The Chase by Janet Evanovich
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get windows replaced out here?” Duff asked Kate.
Kate smiled and pulled herself a mug of draft ale. She was starting to enjoy herself.
Duff turned back to Nick. “Why couldn’t she throw them through the door?”
“She likes windows. It’s showier.”
“That’s your bad influence on her. You always loved to put on a show.”
“That’s what makes it fun.”
“That’s what gets you sent to prison.”
“What do you call living way out here?” Nick asked.
Duff shrugged. “I have my comforts. Good ale. Good single malt. Satellite television on an eighty-four-inch flat screen.”
Turtleneck and Crewneck limped over to a couple barstools. Kate drew them each an ale and placed the mugs in front of them as a peace offering. They nodded their thanks, sipped their ale, and Crewneck dabbed at his bloody nose with a bar napkin.
“So you’ve got someone who wants the rooster,” Duff said to Nick. “What’s in it for me?”
“A million dollars.”
Kate nearly choked. A million dollars?
Duff shook his head. “I’d be breaching a sacred trust.”
“Did I say a million? I meant to say two. I’ll even throw in a couple of stained glass windows.”
“This isn’t a church, laddie.”
“You’re the one who brought sacred trust into the conversation.”
“I was referring to my code of honor.”
“You don’t have one.”
“I’ve never revealed the identity of a client before.”
“Because no one ever asked you. Besides, you’re retired. What do you care?”
Duff stroked his beard. “I have to look at myself in the mirror.”
“Hard to believe. If you’d ever looked in a mirror, you’d have shaved off that mangy beard ages ago.”
Duff scraped his chair back and stood. “I’ll sleep on it.”
Nick leaned forward. “C’mon, Duff, stop being so ornery. It’s early, and it’s been years since we saw each other. Let’s have a few pints and talk about old times.”
“If we do that, I might remember that I want to kill you.”
“Good point.” Nick pushed away from the table and walked to the door, motioning for Kate to get the bags. “See you in the morning.”
Kate waited until they were down the road, out of sight and out of earshot of the pub, before she dropped Nick’s bag into a puddle.
“I’m your bodyguard, not your Sherpa,” she said. “And two million dollars? Are you insane?”
“The rooster is worth twenty million. I think a ten percent commission for telling us where to find it is fair and reasonable.”
“You never said anything before we left L.A. about making a multimillion-dollar payoff to a crook.”
“It’s the cost of doing business.”
“We’re the FBI. We don’t do business with international criminals.”
“What do you think I am? You should know better than anyone that sometimes you have to get in bed with the Devil. Speaking of which, we need to get a room. The hotel is the last building on the street.”
Kate stared ahead at the whitewashed building. It looked less like a hotel than an overgrown bed-and-breakfast—two stories high, plus small windows on the third floor that might belong to attic rooms.
The sturdy woman at the desk informed them that there was just one room left. “Very nice, though,” she said. “Got a four-poster bed.”
Nick thanked the woman, gave her his credit card, and took the key. The room was on the second floor. No elevator. Just a narrow, creaky staircase. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“Maybe I should carry you across the threshold,” he said to Kate.
“Maybe you should be careful you don’t run into my fist with your face,” Kate said.
The room was cozy and snug, barely big enough to hold the single four-poster bed, which was covered with a handmade quilt, a heavy comforter, and several pillows.
Nick stepped into the room and dropped his bag. “It’s perfect.”
Except that there was no furniture to sleep on besides the bed, Kate thought. That left the floor. In the military, Kate had slept in the wet mud of a South American jungle and on the hot sands of the Afghan desert, so she supposed she could spend the night on a hardwood floor if she had to.
“We’ll flip for it,” Kate said.
“For what?”
“The bed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re sharing it.”
“In your dreams.”
“I think we can share a bed together without giving in to our raging desires.”
“I don’t have any desires, raging or otherwise, that involve you.”
“So what are you worried about? Are you afraid I’m going to attack you? You’re a trained commando and crack FBI agent who just threw a couple of muscle-bound, besweatered apes through a window.”
When he put it like that, it did seem pretty ridiculous.
“Two windows,” she said with a smile. “And there’s no such word as besweatered.”
“It’s like bespectacled, only with a sweater.”
“I get the meaning, but there’s no such word.”
“Sure there is. It was common in the days of yore. Trust me, I’m a very educated man. I went to Harvard.”
“They threw you out for cheating.”
“But not before I learned many things about the days of yore. I’ll tell you about them over dinner.”
There was only one restaurant in town, and only one item on the restaurant’s dinner menu. It was haggis, a dish made of boiled and minced sheep’s lung, heart, liver, and esophagus mixed with onion, toasted oatmeal, and beef fat. The mix was then stuffed into the sheep’s stomach, sewn shut, and boiled again.
Kate pushed the haggis around on her plate with her fork. “This looks like dog food,” she said. “And I think I saw an eyeball.”
“Haggis is an old Scottish dish,” Nick told her, “and it doesn’t contain eyeballs … usually.”
