by Lou Berney
Shake and Quinn sat down. A few minutes later a female guard brought Gina in and sat her down next to Shake.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
Shake wanted to reach out and touch her—just put his hand on hers, anything—but the guard had cuffed him behind the back this time.
Gina’s hands were cuffed in front, but the female guard was right next to her, watching Gina like a mean fucking hawk. Gina turned her foot, under the table, so that her leg pressed against Shake’s.
The officer in charge walked in. He looked at Shake and Gina and Quinn with weary disgust, and then flicked his wrist. The guards left the room. The officer in charge followed them out.
“I don’t understand this,” Quinn said.
“How’s your leg, Harry?” Gina said.
“It’s been better.”
“Are you okay?” Shake asked Gina.
“Sure.”
Two young guys in futuristic sunglasses entered the room. They wore clear plastic earpieces. They looked around and then sat down on the opposite side of the table from Shake and Gina, leaving the chair between them empty.
A guy around Shake’s age entered the room and took the empty chair. He was wearing a dark blue suit, like the young guys, but Shake could tell his suit was a lot more expensive. The way he wore it, though, the suit riding up all over him, it looked cheaper.
He was average height, average weight, with pale thinning hair. He looked tired, frazzled, annoyed.
Shake didn’t feel good about any of that.
“You’re going to spend the rest of your life in an Egyptian prison,” the guy said. “And not this one. This one is the Ritz-Carlton of Egyptian correctional facilities.”
Even better.
“And why do you think that is?” he said. “Why are you going to spend the rest of your life in an Egyptian prison?”
Shake wasn’t sure who he was asking. He was looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head.
“Why are you such a little prick?” Quinn said.
The guy looked at Quinn, and then turned to Shake and Gina.
“My name is Daniel Gardenhire,” he said. “You probably know who I work for.”
“Sticky Jimmy,” Shake said.
He grimaced. “Jesus. Don’t ever call him that.”
“Will I ever get the opportunity to?”
“No.” He turned back to Quinn. “Why do you think?”
“Why do I think you’re such a little prick? Maybe because you tried to have me killed.”
“Leave,” Gardenhire told the two guys in sunglasses.
They left. Gardenhire seemed to be gathering himself. Trying to control his anger.
“And why the fuck is that, Dad?” he said.
“Dad?” Shake said.
Gina’s eyes went wider than Shake had ever seen them go.
“He didn’t tell you?” Gardenhire said. “Classic.”
Gardenhire looked nothing like Quinn. Or maybe he did, his blue eyes behind the glasses. The way he drummed his fingers on the table. Holy shit.
Shake was glad to see that life still had, at least, one more surprise left in store for him.
“He’s your son?” he asked Quinn.
“He’s a little prick who put a number on his own father.”
“Did he tell you the rest?” Quinn’s son asked Shake. “I’m just curious. What did he tell you?”
“He told me Sticky Jimmy did a few things, back in the day, that he’d rather forget about now. Logan James, sorry. In Cambodia.”
“That’s true,” Quinn’s son said. “Mr. James robbed UNESCO blind. And every other NGO in Cambodia in the nineties. He bung-holed them senseless. So far, so good.”
“And now Mr. James, moving up the ladder, needs to get rid of the one guy who knows about what happened in Cambodia. So he put a number on him. He tried to have him killed.”
Quinn’s son waited. Shake didn’t know what else to say.
“Is there more?” Shake said.
“I’m thinking,” Gina said, “there might be.”
“There’s more,” Quinn’s son said. He took a good look at Gina for the first time. “Have we met?”
“I wouldn’t have any idea,” she said. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“My name’s Gina. Gina Clement. I have a very profitable venture shop in San Francisco.”
“I know all that,” he said. “I do my homework, no offense. I’m just trying to remember if I ever met you. Last year, maybe. A fund-raiser for the governor at Fort Mason?”
“Sure,” Gina lied. “I remember now.”
