Inca Kings

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kenzie knew that the deeper they delved into the filth that surrounded and filled the criminal underworld the better chance they had of finding Tremayne’s buyer and at least one more of the seller’s middlemen. Of course, there was nobody more qualified than she.

“Haven’t heard from the team in a while,” Dahl was saying as he paced the hotel room’s floor back and forth.

“We have our own problems.” Kenzie reluctantly ripped her gaze from his tensed body and stared over at the priceless Inca vase they had appropriated. “Based on my queries so far the supposed ultimate buyer of that thing is a violent, criminal superstar — a real piece of work that thinks he’s God’s gift to law breaking. The other players might be happy to give up the middlemen, the corrupt authorities and locations of previous items, but they want something out of it.”

Dahl stopped and shrugged. “Of course they do. What?”

“They won’t say. But they can point the finger at all involved.”

“They won’t say?” Dahl repeated, deeply surprised. “What kind of criminal won’t say what he wants out of a deal?”

“The kind that wants to meet.” Kenzie sighed. “Tonight. Two nasty little rats known as middlemen. We’ll try to get a bead on Tremayne’s renowned buyer, the real rock star, but it’s gonna be hairier than an old woman’s armpit in there.”

“Sounds like the most violent meet in history,” Dahl said.

“Well, I’m sure there’s been worse.” Kenzie coughed without giving anything away. “But I have met both these guys before. They come armed to the hilt, as edgy as your white cliffs, puffed up to the max with self-importance, and ready to kill as instantly as bad coffee. I’m not sure I want to deal with them again.”

“But they don’t know you’ve changed sides… wait… my white cliffs? For fuck’s sake, Kenzie. Do you not yet know that I’m Swedish?”

“Swedish?” She looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

Dahl started to turn an odd shade of red before realizing Kenzie was baiting him. Only then did he take a breath, relax and sit down.

“You’ve been pacing for an hour,” Kenzie said. “There are other ways to work off extra energy, you know.”

“I am married.”

“Not for long,” Kenzie muttered, but loud enough for him to hear. “The old battle axe still in touch?”

“If you’re referring to Johanna, the mother of my children—” Dahl walked over to the window and stared into the gathering darkness— “then yes. She may have changed her mind.”

Kenzie snorted. “Oh, the mother of my children,” she repeated in a mocking voice. “That squaw has you turning up, down, inside and out. She’ll be the death of you.”

“You’re saying I’m not focused?”

Kenzie looked away. “Maybe.”

“On the job? Or on you?”

“I am the job, Torst, believe it or not. And not just because we’re tracking relic smugglers. My life… is one big job. Morning till night. Dusk till dawn. There’s nothing else.”

“Then change your fucking life,” Dahl said, shrugging it all off and then walking over to check his weapons and Kevlar. “People do it all the time.”

Kenzie smiled without humor. “Not those with a price on their heads. But don’t worry, that’s next week’s problem, right? Tonight holds a whole different set of evils.”

Dahl half-turned as he worked. “Maybe you could explain what’s about to happen.”

“All right. I’ve been buyer, seller and agent in the past. Tonight, we have two pretty vile middlemen. Both wanting something out of the meet. Both will expect a good deal and neither know the other is coming.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah, and they’ll be as tooled up as Bosch, baby. It’ll have to be game faces, hints of violence and understated threat. The kind of language they all understand. Keeps everything in check.”

Dahl nodded. He knew the game. “What do we have to offer them? And don’t say the vase.”

“Oh, no. I’m keeping that for when we find Tremayne’s buyer. They’re middlemen. You just have to use your imagination.”

Dahl finished with his preparations. “Not something I’m renowned for.”

“Then we’ll improvise,” Kenzie said. “Pass me the list of those previous sales.”

Nice lay languid and dispassionate under a leaden sky. Drizzle fell in erratic bursts as if it couldn’t make up its mind, coating the streets with a slippery film of water. Dahl and Kenzie watched the pub as it closed for the night, then saw the workers head home and finally the night manager. The Swede’s watch said 2 a.m. Kenzie counted off the minutes.

“Here they come.”

A sedan pulled up at the curb in the empty street, tires shedding water and crunching to a stop. The rear doors opened to discharge four men. Then the front passenger door released another. Kenzie knew they’d be packing, but the amount of hardware they carried bulged under their jackets and weighed their belts down. She stayed silent as they approached the pub’s front door and then produced a key, gaining entry.

