Piranha Assignment (5 page)

“You've got to shoot for us to find out anything,” Felicity shouted. “Do it again, Mark.”

“Pull!”

This time she tossed to the right, and Morgan's arm swung with hers. He fired high, but in the right direction. She grinned. That was no chance act.

“Pull!”

Again, she tossed to the right, and again Morgan swung
with the clay pigeon. His bullet passed below and to the right of the target. Even with a blindfold on, it seemed odd to her to see Morgan miss. That feeling prompted an interesting thought. She realized he was probably shooting about as well as she would.

“Pull!”

This time she launched the tiny Frisbee-shaped target to her left. It exploded five feet from her hand. At the other end of the tunnel, she could see Morgan smile. She had turned her head to follow the target that time, and that seemed to do it.

Felicity tossed the next six clay pigeons at random. For the last two, she did not wait for Roberts' signal. One she tossed straight to her right. The last she flung directly up over her head. Morgan hit each one in flight, as if he could see them clearly. Maybe he could.

With a joyous whoop, Felicity sprinted toward her partner. Still blindfolded, Morgan stepped around the firing point table and headed down range. When the two bodies collided, Morgan lifted Felicity and spun her around several times. Both were shouting and laughing, reveling in their success. It was the embrace of team members after a tough game won, or siblings when one of them graduates college. Or maybe, a special closeness beyond what family members can feel.

For the first time, Morgan found himself in an atmosphere perhaps more elegant than the woman he was with. He wasn't sure he could pronounce the entree Felicity had ordered for him, but she had assured him it would be on a level with the service.

They were dining in El Padrino, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel's grill room. It was after ten thirty at night, yet more than twenty people sat in the dining room. Morgan recognized half of them from movies, television, or the evening news. He wished he was not playing a part, so he could openly ogle the stars.

“I can't believe Bastidas would set himself up as a con artist here.”

“It's the perfect setting,” Felicity said, biting into her fish mousse. “The Beverly Wilshire is the grand lady of hotels on the West Coast. And the rich are the easiest marks. They think they know it all, they have money to risk, and they always want more.”

Morgan and Felicity wore appropriate attire for the formal dining room, even if it wasn't what they would choose for their own tastes. Morgan wore a black suit, with white shirt, black tie and a pair of very dark glasses. He wore his hair even shorter than usual with a part cut in the right side, and he had shaved his thin mustache off. A false gold cap covered one of his front teeth.

Felicity's gray business suit, off the rack rather than
tailored, was too tight in some places and too loose in others. Her hair, dyed a dark brown, was coifed into a chignon in the back like a huge bun. Contact lenses turned her green eyes brown. Makeup gave her an olive complexion, accented her eyebrows and thinned her lips. Morgan found the difference startling. Suddenly, she was Italian.

“Hard to believe you've set it all up in just a week,” Morgan said, finishing his salad.

“One week, but a busy one,” Felicity said with a distant smile. “Prepping for the job, just like the old days.”

Morgan smiled, and not just at the perfect tang of the vinaigrette. “You stopped short of saying you missed it.”

“Well, it was mostly annoying, but you know, even annoyances can be habit forming. Like this,” she said, picking her cigarette out of its ash tray. “It took a while to remind my body how to accept smoke without coughing.”

“Yeah, but why bother?” Morgan asked, crinkling his nose at the smell.

“Because smoking can be a useful distraction. You'll see. But the real hassle was the frantic search through her old contacts for a source of the props we need. I was more than a little frazzled until I finally got my hands on the duplicate coin yesterday. Now, practicing the dip, that part was fun, and really just like old time.”

Morgan remembered the three days she spent picking coins out of trousers, jackets and shirts hung about her apartment. When he told her it was clear she hadn't lost her touch, she had replied that she could feel a hint of rust on her fingers and needed to eliminate it. The fourth day they went into the streets of Los Angeles and he watched her back while spent the afternoon handing people change and wallets they had somehow dropped. No one caught her picking their pockets once that day, and that reassured her
that she was ready.

