Perhaps.
Gervais certainly wouldn’t go upriver if Levi told him about the men set to go mano a mano. The man wasn’t that devoted. In fact, he wasn’t devoted at all. He worked for his money, the same way Levi did, and there was a lot of money at stake in this damn country-twenty million dollars to be exact. If Levi could get the Sphinx, and if Suzi survived, it was certainly possible to squeeze the name of her buyer out of her. He had no doubts about that. He was good with women.
He finally made it to the bed and flopped down onto it. He was so exhausted, he probably didn’t need the extra booze. He would probably fall asleep like a log any minute now.
Rolling over onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling and just tried to relax and catch his breath. Ciudad del Este was everything he’d been told and more, violent and crime-ridden and lawless, a cesspool. Good God, he couldn’t wait to get out of here.
He’d forgotten to call Gervais, he remembered, and he would, in a minute, but he was starting to drift just a bit, and it felt so good, he decided to just keep drifting…
“Good morning, asshole.”
He awoke with a start, harsh words in his ear, and a hand around his throat.
“This is your wake-up call.”
Levi stared, panic-stricken and wide-eyed, into the fiercely dark-eyed gaze of the reporter.
“D-danny Kane,” he stammered, feeling the man’s hand squeeze tighter and tighter around his throat. “Pul-lease.”
“Where is she?” the man demanded to know, and Levi didn’t have to ask who.
He let out a small choking sound, and Danny Kane lightened his grip ever so slightly.
“I know you had a deal with her for this morning, and I want to know what, you sonuvabitch,” Danny Kane’s voice was low, and gruff, and mean, like he wanted to know what very much, indeed.
Levi hated this place.
And he hated this damn room.
And he suddenly felt very guilty about Suzi Toussi, but she was the one who’d begged him to get in on his deal. She was the one who’d wanted to help-and really, on second thought, it wasn’t his fault that she had all these over-testosteroned brutes ready to tear him limb from limb in order to get to her. She’d gotten herself down to Ciudad del Este all on her own.
She’d done this to herself, not him, and she was dragging him down with her.
It simply had to stop.
“Costa del Rey” he said as clearly and succinctly as he could with some behemoth practically strangling him. Who were these guys? he wondered, and why did Suzi Toussi know so many of them? It was crazy. “That’s where she was going for me this morning, to bargain for the Memphis Sphinx, the Maned Sphinx of Sesostris III. That’s where it is.” He couldn’t protect her anymore. He’d done his best, but now the truth must out. “Costa del Rey is up the Paraná River, north of Ciudad del Este, on a tributary called the Rio Tambo. I don’t know exactly where that is, but I’m sure it’s on a map and that you can find it. You look like a guy who’s good with maps.” All brawny and tan from being outside. “And if you care for Suzi at all, you will find it, because two other guys are already trying to catch her, for God only knows what reasons, and they all seem to be heading there-Costa del Rey” He enunciated the words very carefully. He was done. He didn’t want any more encounters involving the Sphinx. He was handing off the problem.
Danny Kane released him, and he fell back onto the bed.
“What two guys?” Mr. Kane’s voice was still plenty mean, but Levi didn’t care anymore. He was getting used to being abused.
“The last man in here had long blond hair and a big knife, and I gave him your name and suggested the Posada Plaza as a good place to look for her.” His mind was so clear now that he’d made his decision. He was leaving, getting out of here, immediately, today, this morning.
“You asshole.” Danny Kane looked like he could chew nails-and he probably could.
“Be that as it may.” Levi was beyond being offended. “But I told the first guy the same thing, to look for her at the Posada Plaza. He was big, dark-haired, forceful, without actually strangling a person, and he had a nice voice-much nicer than yours-I gave him your name, too. So I’m guessing if they don’t find Suzi, they’ll both come looking for you.” Fair game as far as Levi was concerned. His neck hurt from being squeezed and rattled around. “I’m guessing it’ll be an even match, with all three of you going hand to hand, or whatever it is guys like you do.“
He didn’t care. Good God, the Maned Sphinx of Sesostris III finally shows up on the world stage, and there was just no getting to it.
He was just going to have to let it go. There were other amazing artifacts out there. Thousands of them, ancient and priceless, some of them yet to be discovered, and there were paintings, his bread and butter-all of them needing to be traded and sold and shifted around, and money to be made on every trade, sale, and shift.
He sneaked a peek at his watch. Well, no wonder he felt better. He’d had just enough time to sleep off a couple of glasses of champagne.
“I wouldn’t waste any time, if I were you, getting up there to save her,” he suggested. He wanted Danny Kane gone. “You can’t possibly help her by hanging around here strangling me.” And that was the truth, and by the time any of these men got back to Ciudad del Este, if any of them got back, Levi Asher was going to be at thirty-seven thousand feet, jetting north.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Costa del fucking Rey.
Goddamn Levi Asher, there was no Costa del Rey on any map Dax could find, and he was a pretty damn good map finder, one of the world’s best. But he’d found the Rio Tambo, and Dax was betting everything he had that Levi had told him the truth, and that Suzi was smack-dab where the Tambo flowed into the Paraná.
Because she sure as hell wasn’t here.
Geezus.
He rubbed his hand across his chest, trying to ease the tightness that had taken hold of him the instant he’d realized she was gone.
Two men, Levi Asher had said, and one of them had gotten to her in a heartbeat, five floors up. The security chain on the inside of the door had still been in place when Dax had come out of the bathroom. Nobody had gone out the front door. She’d been grabbed so fast, she’d dropped her fork and the rice on it on the balcony-and not another thing had been out of place in the whole room.
That was crazy. Who could do a snatch and grab that clean, that quick, without Dax knowing it?
A few folks, maybe, he guessed, but as soon as he’d seen the chain on the door, he’d run to the balcony, and there had been no one on the street below, not with a leggy redhead in tow.
The guy had taken her fanny pack, too, so the sonuvabitch was thorough. Hell.
He hit a key on his computer, locking it up and shutting it down. He had a couple of calls out, to guys he still knew in the trade, but so far, no one had Costa del Rey on their radar. It wasn’t a town, or a village, or even a spot in the road as far as he could tell. It was a place, a private place on the river with at least one badass knuckle dragger and one multimillion-dollar piece of stolen goods.
Geezus, he hated going in cold, but he didn’t have a choice.
He glanced up at the door. The chain was hanging broken now. The frame was busted where the Posada’s cheap dead bolt had gone through it, assisted, Dax had been told, by someone’s heavy, booted foot, un rubio, according to Marcella, a blond-haired man, un gato, according to Marceline, a cat, a very big cat who had gotten Marceline’s motor running.
The first guy in here tonight had grabbed Suzi without a trace. The second guy had been sure to leave his mark, and both those guys were on their way to Costa del Rey.
Dax hoped to hell he wasn’t too far behind.