‘You know, maybe I’ve been a little hard on you,’ Sloan said, his smile broadening. ‘Maybe Hatch changed his name. Maybe you know him by another name.’
Stenhauser said nothing. He walked briskly, still staring a foot or two in front of each step.
‘He used the same technique in all three jobs. I know his style. Down through the ceiling on a wire, pressure sensitizers on the walls when he lifts the paintings. He never goes near the floor, no worries about electric eyes, floor feelers, that kind of thing. And the son of a bitch always leaves a little something behind to help the police along. Old Hatch hasn’t changed a bit. He used the same technique hitting the Russian embassy for me in London.’
Stenhauser looked up sharply, staring at Sloan as they walked.
‘Also the Iranian embassy in Washington, before the hostage thing. Always leaves something. One of the sensitizers, the wire, something. It’s magician stuff — misdirection, because he always jumps the alarm system but he never leaves the jumper behind, you know why?’
Stenhauser’s pace began to quicken.
‘Because to jump the system requires inside knowledge. In both my cases, Hatcher had an inside man, but he didn’t want to blow their cover, so he leaves a little something behind. Now, here he is pulling the same old stunt. Hell, I was on to him from the first job, the thing in Paris. What a score!’ Sloan laughed appreciatively.
Stenhauser stopped. He jabbed a finger at Sloan.
‘You’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but you’re stuffed full of shit.’
‘I haven’t gotten to the good sniff yet. See, here’s the way I figure it works. Let’s say somebody lifts a Picasso from a museum. The museum doesn’t want a million bucks’ insurance money, they want the work. They want it before it winds up on some Arab’s yacht over in the Mediterranean. So they make a deal. The insurance company pays fifteen percent, no questions asked. It costs the insurance company a hundred fifty grand on a million- dollar policy, the museum gets its goods back, and the thief walks with a clean bill of health.’
Stenhauser was not a brave man. All he did was provide information and make deals. It had never occurred to him that he and the Bird would be caught. Now fear began to nibble at his insides.
‘There’s nothing illegal about what I do, Sloan,’ he said defensively. ‘I make deals, sure. 1ut it’s perfectly legitimate. It saves the taxpayers money because the police aren’t involved. It saves the insurance company money. The victims get their things back. Everybody ends up happy.’
Bluffing, and not very well, Sloan. thought, chuckling to himself. Still smiling, he shook his head. ‘I couldn’t care less,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But let me give you a new scenario. A thief hits the Louvre and walks off with twelve million dollars’ worth of goods. The fixer steps in, quietly gets the word around, makes a deal. The insurance company gets stiffed for one point eight mill, but saves ten point two mill in the long haul, and the museum gets its paintings back. Now, just supposing we had a real smart man working for the insurance company. And supposing he approaches this flier and says, “Look, pal, I can give you advance information on where art’s gonna be, when it’s vulnerable, the security systems, I’ll set up the buy, and we just split the pie up two ways.” Sloan paused. ‘Neat, isn’t it?’
‘I know where you’re heading with this, and I’m telling you right here and now you’re nuts,’ said Stenhauser vehemently.
Sloan kept talking, slowly, quietly, as if Stenhauser bad never uttered a word. ‘I figure the two of you have split almost four million dollars over the last two years, Stenhauser. You’re not only going to have cops all over the world crawling up your ass, you’re gonna have the IRS sitting in your lap every time you take a load off. All I have to do is tell them what you’ve been up to. Whether they can prove it or not, they’ll make life so miserable for you —,
Who is this man? Stenhauser wondered. He had never before entertained even the remotest thought of murder — of any form of bodily harm to anyone else — but now, walking up Madison Avenue, he found the blackest kind of ideas buzzing in his head.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Sloan said, as if reading Stenhauser’s mind. ‘Forget it. You don’t have the guts or talent for it.’
Stenhauser’s mouth dried up.
Sloan shook his head. ‘There’s no reason for all this anxiety,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to make life miserable for you. I want Hatcher.’
‘And I keep telling you—’
Sloan cut him off. His eyes grew cold, lost their expression, but the smile remained. Stenhauser suddenly felt a chill creep over him.
‘Get off it, little man,’ Sloan said very quietly. ‘You’re going to tell me what I want to know — now — or I’m going to come down on you so hard you’ll think it’s raining bricks. Think about it. You’re out of business anyway. Do you want to keep what you’ve got, smile all the way to the bank, or do you want a lot of grief?’
Stenhauser looked up and down the street. He hunched deeper into his coat and stared at Sloan’s feet. ‘He’ll kill me,’ Stenhauser whispered.
‘No way.’
‘You don’t—’
‘Know him?’ Sloan finished the sentence. ‘I was in business with the man when you were still taking the SATs.’
Stenhauser turned away from Sloan. He strolled to the curb and looked up at the gold lights on Trump Tower. He had dreamed of owning an apartment there, a million- dollar layout with all the trimmings, and now this stranger, whom he’d never seen until half an hour ago, was stealing the dream. Anger roiled up inside him, but Stenhauser was smart enough to know there was nothing he could do about it. Sloan had him and was squeezing.
‘I don’t know where he is,’ Stenhauser said finally. ‘I’ve never laid eyes on him. Didn’t even know his name until you brought it up. I get in touch through a dead drop, a relay phone.’
Sloan, smiling, walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder.
‘That’ll be just fine,’ he said.
‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ Stenhauser asked bitterly. ‘What’s in this for you?’
‘That’s none of your fucking business,’ Sloan answered as slowly and methodically as ever.
GINIA
He lay on the floor with his chin resting on the backs of his hands, watching a bright yellow flame-tail tang darting in and out of the coral, its snout pecking for food. A moment later, she swam into frame, trailing bubbles from her tanks, her long black hair waving behind her.
She was as naked as the fish she ‘was chasing.
Her hard, perfectly rounded buttocks ground together as she scissor-kicked her long, muscular legs, and glided over and around the small coral cluster, chasing the tang. She had an astounding figure and the tiny white triangles, where her bikini had blocked the sun, made her tawny figure even more alluring.
An absolutely stunning creature.
He studied every rippling muscle in her body, every square inch of tanned skin, knowing she knew he was watching and was enjoying his voyeurism just as much as he was. He felt himself begin to tighten, felt his pulse tapping in his forehead.
The six-foot glass square mounted in the floor was what really had sold him on the yacht. It -was hidden beneath the plush Oriental carpet in the main cabin. With the push of a button, a panel in the hull slid back and four powerful floodlights mounted on each corner of the window switched on. The result was a spectacular undersea panorama.
She was holding a plastic tube about two feet long, which looked like a large syringe four or five inches in diameter with a plunger on one end. She was behind the tang, extending the tube slowly toward it, then she suddenly drew back the plunger and the suction pulled the tang into the tube where a mesh valve trapped it. The fish darted up and down the tube, confused by the almost invisible plastic sides that entrapped it. She turned toward the window and proudly flexed her muscles.