Tiffany Joy in his palatial suite. After all, it wasn’t as if his wife was about to drop in and discover them. With only a few days left in his trip to Asia, the general was looking forward to spending some quality time with his young secretary’s delicious body, away from the distractions of the infuriating Mr. Thomas Bowers.
Sprawled out by the Peninsula’s spectacular swimming pool overlooking the harbor, in a minuscule gold bikini that left little to the imagination, Miss Joy looked particularly ravishing this morning.
It’s a pity to have to leave her, the general thought. On the other hand, by dinner tonight I’ll be two million dollars richer. We can celebrate together.
“I have some business to take care of.” Leaning over her sun lounger, he kissed her on the top of the head. “I’ll be back before tonight.”
“Good luck.” Tiffany sighed, rolling over onto her stomach.
Watching the general walk away, with that distinctive stiff, military gait of his, she was glad she hadn’t slept with Thomas Bowers in the end. He was charming, of course, and sexy. But men like him were a dime a dozen. Alan was different. He was a war hero, a man of true intellect and gravitas. A little pompous perhaps, but a good man at heart.
I made the right choice.
HOW THE HELL DO people live here?
General Alan McPhee’s lip curled in distaste as the crowds of sweaty Thais surged around him like vermin.
He’d taken the Skytrain to Bang Chak, preferring the anonymity of Bangkok’s famous monorail to a cab, where he ran the risk of the driver remembering him. From there he made his way by foot through the market, holding tightly to his precious backpack as he weaved through stalls selling everything from textiles and electronics to cheap religious icons and revolting herbal charms made from chicken’s feet and the like.
In every corner, junkies sat slumped like the corpses they would soon become. Chao-tak’s customers. General McPhee felt no compassion for them. Their misery was self-inflicted.
The general had heard the horror stories about Chao-tak’s torture chambers, and the toe-curling punishments he apparently inflicted on perceived rivals, enemies or delinquent debtors. He wasn’t impressed. These drug lords and gang leaders thought of themselves as warriors. Pathetic! Put them in a real war zone and they wouldn’t last a day. Most of them were illiterate thugs who’d risen to the top like scum in a jar full of pond water. It pained the general in a way, to be handing over the beautiful Entemena statue to such a philistine. But business was business. Two million dollars would pay for the luxurious retirement that General Alan McPhee deserved.
A minion emerged from an alleyway and scuttled alongside the general like a rat.
“McPhee?”
The general nodded.
“This way.”
Chao-tak’s office was a sparsely furnished room in a nondescript apartment building. Not quite a tenement, it was nevertheless extremely run-down, with patchy air-conditioning, peeling paint and carpets that looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned since the day they were laid. In Mexico, the drug barons lived like emperors. Clearly Chao-tak had other uses for his money.
“You got the statue?”
General McPhee laid his backpack gently down on the desk.
“You got the money?”
A different minion handed him a briefcase.
“Do you mind if I count it?”
Chao-tak wasn’t listening. Like a greedy child on Christmas morning, he was attacking the general’s backpack, clawing at the Bubble Wrap protecting Entemena.
“Be careful with that!” The general couldn’t stop himself. “There’s over two thousand years of history in that bag.”
The squat little Thai turned the statue over in his hands, like a monkey examining a troublesome nut. Ignorant peasant.
Suddenly something happened. Chao-tak’s face darkened. He shook the statue hard, like a baby with a rattle, then started shouting something in Thai. Two of his men rushed forward. Each examined the base of the statue. Then all three glared at General McPhee.
“You try to cheat me!” Chao-tak spat.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? You ridiculous. Two-thousand-year-old statue, you think I’m stupid?” Snatching the Entemena back from his henchmen, Chao-tak threw it at the general, who only just caught it in time.
“For Christ’s sake! What are you doing?”
“Look at bottom. Look at base!” Chao-tak commanded.
The general’s face drained of color.
“They have serial number two thousand year ago? They have bar code?”
“I . . . I don’t understand,” the general stammered. “This is a mistake. Someone must have switched the statues somehow.” He thought about the robbery on the train, but that made no sense. It couldn’t be. I had the statue with me on the Kwai. It was never in the room.
“Look, I’ll straighten this out. You can keep your money.” He closed the briefcase and pushed it back across the desk. “I don’t know how this happened but—”
Four hands gripped his arms from behind. Before he could react, someone brought a metal crowbar slamming into the back of his knees. He screamed and slumped to the floor.
“You try to cheat me.”
The Harvard-educated American war hero looked into the eyes of the illiterate Thai drug dealer and saw his own black, compassionless heart staring back at him.
Tears welled up in his eyes.
He knew there would be no way out.
TIFFANY JOY HAD BEEN waiting at the table for over forty minutes when the champagne and note arrived.
She smiled. About time.
She waited until the waiter had opened the bottle, poured her a glass and left before she opened the note. When she read it, the smile dissolved on her lips.