“Must be a front,” Dahl said.

“Easy to procure. And a safe meeting place. Unless something goes sour…” Kenzie stayed put until another car arrived, disgorged its passengers, and then started to tick itself quiet. Another minute passed.

Dahl turned to her. “We ready?”

“Let’s kill ’em.”

Dahl sighed and followed her out into the rain. Kenzie strode across the road, staying visible, and walked right up to the front door. It opened for her. A man stood back in the shadows.

“Hey, asshole, you gonna invite us in?”

“It sounds like her!” a voice shouted. “Be careful, Abel. She is moutarde.”

Dahl snorted quietly. “Mustard? You’re yellow? You come in a jar?”

“Hot, darling. Hot. And that’s disgusting.”

“I didn’t mean it like—”

But then they were through the door and inside the pub. Dahl fell silent. Kenzie appraised the place in six seconds — the empty bar where a shooter would be hidden, the spaced out tables arranged to shield the bar’s owner, the goons arrayed in strategic positions, the half-open doors and darkened corners — she was a veteran at this kind of meet. The owner though — he ought to be a retiree. Seventy if he was a day, Cyrano was a criminal who would never give up, an old man who knew nothing else. His face was a furrow, the deep carvings not all wrinkle, and the pockmarks not in the least from old age. Wiry and lean, he still cut an image, eyes twinkling as if thought he deserved to take her around the back for a little fiery relief.

“Kenzie,” he drawled in French tones. “It has been too long.”

She crossed to a corner, the windows and a wall at her back. “Cyrano. So long I thought you might be dead.”

“You will die before me, young girl. And no sword today?”

“Katana,” Kenzie corrected. “Do I need it? Do I cry myself to sleep? Do I fuck.”

“I am sure you do and need all those things and more. But we now have business to attend to.”

She became aware that Dahl was staring at her instead of the room. “What is it?” she hissed.

“I don’t know. I’m sure I’ve heard something like that recently. Just… can’t…”

“Focus,” she hissed angrily. “On the here and now.”

The third man in the room attracted her attention. His name was Patric and he was a fat oaf; a sweating pig of a man that relied on his sidekick — Paul — to look out for his interests. Well, Paul and a dozen well-armed guards.

“Patric,” she said. “Those gym sessions working for ya?”

Half a dozen chins wobbled as the man pretended mirth. Rather than answer though, he nodded in Paul’s direction. Paul said, “We are not here to trade insults, bitch. And I did not expect Cyrano. What do you have for us?”

Kenzie zipped the various retorts that came to mind, deciding to let it flow. This sure as hell wasn’t the time or place for bickering. Maybe another venue, another life. Both these men were utter lowlifes, capable of selling their young for a tidy profit. Both deserved a little visit from her weapon of choice.

One day.

She quickly pushed her little outburst of earlier and her tongue-lashing of Dahl to a distant corner of her mind.

“Tremayne is dead,” she said simply into the silence.

Fingers twitched close to triggers. Both middlemen were surrounded by a force of guards, all toting machine pistols close to their hips. The atmosphere and their lives rested on a knife’s edge which, Kenzie figured, could be used to cut the very air.

“Do we know what happened?” Cyrano asked, voice cracked with age.

Kenzie shrugged. “Bastard came across someone more ruthless than he. It happens.”

Her knowing smile helped light the room.

Of course, they wouldn’t know which way to take it. Patric grunted, shuffled, and made a gesture to Paul, his front man. “Ask her what she wants from us.”

Kenzie regarded him with disdain. “What I want is Tremayne’s buyer. You know, for the Inca vase? What I want is his location. And information on who else I might be able to… facilitate a few sales through.” She failed to mention she needed leads on the identities of all the other buyers, past and present and authorities involved. But one step at a time. One lead always pointed to another.

“You have more of the Inca relics?” Cyrano stepped forward in his greed, the perfect target.

“I do.” Kenzie nodded as Dahl shifted slightly, preparing. “Two more vases and a great shield. Just like the one Tremayne sold in 2014.”

Recognition swept across Cyrano’s face, which Kenzie was grateful for. She saw Paul lean in to Patric and whisper. A sudden tension made her muscles go hard. One wrong move. One wrong word. One misunderstood intention…

She cleared her throat softly. “Either you can help me or you can’t. But we are here to do business, nothing else.”

