The Job: A Fox And O'Hare Novel Part 12

"It is if I want to torture you."

"Do you? Or would you rather earn a million dollars from me and whatever you can get from the buyer and walk away clean, leaving the mess, the risk, and the worry to someone else?"

Alves took a sip of his wine while he considered his options.

"My commission will be one and three-quarters million," he finally said. "As your lovely wife pointed out, ten percent is standard. Taking a mere six percent would be insulting."

Nick gave Alves a slight nod of consent. "I wouldn't want to insult you."

"No, Nick, you wouldn't."

Alves agreed to leave word at the Vincenzo Palace when he was ready to meet to discuss possible buyers. Nick told Alves he'd also put the word out in London, Berlin, Paris, and Tangier, so Alves had better not drag his feet. There would be other suitors. That was fine with Alves, who kept the coin and warned Nick and Kate that if there was anything "dishonest" about the deal, the two of them would find themselves at the bottom of the sea, chained to blocks of concrete. After that, Alves excused himself to sing another song, and Nick and Kate left the bar.

"Were you telling the truth about putting out the word in those other cities?" Kate asked when they were on the street.

"Yes, of course. We can't rely only on him to reach Menendez. Even so, I think Alves is our best shot. He does a lot of business in Spain and that's where Menendez is most likely hiding out."

"Just because Serena's brother, the plastic surgeon, was killed in Spain, that doesn't mean Menendez is still around."

"I think he is. Menendez is Latin American, so he'd fit in very easily. Not just culturally, either. Forty percent of Europe's drug trade comes in through Spain, which is only a short boat ride from Morocco. So it's also a good place for Menendez to stay on top of his global narcotics operation. That, more than anything, would be his biggest incentive for choosing Spain as his new base of operations."

"You make a good point. I didn't know you were so well-informed about the statistics of the European drug trade."

"Crime is my business. I try to keep up."

Nick walked toward the tunnel, but Kate stopped him, tugging on his sleeve.

"We're not going back through there," Kate said. "We'll go down to the plaza and take Rua do Alecrim back up."

"That's disappointing," Nick said. "I was hoping to see you in action again. It's kind of s.e.xy in a violent, perverted sort of way."

"Gosh, knowing that makes my day complete."

"I thought you'd want me to be open about my feelings now that we're married."

"We're not married, and if you don't behave, I'll tell my father on you."

They were nearly at the foot of Rua do Alecrim when Tattoo stepped out in front of them from the shadows. He held a hatchet in each hand, the handles duct-taped to his wrists. He would have looked truly terrifying if not for the scarf wrapped under his chin and tied in a knot at the top of his head to keep his jaw from moving. The two ends of the scarf stuck out of the knot like droopy rabbit ears.

Kate sighed. "You really don't want to do this," she said to Tattoo.

Two more men appeared on either side of Tattoo from the cross street. They were the other thugs from the fight. They each had a butcher knife taped in their right hands.

Kate thought taping the butcher knives to their hands wouldn't do them much good when she broke their wrists with her baton. Then it would be just her and Nick against a guy with a broken jaw and two hatchets. So Kate felt pretty good about her odds.

She heard a shuffle of feet behind her and knew more men had joined the party.

"What have we got behind us?" she asked Nick, while she kept her eyes on the hatchet guy.

"A big ugly guy with an ice pick, and a moron with a steak knife."

Kate flicked her baton open.

"I suppose you're unarmed?" she said to Nick.

"You suppose correct."

Someone gave a shrill whistle from the vicinity of the tunnel, capturing everyone's attention, and Jake O'Hare emerged from the darkness with one hand behind his back.

"I think you should leave this nice couple alone," he said to the thugs. "Or you'll have to deal with me."

Icepick laughed. "What are you going to do about it, old man?"

Jake brought his hand out from behind his back. "I'll shoot you with this flare gun, and then I'll kill the guy next to you while he's still wiping your brains out of his eyes."

Billy Dee Snipes stepped out of the shadows behind Tattoo, swung his machete at Tattoo's head, and sliced off the knot that held the scarf in place. Tattoo's broken jaw dropped, he screamed in agony, and reached for his face. Unfortunately, with two hatchets taped to his hands, he chopped off half his right ear before he realized his mistake.

Whoos.h.!.+ Billy Dee sliced the air in front of him with his machete. "The next swing takes off somebody's head. Do you still want to play?"

The four thugs ran off like c.o.c.kroaches exposed to the light, leaving Tattoo behind in his sad and painful predicament.

Jake watched as Tattoo staggered past him and went whimpering toward the tunnel. "What kind of idiot tapes hatchets to both his hands?"

"Someone who thinks a tattoo of a dead goat on his head is stylish," Nick said. "Did you two follow us here?"

"No," Jake said. "We were just out looking for a drink."

"In this neighborhood?" Kate asked.

Jake looked around. "What's wrong with it?"

Kate gestured to the tunnel with her baton. "Guys like that."

"So we met some of the colorful locals. It's what gives a place charm."

"Charm?" Kate said. "They had knives and axes."