Shake was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that Quinn’s son was the fixer for Logan James. That it was Quinn’s own son who had tried to have him killed.
“I know all about you too,” Quinn’s son told Shake.
“Is any of that maybe going to help us here?” Gina said. “That I can be a very generous fund-raiser for Mr. James?”
“No,” Quinn’s son said. He turned his attention back to Quinn.
“Why don’t you tell them the rest, Dad,” he said. “I bet they’re curious why they’re going to spend the rest of their life in an Egyptian prison.”
“The hell with you,” Quinn said. “Sticky Jimmy, he’s just doing what he has to do. You think I have a beef with him? I don’t. Why would I? He was always a guy, he’d look you in the eye he had something to tell you. He’s a straight shooter. You, on the other hand. Go ahead and put a number on your own father.”
“My father tried to shake us down,” Quinn’s son explained to Shake and Gina. “Blackmail. He called me up a couple of months ago. First time in years, I should add. When he needed something. When he wanted something. That’s when you can expect a call from Harrigan Quinn.”
“That’s not true. I called you plenty of times before that. You’re the one who said, let me see, how did you put it? ‘Stay out of my life.’ Vail, Christmas Eve, 2005.”
“Tell them why I told you to stay out of my life! Tell them how many chances I gave you! Your capacity to bend reality to your own selfish purposes is super-fucking-human, Dad.”
Quinn’s son turned back to Shake and Gina.
“He wanted a job with the campaign. He told me that if he didn’t get a job with the campaign, he’d take all the dirt he had on Mr. James and dump it in public. I told him please, Dad, don’t even joke about that. He said he wasn’t joking. He said he had enough dirt on Mr. James to—let me see, how did you put it?—‘bury him six feet deep.’ ”
“I wasn’t really going to do it! For God’s sake, Danny! I’m no rat. I may be a lot of things, I’m the first to admit it, but I’ve never been a rat. You ever heard of loyalty?”
“Loyalty? Classic, Dad.”
“It was a bluff, Danny! A bluff!” Quinn turned to Shake and Gina. “You’d think he’d know how to play poker, wouldn’t you, the line of work he’s in? He’s worked for two governors, a law degree from Harvard, top of his class, he’ll be chief of staff in the White House one of these days, you just watch and see, and the kid could never play poker to save his life.”
Quinn turned back to his son.
“Even when you were a kid, remember? Remember that summer in Virginia? I’d try to teach you Hold ’Em, it was like playing cards with a dog. Like the painting with the dogs in it? You’d flop a set of aces and your tail would start wagging.”
“I was six years old that summer.”
“You either know how to play poker or you don’t.”
Quinn’s son chuckled. The chuckle, Shake realized, was another thing he shared with his father. “Do either of you happen to have any idea,” he asked Shake and Gina, “how he’s managed to stay alive this long? Because I don’t.”
“Not really,” Shake said.
“I’d like to meet your mother,” Gina said.
Quinn and his son glanced away at exactly the same time, Quinn to his right and his son to the left, like mirror
images of each other.
Nobody said anything for a long minute.
“I would never have dumped any dirt on Jimmy,” Quinn said finally. “Not really. I would never have done that to you. If you don’t know that, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Sure, Dad. You say that now.”
“Guard!” Quinn yelled. “Return me to my cell, please!”
No guard came. Quinn’s son took off his glasses and rubbed his face. He sat slumped down in his chair, looking even more tired, frazzled, and annoyed than when he’d arrived.
The moment of truth. Shake had never been sure why it was called that. Maybe because whatever way things broke, that became the truth. Your truth.
Gina pressed her leg harder against his. She knew it was the moment of truth too.
Shake realized that if he hadn’t dragged Quinn along with him after Quinn had been shot, if Shake had left Quinn behind like Quinn had asked him to do, Shake and Gina might be free right now. Or they might be dead. Or they might still be sitting in an Egyptian prison and Quinn dead, Shake and Gina’s only hope dead, their moment of truth long past.
