Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9)

“Still,” Heavenly said. “If you lose the Lily…”

“C’mon, honey, I already told McKenzie. The damn thing’s insured. What do I care what happens to it? Listen—I really don’t care what happens to it. I’ll even make a deal with you right now. This minute. I have a lending agreement with the folks at the museum. They get it for two years. Assuming McKenzie here recovers the Lily, how ’bout this—after the lending agreement expires, we’ll sell the Lily at auction. I’ll take out what the old man paid for it; Tatjana can have the rest—providing you spend a weekend in Vegas with me. Whaddaya say?”

“Wait a minute.”

“Going once, going twice, three times.” Gillard slapped the top of the bar with the flat of his hand. “Oh, sorry, time’s up. Too bad, so sad.”

“Wait a minute,” Heavenly said again. “Are you serious?”

“As serious as a nuclear explosion.” To prove it, Gillard made a thunder sound from deep in his throat and mimicked an expanding mushroom cloud with his hands.

“Are you insane?” Heavenly said.

Gillard turned to me. “What is your diagnosis, doctor?” he asked.

“Certifiable,” I said. “No doubt about it.”

“Whaddaya say, Heavenly?” Gillard said. “Do you agree to my terms?”

Heavenly stared at him for a moment and then bent her head so she could look past him at me. “McKenzie?” she said.

“What did that water buffalo you told me about go for?” I asked. “Four million pounds?”

“Yes, but … Wait a minute.”

Gillard smiled brightly at her while she did.

I was interested in her response as well. Before she could answer, though, I heard Ella singing “Summertime, and the living is easy” from my cell phone.

“This is McKenzie,” I said into the microphone.

Less than a minute later, I hung up.

Gillard and Heavenly were staring at me.

“Let the games begin,” I said.

They both smiled, so I did, too.

SEVEN

Their opening move was the same as before—walk around a park, this time Loring Park on the edge of downtown Minneapolis.

The money had been neatly packed in three medium-sized gym bags that I strapped to a portable dolly, the kind you see travelers pulling behind them at airports, with bungee cords. I had emptied the bags one at a time in the trunk of my Audi when they were first given to me on the bottom floor of the parking ramp that served the Midwest Farmers Insurance Group. I was taken aback by how wide the eyes of the three armed security guards had become when they saw all that cash. Obviously, they had no idea what they had been hired to protect. I carefully searched each bag and the bundles of cash for ink packs and tracers before repacking them, because I knew that’s what the artnappers would do. Mr. Donatucci kept telling me that I could trust him. Maybe so, but a lot of hands had handled both the money and the bags besides his, and I vowed I wasn’t going to get killed because someone along the line decided to be tough on crime. Besides, Donatucci had missed the third thief, and I was still concerned that he might be too old for this kind of play.

I made my way out of downtown St. Paul to I-94 and drove west, crossing the river into Minneapolis. It was at the peak of rush hour and excruciatingly slow going. It didn’t help that the sun had set—only five forty-five and it might as well have been midnight. I watched carefully to see if any cars were following me. I decided they all were.

I could sit almost anywhere and be comfortable with my own thoughts, except in traffic. After a few minutes of going nowhere very slowly, I started fidgeting, started squirming in my seat, started craning my neck this way and that in an attempt to see past the vehicles in front of me and find out what was causing the delay. In moments like that, not even the jazz they played on KBEM or one of my own CDs could soothe me. I understood road rage very well. Why I had never succumbed to it myself was a total mystery. Especially then. What was the matter with these drivers? Didn’t they know I was taking $1,270,000 in cash to a godless horde of thieves and killers! Finally the traffic began to loosen and we all started moving forward, picking up speed until we nearly matched the posted limit. I passed no accidents, no road construction zones, no disabled cars on the shoulder; saw nothing to explain the snarl. Which only made it worse.