He kissed her on top of her head.
“It’s fine, Suzi. I’ve been eating at that particular restaurant all week and doing great.”
“You sure?” She glanced up at him, and even with her hair all wildly sticking out and her makeup smudged beneath her eyes, her beauty struck him hard.
He lifted his hand to her face and smoothed his thumb across her cheek. Geezus, she was soft and so incredibly lovely, and he hoped to hell he never ran into Nathan Weymouth. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself with the details of the accident that had killed their child, but he was damn sure he didn’t trust himself with the man who had done it.
“You’re safe,” he said and gave her another kiss. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll be right back.”
He headed into the bathroom for a minute, and when he came back out, she was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Creed had the right room, a luxury suite at El Caribe, and the right mountain of booze-soaked flab, Levi Asher, but not the right answer, not yet, so he tried again.
“Mr. Asher, Levi,” he said calmly. “Have you seen Suzanna Toussi since you arrived in Ciudad del Este?”
The man was face-down on the bathroom floor in his underwear, silk boxers and a wifebeater, pretending to be passed out or asleep, but not doing a very good job of either. He was breathing hard and fast, and folks in drunken stupors were usually, well, too damn drunk to have the brains to be afraid, and people who were asleep didn’t open their eyes every few seconds, look around real quick, and then squeeze them shut again real tight.
It was ridiculous.
Old Levi was wide-awake and very afraid, and in about thirty seconds, he was going to wish he’d done a better job of playing possum.
“Levi, here’s the truth,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the suite’s huge jetted tub. “Every time you open your eyes, I know you’re looking to see if there’s a way out”-he paused for a second and thumbed open his folding knife-”and there isn’t, not unless you can get through me, and you can’t.”
Levi’s eyes popped open again at the sound of the knife blade locking into place. It was just a small snick, but the knife wasn’t small. The knife was big, the blade sharp and serrated down the back side, and the sight of it was enough to cause the mountain to quake. Creed had seen a lot of things in his life, but he’d never seen that much wrinkly, old chubbiness tremble on cue.
Given a choice, he would have taken a pass.
“So I’m going to ask you one more time, and you will give me an answer.”
Geezus. The guy had been on his hands and knees, crawling out of the bathroom, when Creed had let himself in the suite. Asher had actually made eye contact with him before he’d collapsed back down and taken, without a doubt, the stupidest defensive posture Creed had ever seen-the old curl-up-and-die defense.
Anyone could have killed him.
And in this town, someone would, but it wasn’t going to be Creed.
“Mr. Asher, have you seen Suzanna Toussi since you arrived in Ciudad del Este?”
His nod was hesitant but unmistakable.
“Where?”
“H-here.” He gasped the word out, his voice trembling as badly as the rest of him.
“In the hotel?”
The old guy nodded again.
“When?”
To Creed’s amazement, Levi opened one eye and checked his watch.
“An-n hour ago,” he said. “Maybe an hour ten.”
Close, Creed thought with relief. He wasn’t that far behind her.
“Where is she now?”
“I p-picked her up at the Posada Plaza.”
That was good information, but it didn’t tell him what he needed to know.
“But where is she now? Why isn’t she still with you? Where did she go?” Personally, Creed could think of about a hundred and eight reasons why Suzi wasn’t with this old geezer in his hotel room, but he had a feeling it was the hundred and ninth one he needed to hear.
“There w-was a man…well, two…I guess,” Levi said.
Bull. There was no “guessing.”
“Tell me about them. What do they have to do with Suzi?”
“She left with the first one.”
And that was disturbing information.
“Do you know his name?” Always a good place to start.
“D-danny Kane. He came and got her out of the casino. He’s a reporter. Maybe they went back to the Posada. I don’t know.”
“So what did the second guy want? Tell me about him.”
Levi’s eyes closed again, and he pressed his lips shut for a moment, shaking his head. “The same as you, to know where she was. He was big. Bad. V-very bad. That man. Frightening.”
And that information went into the column marked Very Disturbing. Creed didn’t like big bad scary guys going after his friends.
“Do you know his name?”
“N-no,” Levi said. “Only…”
“Only what?” He hardened his voice, letting the old souse know he was treading on thin ice. When he didn’t get an immediate answer, he leaned down with his knife, grabbed the shoulder strap of Asher’s undershirt, and slit it clean through.
The man whimpered, and Creed figured he had another Boy Scout badge coming for this one.
“Wh-where he lives,” Asher confessed, a gasping, high-pitched whine in his voice. “I-I know where he lives.”
Very, very good information.
“Tell me.”
Levi looked up at him from where he was cringing on the floor, and despite still looking pathetic, there was a definite change in his gaze.
“W-we should make a deal. This man has a statue, a sphinx, old, priceless, worth-”
“No deal,” Creed said, cutting him off. Yeah, that’s what this whole damn deal was about, some damn statue. “Tell me where this guy lives while you still have a tongue in your mouth. Comprendes?”
“No, no. There’s money, I tell you, mill-”
Creed was done with the weasel. With one move, he hauled the old man to his feet and shoved his head down into the sink. Then he turned on the water, the cold water. Geezus. Creed wouldn’t have given somebody the time of day for running cold water on his head, but he knew his man, and old Levi Asher rolled over because his hair was getting wet.
He spluttered and choked and said something, and Creed turned off the water.
“What was that?”
“Costa,” Levi repeated, spitting water into the sink. “Costa del Rey That’s where this guy lives.”
And that pretty much clinched the Twilight Zone for Creed. Oh, yeah, this mission was headed there at light speed. Conroy Farrel had the magic statue and was gunning for Suzi Toussi.
Leaning heavily on the bathroom counter, barely holding himself up, Levi watched the man leave the suite. Thank God. He needed to call Gervais. He couldn’t be alone. This was awful. The whole night was awful.
My God, his room had been broken into twice, and he’d been roughed up, and manhandled, and practically tortured.
He looked down at himself. He was drenched.
A small hiccup escaped him.
He was doomed. All his work had been for nothing.
He wiped his hand over his face. He probably needed another drink. His nerves were shot.
Step by shaky, trembling step, he eased his way out the bathroom door and toward the bedroom. He always kept a bottle of whiskey by the bed, just in case he needed a little swig in the middle of the night. He had trouble sleeping, but nobody seemed to care.
My God.
That man-with the big knife and fierce, heartless gaze, that wild man with the long blond hair and the iron grip had practically lifted him straight off his feet from the floor.
Battle of the Titans, that’s what was going to happen up at Costa del Rey with the Memphis Sphinx in the middle of it. How in the world was he supposed to come out ahead in a ruckus like that?
My God. It was going to be brutal, epic, and Suzi was going to be worthless.
And Gervais? Did he dare send him up the river in the morning as planned? Was there any hope?
Gervais didn’t know about the brutes. Was it possible to send someone into a melee, completely unaware, and have them come out on top with the goods?