“Here’s the thing, Dad,” Quinn’s son said finally. “If you ever, ever, ever pull something like this again . . .”
Shake didn’t hear the rest of it. Gina closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder. Shake closed his eyes too.
Thank you, God, he thought, and for the first time since Shake was eleven years old, an altar boy at St. Frances Cabrini on Paris Street in New Orleans, he really meant it.
Chapter 50
Quinn got to his feet and began the speech of a lifetime, about how he’d never walk out of that Egyptian jail unless Shake and Gina walked out with him, that was the deal, take it or leave it.
“You know what the Marines say?” Quinn said.
“Dad,” Gardenhire said. “Just—”
“The Marines say, and I know this because I spent a little time working with the Thirty-first MEU back in the day, one of the expeditionary units they have. Off-the-books, of course. The Marines say, ‘You might kill me with my own rifle, but it won’t be with my own bullets.’ You know what that means?”
“Yes, I do,” Gardenhire said. Shake had the impression that this wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. “Dad, if you’d just—”
“It means you’ll have to beat me to death with my rifle because I’ll fire every last bullet in it. I’ll go down fighting. That’s what I’m talking about here, if you don’t think I’m serious. Everybody walks or nobody walks, no negotiation. And I’ll tell you why.”
Gardenhire gave up trying to interrupt. When Quinn finally finished the speech, Gardenhire sighed. “They’re walking too, Dad,” he said. “It was never an issue.”
“You better believe it wasn’t. And Mahmoud too. He walks too.”
Gardenhire sighed again. “Fine. Mahmoud too.”
Shake wanted to know, but didn’t ask, why Gardenhire was willing to make them part of the package. It would cost him, it would cost Sticky Jimmy—Shake had seen the Egyptians bargain at the market, and he doubted the top military guys would be any gentler.
Maybe Gardenhire was going to buy Gina because of her money and connections back in California. Maybe Shake would get a phone call down the line, in a few months or years, Gardenhire asking for a favor that Shake wouldn’t want to do but couldn’t refuse.
Or maybe Gardenhire just knew his father really wouldn’t shut up unless Shake and Gina walked too. He didn’t want to know what it felt like to get beaten to death with a rifle.
Shake didn’t care what the reason was. He was just happy to walk out of the jail and into the blinding light.
“The Egyptians will need to cover their asses, you know,” Quinn told Gardenhire when they were all in an SUV, speeding toward the airport. “They’ll need someone to burn. But they’ve got Devane for that.”
“Thanks for the advice, Dad,” Gardenhire said. “I would never have thought of that.”
“You have to keep your eye on the other guys when they look at their cards. Watch their faces and forget about your cards. You can look at your cards later.”
At the airport, Gardenhire handed Shake and Gina their passports. He told them their flight to JFK left in two hours.
“I don’t need to spell anything out, do I?” he said. “About keeping your mouths shut?”
“No,” Shake said.
“Definitely not,” Gina said.
“I’ll be in touch at some point,” he said. “I don’t need to spell that out either, do I?”
Unfortunately not.
“What about me?” Quinn said. “I’m not on the flight?”
“We’re going to D.C.,” Gardenhire said. “I read Mr. Logan in on what happened and he wants to see you.”
“So he can shoot me himself?”
Gardenhire took off his glasses and rubbed his face. He sighed. “No.”
Quinn thought for a second and then chuckled. “He wants to hire me, doesn’t he?”
“No,” Gardenhire said. “No. It’s not a job, it’s just—it’s a consultation. He wants to know what you know about Downey Cross.”
“Downey Cross the pharmaceutical guy? I know everything there is to know about him! I’m not joking. This one time in Peking, I remember, he got so falling-down drunk that—well, I won’t ruin the surprise, you need to hear the whole story from the beginning. Downey Cross! I did a lot of business with that old son of a bitch, way back when. He’s got a lot of dough now, doesn’t he?”
“What a coincidence!” Gina said. “I wonder if he’s ever convinced to contribute to political campaigns.”
