Three Fates

squealed, horns blasted. Cleo felt the wind from a fender that missed her by inches.
    “You crazy son-of-a-bitch.” But when she looked back she saw a man trying to thread his way between cars. She didn’t slow down. The heels of her boots skidded and slipped over the uneven bricks. If she could have spared ten seconds, she’d have dragged them off and run barefoot.
    “There’s only one,” she called out. “There are two of us.”
    “The other’s somewhere.” Following instinct, he pulled her into a restaurant, raced with her past a number of startled diners and through the kitchen and out the back onto the narrow street.
    “Oh baby.” It was nearly a prayer when he spotted the sleek black motorcycle parked against the back of the building. “Give me a hairpin.”
    “You start that thing with a hairpin, I’ll kiss your ass.” But panting a bit, she dragged one out of her hair.
    Her hair tumbled free as he used the pin to pry off the ignition box. Within ten seconds, he had it hot-wired and was swinging his leg over.
    “Get on. You can kiss my ass at a more private moment.”
    Her skirt hiked up to crotch level as she climbed on so her black G-string pressed snug against his butt. He ignored that, as best he could, and the way her breasts pressed into his back as he whipped the bike into a tight circle and flew toward the mouth of the alley with the roar of a serious engine.
    She strapped her arms around him and let out a whoop when they shot down the street. At the corner, he nearly ran over the toes of the man who’d pursued them. Cleo got a good, close look at his shocked and furious face, and laughed wildly as Gideon leaned into the turn.
    “They’ve got a car!” she called out, straining to see behind her as the wind whipped her hair into her face. “The other guy must’ve gotten the car, the one you nearly creamed’s getting in it.”
    “That’s all right.” Gideon swung around another corner, punched it, then bulleted down the first side street. “We’ll lose them on this.”
    Using the map in his head, he maneuvered out of the city. He wanted an open road, the dark, and the quiet. He wanted five damn minutes to think.
    “Hey, Slick.” Her voice was close to his ear. He could smell her, a pungent and erotic combination of female and leather. He could be sure now that her breasts, and they were beauties, were the ones God had given her.
    “What? I’ve got to concentrate here.”
    “You just go right ahead. I wanted you to know I’m not interested in the five thousand anymore.”
    “You don’t sell that statue to me, they’ll keep after you.”
    “We’ll talk about the why of that when we’re not so busy.” She looked behind her, at the lights and glow of Prague. “But the five thousand’s off the table.” She leaned into him again. “Because I just became your fucking partner.”
    To seal the deal she nipped lightly at his ear. And laughed.

Five
     
     
     
     
    “Y OU lost track of them.” Anita Gaye leaned back against the butter-soft leather of her desk chair and examined her manicure. The phone call did not please her.
    “Were my instructions unclear?” she asked in a low, silky voice. “Which part of ‘locate the woman and find out what she knows’ didn’t you understand?”
    Excuses, she thought as she listened to her employee’s apologetic explanation. Incompetence. It was really very annoying.
    “Mr. Jasper?” she interrupted in the most pleasant of tones. “I believe I told you ‘by any means.’ Do you need a definition of that phrase? No? Well then, I suggest you find them, and quickly, or I’ll be forced to think you’re not half as clever as a second-rate Irish tour guide.”
    She broke the connection, then to calm herself swiveled in the chair to gaze out at her view of New York. She enjoyed being able to watch the noise and bustle of the city, while being removed from it.
    She enjoyed more knowing she could leave her plush corner of the elegant brownstone, stroll directly onto Madison Avenue, wander into any of the tony shops and have whatever her whim dictated.
    And be recognized, admired, envied, as she did so.
    There had been a time, not so many years before, when she’d been out there on the streets, rushing over the pavement, hounded with worries about rent payments, credit card bills and how to stretch her paycheck into one more good pair of shoes.
    Standing with her nose pressed to the window, she thought now, knowing she was