“I wouldn’t get that call directly anyway, but no.”
“You find that surprising?”
“That I didn’t get a call?” Borrego shrugged. “Mildly.”
“Who’d you sell to?”
Borrego began packing up the remains of his meal. “Considering that you’ve come and alerted me to the ‘string of bodies,’ as you put it, I’d be happy to break protocol and give you a name. He isn’t the buyer, of course. Only another middleman. A fence. But unless he’s relocated already, which is something he frequently does, you can find him in Naples.”
Food and silverware pushed aside, Borrego removed the napkin from around his neck, pulled a pen from a drawer, wrote something on a Post-it, and held the Post-it across the desk for Cooper to take.
“Should be able to reach him here.”
Cooper leaned in and took the Post-it.
“Appreciate the help.”
“Appreciate the warning.”
“What about the source?” Cooper said.
“You know, Señor Cooper, you are one greedy bastard.”
“Selfish too,” Cooper said. “Also angry.”
There came that brownish-yellow grin again. It faded, though, and the Polar Bear said, “No cigar there, campañero.”
“Why not?”
“Only way this artifact-acquisition system works is to retain the anonymity of the seller. I’ve got people out there-South and Central America, Africa, China-do my buying for me. And when they buy, they do it on a no-questions-asked basis. We pay close to the lowest price, but you always know you’ll never be ratted out by the Polar Bear.”
He grinned again, pleased at this declaration of his reputation.
Cooper thought for a moment. “You know where your people bought it, though,” he said. “Geographically speaking. And I imagine telling me that wouldn’t be ‘ratting out’ on your suppliers.”
“Interested in a tour through rebel-infested Central American jungle?”
Even hearing the term Central American jungle made Cooper’s stomach roil. He tensed up, Cooper starting to get pissed off at the indecipherable presence of butterflies that kept lightening his midsection whenever he put too much thought into the source of Po Keeler and Cap’n Roy’s goddamn gold artifacts. He thought for a moment of the statue of the priestess, camped out on the shelf in his bungalow: Yeah, Cooper, he heard her decayed, gritty voice croak, we up here in the afterlife waitin’ for your help. Up here lookin’ down at a slice o’ Central American jungle, about where you lost track of a few things yourself.
“I’m not following you,” Cooper said.
“No joke, amigo,” Borrego said. “I like to get out there once in a while-two, three times a year, minimum. Head out with my boys and do the buy myself-maybe even coax some tomb raider or other to take us along for the spelunk.”
“Spelunk,” Cooper said.
“The journey belowground-into the caves. The tombs, if you can find them. Still plenty of ’em out there-Inca gold, Mayan antiquities, art and treasure been hidden for a thousand-plus years. Technology and civilization just now getting us in on some of it.”
Cooper didn’t say anything about the relative youth Susannah Grant had pinpointed as to the origins of the Keeler artifacts-a hundred and fifty years at most.
“Appreciate the offer but I’ll take a pass,” Cooper said. “You go along for the ride on the shipment in question? If not, why don’t you just tell me where you got them.”
“Well, that’s the point. We purchased them in a remote, mountainous region along the border between Guatemala and Belize-but we’d have to get out and track down the sellers, among other things, to pin it down any better than that. I could track them down if I nosed around those parts for a bit, but there isn’t exactly a phone number.”
Borrego waved the receptionist in from the perch she’d clung to in the doorway, and she came in and cleared the remains of his lunch, shooting Cooper a series of dirty looks along the way. Or maybe she’s taking the time to admire the sharp crease of my cheekbones.
Then the Polar Bear stood and extended a hand.
“Offer stands,” he said.
Cooper, who tended to tower over the average guy, had to look way up as he took hold of El Oso Blanco’s paw and shook. Man had to be six-nine, maybe taller. An effective guess on his weight seemed impossible.
“While I enjoy a nice eco-tour as much as the next soul,” Cooper said, “that part of the world isn’t exactly my favorite. I’ll be getting hold of your Florida buyer, though.”
“Fence. You going to call him?”
Cooper cocked his head a notch, unclear as to what Borrego was asking.
“Just curious,” the Polar Bear said, “if you were planning to call the man on the phone, or whether you’d ride in on a train to get past his security guards.”
Cooper released Borrego’s paw from the handshake.
“What I’m curious about,” he said, “is when I can expect to get my gun back from your army of one.”
Borrego motioned to his bodyguard and Cooper turned and caught the Browning as the velociraptor threw it.
“Hasta luego,” Cooper said, and took his best shot at stepping on the bodyguard’s toe on his way out of the office. The security man pulled his wingtip back as Cooper passed-and Cooper might have caught the velociraptor smirking at his lame attempt.
Despite the relative humiliation, Cooper exited the administrative building and headed for the train tracks.
22
It was six o’clock in the morning when Cooper heard the phone ring forty or fifty times. Somebody finally silenced it-meaning it wasn’t too much of a stretch to peg the three hard whacks at his door for Ronnie, coming to say the call was for him.
“Rise and shine,” Ronnie said, “you sorry rummy fuck!”
Cooper’s first thought was, Who’s dead now? But doing his best to ignore this thought, he reached under his bed, picked up, then heaved his Ken Griffey Jr. Autograph-Special Louisville Slugger in the direction of the front door of his bungalow.
It wouldn’t do anything to Ronnie but scare the daylights out of him-Cooper was too tired to get up and take the swing that would have done the trick-so he made sure of his aim, watching with satisfaction as the heavy bat careened off the concrete floor of the bungalow in a single hop then rocketed into the jalousie panes on the door. The bat shattered all twelve louvered panes to splinters, gouging a hole in the screen beyond-Cooper hopeful, though unable to see whether the hardwood handle of the bat had reached far enough through the screen to strike Ronnie in the shin.
“Keep out!” he bellowed.
Through the window near the foot of his bed, Cooper saw Ronnie stroll down the stairs and pass out of view-middle finger extended all the while, dropping a foot with each step taken down and away from the bungalow.
A fuck-you puppet show, Cooper thought-what a fine way to start the day.
He found a saggy set of black shorts with an AND1 logo on the thigh and slipped on his Reefs. He ignored, even enjoyed the eighty-five-degree rain as it dumped its thick drops on his mussed hair and naked, weathered shoulders. He came through the dark, empty kitchen with its huge stainless steel appliances-detecting, as with every early morning, the faint scents of hops, barley, rum, and conch fritters emanating from the floor, probably inherited as much from the old mop used to scrub it clean as from the food and drink spilled on it the night before.
In a cubbyhole behind the kitchen sat a hulking phone. It seemed Ronnie had left the receiver off the hook.
“Yep,” he said upon snatching the receiver.
“Good morning, Professor.”
Upon hearing the sound of Julie Laramie’s voice, Cooper instantaneously jerked the phone from his ear and dropped it from great elevation onto its cradle.
He made his way leisurely back through the garden to his room, where he removed the AND1 shorts and slid beneath the sheets again. He could feel some sand in the covers, the way he always felt some, even if he’d had the sheets washed thirty minutes prior.