Jake shrugged. "Billy Dee has a machete, and he is very charming."

"This is true," Billy Dee said.

"I think you guessed that we were here to see Diogo Alves and you wanted to make sure we came out alive," Kate said.

"You can handle yourself just fine," Jake said and s.h.i.+fted his gaze to Nick. "You, I am not so sure about."

"I'm more dangerous than I look," Nick said. "But I appreciate you both showing up, regardless of why it happened."

"Me, too." Kate bent down, closed her baton against the pavement, and returned it to her pocket. "And now I'm going back to my luxurious suite. I have big plans for the rest of the evening."

"That sounds promising," Nick said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Room service," Kate said.

Nick tossed his keys onto the sideboard in the small foyer, then locked and bolted the door to the suite.

"Honey, I'm home," he yelled.

It was nine at night and Kate was on the couch with her iPad. She was barefoot, wearing a too-big T-s.h.i.+rt and gray sweatpants. "Why do you always yell when you come in?"

"I don't want to surprise you and get shot or garroted or whacked with your baton because you think I'm an intruder."

"You are an intruder," Kate said. "You're intruding on my peace and quiet. When is something going to happen? I'm going goofy sitting here with nothing to do. It's been three days."

"You could be a tourist."

"I did that."

"You could get some exercise."

"I did that, too," Kate said.

"We could pretend we're actually married," Nick said.

"I don't think so."

"What have you got against marriage?"

"It's not marriage. It's you! You have no respect for the law."

"I respect some laws."

"You're on the FBI's Most Wanted list. What kind of a future would we have? What would I tell the children?"

Nick went to the refreshment center and poured himself a whiskey. "We're talking about a pretend marriage, right?"

"Of course."

"With a pretend future and pretend kids?"

"I might have gotten carried away."

Nick took his drink to the couch and sat next to Kate. He took a sip of the whiskey and smiled.

"What's with the smile?" Kate asked.

"I'm enjoying myself. Good whiskey. Nice room. My pretend wife snuggled next to me."

"I'm not snuggled."

Nick slid his arm around her and cuddled her into him. "Now you are."

"Don't get any ideas," Kate said.

"Too late. I have lots of ideas. Would you like to hear some of them?"

"No!"

"Where's your sense of adventure? What about bravery?"

"What about reckless stupidity?"

Nick gave her a squeeze and took another sip of the whiskey. "I heard back from my contacts in Berlin and Paris today. They had names of potential buyers, but none of the names were on the chocolate list."

"So we're left with Alves."

"I have some other lines out there, but Alves is the most likely to help us." He glanced down at her iPad. "What are you looking at?"

"Rodney Smoot sent us some stills taken from the underwater footage of the golden table and piles of coins. They're peeking out from the silt and are totally convincing. There's nothing about them that would indicate they're digital creations."

The s.h.i.+pping container that held the render farm computers was delivered on the afternoon of the fourth day Nick and Kate were in Lisbon. An hour later Nick got a message that Diogo Alves wanted to meet at the University of Lisbon's Inst.i.tute of Anatomy.

The inst.i.tute was in an old building that smelled of age and medicine, of dust, rubbing alcohol, and formaldehyde. Nick and Kate walked down a long, empty hall to the last room on the floor.

They found Diogo Alves sitting on a stool in the center of the small room, surrounded by thousands of jars of human organs and body parts floating in liquid. The jars filled gla.s.s cabinets and covered all the tables and counters. There were even some on the floors. Shafts of suns.h.i.+ne from the barely open shutters refracted through the prisms of the gla.s.s jars and liquids to make the organs glow with an eerie supernatural vibrancy.

"What is this place?" Kate asked.

"For centuries, scientists have been saving human body parts to study," Alves said to Nick and Kate. "This is a collection that showcases the many different methods of anatomical preservation. What the scientists chose to save, and how they did it, is even more interesting than the organs." Alves sat back and held his hand out to the jar directly in front of him. "Allow me to introduce my great-great-great-great-grandfather and namesake, Diogo Alves."

The jar contained a perfectly preserved human head, its face pressed up so close to the gla.s.s that it appeared to be kissing it. The resemblance between the living Alves and the head in the jar was uncanny. The living Alves might as well have been looking at his own reflection in a mirror instead of at a head in a jar.

"How often do you come here?" Nick asked Alves.

"At least once or twice a week, usually more. How many men do you know who can visit with one of their forefathers?"

The disembodied head was wide-eyed with a look of surprise.

"He looks like he wasn't expecting to die," Kate said.

"I like to think he was seeing beyond," Alves said. "I cherish this opportunity to spend time with him. I come here to get Diogo's advice on things. He's a very wise man."

"He talks to you," Kate said.

"Diogo doesn't speak to me directly, of course. But yes, I hear him, the way some people I suppose hear G.o.d speaking to them. Sometimes I could swear he's actually looking at me, that his eyes follow me as I move around the room."

Kate was sure if she stared at the head long enough, she'd think the eyes were following her, too. And then she'd get sick and throw up.

"You should be honored that I invited you here to share this intimacy with me," Alves said.