Resurrecting Midnight (3 page)

“Personal or business?”

“Business. Something that I have been asked to . . . tasked to remind you. I wanted to recuse myself from this next matter, but that won’t be possible, not without creating more conflict.”

“Go ahead.”

“My friend that assisted you in London.”

“I take it that the
friend
you’re referring to is Scamz’s tight-suit-wearing son.”

“Yes. The man that served as my wingman. Scamz’s son.”

I almost frowned. Almost. He had been her lover in London. Obviously he still was.

I said, “Cut to the chase.”

Her expression hardened. She had become Queen Scamz, her crimes her crown.

She said, “He saved your life.”

“You saved my life.”

“No. He did. I was incapacitated at the time.”

“You killed three people. With a knife. He didn’t do shit.”

“He picked up the slack.”

“My debt is to you. If anyone owes anyone anything, I am indebted to you, and you can be indebted to him. But if you ask me, it looks like that debt has been paid.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Means nothing. Ignore that.”

She tapped the table, shook off my comment before she said, “Reciprocity is in order.”

In that moment I felt it, that plastic bag over my head, felt Death clawing at me no matter how hard I fought. It was her lover, the man she opened her legs for, who kept me alive.

She said, “Without reciprocity, there are complications.”

“The way of the gun.”

She nodded. “We have our own rules, none written down, yet all engraved in stone.”

I sucked in air, released, then asked, “What does he expect as reciprocity?”

“Things are happening now. He needs you. When it’s time, he’ll get the word to you.”

“How will your wingman, your shadow, your friend find me?”

Arizona reached in her bag, took out a phone, slid it to me. A small Thuraya satellite phone. An electronic leash that was good in more than one hundred and twenty countries around Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. From the high seas to the North Pole, no matter where I went, they could reach me.

I gritted my teeth. “This shit never ends.”

“It ends. Just not the way most of us want it to end.”

“Ends with us becoming part of the foundation at Giants Stadium.”

“Or blown up on a fucking interstate.”

I said, “I’d rather be part of Giants Stadium.”

Arizona sipped her tea, then took a breath. “I need to say something.”

“Business?”

“Personal. I hate getting personal, but I feel this is unavoidable.”

“Be human. Let the emotions flow.”

“Since London, once I knew you were okay, I lost contact. Intentionally.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Us together, it’s no good.”

“That wall has gone back up.”

“It never came down.”

I adjusted myself in my seat. “Guess you let that wall down for somebody.”

“Opening my legs doesn’t mean a wall came down. Just means I opened my legs.”

“I stand corrected.”

Arizona was guarded, had been that way for more than a decade, since her abusive relationship with Scamz. He’d been dead for an eternity, long enough for the mourning to fade away. But with her, whatever she felt, whatever Stockholm syndrome she had suffered, the admiration never subsided. Loved him so much that she bedded the man’s son, that DNA probably kicking in her womb now.

I’d tried to get inside her head but had only made it as far as her panties.

I said, “Well, I’ll congratulate your friend. Scamz Junior or Little Scamz or Mini Scamz.”

“Gideon.”

“Glad to see that you and your Latin Brit have had a good year together.”

“Pejoratives aside, you don’t want to owe him favors.”

I asked, “We done here?”

“One final matter.”

“Personal or business?”

“Business.”

“Whose business? Yours or the guy in the English suits?”

“There is a problem in South America. It piggybacks on this Hopkins job.”

When she said that, in that moment, she changed. I saw what I thought was fear.

I’d never seen this grifter wear fear before. She didn’t wear it long.

I asked, “Another limo needs to be retrofitted with a block of C-4?”

“This is different.”

“What kind of different?”

“Recon.”

“I don’t do recon.”

“Something was stolen.”

“You might need to get a new profession.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were ripped off in London. Now this Miami thing. Now South America. You’re getting conned left and right. Sounds like Queen Scamz is about to lose her crown.”

“I said it was stolen. Didn’t say it was stolen from me.”

“I don’t do recon.”

“I’ll double the pay.”

“Not about money.”

“Everything is about money. Money is power. Everything is about power.”

I paused, took a breath. “What did you lose?”

She paused. “Consider it my MacGuffin.”

“Where was it last?”

“Montevideo.”

“Uruguay.”

“Based on the pattern that’s been reported, they move it every forty-eight, maybe every seventy-two tops. They’re keeping it mobile, making it difficult to locate. The longest it has been in one place is a week. They never keep it in one location longer than seven days. But I have a way of getting within range.”

“It has GPS.”

She nodded. “It will be in Buenos Aires as soon as tonight.”

“Buenos Aires?”

“You know that part of South America?”

“Been to Buenos Aires a few times.”

“Contracts?”

“Had contracts along the Amazon. Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.”

“So you know your way around.”

“I can manage. First time I was down there was right after I had met you in North Hollywood. Over a decade ago. This guy from Ecuador had me following some human cargo that had caused him a few problems. Tracked him and his partner through Salto Ángel to the End of the World. Had other businesses down that way. Been on both sides of the Andes mountain range. You get up around the Iguazú Falls, that land that borders Argentina and Brazil, I’m not good, geography-wise. Would need a guide that spoke Spanish and Portuguese.”

“Buenos Aires is where the package is heading.”

“City or province?”

“Either or.”

“That widens the territory. Large population.”

“Not like Mexico City.”

“No, not like Mexico City. But not like Odenville, Alabama.”

“Where is that?”

“My point exactly.” I sipped my tea. “When will the needle drop in the haystack?”

“Next few days. Can you go down there now?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I have something that I have to take care of.”

“Another assignment?”

“Confidential.”

