Free Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) by Vincent Zandri Page A

and enter into the Amazonian canopy. Plus, there’s lots of
    spiders and snakes and creepy crawler things that girls hate.”
    She smiles and shoves herself closer to me, as if her skin
    on my skin will become more of a convincer.
    “What’s the matter, Chase?” she says. “You afraid I might
    break a nail?”
    “I’m afraid your shrunken head might be used as a charm on
    some native’s necklace.”
    “You’re being dramatic, letting that fiction mind run away
    with itself. Head hunters are long gone. The natives in the Amazon have
    smartphones, satellite TV, and Netflix accounts.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I read National Geographic .” Shrugging her
    shoulders. “Or look at the pictures anyway.”
    “That’s reassuring.”
    She drinks down her wine, holds out her glass for more. I
    fill it.
    “Listen,” she says, “do you want me to negotiate the right
    price for this job or what?”
    “Sure.”
    “Then I’m your partner.”
    “Partner.”
    “Take it or leave it,” she says, slowly slipping her hand
    from my thigh to another, more sensitive place altogether. “Besides, you owe
    me. I might not be without an agency if you hadn’t set that lit cigar on the
    edge of the desk of all places.”
    I take a drink of wine and think about it for a brief second
    or two. I know my agent. When she gets an idea in her head, not even a hammer
    drill can pound it out of her.
    “I thought you were planning on spending the rest of your
    years lounging on the beach in the Hamptons.”
    “Change of plans. I’d rather avoid the Hamptons and all the
    gynie’s rich friends right about now.”
    “Adventure,” I say. “You want adventure.”
    “Exactly, Mr. Man in the Yellow Hat. On a daily basis I read
    about adventurers and the faraway places they explore where they fall
    romantically in love. It’s time I experienced some of the real thing.”
    “Curious George,” I say, kissing her on the mouth.
    “Curious horny Leslie,” she says, rolling her naked body on
    top of mine.

16.
     

     
    Keogh’s men pick us up at precisely five the next morning. As
    Rodney gets out from behind the wheel of the sedan, his big brown eyes
    immediately lock on Leslie.
    “Who’s the dame?” he says, while pulling down on the brim of
    his blue and white New York Giants baseball cap. He’s dressed like a Navy Seal
    in combat boots, army fatigues, and a tight T-shirt that tells me five sets of
    bicep curls are far more important to him than sex.
    “My agent,” I say, stuffing my knapsack into the trunk of
    the car, which Carlos has opened for me. “She’s my partner and she’s coming. No
    negotiation.” Hefting Leslie’s backpack, I toss it into the trunk beside mine.
    Carlos closes the trunk.
    “It shall be nice to have a beautiful woman coming along for
    the ride,” he says in that soft, almost effeminate tone of voice. He’s wearing
    a bush jacket and khaki pants that are professionally pressed. For footwear,
    brand new Timberland hiking boots. For headgear he’s wearing a brown, suede
    fedora that probably cost more than my entire uniform of cargo pants, lace-up
    jungle boots, and my well-worn bush jacket. Leslie might be a newbie when it
    comes to jungle trekking, but she knows enough to wear hiking boots over wool
    socks, tight-fitting cargo shorts, and button-down shirt under a cargo vest
    that supports a new Canon Rebel camera and two extra zoom lenses. Her headwear
    consists of a wide-brimmed, oilskin Australian outback hat with a shoestring
    strap that hangs down under her chin just in case a stiff wind blows.
    We pile into the car, Keogh’s men up front with Leslie and
    me in back.
    Rodney starts it back up and pulls out.
    “She can come with us,” he says, speaking to me with his
    eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. “But she’s your responsibility, Baker.
    You got that?”
    “Damn straight,” I say.
    Carlos turns, smiles.
    “This is going to be fun,” he says. “In just a matter of
    hours