more than you do, sugar.” He hoped. But the itch between his shoulder blades had yet to let up. Taking a last deep drag, Doug flicked the stub of the cigarette into the fire. “As far as I know, he’s never seen the papers, at least not all of them.”
“If he’s never seen them, how did he find out about the treasure?”
“Faith, sugar, same as you.”
She lifted a brow at his smirk. “This Dimitri doesn’t strike me as a man of faith.”
“Instinct then. There was a man named Whitaker who figured to sell the papers to the highest bidder and make a nice profit without having to dig for it. The idea of a treasure, a documented one, caught Dimitri’s imagination. I told you he had one of those.”
“Indeed. Whitaker…” Turning the name over in her mind, Whitney forgot to stir. “George Allan Whitaker?”
“The same.” Doug blew out smoke. “Know him?”
“Casually. I dated one of his nephews. It’s thought he made his money from bootlegging, among other things.”
“Smuggling, among other things, especially in the last ten years or so. Remember the Geraldi sapphires that were stolen, let’s see, in seventy-six?”
She frowned a minute. “No.”
“You should keep up with current events, sugar. Read that book I lifted in D.C.”
“Missing Gems Through the Ages?” Whitney moved her shoulders. “I prefer fiction when I read.”
“Broaden your outlook. You can learn anything there is to learn from books.”
“Really?” Interested, she studied him again. “So you like to read?”
“Next to sex, it’s my favorite pastime. Anyway, the Geraldi sapphires. The sweetest set of rocks since the crown jewels.”
Impressed, she lifted a brow. “You stole them?”
“No.” He settled his shoulders against the wall. “I was on a downswing in seventy-six. Didn’t have the fare to get to Rome. But I’ve got connections. So did Whitaker.”
“He stole them?” Her eyes widened as she thought of the skinny old man.
“Arranged,” Doug corrected. “Once he hit sixty Whitaker didn’t like getting his hands dirty. He liked to pretend he was an expert in archeology. Didn’t you catch any of his shows on public television?”
So he watched PBS too. A well-rounded thief. “No, but I heard he wanted to be a land-locked Jacques Cousteau.”
“Not enough class. Still, he got pretty good ratings for a couple of years. Bullshitting a lot of hotshots with big bank accounts into financing digs. He had a real smooth game going.”
“My father said he was full of shit,” Whitney said idly.
“Your father’s got more on the ball than fudge ripple. Anyway, Whitaker played middleman for a lot of rocks and art objects that crossed from one side of the Atlantic to the other. About a year ago, he conned some English lady out of a bunch of old documents and correspondence.”
Her interest peaked. “Our papers?”
He didn’t care for the plural pronoun but shrugged it off. “The lady considered it all part of art or history— cultural value. She’d written a lot of books on stuff like that. There was some general involved who’d nearly worked a deal with her, but it seemed Whitaker knew more about flattering matrons. And Whitaker had a more basic train of thought. Greed. Trouble was, he was broke and had to do some campaigning for funds for the expedition.”
“That’s where Dimitri came in.”
“Exactly. Like I said, Whitaker threw the bidding open. It was supposed to be a business deal. Partners,” he added with a slow smile. “Dimitri decided he didn’t like the competitive market and made an alternate proposition.” Doug crossed his ankles and peeled the banana. “Whitaker could let him have the papers, and Dimitri’d let Whitaker keep all his fingers and toes.”
Whitney took another nibble of fruit but it wasn’t easy to swallow. “Sounds like a forceful businessman.”
“Yeah, Dimitri loves to wheel and deal. Trouble was, he used a little too much persuasion on Whitaker. Apparently the old man had a heart problem. Keeled over before Dimitri had the papers or his jollies—I’m not sure which pissed him off more. An unfortunate accident, or so Dimitri said when he hired me to steal them.” Doug bit into the banana and savored it. “He went into graphic detail on how he’d planned to change Whitaker’s mind— for the purpose of putting the fear of God into me so I wouldn’t get any ideas myself.” He remembered the tiny pair of silver pliers Dimitri had fondled during the interview. “It worked.”
“But you took them anyway.”
“Only after he’d double-crossed me,” he told her over another bite of banana. “If he’d played