Collar Robber by Hillary Bell Locke Page B

downstairs. We could probably have found a cozy corner of the bar area for the chat I wanted to have—the patrons downstairs had all prudently decamped—but we went all the way outside anyway and parked our backs against the windows to the right of the door. I flicked my eyes to look at Nesselrode without turning my head.
    â€œThe bartender knows your name, right?”
    â€œYes,” Nesselrode said. “So do the police.”
    â€œI left word at the hotel about where you could find me, and I look so American I might as well have ‘YANK’ stamped across my face in Day-Glo. So it wouldn’t take the cops long to figure out that I was the one here with you tonight even if you didn’t tell them—which you’ll pretty much have to do.”
    â€œPretty much.”
    â€œSo we both wait,” I said. I could already hear an apologetic little siren only a few blocks away.
    â€œAbsolutely right. What is it that you insurance people call it when someone chokes himself to death while he’s beating his meat to computer porn?”
    â€œâ€˜Auto-erotic misadventure.’”
    â€œThink they’ll buy that?”
    â€œNot a chance in hell.”
    â€œI have to agree.” Nesselrode glanced to his right as the sound of the siren drew nearer. “So we’d better get our story straight.”
    â€œSimple. The truth. The absolute truth. No way we pass ourselves off as a couple of horny Rotarians who stumbled into this place looking for a little action. I came to Vienna to work with Transoxana Insurance Company’s Austrian branch on investigation of a forged painting claim. You dug up the name of someone who might be able to help. We came here to meet him. Unfortunately, someone else met him first.”
    â€œYes, that’ll have to do. Let’s go back inside.”
    We did. The other three, plus the woman who had briefly come out from under the staircase to try her luck with us, were gathered in a smoky group at the far end of the bar, as distant from the door as they could get. Nesselrode and I sat down at the table where we’d been killing time when all the excitement started. I could hear the low-key siren right outside the door now. Green and white light blinked through the windows.
    â€œAbsolute truth,” I whispered to Nesselrode.
    â€œAbsolute truth.”
    It took less than fifteen minutes for one of the two cops who’d come to get to me. This one spoke English. After he’d copied down every scrap of information from my passport, he turned a page in his notebook and glanced up at me.
    â€œDid you know the dead man?”
    â€œNever saw him before in my life.”

Chapter Seventeen
    Cynthia Jakubek
    â€œOne hundred forty-five k.”
    The number sat there on my computer screen over the initials PVS—the first email I’d opened after hitting my desk at 7:55 a.m. PVS meant Shifcos, but she’d sent it from bü[email protected] instead of the email address I remembered for her. So she’d used a company computer at Transoxana’s Vienna office instead of her own laptop. That meant she was gallivanting around Austria, presumably looking for a cheaper version of the bill of sale Willy was peddling.
    The thing had hit my computer a little after ten o’clock last night, so she must have sent it at the crack of dawn her time. I’d sized her up as a pretty good negotiator—good enough to know you don’t want to seem too anxious to make a deal. Something must have happened yesterday to make getting her hands on Willy’s piece of paper urgent enough to trump that axiom.
    I was suddenly so hot to move on this thing I could barely keep my butt parked on my desk chair. Speed-dialing Willy got me voice-mail. I left a message.
    â€œAlmost a hundred-and-a-half on the table now. My gut says there’s more where that came from. We need to talk in a big hurry.”
    I trudged through my other