Now they sat on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, in one of the finest hotels on earth, awaiting their target's return from his evening outing. Morgan sipped twenty year old Corton Pouget and patiently waited for his noisette d'agneau. Felicity appeared lost in thought, looking around the room as if reacquainting herself with an old friend.

“You have history with this place,” Morgan said.

“Oh yes. Interesting memories of my first visit here.”

“Really? Well, share. Tell me the story.”

“Tell you a story,” Felicity repeated in a pensive voice, then turned to wink at him. “All right. Once upon a time, some years ago, a young and charming jewel thief checked into the Beverly Wilshire. She had managed an invitation to a party taking place there three days later. The hostess of this party was spending a hundred thousand dollars to entertain three hundred of her closest friends. Said jewel thief intended to collect a healthy contribution from the guests, but something happened while she was researching the hotel.” She looked him in the eye. “She fell in love.”

“Do tell.”

“It was this wonderful place,” Felicity said, nodding to the waiter as he replaced their wine bottle with a new one. “After one day in residence, the entire staff seemed to know my name and room number. From them I learned that the Beverly Wilshire has stood in this place since nineteen twenty-eight. The twelve story Beverly Wing was opened in nineteen seventy-two.

“I learned that the owner, Hernando Courtwright, and his wife designed the new wing themselves, and pretty much redesigned the entire structure with personal loving care. They decorated each floor in a different authentic style, you know. Mexican, or French, or Spanish or Italian. They thought up the two story town house suites on top of
the building, and named each suite after a great champagne.”

Morgan smiled as he refilled their glasses. “You really do research the territory, don't you?”

“Yes, but a mark is rarely so seductive. For three days I strolled the grand ballroom with its imported Italian marble floor, installed by imported Italian craftsmen. I lounged at the hotel pool, modeled after Sophia Loren's. I stared complacently at the Beverly Wing's bow windows, because they put me in mind of Parisian balconies.”

Morgan closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the mild flavor of the tender lamb. “Yeah, luxury digs can do it to you. Even you.”

“You might think the environment would seduce me, but it was the personal attention that really made her fall for the hotel. Like, when I first arrived, an assistant manager escorted me to my room. When I got there I found fresh fruit, champagne and flowers. Irish flowers! I can still call up the scent of clover all over the room. When I called for my reservations I had described myself as a European jewel dealer and cutter. And there on the coffee table was the latest copy of the Lapidary Journal.”

“Okay, so the place wowed you,” Morgan said. “But how'd you do? Big score?”

Felicity shook her head. “After a three day vacation I got to attend the grandest of grand balls. The Grand Ballroom, done up in Louis XV style with crystal chandeliers and marble statues, can seat a thousand for dinner and is a fine place for dancing to a fifty piece orchestra. I enjoyed myself immensely, and checked out the next morning with nothing I didn't bring with me.” When Morgan raised an eyebrow, she said, “I was out staring at the Spanish tiles around the swimming pool when it hit me that robbing a guest of the Beverly Wilshire would be sacrilegious.”

“So that's it? You just left?”

Felicity giggled. “Okay, picture this. I'm waiting on El Camino Real for my car to be brought up from the garage.”

“El Camino Real?” Morgan asked. “Sounds like the title of a John Wayne flick.”

She gently slapped his shoulder. “You are such a boor. You couldn't have missed that elegant gravel drive with the canopy of mission arches that divides the older hotel from the new Beverly Wing. Anyway, I'm standing there under an old street lamp that looked like was brought over from Edinburgh. There's a fellow standing there and after a minute I realize it's Mister Courtwright himself. And he's like, “Leaving so soon? We had rather expected some added excitement during your stay. We very much appreciate that there was none.” And he's got this twinkle in his eye.”

“So he knew who you were,” Morgan said. “And what you were. So what did you say?”

“Well,” Felicity said, “I just said the most complementary thing I could come up with. I told him that six months before I stayed at the George the Fifth in Paris. It's certainly one of the finest establishments in the world. They did have some added excitement there during my stay.”