The General is dead. I paid your check. Get out of Bangkok now or they will kill you too. Don’t pack. Your friend. T.B.
T.B.
Thomas Bowers.
Tiffany Joy got up from the table and started running.
JEFF STEVENS WAS AT the boarding gate, about to board Qantas flight 22 8419 to London via Dubai, when a Thai police officer pulled him roughly to one side.
“Is there a problem?”
The officer said nothing. Snatching Jeff’s carry-on out of his hand, he unzipped it and pulled out a Bubble Wrapped package.
Jeff’s palms began to sweat.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a statue,” said Jeff. “A gift for a friend of mine.”
“Really?” The guard made a gesture. Three of his colleagues approached. In addition to their handguns, each one had a vicious Alsatian dog straining at the end of a leather leash. The dogs went nuts as they approached Jeff, barking wildly and baring their teeth.
“Passport!” the first officer barked.
Jeff handed it over. What the hell was happening?
“Are you familiar with the drug laws in this country, Mr. Bowers?”
“Of course I am,” said Jeff. He could barely hear himself over the dogs. He’d heard the stories of innocent travelers having bags of heroin planted on them, of course, but he’d been so careful. For obvious reasons, his bag had nev
er left his sight for a second. Unless someone at security . . .
The policeman tore off the Bubble Wrap and held the statue of Entemena high above his head. “Maybe the gift for your friend is inside, hmm?”
Jeff’s heart stopped. He’s going to smash it! He’s going to shatter two thousand years of history. “NO!”
Without thinking, he lunged for the statue.
Three pistols were instantly raised and pointed at his head. Jeff closed his eyes and waited for the sound of shattering stone. Instead he heard a man shriek in agony. Opening his eyes, he saw that one of the dogs had leaped onto the man standing next to him and sunk its formidable jaws into the poor guy’s crotch. A melee ensued, with much barking and screaming and waving of firearms. Eventually a plastic bag containing a small amount of white powder was produced from somewhere inside the man’s pants.
The first policeman calmly handed the statue back to Jeff.
“Sorry, sir. Our mistake. We hope you enjoyed your stay in Thailand.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, JEFF finally exhaled as the Airbus A380 soared and juddered its way into the sky.
Reaching down, he stuck his hand into the bag at his feet and touched the statue lovingly.
That was close. Too close.
He thought about Francine, the Frenchwoman on the E&O. It was she who’d tried to steal the Entemena while both Jeff and the general were at the Kwai. Jeff recognized her from a job he and Tracy had tried to pull years ago in Paris. He was sure she was on the train with the same intention as he had. She’d beaten them to the punch in France—a lovely Dutch still life, if Jeff remembered rightly. But not this time. Once the general was distracted by dear, sweet little Minami on the Japanese raft, his outrage had gotten the better of him. It had been preposterously easy to switch his backpack for the one Jeff had brought with him, packed with a worthless fake statue, as sold in museum gift shops all over Europe.
He thought about Tiffany Joy and wondered whether she’d taken his advice. He did hope so. Chao-tak was not in the habit of leaving loose ends, and Miss Joy didn’t deserve the fate of her heartless lover.
He thought about General Alan McPhee, and about Aahil Hafeez, and about the collector in Switzerland who was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his treasure.
He thought about Tracy, and how nothing was quite as much fun without her.
Then he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 11
OH MY GOD! THAT’S Zayn Malik!”
Nicholas’s eyes were on stalks. He’d never been to Los Angeles before, or to any big city other than Denver, and that was only for a day-trip. His mother had brought him to Cecconi’s on Melrose for lunch, a celebrity watcher’s heaven.
“Who’s Zayn Malik?” Tracy asked.
“Zayn Malik? One Direction?”
Tracy looked blank. Nicholas gave her a look that was half pity, half disdain.
“Oh, never mind. Can I have another sundae?”
It was July and ninety degrees outside. While the Angelenos wisely headed to the beach, or locked themselves inside their air-conditioned cars and offices, Tracy and Nicholas had spent the morning pounding the streets, rushing from one tourist attraction to the next. In prior years, Tracy had sent her son to a local summer camp in Colorado called Beaver Creek. Nick spent his vacations swimming and fishing and kayaking and camping, and always had a great time. But this year she decided it was time he saw a bit more of the world.
Blake Carter was against the idea.
“I don’t see what Los Angeles has to offer that Steamboat doesn’t.”
Tracy raised an eyebrow. “Variety?”
“Them freaks on Venice Beach, you mean?”
“Come on, Blake. I know you’re not a city person. But there’s Hollywood, all that movie history. There’s museums and theme parks. I’ll take him to Universal Studios and maybe a Lakers game. He’s so sheltered here.”
“Kids are supposed to be sheltered,” grumbled Blake. “Maybe if he were a teenager. But he’s too young, Tracy. You mark my words. He won’t enjoy it.”
Nicholas loved it.