Dahl watched everything like a state-of-the-art CCTV camera, sweeping back and forth and registering every minute movement. She felt him move, heard the soft breath coming through his parted lips. She sensed the coiling of muscles.

Cyrano sent one of his men to the bar. “I need a drink. Would you join me, Kenzie?” He offered nothing to Patric.

“Not tonight,” she said with as much promise as she could muster.

“And your large but silent friend?”

“He’s my manservant. He does not drink.”

Dahl said nothing, totally focused, which gave Kenzie hope that they might make it out of here with the barest amount of blood on their hands. Cyrano frowned, but then shrugged it all off.

“Whatever. But show me the proof that you can acquire these vases. And which one of us gets the shield?”

Kenzie had always known these men would finally fix on that point. “The one that brings me Tremayne’s buyer’s location first.”

Cyrano nodded and Paul grunted, as if he’d been expecting her answer. Patric fired another question through his sidekick.

“Why is this man so important? The buyer of the Inca relics?”

“That is between him and me,” Kenzie said quickly, forcefully.

“And if I make it my business?” Cyrano growled.

Kenzie didn’t hesitate. “Then our deal is off and I go with Patric.” They were on prison rules now, where he that threatened hardest usually won the day, but he that threatened hardest must be able to back it up. Sooner or later, he would be called out.

“But Patric is slow and oh so fat,” Cyrano said with a chuckle. “He could not service a paid whore, let alone a sword-wielding goddess like you.”

Feet shuffled quickly. Men moved. Guns flew out of holsters and belts. Cyrano let out a huge guffaw.

“Ha ha. Ha ha. I am joking. Let us see what we can do, eh?”

Kenzie barely breathed. Even scratching an itch here and now would incite a blood bath. Tension stretched tauter than a high wire, thrumming in the wind.

“Seriously, you are not so fat, my friend. I have seen fatter. You see? I am full of compliments today.” The old man smiled as if the most stressful thing he would do tonight would be rolling over in bed.

Dahl’s hands were on his weapons. Kenzie had already decided which way she would dive when the shooting started. It just needed one nervous trigger finger, one goon who’d already snorted a line too much today. Cyrano tipped back the double whisky his man brought him, savoring the taste.

“My liver loves this stuff,” he said with a grimace. “So, Kenzie… what are we to do?”

All this time Patric bristled in a corner, surrounded by his men but still immensely visible. Sweat dripped from his brow. The sidekick, Paul, flexed the fingers of his right hand in anticipation.

“We should deal,” Kenzie said quietly. “With any other outcome — nobody wins.”

Cyrano nodded. “Of course. Except the police. Interpol. FBI—”

She stopped the old man’s prattle. “We came to deal. It is on the table. Decide now or don’t. I am ready either way.” She focused on Cyrano with a significant gaze.

Patric nudged Paul. As the room relaxed a smidgen, the sidekick brought his machine pistol up quickly, sighting on Cyrano. “If you move, old man, I will turn your brains to wallpaper paste.”

Kenzie fumed inside. Fucking relic hunters. You just couldn’t trust ’em an inch. “What is it now?”

“We want both vases and the shield.”

“Of course you do. You’re a fucking gangster.” She shook her head, now unsure if there was going to be a way out of this. She should have known better, being an ex-gangster herself. How often had she seen the spoils and gone after them wholeheartedly, jealously, with aggression in her heart? The same heart in which Dahl saw some kind of integrity.

Dahl now coughed and drew himself upright, moved his own hands away from his weapons. “I urge you all to remember that it is we that hold the artifacts. Our commodity. Our rules. We want the buyer, other buyers and the corrupt ties involved. I suggest the first man to get his ass in gear stands a better chance of winning.”

“Hallelujah,” Kenzie moaned. “And that should be man’s only motto.”

Patric laid a meat slab on Paul’s shoulder. The second man spoke as if receiving the speech through his subconscious. “You bring the English to a French bar? Are you mad?”

Kenzie knew it was a joke, but had reached the end of her tether. Her guns, one in each hand, targeted both leaders. “Fuck this,” she growled. “Make your decisions now. Deal… or die.”

Both men looked down the barrels of her guns and smiled.