The Devil’s Share (2 page)

The jasmine smell was strong here. A breeze moved the willows, the tips of their branches sweeping the ground.

“I'm guessing our mutual friend didn't tell you much,” Cota said. “As I told him very little in turn. It took me quite a bit of effort to find him. A name here, a name there. People who knew people. I considered it quite an accomplishment when I finally established contact with him. But money will open a lot of doors, especially if you're not afraid to spend it. Sit?” He pointed the cane at a marble bench. She shook her head.

“Mind if I do?”

“Go ahead.”

He sank down on the bench, grimaced, set the glass beside him. He rested one elbow on the head of his cane, looked up at her. There were trickles of sweat on his face.

“I'm a collector,” he said. “As I'm sure you know. You've seen some of what I have here. There's more in my other houses as well. In New York, in Grenada and Brussels. And two warehouses, in Nevada and Arizona. It's a sin how much I've acquired. But it's what motivates me. Wanting things. Our passions keep us young, don't you think?”

“Maybe.”

He drank scotch again, the cubes melted and gone.

“About four years ago, I bought some items that were, let's say, highly collectible. Antiquities. They'd been appropriated from a place that was in a state of chaos at the time. No rule of law there, no one to decide what belonged to whom. But I guess one might say, in the strictest sense of the term, these items were stolen.”

“Go on.”

“Regardless, I saw them as an investment opportunity. If I didn't acquire them, someone else would. Plus, there was a limited window of time on their availability. So I secured the items where they were and eventually, at great personal expense, had them brought here to the States.”

She heard a keening moan from the hills behind the house, turned toward it.

“Coyote,” he said. “They come around here sometimes, when there's a drought, or a brush fire. Or they're hungry. On occasion a neighborhood dog will get loose, hear that fellow and follow him up into the hills. He thinks it's his long-lost brother, or possibly a mate. Instead he gets killed, and eaten. There's a lesson there, I'm sure.”

She said nothing, waited for him to go on.

“As I was saying, I warehoused these antiquities over here, and started searching for a buyer. Sotto voce, of course, because you can hardly trust anyone in this business. But there was so much fuss about these particular items, and their provenance, that I searched in vain for months.

“Unfortunately, along the way there were people I'd dealt with who weren't as circumspect as I. Perhaps they had an ax to grind, felt I'd bested them in some business deal. They took money, I'm sure, for providing the information to authorities. Either way, the end result was that my ownership of these items—questionable as it was—came to the attention of some organizations that would rather they be repatriated to where they'd come from, where, then at least, things were relatively calmer and more secure.”

“Iraq,” she said.

“The where doesn't matter. My hand was forced. These authorities and I came to an agreement that involved my returning the items—at my own expense. I agreed to assure their transit to a place where they could be handed over to an agent for the government that now claims to be the original owners—though that claim is as questionable as any other. In my view, I had as much right to those artifacts as anyone, considering what I'd spent on them, the risks I'd taken.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at any great museum in the world. What are they filled with? Plunder. It's how we learn about the past, how we keep it alive. These items belong in the hands of people who understand them, value them, who have the resources and the will to protect them. Not leave them at the mercy of whatever temporary, bloody-minded regime happens to come to power.

“Do you know what the Taliban did in Afghanistan, to some of the oldest statuary in the world, priceless treasures that date back more than two thousand years? You've heard of the Buddhas of Bamiyan?”

She shook her head.

“The tallest Buddha figures in the world, one of them a hundred and eighty feet high, carved out of a sandstone cliff. They were destroyed, dynamited, because those who'd come to power decided they were examples of anti-Muslim idolatry. And there were more barbarous acts of the same nature, throughout the entire region. Now, if someone had spirited some of those items away, saved them, protected them, what would be wrong with that?”

“But the ones you spirited away, you now have to give back.”

He nodded, took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead.

“And as I said, at my expense, with the one allowance being that there would be no questions asked, and no ridiculous international investigation or specious charges to waste everyone's time. But my name was known, and the presence of these items in my warehouse was known, so I had no choice.”

“They were going to let you just return them and walk away? That doesn't sound right.”

“There were some extenuating circumstances. If the full story of how I acquired them were to come out, it would cast a certain ambitious government official over there in a very bad light. No doubt, he'd lose the lofty status he's since obtained. This way, it's much quieter. They get their items back and I take the loss—quietly.”

“I still don't understand why I'm here.”

“Well, the final joke fate played on me in this matter? To fully prove me fortune's fool? During the middle of all these egregious—and expensive—negotiations, the unforeseen happened.”

“You got a buyer.”

He nodded, leaned on the cane. “Someone I'd dealt with before. Someone I had in mind when I first acquired these objects, but who, at the time, wouldn't go near them, because of the controversy attached.”

“And now he thinks you're a motivated seller, so you'll take his price, which is less than you wanted.”

“You see it exactly. As you can imagine, it presents a dilemma.”

“Because now you have to give them back, and you can't make the deal.”

“I've arranged for their transportation, at my own expense, from my warehouse outside Las Vegas to a port in Southern California. That's where they'll be handed over to begin the first leg of their journey back to their supposed homeland.”

“And you'd rather they not get there,” she said. “Because you'd rather sell them than give them back.”

He folded the handkerchief, put it away. “Until that handover, until they're unloaded from my truck at that port, they're still under my control. You're familiar with the term, I'm sure, that some crimes—some robberies, most particularly—are called ‘give-ups'?”

She nodded, knowing where this was going, what he wanted, why she was here.

“I would very much like,” he said, “during that long, perilous journey across the desert, for someone to rob me.”