Everything about L.A. excited him, from the food and the blazing heat to the streets full of Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Bugattis and Teslas and the Venice Beach freaks that Blake Carter so despised: silver-sprayed mimes and snake charmers and transvestite stilt walkers and fortune-tellers with their faces covered in exotic tattoos.
“This place is awesome!” he told Tracy, night after night in their suite at the Hotel Bel-Air. “Can we move here, Mom? Please?”
A sundae arrived, Nicholas’s second. He attacked the mountain of whipped cream and fudge with the same enthusiasm he’d shown its predecessor. Tracy was sipping her coffee, content simply to watch him, when a party walked in and caught her attention.
The first thing Tracy saw was the necklace. Once a jewel thief, always a jewel thief. Although in all honesty, this one was hard to miss: a string of rubies, each one the size of a baby’s fist, hung around the scrawny neck of an otherwise unattractive, middle-aged woman. It was the most dazzling, over-the-top piece of jewelry that Tracy had ever seen. And she’d seen quite a few.
The woman was with her husband, a squat, toad of a man with bulging eyes whom Tracy was sure she recognized but couldn’t quite place. Another, younger woman completed the group. From behind, Tracy could see that this second woman was tall, slender and elegant. Then she turned around.
Tracy choked, scalding jets of coffee burning the back of her throat and making her eyes water.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy dabbed her eyes with the napkin, simultaneously using it to hide her face. “Finish your dessert.”
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Rebecca Mortimer! The girl from the British Museum. The girl Tracy had caught in her bedroom with Jeff, all those years ago. The girl who’d singlehandedly destroyed Tracy’s married life was here, not only in Los Angeles but in this very restaurant, sitting less than ten feet away from her!
Of course, she looked different. It had been almost a decade, after all. Her long red hair was now platinum blond and short, almost boyish. But there was nothing remotely masculine about her figure, especially when it was shrink-wrapped in an Hervé Léger minidress as it was today. Or in the coquettish toss of her head as she laughed at the fat man’s jokes.
I know who he is now, Tracy thought. Of course. That’s Alan Brookstein, the director. Which means those must be the famous Iranian rubies.
She couldn’t remember the whole story. But it involved a mistress of the former shah of Iran being tortured and strangled for her necklace, or something equally awful. Vanity Fair did a piece on it, and nobody came out well. Liz Taylor had tried and failed to buy the necklace before her death, after which it went underground again. Brookstein had bought it for his wife last year in a secret, possibly illegal deal, for an undisclosed sum. And here it was in the flesh, swinging around the woman’s neck at a casual lunch, like a mayoral chain!
Tracy summoned the maître d’.
“That’s Alan Brookstein and his wife, isn’t it?” she asked discreetly.
“Yes, ma’am. They’re regulars here.”
“I wonder, do you know the young woman dining with them?”
The maître d’ didn’t usually stoop to gossip with patrons. But the very beautiful Mrs. Schmidt was clearly far from one’s average tourist. She positively radiated class.
“I believe her name is Liza Cunningham. I’ve seen her in here before with Sheila . . . Mrs. Brookstein. She’s British. An actress.”
That’s about right, thought Tracy bitterly. A damn good actress.
Tracy watched the way “Liza” divided her attention between the director and his wife, expertly flattering them both. In her prior i
ncarnation as “Rebecca,” an innocent archaeology student, she’d played the doe-eyed, butter-wouldn’t-melt role equally well.
That’s when it hit Tracy like a thunderbolt between the eyes.
She’s not an actress, or a student. She’s a con artist, like Jeff and me!
She’s one of us.
It was so obvious now, Tracy couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t realized it before. Back in London. Back when it mattered.
She’s a con artist and she’s here to steal that ruby necklace.
“Mom? You look weird. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy had almost forgotten Nicholas was there. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed and her heart rate had started to rise, beating to a familiar but long-neglected beat.
I’m going to play her at her own game.
And this time I’m going to win.
By the time Tracy paid the check, the decision had already been made.
Tracy was going to steal Sheila Brookstein’s rubies.
IT WAS HARD TO say who enjoyed the next week more—Tracy or Nicholas. In between playing mommy and taking her son to all the L.A. sights, Tracy prepared for the job. Stealing the most famous ruby necklace in the world from a powerful Hollywood director’s wife was not exactly “easing oneself back in gently.” Long days running around town with her son were followed by equally long nights researching everything there was to know about Alan and Sheila Brookstein and the fabled Iranian rubies.
In two days she had a plan.
It was difficult, audacious and wildly risky. Worse, she had only ten days to pull it together.
TRACY AND NICHOLAS WERE at the Hollywood sign. Tracy’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“So it really is you!” The man on the other end of the line gave a raspy chuckle. “I’ll be damned. I thought you were dead.”
“Thanks, Billy. Good to know.” Tracy grinned. “Are you still in the jewelry business?”
“Are priests still screwing little boys? Whaddaya got for me, sweetheart?”
“Nothing, yet. Can you meet me at the Bel-Air later?”
Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) Page 13