“Hel o, Monsieur Bergman.” It was the 1-900-Fantasy voice of Monique Landry, stil accented with Paris despite the decades she’d spent away from home. Contrary to our genius’s opinion, she’d been nothing but courteous and helpful. Except to Miles, who’d gotten extra snacks and the fluffy pil ows from day one. Her twenty years in the Guests-R-Us biz had definitely honed her into the perfect hostess.
And somehow she’d made the fact that she looked fabulous for a widow in her late forties (like Demi Moore with actual meat on her bones and enough past hardships to lace her eyes with compassion) part of the riad’s mystique. Unfortunately al Bergman had noticed so far was that she wore brightly flowered dresses and “bothered” him a lot.
We heard her say, “I noticed you were working late so I had Chef Henri fix you a plate of beignets and a cup of green tea.”
And Bergman’s reply: “I’m kind of busy here, Monique.
And I’m stil ful from—” I heard a smothering sort of sound backed by attempted talking, which I interpreted as Monique stuffing one of the smal fried doughnuts into his Monique stuffing one of the smal fried doughnuts into his mouth. “Hey,” he said after he’d final y worked his teeth around the dessert. “That’s good!”
“Lovely,” she purred. “Henri wil be delighted. And how is the world’s weather today?”
When we’d moved into the riad three days earlier, we’d explained Bergman’s mass of electronics by tel ing Monique that we were studying climate change.
Miles chuckled. Uh-oh. I knew exactly what expression went with that sound. His eyebrow had just gone up. He held his hand out as if a pipe fil ed it. And now he was shaking his head from side to side as if he’d just been caught inside a bel tower at noon. “Wel , the weather waits for no one, my dear. I’d explain, but I’m sure the technical terms would make your head spin. We are, in fact, in the middle of a testing cycle, so I must get back to work. So good of you to come.”
Cole and I cringed as we waited for Monique to order him off his high horse—because he looked ridiculous riding sidesaddle—and stop insulting her intel igence. Instead we heard her hand, gently patting his cheek. “You are so adorable! Al right, then, I’l leave you to your work.
Tomorrow morning we have fresh bread and Berber omelets for breakfast. And just for you, I wil ask Chef Henri to make his famous chocolate éclairs!”
“But I don’t eat breakfast,” Bergman muttered. After the door had clicked shut.
Cole said, “So good of you to come? Dude, who are you, Queen Elizabeth?”
Bergman huffed, “I was trying to get her to leave without pissing her off! What would you have done?” I said, “I’d have gotten on my knees and thanked her for those éclairs. Be nice, Miles. You need the calories.” Bergman muttered, “Are we working, or what?” I sighed. “Constantly. So get busy, wil ya?” I imagined him checking his satel ite maps and hacked surveil ance video, not to mention the tracker he’d attached to our target’s right boot heel. While we waited for his pronouncement, Cole reached behind his back and pul ed a tranquilizer gun out from under the light brown jacket he wore over his T-shirts. The weapon blended so perfectly with his black jeans that it disappeared when he dropped his hands to his sides.
“That looks… lethal.” Could be, too, if we got the dosage wrong. Which we didn’t, because I double-checked it myself. Maybe we won’t need it, though. Maybe he’ll cooperate.
I cleared my throat. “Was that thing stuck in your belt?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry, the safety was on.” He sighted down the long, lean barrel. “Hey, imagine what would’ve happened if I’d shot myself in the butt. My cheeks would’ve been numb for a week!”
I took off down the sidewalk, keeping to the shadows, avoiding puddles of brown liquid that I knew weren’t water because, according to Monique, who’d been so ecstatic to rent al five of her riad’s rooms to us that she gave us random weather reports for free, it hadn’t rained in the past two weeks.
Cole jogged after me. “Jaz, where are you going? We don’t even know—”
“I’d rather walk aimlessly than discuss your ass, al right?”
“Yeah, but this is my numb ass. Do you think my legs would stop working too?”
I was getting ready to grab the gun and perform an experiment that would satisfy both his curiosity and my need to shoot something when Bergman said, “Got him.
Two blocks northeast of you. He’s stationary.” We turned the corner, moving so quickly we nearly plowed into two men carrying bundles of bath supplies, which meant they were headed for the nearest hammam.
They’d just exited a diamond-mosaiced door. Cole hid the tranq gun behind his thigh, mumbled an apology in French, and pul ed me around the men, who wore light shirts, long pants, and basebal hats, al of which were blotched with mustard-colored stains. And damn, did they stink! They must work at the dump we’d been smel ing.
One of the men, a black-mustached thirtysomething with a scar under his left eye, spoke to Cole, who replied sharply, his hand tightening on my arm. Already I was used to natives offering to guide us anywhere we wanted to go, but these guys didn’t have the look of euro-hungry street hustlers. I looked up at Cole. His face had gone blank, a bad sign in a guy who assassinates his country’s enemies for a living.
Like the knife in my skirt’s hidden pocket, the .38
strapped to my right leg weighed heavier, reminding me of my offensive options if I decided not to pul the gun disguised by my snow white windbreaker. But I didn’t want to spil blood knowing a vamp prowled nearby.
“What do they want?” I asked.
“The dude with the scar is demanding a tol for the use of his road, and extra payment for nearly running him and his buddy over.”
“What’s his name?”
Cole asked, and while the man replied I checked out his friend. He was maybe seventeen, a brown-eyed kid with lashes so long they looked fake. He couldn’t bring himself to meet my eyes.
Cole said, “His name is Yousef. The boy’s name is Kamal.”
“Tel Yousef I’l pay.”
“What?”
“Tel him.” Cole began to talk.
I swished forward, making my ful red skirt swirl around my knees as my boots clicked against the cobblestones, letting my alter ego take the spotlight. Lucil e Robinson was a pale, slender, green-eyed sweetie with a white streak in her red curls that might’ve signified another time when a man had taken advantage of her weakness and bashed her across the head before forcing her to his wil . Yousef didn’t know I’d earned the streak in hel , or that the Eldhayr who’d taken me there had already brought me back from the dead. Twice. Al he could see was that Lucil e’s curls looked more likely to bounce up and defend her than her fists. Mission accomplished.
I looked up at him like he was the cutest teddy bear I’d ever hoped to squeeze. Even though he couldn’t understand the words, I figured he’d get the tone as I reached down the V-neck of my dress with my left hand and said, “Just give me a second, okay? I keep my money in here so I don’t have to worry about pickpockets. I understand they can be a problem in Marrakech. Am I right?”
By now I’d come within an arm’s length of the reeking man, who was staring at my hand like he wished it was his.