been driving. They walked slowly, the woman stepping carefully on the uneven ground.
They were both dressed in black. The woman in a black raincoat, knee-high black boots, black stockings. A black bag hanging from her shoulder. The man in a long black trench coat, black leather shoes. He was wearing dark glasses, even now with the sun long gone.
They came closer.
“Alex,” the woman said. Her voice giving nothing away. No emotion at all.
“You’re Rhapsody,” I said. She was a lovely woman, no question about it. She had the killer eyes. The dark eyebrows. A model’s face, and yet something wasn’t quite right. There was a sharpness in her features that would have put me on edge, even under innocent circumstances.
Like Natalie had said about her, she looked like a younger, sexier Cruella De Vill.
And Laraque…What I could see of his face behind the dark glasses…Natalie had told me he wasn’t a tall man. He wasn’t muscular. He wasn’t physically imposing in any way. Yet the unspoken power that emanated from him…
This was him. I clenched my fists. This was him.
“You have no idea what we went through to get here,” Rhapsody said. “I hope you’re ready to make it worth our trouble.”
The bag around her shoulder was unzipped, in perfect position for her right hand to reach into it. I had no doubt about what was inside.
“Remember one thing,” I said. “If you shoot me now, you don’t get your guns back.”
“Who said anything about shooting you, Alex? We came here to talk.”
I looked at Laraque. He hadn’t said a word yet.
“So talk,” I said. “I’m going to ask you something. I want the truth.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.
“Please take the sunglasses off,” I said.
Nothing. He was a statue.
“He doesn’t wish to take them off,” Rhapsody said.
“I’m not talking to you,” I said, without looking at her. “I want to ask you one question, and I want to see your eyes when you answer me.”
Another long moment. Something flew over our heads. Either a bird out late or a bat out early.
“Take them off,” I said.
A movement, finally. He lowered his head a fraction of an inch. Then he reached up with his right hand and took off his glasses. He put them in his coat pocket.
As I stepped closer to him, I could sense Rhapsody shifting the bag around her shoulder. I was one second away from dying.
I didn’t care.
“Natalie Reynaud was one of the police officers who met with you in the hotel room,” I said.
He looked me in the eyes. There was just enough light left to see his face clearly.
“She and her partner were both shot dead. I want to know if you were responsible for that.”
His eyes, a greenish shade of brown. Hazel, they call it. Although in the dying light it looked more like a dull shade of gold.
“Did you have them killed, Laraque? Tell me.”
He blinked once. Twice. Slowly, he shook his head.
You clear your mind. You ask the question. You listen, you watch. Your gut tells you if it’s the truth.
“Tell me,” I said. “Say it. Did you have them killed?”
“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t.”
I watched him. I remembered what Natalie had said about him, about the fear she felt just being in the same room with him.
Something happened then. His eyes moved. He started to look over at Rhapsody. Then he stopped.
It happened that quickly. But it was all wrong.
Forget if he was lying or telling the truth. In that instant, I knew something even more important. Natalie Reynaud would never be afraid of this man.
“You’re not Laraque,” I said.
If there was any doubt, his reaction was all I needed. The eyes went wide before he tried to regain control. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re not Laraque. What’s going on here?”
The gun came out of Rhapsody’s bag. It was just like some of the guns I had seen on the boat, an automatic with a suppressor fixed to the barrel. The damned thing was so long, it was a wonder she could get it out of the bag so fast.
“Okay, enough of this,” she said. “Just tell us where the merchandise is.”
“Where’s Laraque?”
“Never mind him. You need to deal with me now.”
“I told you I wouldn’t talk to anybody else.”
“You don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you. Laraque is out of the game. You can’t talk to him.”
“First thing you can do, you can take Mr. Dress-Up here back to Canada. Was this Laraque’s idea, by the way? Send a stooge over here to take his place? Is that the kind of man he is?”
“Alex, listen to me…”
“Second thing, you tell the real Laraque he has twenty-four more hours to get his ass over here.”
“You see, that’ll be hard to do, on account of his being very dead right now. Unless you’d care to join him. Maybe you can talk to him on the other side. I don’t know.”
“What are you talking about? Who killed him?”
“Who do you think, genius?”
“You did? Why would you do that?”
She shook her head. “I know you’re a man, so I’ll try to talk slow here. I killed the boss so I could take over the operation. You understand me?”
“That’s not a good enough reason,” I said. “Not compared to mine.”
“Whatever you say, Alex. Just get over it, because we’re not joking around here. Why don’t you wise up and tell us where the stuff is right now, before we really hurt you?”
“Who’s we? You and your caddy here?”
“No, not him. Jacques is my driver. He’s quite harmless.”
“Then who are you talking about?”
“And just for the record, this whole fake Laraque thing, it wasn’t my idea. I thought it was a little over the top myself.”
“Whose idea was it? Who are you talking about?”
“I think that’s your cue, Babe,” she said. She raised her chin, said it loud enough for anyone else to hear, anyone who might be waiting in the trees.
I heard the footsteps. I turned and saw the man. I recognized him in a second.
It was Cap.
Chapter Twenty-two
He had a gun just like Rhapsody’s, with the same long suppressor screwed onto the end of the barrel. He walked over to me with a smile, like he was renewing his acquaintance with a long-lost friend.
“Alex and I have come to an agreement,” Rhapsody said. “Your idea was ridiculous.”
“Is that right?” He moved closer to me, never taking his eyes from mine. He put his gun in his back pocket for a moment, just long enough to pat me down and to take Leon’s gun out of my jacket pocket. I waited for him to go down each of my legs, to find the ankle holster.
But he didn’t.
