Hot Ice

off here. Why don’t you make this easy on everybody.” As incentive, he peeled back another ten.
    The innkeeper gave him a blank look and another shrug. “They are not here,” she said, surprising him with her precise English.
    “I’ll just take a look myself.” Remo started for the stairs.
    “Good morning.”
    Like Doug, Remo had no trouble recognizing a cop, in a one-horse town in Madagascar or in an alley in the lower Forties.
    “I am Captain Sambirano.” Stiffly proper, he offered his hand. He admired Remo’s taste in clothes, noticed the still-puffy scar on his cheek and the cool grimness in his eye. Neither did he miss the healthy wad of bills in his hand. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance.”
    He didn’t like dealing with cops. Remo considered them basically unstable. In a year, he could make approximately three times what the average police lieutenant pulled in, for doing the same thing. Backwards.
    But more, he didn’t like the thought of going back to Dimitri with empty hands. “I’m looking for my sister.”
    Doug had said he had brains. Remo put them to use.
    “She ran off with this guy, nothing but a two-bit thief. The girl’s infatuated, if you know what I mean.”
    The captain nodded politely. “Indeed.”
    “Dad’s worried sick,” Remo improvised. He pulled out a thin Cuban cigar from a flat gold case. Offering one, he noticed the captain’s appreciation of the fragrance and the glint of classy metal. He knew which approach to take. “I’ve managed to track them this far, but…” He let the sentence trail off and tried to look like a concerned brother. “We’ll do anything to get her back, Captain. Anything.”
    While he let that sink in, Remo pulled out the photos. The same photos, the captain noted silently, that the other man had shown him only the day before. His story had been that of a father seeking his daughter as well, and as well, he’d offered money.
    “My father’s offering a reward to anyone who can help us. Understand that my sister’s my father’s only daughter. And the youngest,” he added for clout. He remembered, without much affection, how pampered his own kid sister had been. “He’s prepared to be generous.”
    Sambirano looked down at the pictures of Whitney and Doug. The newlyweds who’d left town rather abruptly. He glanced over at the innkeeper who kept her lips folded in disapproval. Those eating breakfast understood the look and went back to their meal.
    The captain wasn’t impressed by Remo’s story any more than he’d been impressed by Doug’s the day before. Whitney beamed up at him. She, however, had impressed him, then and now. “A lovely woman.”
    “You can imagine how my father feels, Captain, knowing she’s with a man like him. Scum.”
    There was enough passion in the word to let the captain know the animosity wasn’t feigned. If one man found the other, one would die. It mattered little to him, as long as neither died in his town. He saw no reason to mention the man in the panama with a similar set of pictures.
    “A brother,” he said slowly as he drew the cigar under his nose, “is responsible for the welfare of his sister.”
    “Yeah, I’m worried sick about her. God knows what he’ll do when her money runs out or when he just gets tired of her. If there’s anything you can do… I promise to be very grateful, Captain.”
    The captain had chosen law enforcement in the quiet little town because he hadn’t much ambition. That is, he didn’t care to sweat in the fields or callous his hands on a fishing boat. But he did believe in making a tidy profit. He handed Remo the photographs. “I sympathize with your family. I have a daughter myself. If you’ll come with me to my office, we can discuss this further. I believe I can help you.”
    Dark eyes met dark eyes. Each recognized the other for what he was. Each accepted that business was indeed business. “I’d appreciate that, Captain. I’d appreciate that very much.”
    As he walked through the door, Remo touched the scar on his cheek. He could almost taste Doug’s blood. Dimitri, he thought with a flood of relief, was going to be very pleased. Very pleased.

CHAPTER
11
    Over her breakfast coffee, Whitney added Jacques’s fifty-dollar advance and retotaled the list of Doug’s expenses. A treasure hunt, she decided, had quite an overhead.
    While the others had slept during the night, Doug beside her in the tent, Jacques content under the stars,