Kate took some for a test drive. “It’s not going to replace a Big Mac, but I can manage it if I wash it down with a lot of beer. And good thing it comes with mashed potatoes.”
“It’s an acquired taste.”
Like you, Kate thought.
“Tell me about you and Duff,” she said to Nick. “How did you betray him?”
“I didn’t.”
“And yet he can still feel your knife in his back and wants to kill you.”
Nick looked around the restaurant. Two hikers were absorbed in their guidebooks and hiking maps. A local sat nursing a mug of tea at another table. The waitress and the cook were in the kitchen.
Nick leaned forward and lowered his voice. “After I left Harvard, I decided to go to London for a change of scenery. One day, I was sitting in the Tate Gallery, admiring the paintings, when I saw Duff casing the place.”
“I never thought of you as an admirer of fine art.”
“Why do you think I steal it?”
“For the money,” she said. “Maybe for the thrill.”
“The value of art to me is who owns it, how hard it is to steal, and how looking at it makes me feel. What it’s worth monetarily is the least of my considerations.”
“What does it matter who owns it?”
“I only steal things from people who, on some level, are just asking to be taken.”
“How did you know Duff wasn’t just another admirer of fine art?”
“I was still new at the game, but I was a con man at heart, I could tell when someone was playing a role. He was trying way too hard to let everyone know he was a tourist. He made a show of taking pictures of his wife in front of the paintings, but he was actually shooting the layout of the room, the location of the security cameras and the exits. So I started shadowing him. It only took a few days for me to figure out that the woman wasn’t his wife
“You weren’t worried about what might happen if he caught you?”
“He did. The night of the job. He and his crew showed up and there I was, waiting for them at the Tate Gallery.”
“How did you know it would be that night?”
“The details of the heist aren’t important.”
“I want details.”
“I’d be betraying Duff.”
“You already have.”
“That’s debatable, which is why I’m telling you this story, so you’ll see my side of things. When he found me waiting for him, I told him I wanted in. He beat the crap out of me, bound and gagged me with duct tape, and threw me in the back of their van while they pulled off the theft. They got away with a Picasso and a Matisse.”
She knew about that heist. It was still one of the great unsolved art thefts. Until now. Now she knew Duff MacTaggert had done it. And she couldn’t tell anybody what she knew. Or arrest anyone for it.
“I thought Duff was going to kill me, and I think he did, too,” Nick said. “But somewhere along the way, he changed his mind and invited me to join his crew. Over the next couple years, we did heists all over Europe. I learned how to case a location, put together a crew, and pull off the physical, logistical, and engineering aspects of a first-class heist. It was great fun. Money, adventure, exotic locales. That’s when I knew I had to go.”
“Why leave if you were having such a good time?”
“I didn’t want to be just a thief or part of someone’s crew. Duff stole strictly for the money. It was the game of it that I enjoyed. I wanted to be my own man, equally adept at swindling and thievery. And to prove that I was, to myself and to him, I stole a Van Gogh from a museum in Amsterdam two days before Duff planned to steal it himself.”
“What a jerk. You ripped off his scheme and stole the painting for yourself. You didn’t prove your mastery of theft. You proved you’re a backstabbing weasel.”
“But I didn’t use his plan. I came up with a brilliant plan of my own and stole the painting by myself. I didn’t even cheat him out of the plunder. I left the painting on the wall of his living room as a gift. But for some insane reason he didn’t take it that way.”
“What a jerk.”
“You mean him this time.”
“I mean you.”
“Why? I was showing my respect.”
“You were showing off and ridiculing him at the same time.”
“I don’t see how.”
“What you were saying was: ‘Look at me, I’m so much more clever and capable than you. See you ’round, sucker.’ ”
“That wasn’t what I meant at all.”
“Well, that’s what you said. You may be a great con man, but you still have a few things to learn about human nature.”
“So that’s why he wants to kill me.”
“Yes, plus you have way better eyebrows.”
Nick ran his finger across his right eyebrow. “You think that’s a factor?”
“It would be for me.”
Kate’s nose was cold, but the rest of her was deliciously warm. She came awake slowly, taking inventory of her situation. T-shirt, check. Silky pajama bottoms, check. Location, unknown. She hit the pause button and filled in the blank. Location, Scotland. And she wasn’t alone. She was totally snuggled into a man, her arm resting across his chest, her leg draped over his thigh, and her face nuzzled against his neck. There was a moment of panic and then horrified enlightenment.
She opened one eye and grimaced. “Crap.”
“I was hoping for something more positive,” Nick said.
“Sorry, I’m afraid I accidentally gravitated to the warm side.”
“Warm is a gross understatement. Especially after you snaked your leg between mine.”
“Sorry.”
“You could give it a happy ending.”
“A happy ending for me would be half a loaf of bread, toasted, and a gallon of coffee.”
“It’s occurring to me that I must be much healthier than you.”
Kate eased away from him. “I’m perfectly healthy. I’m just very selective. I don’t do it with just anyone.”
“So you’re saying I don’t measure up?”
From what she could tell was going on under the covers, Nick more than measured up, so probably “measured up” wasn’t the appropriate phrase.