 

TWO

In the Jaguar, headed back down the winding streets, she said, “Not very inconspicuous, is it?”

“What?” Hicks said. “The car? Out here, trust me, nobody notices.”

“What else do you do for him when you're not driving?”

“A little of everything. But if you're thinking it's one of those sugar-daddy situations, well, I wish. I have to work for a living. I keep a room there I use sometimes, but that's it.”

“You have a title?”

“I guess you could call me his head of security.”

“He needs one?”

“Doesn't everybody?”

The road grew steep, and he downshifted, took the next turn easily. The road was lined with trees, high fences.

She nodded at the tattoo on his forearm. “Nice work. Where'd you get it?”

“Thanks. This one”—he turned his arm out, the muscles flexing beneath the skin—“was right here in the States. Down in San Pedro, out on the pier. I like yours, too.”

He gestured to her left hand, the Chinese character etched on the inside of her wrist, a faint white burn scar across it.

“It's Chinese,” she said. “It means—”

“Perseverance. I know. It suits you.”

“You don't even know me.”

“Just a guess. Where'd you get it?”

“Texas.”

“I bet there's a story goes with it.”

“There is,” she said.

When she didn't go on, he smiled, shook his head. She looked out through the windshield, headlights cutting through the darkness.

“So just what is it you're in charge of securing?” she said.

“You'd be surprised. The house, of course, especially when he has events, exhibitions of his collection, whatever. I do the same at his other places, as needed. Occasionally I have to fly out, handle a situation at one of the warehouses or offices. It keeps me busy.”

“You do all that yourself?”

“I have people I use when I need them. A team. Guys I served with.”

“I guessed. What branch?”

He looked at her. “Corps all the way. First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment. First over the berm, March 20, '03.”

“The what?”

“The berm. That's what we called the southern border of Iraq and Kuwait. We'd been waiting for days, going crazy in the heat, so it was a relief to get moving.”

“How long were you over there?”

“Two deployments. Rotated out in 2006, then eventually got a job stateside with a private security firm. Next thing I knew I was back over there as an independent contractor. Made a hell of a lot more money that time, though.”

The road straightened. Through the trees she could see the lights of the boulevard down there, traffic moving along at a crawl.

“It must have been dangerous,” she said.

“The more you learn, the less dangerous it is. And bits of wisdom get passed on, stuff you don't learn in your training, or from a manual.”

“Like what?”

They came to a red light. He eased the car to a stop, rested his wrists on the steering wheel.

“Lots of things,” he said. “For example, we used to have a saying, ‘When the pin is out, Mr. Grenade is not your friend.'”

“Good advice.”

“Reason is, guys go to toss a grenade out of a moving vehicle, to break up an ambush, whatever, sometimes they pull the pin, pop the spoon right there in their lap. You need to have both hands out the window when you do that. Otherwise, you hit a bump, drop that baby inside your vehicle, and it's good night, Irene.”

The light changed. They made a left, and then they were on a side road that fed onto Sunset. She'd given him the name of a hotel there. At the intersection, he made another left, and they merged into traffic.

“Listen,” he said. “I know you just got here, and you're probably tired, jet lag and all. But since we're going to be working together…”

“Who said that?”

“Well, since there's a
chance
we'll be working together, can I buy you a drink before you turn in? Someplace quiet?”

“Thanks anyway. Maybe another time.”

“You got it. No worries. This it up here on the right?”

“Yes,” she said.

He signaled, pulled into the breezeway of the hotel. The glass doors slid open, and a valet came out, a kid in his twenties with the blond good looks of a surfer.

Hicks parked, left the engine running. When they got out, she shook her head at the valet. Hicks got her bag from the trunk, shut the lid.

“I guess we'll be talking,” he said. “If you need anything, call.”

She'd bought a disposable cell phone before she left New Jersey, had exchanged numbers with him. The one he'd given her would be a burner as well, she knew. Another precaution.

“I will,” she said, and took the bag.

“Do I call you Chris, Christine, what?”

“Doesn't matter. Either's fine.”

“Well, it was good meeting you.” He held out his hand.

She looked at it for an awkward moment, but he didn't draw it back. She took it. His grip was warm and dry.

“You've got a good handshake,” he said. “Strong. I like that.”

She looked at him, but there was no sarcasm there.

“Get some rest,” he said, and got back behind the wheel.

She watched him drive off, the valet hovering a few feet away. When the car was out of sight, she turned to him.

“Can I have that taken to your room?” he said.

“No,” she said. “Just get me a cab.”

*   *   *

She gave the driver the name of the motel in Culver City where she had a reservation. It was in a residential area, bungalows and small houses, the motel set back from the road.

She checked in, carried her bag to the room. From the front desk operator, she got the number of a local rental agency, called and arranged to have a car delivered in the morning.

She opened her bag atop the bureau but didn't unpack. If she didn't like what she heard tomorrow, she'd leave immediately, catch the next flight east.

She showered and changed, feeling the fatigue now, the displacement of long-distance travel. She was too tired to leave the room, scout around for a place to eat. There was a folder on the desk with menus from local takeout places. She'd order in, rest, sleep. Tomorrow, she'd listen to the rest of what they had to say. And then she'd decide.

*   *   *

Hicks laid out the photos in front of her. They were 8-by-10 color prints of a large statue, a winged bull with a man's head and a square beard. It seemed to be emerging from a wall, half-freed from the stone. A piece was broken cleanly off the top, and other spots were cracked and chipped.

“Assyrian,” Cota said from across the table. “Seven twenty-one BC.”

They were in the big room on the third floor, the French doors closed, a pair of ceiling fans turning slowly in the shadows above. Hicks sat to her left.