Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [24]
The answer emerged with considerable reluctance. ‘Yes.’
‘A murderer who tried to overthrow the Venezuelan president, and a drug lord?’
‘What they do for a living isn’t my business,’ Larry protested. ‘Do postmen carry out background checks before they give someone their mail?’
‘Postmen don’t pick and choose who they deliver to,’ Nina countered. ‘You do.’ She thought for a moment, still fuming. ‘I didn’t know about any of this – but Eddie must have, before he saw you in Bogotá. What happened?’
The waiter reappeared. ‘Not now,’ Larry snapped, before continuing with bad grace: ‘All right, yes, I made a delivery to de Quesada in Colombia.’
‘Let me guess,’ Nina cut in. ‘Two Inca artefacts, one of which was made of solid gold and weighed about two tons?’
‘It was a hell of a job to transport, let me tell you,’ said Larry almost with pride, before the glares of the two women reminded him to stick to the point. ‘But I made the delivery and de Quesada was impressed at how quickly I’d arranged everything, so I gave him my card in case he might put any future work my way. But I didn’t think any more of it – until Edward turned up at my hotel. With my business card. He threatened that if I didn’t give my entire fee to charity, he was going to turn the card – with my fingerprints on it, obviously – over to Interpol and have me implicated in whatever the hell was going on.’
‘That would be murder, robbery, an attempted coup and drug smuggling,’ Nina reminded him. ‘Just to start with.’
‘None of which had anything to do with me! But do you have any idea how much being accused of involvement in that sort of thing could damage my business? Obviously I was worried – and I don’t take threats lying down, especially not from my own son. So I called Stikes to see if there was anything he could do to fix the situation.’
‘And . . . what? You told him that we were searching for El Dorado in Peru?’
A pause, Larry choosing his words with care. ‘It came up,’ he admitted. ‘Stikes asked about you – I didn’t think anything of it,’ he said defensively as Nina’s look darkened. ‘He wanted to know where you were. I assumed it was because he might want to straighten things out with you.’
While for the most part Larry did not resemble his son physically, being taller and thinner-faced, their eyes were all but identical, and Nina knew one of Eddie’s subtle expressions well enough to recognise the same on his father: he was dissembling.
‘But you must have known that Eddie and Stikes weren’t exactly old army buddies.’
‘Not until Edward told me,’ Larry insisted. ‘When Stikes first contacted me, he said he was actually a friend of his, and that Edward had recommended me to him for a job.’
‘And you believed him? After what happened when we had dinner at your house?’
‘I thought that maybe Edward was trying to apologise by sending me a potential client. Clearly I was wrong.’
‘But after Eddie told you, you still spoke to Stikes anyway?’ Nina’s voice became accusing. ‘Did you think that he might, I don’t know, make your problem go away?’
It took Julie a moment to realise what she was implying, and when Nina’s veiled meaning struck her she gasped. Larry, on the other hand, got it immediately; the reason for his delayed response was pure outrage. ‘Of course that’s not what I thought,’ he said in a low growl. ‘That’s just – Christ, no, that’s not it at all! I can’t believe you’d even—’
Nina’s own anger was rising. ‘That’s what happened, though. People died in Peru, Larry, a lot of people – because you told Stikes that I was there. Eddie’s friend – my friend too – was killed. Murdered.’ She rose from her seat, once again attracting the attention of other diners, but ignoring them. ‘So now do you know why Eddie was so mad at you? It was your fault, Larry! If you hadn’t called Stikes in order to cover your own ass, all those people would still be alive!’
‘But how could I know?’ Larry cried, the words somewhere between a demand and a plea. ‘I had