“I have standards,” Kate said, rolling out of bed. “I don’t consider felons to be boyfriend material.”
Nick switched on the bedside light so he could get a better look at her in her T-shirt and silky pajama bottoms. “How about one-night stands? Would you consider dropping your standards for a one-night stand?”
“Good grief, you’re hopeless!”
“True, but I’m fun.”
Nick and Kate had a hearty breakfast of hot buttered potato scones, eggs, and what looked like boiled bacon, checked out of the hotel, and went over to the pub to see Duff MacTaggert.
The Sweater Brothers had finished putting boards up over the windows and were sitting at the picnic table outside, sipping hot mugs of something. They acknowledged Kate with a nod. She nodded back. In the unspoken parlance of tough guys, it meant there were no hard feelings.
“Is Duff around?” Nick asked.
“He’s inside,” Turtleneck said. “He’d like the lady to wait outside.”
Kate had no problem with that, but she did have a role to play. “How do I know MacTaggert isn’t going to do anything stupid, like shoot him?”
“He’s never shot anyone before,” Crewneck said.
“He stabbed a man once,” Turtleneck said.
“Multiple times, if it’s the bloke I’m thinking of,” Crewneck said. “But he’s never sliced a man open in the morning, and never in his pub.”
“Wouldn’t be sanitary,” Turtleneck said.
“I’m reassured,” Nick said to Kate. “How about you?”
She shrugged. “It’s your life.”
Ten minutes later Kate returned from a walk on the beach as Nick emerged from the pub. They grabbed their bags and headed to the dock just as the ferry was arriving.
“What did he say?” Kate asked.
“He gave up the buyer. Duff figures the son of a bitch has had the rooster long enough and that it’s fair game now. Somebody is bound to steal it eventually. At least this way, Duff will make some money.”
“I thought he’d refuse to give you the name out of spite.”
“I started off by telling him that I was sorry about what I did, that I was young, ambitious, and cocky. He told me that I still am and that’s what he’s always liked about me.”
“See? Sometimes being honest pays off.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t pay nearly as well as dishonesty. Look how much Duff just earned.”
“So who has the bronze rooster now?”
“We’ll find out once you’ve wired the first million to Duff’s bank account.”
“He doesn’t trust you?”
“Of course not,” Nick said. “He knows me too well.”
• • •
It was a bright, beautiful day in Mallaig, but it was after one in the morning in Los Angeles when Kate reached Jessup. She knew Jessup’s phone was secure, but she was still careful.
“We’ll have the name when the money is wired into his account,” Kate said.
“How much money?” Jessup asked.
“A million.”
Silence on Jessup’s end.
Kate imagined him not liking this, staring down at his bare feet, shaking his head. Best not to tell him about the second million, she thought. After all, why give him the bad news now when lots of things could happen in the meantime … like nuclear destruction or an uprising of zombies.
“I’ll need wiring instructions,” Jessup said, sounding as if his sphincter muscles were painfully contracted.
“So how’d that go?” Nick asked when Kate disconnected.
“He’s transferring money from the slush fund in the Caymans to Duff’s account.”
“Did he sound happy?”
Kate did a small grimace, and Nick gave a bark of laughter.
The call from Duff came through at three P.M. Kate and Nick were drinking coffee in a café in Mallaig, checking the Internet for possible flights home. Nick listened to the name Duff gave him, and promised the second payment would be made upon confirmation of the information he’d just received. His voice stayed calm and matter-of-fact with Duff, but Kate could see Nick’s eyes narrow ever so slightly.
“So?” Kate asked when Nick pocketed his phone.
“Carter Grove has the rooster,” Nick said.
“Whoa! I didn’t see that coming. I think we should scrap the operation. I have a rule against stealing from the White House chief of staff.”
“Ex–chief of staff,” Nick said.
“Him too,” she said.
Kate kept the bad news to herself for the twenty or so hours it took her to get back to Los Angeles and meet with Carl Jessup face-to-face. She arrived at LAX at 5 P.M. and took a shuttle bus to pick up her car at the Parking Spot on Sepulveda Boulevard. She met Jessup at the In-N-Out Burger next door to the parking structure. They ordered fries, shakes, and 3×3s—burgers with three meat patties and three slices of cheese. The 3×3 was an unadvertised delight on In-N-Out’s secret menu. They ate them in the front seat of her car.
“Canceling the operation is out of the question,” Jessup said. “We have to get the rooster back.”
“You will,” Kate said. “Right after you arrest Carter Grove for stealing the damn thing.”
A glob of sauce oozed out of her 3×3 and dripped onto her jeans.
Jessup handed her a napkin. “Even if we could get a search warrant, which is highly unlikely, the last thing we want to do is reveal that not only was the Smithsonian broken into, and that we covered up the crime, but that the man responsible for the theft was the White House chief of staff. It would be an even bigger scandal and embarrassment than the one we’re trying to avoid.”
“Carter Grove isn’t White House chief of staff anymore,” Kate said, dabbing at the sauce on her jeans with the napkin. “He hasn’t been in years.”