“Can it wait?”

“No. Consider it my MacGuffin. And it can’t wait.”

She took a breath, enough irritation on her side of the table to make her baby kick.

I said, “And you’re positive this MacGuffin is in South America.”

“Yes. It has been moved through Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, and, before that, Peru.”

“A moving target.”

“I have satellite images. Days ago. It was in Montevideo on 18 de Julio. Men transferred the package from one vehicle to another. Bodyguards all around. There is a sensor inside. Reads longitude and latitude. If it doesn’t change location every seven days the package will . . . render itself useless. Not sure what determines how far or where it has to be moved.”

“Will it explode?”

“No idea.”

“You said it was moved at least once every seven days. Why
at least
every seven days?”

“The originator figured if he was unable to move his part of the package once a week, then he was dead.”

“His part.”

“There is a second part.”

“GPS on that part too?”

“Yes.”

“Will I be asked to get that part too?”

“That part is taken care of. That part is what Hopkins wanted. I need you on this part.”

“The part you’re after? Show me what you have.”

Arizona took out a picture, slid it across the table. It was the photo of a black briefcase. One of those numbers that required a fingerprint to open. One that might be booby-trapped.

I said, “That looks like the briefcase you’re carrying.”

She nodded. “It does.”

“Is that part of this?”

“I have part of what was being tracked by Hopkins.”

“And this other part?”

“It’s being tracked by my team. The one I have, my team tracks it as well.”

“The one you have, you said it was being tracked by Hopkins too?”

“No worries. Hopkins is dead. The big man is dead. I’m safe.”

I sat on her words for a moment. “Give me a couple of days to think it over.”

Her irritation grew. She tapped her fingernails on the table.

She asked, “What will it take for you to reconsider?”

I sipped my tea, became the cool one at the table, the one in control.

She said, “Name your price.”

“Not about money. Not gouging you.”

She pulled her lips in, irritated, stressed. “How many days before you are available?”

“Four.”

“Four days could make it a brand-new ball game.”

I took a deep breath, her irritation not motivating me in a new mental direction.

She said, “Okay. Four days.”

“When do I get the package?”

“The official work order will come through Konstantin.”

“Why the change in the way we’ve been doing business?”

Arizona smiled. It was an ugly smile on a beautiful face.

She took out another remote, aimed it at her Maserati, pressed a button, its lights flashing in the night. The car started. The engine revved, then calmed down.

She wanted to make sure her GranTurismo didn’t explode.

That was the world we lived in. In that way, my world wasn’t any different from hers.

She said, “Payment and details on Buenos Aires have been forwarded to the Russian.”

“When?”

“It was sent to Konstantin an hour ago.”

My jaw tightened. “An hour ago.”

“Yes. Satellite photos. Everything we have so far.”

“What made you think I’d accept the contract?”

She said, “You’ve never turned me down.”

With that, Arizona gathered her things, then stood to leave.

I said, “Sit down.”

“I have to go.”

“Sit. Or I walk.”

She did what I asked.

I asked, “Should I trust you?”

“Why the doubt?”

“You’re all about money. And power. That’s what feeds you. Money and power. Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver. If Jesus can get betrayed . . . who the fuck am I?”

“Have I ever betrayed you?”

I took a breath, felt paranoid and foolish. “You put your life on the line for me in London.”

“My record speaks for itself. I killed three people trying to protect you.”

I let the anger speak, asked, “What about the man who sent me the satellite phone?”

“He saved your life in London.”

“You were on that bridge with me. That fucker was nowhere in sight.”

“It’s about reciprocity.”

“Guess it’s too late to send him a Hallmark card and a Strip-O-Gram as a thank-you.”

Nothing was said for a moment.

I asked, “Is that his baby?”

She smiled a difficult smile. “You’ve been jealous of him since you knew he existed.”

She was right. Jealousy ran though my veins. I had no right to be jealous. But I was.

I’d been inside her deep enough to feel her heartbeat throbbing against the tip of my erection. But somehow she had managed to get deeper inside of me. She knew she had.

I said, “I worked for his dad.”

“I know you did. I knew why you were in North Hollywood. I knew what you did.”

“Do you know about the South America job I did for him?”

“I know you went to South America.”

“I went to the End of the World.”

She asked, “Are we done here?”

I nodded. “We’re done.”

Arizona took a breath and stood. She motioned for me to remain seated, then came to my side of the table. She kissed me on my cheek, pressed her soft lips into my troubled flesh.

She said, “I still watch
Battlestar Galactica
. Still listen to Miles and Coltrane.”

It only took a few words to throw a man off balance.

She picked up the high-tech briefcase, adjusted her purse on her other shoulder, and walked away. She didn’t walk like she had just lost fifteen million and ordered a man blown up on I-95. She moved like a goddess, in control and entitled. Arizona paused in the night, looked around. She looked out toward Biscayne, stared like she had seen something. I looked that way, saw nothing. For a moment she looked jittery. Almost afraid.

She put the briefcase inside the Maserati first.

The woman who had been robbed of a king’s fortune looked around again.

Her body language changed, became a lioness that had sensed a predator.

I stood up, hand inside my messenger bag, ready to rush outside.

But her look of concern, that expression that I interpreted as fear, it left Arizona’s face.

Arizona eased back inside her Maserati. Headlights came on. Brake lights. Reverse lights. She slipped out of her space, eased out like a baby leaving its mother’s womb.

Then she was gone, the umbilical cord that held us together severed. Her soft kiss had aroused me. A primal part of me would’ve fucked her. Would’ve fucked her from here to Buenos Aires. Would’ve tried to fuck that baby out of her and loved a new one in her womb.