“That must have made him feel good,” Morgan said, picking up his glass again. “And now, here you are back again, to do what you couldn't do when you were a guest.”

Felicity nodded as the lamb noisette arrived, covered with pâté de foie gras. She lifted her glass, looking over the edge of the red liquid toward the door. At that instant two men walked through the door, looked around the room and settled their eyes on her. One was common, obviously a bodyguard.

The other was electric.

Everything about him was loud. His suit was white, over a ruffled shirt. He wore a white cape, riding boots and a walking cane. Yet he was no more than five feet seven, and medium build.

“Damn,” Morgan said under his breath. “That outfit just, I don't know, overwhelms the little guy.”

“Yep, and that's probably its purpose. If you look too close, the man himself could send a chill up your back.”

While Morgan sat quiet, Felicity evaluated the man in white as she would always evaluate a mark when she made her living as a thief. Like many Panamanians, the newcomer's his skin tone was neutral. Not really dark or light, or red or yellow. His hair was very long and straight, touching his shoulders in back. Only someone looking closely would notice that he had no ears. Burn scars on either side of his face gave the appearance of sunken cheeks. His eyes were bright and a little wild, as if they were afraid to settle on any one thing for too long.

With all that, the chilling part of his face was the smile. The teeth were wide, too wide for the mouth. He had a slight overbite, and the lower teeth were tilted at random angles. They were impossibly white, glinting like polished scrimshaw. It gave the man the look of madness.

So this was Francisco Bastidas, savior of America's national defense. As he turned and headed for his suite, she felt the old tension, the old fear, the old excitement of the game return. This was what her life was missing now. Her face lit up as she got to her feet, breathing deeply to contain the emotional rush washing over her. She turned to Morgan and winked.

“Okay partner,” she whispered. “It's show time.”

Morgan's big fist thumped twice on the door to Bastidas' suite. The response was the single word “enter” in a shrill voice. Morgan opened the door wide and stepped into the scent of orchids that dominated the room. He carried a black attaché case. Bastidas' bodyguard, dressed much like Morgan, stood in the center of the room. Beyond him, Bastidas sat at a table, holding a drink.

Morgan looked around for extra occupants, then stepped to one side. Felicity entered, statuesque in three inch heels and a skirt that hung three inches above her knees. She pulled the long cigarette from her lips and blew a jet of smoke toward her host.

“Mister Bastidas, my name is Sciarra,” she said in a convincing Sicilian accent. I understand you have an investment available.”

“Please, we have not even met,” Bastidas said in a squeaky tenor. “Come have a drink and we will relax for a moment.”

“My people don't pay me to socialize,” Felicity said, but she sat at the table with him and selected a glass. In the middle of the big room, Morgan and the other black suit had locked eyes.

“What is wrong, Varilla?” Bastidas asked.

“This man has the look of a killer,” the bodyguard replied in a strong Spanish accent. His teeth seemed short, as if they were ground down. “I think he should show his
weapons.”

“Care to take them?” Morgan asked. The other man tensed. His hands hung loose at his sides, but he was sending a hundred subconscious signals. Across the room, Felicity knew he was going to go for it.

Like a darting snake, Varilla's right hand moved under his jacket. It was a blur whipping out, with a .357 magnum revolver at the end like the ball of a morning star flail. That weight thudded to a jarring halt on Morgan's right palm. As fast as Varilla was, Morgan was a little bit faster. With a small twist, he locked Varilla's arm out straight. The two stood frozen in that pose for a moment, until Bastidas' high giggle broke the tension.

“Gentlemen, we are not enemies,” Bastidas said. “Please, let us all keep our own weapons and do business as friends. There are drinks for all.”

Morgan held a passive expression, but Varilla's face was a mask of hatred when Morgan released him. He glared at Morgan, then stared at Bastidas and Felicity, then holstered his gun. Felicity sipped her drink and raised her glass toward Morgan, indicating her approval.