That sent a flair of irritation through him, which he carried into the dark confines of the tavern. The place was exactly the way Francesca had explained it would be. A bar with several men in clusters, tables at the back. He went directly to the back where a few men sat with their bags beside them, and made his plea.
To his surprise, they didn’t look at him. Not closely anyway. “How much d’you have?”
“I—we were mugged. My girlfriend…” Ryker cast a longing glance outside, relieved that Francesca was there, talking to a squat older woman in the street. “We were mugged. She—this is all she had left, in her pockets. If it’s not enough, I…” he reached for his pocket and the men tensed.
“How much?” the one closest asked him again. Something had shifted in the man’s hand, and it was Ryker’s turn to stiffen. A knife gleamed beneath the edge of the table.
“Seventy-five euros,” he said.
The knife disappeared. “Buy a round. Come back with the rest.”
Without asking any other questions, Ryker went to the bar, where the barkeeper already had the drinks lined up. The man didn’t look at Ryker either, merely accepted the money he gave him and gestured to him to take the three drinks. By the time he returned to the table, a folded piece of cloth was beside one of the men’s elbows.
He sat the drinks down with the rest of the money tucked beside it, then reached for the cloth packet. An oily hand lifted and clamped over his until the second man pawed through the euros.
“Good luck to you,” the first man grunted, then lifted his hand.
Ryker pocketed the cloth packet.
Getting an identity shouldn’t be this easy. Regardless, he did feel better knowing he could at least produce papers should the police stop him—which they might, if only because of his disheveled appearance. He couldn’t deny the sense of relief as he stepped once more into the sunlight. Francesca had been right—getting false papers had been the right decision.
And now that he was a whole new person, he had a whole new agenda too.
Where he needed to go and what he needed to do couldn’t happen until nightfall. That left him hours to see exactly what he’d been missing from life.
7
“You—give money? Give money.”
Fran blinked at the old woman standing in front of her, too close. “I’m so sorry,” she said automatically, though her nerves tensed. She sometimes gave to panhandlers, but aggressive ones scared her—especially those who had such a flat, hard expression on their faces.
“I gave all my money to my boyfriend—my boyfriend!” she said more loudly when the woman poked at her, hard enough to bruise. This was no trembling waif sent into the streets to beg for her supper. This woman was sturdily built, her mouth set into a fierce scowl. “I have no money!”
“Bah!” The woman pushed at her, and only then did Fran see a child darting past on one side of her, felt the brush to her side.Her pocket!There was no money in it, she carried everything in her neck pouch, but the sudden shot of fear that raced through her tipped all too fast into anger. The way it always had, since she’d been a little girl and had learned the hard way that fear was sometimes worse than whatever faced you. Fear made you stop when you most needed to act, pouring sludge into your veins when you needed fire.
Her anger served her better than her fear now too. Especially when the woman pushed her again.
“I saidstopthat.” Fran didn’t shout, she didn’t snarl, but she stepped forward forcefully and pushed the woman back with equal strength, hard enough to make the woman grunt. The panhandler’s gaze whipped up to her, her mouth tight in an ugly snarl, but Fran’s chin jutted out, her fists came up. She wasn’t Francesca Simmons now but a different Fran, a Fran who was small and scared and tired and so, so angry that she couldn’t think straight anymore.You want to fight me, you—
The woman didn’t give her a chance to finish the thought.
With a sharp, dismissive curse she wheeled around, loudly proclaiming something that Fran was sure wasn’t complimentary to Americans. Instantly, Fran’s anger cleared, her sensibilities reminding her where she was, who she was, what she was. Though her pulse hammered, she quickly unclenched her hands and lifted them to smooth her hair in place.
After that, no one said a word to the crazy American girl standing in the tiny alley next to the broken-down bar. But no one else bothered her either.
Fran’s nerves had almost settled when Ari rejoined her within fifteen minutes of entering the seedy tavern. He walked with a jaunty step—too jaunty for the cover of a man who’d recently been mugged—but she supposed the men he’d bought his identity from were not paying too much attention to anything but the amount of money they’d made.
She fell into step with him. “Hotel,” she said. “To get you out of sight.”
“A hotel would be good,” Ari said, “But there’s no hurry.”
She frowned at him. “You could be recognized.”
He shrugged. “Recognized by who? Think about it. My name is Conti Goba now. I’m a national from the country, and I’m walking the streets of the capital city with a beautiful American girl. Who will stop me?”
“The police?”
“That’s their prerogative, yes,” he said. “But so what if they do? The police in Garronia know that our most important import is tourism. They ask—and ask frequently—for ID, but if you have a document, you get no more than a cursory glance. I can already recite the details of my papers.” He tapped his shirt pocket. “And Conti, he is not one to cause trouble, so I believe he’s good simply by being able to produce identification. You see? You have made me very safe indeed.”