“It’s not a job,” Gardenhire said again.
Quinn gave Shake a wink. “It’s a consultation.”
Gardenhire turned to Shake and Gina. “Don’t miss your flight.”
That meant get the fuck out of here.
Quinn gave Shake a big hug. He gave Gina a big hug.
“Good luck,” Shake told Gardenhire as he and Quinn walked away.
Chapter 51
Gina was not pleased to see that Quinn’s son had booked them into coach. Shake laughed. He could think of worse fates.
“How long is this flight?” Gina said five minutes after takeoff. “Are we there yet?”
“Who do you think Gardenhire will call first for a favor, me or you?”
“Me. But my favor will be easier to do.”
“Were you worried?”
“When? Yes. Of course. Are you nuts?”
“Marry me,” Shake said.
“No.”
“Then think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it.”
“You love me too.”
“So?”
“So marry me. We’ll have kids. Do you want kids?”
“I don’t know what I want. Neither do you.”
“We’ll figure it out together.”
“A recipe for bliss.”
“It might be.”
Gina squirmed and wriggled and thrashed around in the confines of her coach seat, trying to get comfortable.
“If you’re going to propose,” she said, “do it right. With a ring, and not both of us smelling like an Egyptian jail. Not on an airplane. Not in coach.”
“On the Palisades. At sunset. And then you’ll say yes?”
“No. I’ll still say no. But you’ll feel better about yourself. You’ll know you gave it your best shot.”
The flight attendant braked her drink cart in the aisle next to Shake.
“What can I get you?” she asked him.
“Everything,” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“I don’t have any money. My restaurant blew up. I don’t have a place to live. I don’t have any job prospects. I still owe back pay to the people who used to work in my restaurant. My ability to love any woman but the one sitting next to me has been permanently compromised.”
The flight attendant glanced at Gina, smiled ne
rvously.
“Give him a ginger ale,” Gina told her. “Me too.”
The flight attendant gave them ginger ales and moved on.
“If you need to crash with me for a while,” Gina said, “all you have to do is beg.”
“I’m begging.”
“Whatever,” she said, and put her headphones on. “Are we there yet?”
Acknowledgments
As a character in this novel points out, you need help when you rip off a dangerous black-market dealer of stolen antiquities. Well, the same thing goes when you write a novel, and there are a lot of people I’d like to thank for their help along the way.
I’m incredibly grateful for the supremely good taste, good sense, and good will of my literary agent, Richard Parks, and my editor at William Morrow, Trish Daly. This book, and this writer, are better because of them.
The sales, marketing, and publicity departments at William Morrow and HarperCollins have been phenomenal. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and to discover that I’ve accidentally sold my soul to them (I do, now that you mention it, remember signing something in blood). In particular I’d like to thank the people I’ve had the fortune to get to know personally: Michael Brennan, Carla Parker, Jean Marie Kelly, Danielle Bartlett, and Joanne Minutillo. And though she’s gone to a better place now (upstate New York, I believe), I remain indebted to Peggy Hageman.
I make it a point to visit the places I write about (or, maybe, the other way around). I’d still be wandering lost in the highlands of Belize, or maybe in an Egyptian prison cell myself, were it not for the invaluable and gracious assistance of the friends I made at Chaa Creek and Lady Egypt.
A quick word about Belize and Egypt. You might gather, from this novel, that both countries seethe with murderous drug lords, exotic pet smugglers, and dangerous black-market dealers of stolen antiquities. They do! Well, not really. In my experience, the people of both countries are warm, friendly, and welcoming, and I can think of two no better places to visit on your next vacation.
The mystery-crime community—writers, readers, bloggers, magazine editors, and booksellers—has been a fantastic source of support and advice. I really can’t overstate how much I’ve appreciated it, and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a group that has been so relentlessly generous and welcoming. There are too many people to thank individually, so I plan to buy each of them a beer in the hotel bar at the next Bouchercon.