by Jeff Abbott
‘I don’t think so,’ Whit said. ‘You know this world, don’t you? These men. Organized crime.’
‘I watch a lot of movies.’
‘Which bear no resemblance to the real world,’ Whit said.
‘You hitting him was a smart move,’ Gooch said. ‘Act afraid of him, you’re dead. This is social Darwinism at its next-to-most advanced. Only prison is more brutal.’ Gooch glanced over at him. ‘This is a side of you I didn’t quite expect, Your Honor.’
‘This is me …’ Whit stopped.
‘What?’
‘This is me finding my mom. It’s like training your whole life for a single event, like the Olympics or the Super Bowl or the World Series, and now you can’t make a single misstep. If I screw this up …’ He could roll down the window, wad up the napkin, toss the number into the street. Go home to his dad, take care of him. Walk away from clearly serious trouble.
‘Call her,’ Gooch said quietly. ‘Tell her you’d like to see her.’
‘What if she’s not my mother, then won’t I be a fool?’ Whit said. ‘I can think of one threat to get her here, and it’s not how I want to start a new relationship.’
‘Let me talk to her,’ Gooch said. ‘I’m much more charming and refined.’
For now, she was Emily Smith.
Insurance came in many different forms, and for Eve, protection lay in a safe-deposit box at a branch bank on Kirby, west of the Rice University campus and the sprawl of the Texas Medical Center. Inside the box, a black purse held an Illinois driver’s license, a mint Visa credit card, a passport in the name of Emily Smith and five hundred in tidy bricks of cash. She retrieved the purse after listening to news radio in her car to hear if there was breaking news about a double homicide near the Port. There wasn’t. But it wouldn’t be long and she’d know how much of a description, if any, whoever called the police had given of her.
At least the police won’t kill you. Why should Paul believe you after Frank’s skimming?
And the answer to that question made her blood race.
She’d seen what happened to thieves in Detroit. Pliers, blowtorches, broom handles were the toys of choice of the men charged with finding where missing money lay. If they believed Paul and Bucks over her – and given Frank’s recent pilfering, it was more than likely – they would torture her for days before putting a bullet in her head, even if she couldn’t reveal where the money was hidden.
If she ran, she looked guilty and they would never give up. She had saved herself once before, taking the stolen cash back to Tommy, and she figured it was the way to save herself again. Find the money, prove Bucks took it, get the money back to Paul.
She needed a hiding place to wait out the crisis and hatch a plan. Paul might not be watching the airports yet; he would be soon enough. He could pull Kiko into the search as well. Kiko would have a vested interest in getting hold of the cash. She could drive anywhere in the country. But then that would leave Frank alone, and she was afraid of his bearing the brunt of her supposed guilt.
She decided to stay in Houston, at least for the moment.
Hiding out at a dive motel was out of the question; her car wouldn’t fit in. So late that afternoon she headed west on I-10, out into suburbia, took the Addicks exit on the edge of Houston, and got herself a room at a nondescript Hilton. She used the Emily Smith card to pay, believing that paying in cash would attract undue attention at a nicer hotel, holding her breath while the card was processed. She’d paid a lot of money for the Emily cards and documents, getting them from an old friend in Detroit who specialized in false identities, and when the desk clerk handed her back the card along with a slip to sign she nearly collapsed in relief.
She tried Frank on the phone. No answer. She showered. Put her clothes back on. Ordered room service, soup and salad, and ate. She needed basics but she didn’t want to go to the nearby sprawling malls. She’d found her rock, her comfort zone, and she wasn’t eager to get out of it.
Would you like to see one of your sons?
She poured a soda from the minibar, drank half of it down, wiped at the tears that chugging the fizz brought to her eyes. Maybe the man wasn’t from one of her kids. Maybe it was a trick of Bucks’. He might have found out about her background. A way to shock her into leaving the exchange.
But there were much easier ways. The guy who took her picture had to be legit.
Her sons. She did not think of them every day but she did on their birthdays, at Christmas, when classes started, although they were all grown now and long past anxious first days of school. She had pictures of them, hidden in the house in Houston; not even Frank knew about them. The thought of losing those photos, never seeing them again, made her ribs hurt.
Eve turned on the news at ten. It was the lead story: two people found shot in an office near the Port. The glossy-lipped anchor faked a frown of personal concern. The two bodies have not been conclusively identified.’
Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID: Frank. She clicked it on.
‘Frank?’
‘They’re going to kill me because of you,’ Frank said. His voice was low, aching. ‘Paul sliced my hand open, You happy?’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘I told them that. They don’t believe me.’
‘Bucks did it,’ she said.
‘I knew it, that bastard.’
‘He’s got the money.’
‘Can’t you prove he did it?’ Frank said.
‘No.’
‘He’s sticking to me like a horny fan,’ Frank said. ‘I’m calling from the men’s room on the second floor at the club. Hiding in the toilet.’
‘Frank …’she started, then stopped.
‘They gave me a Valium shot; I’m a little fuzzed. I do love you, babe. Even if you did this. I’m having to act, though, like I hate you. Or they’ll kill me dead. I told ’em you’d called me, wanted to meet at the Galleria. So don’t go there. Where are you?’ he asked.
‘It’s better for you if you don’t know. I need to get that money back, Frank. Or prove I didn’t take it.’ She suddenly didn’t feel tough or smart, she simply wanted to be at home in bed with him, watching an old movie, snuggled under the covers.
‘Make a deal with the cops. They’ll protect you.’
‘I’m not doing that.’
‘Eve. Baby. Then come in. Talk with me, with Paul.’
‘If he doesn’t already believe me, I’m dead. Or Bucks will shoot me dead to protect himself before I get two words out.’
‘You stay away, Paul believes even more that you stole it,’ Frank said.
Her anger at Frank boiled suddenly. ‘Your damn skimming. You’re half the reason I’m in this trouble. Why on earth did you take money from the club?’
‘Everybody pinches,’ Frank said. He sounded as mournful as a schoolboy called before a growling teacher. ‘But this guy in LA, he said if I could front the money, he could get me recorded and we could sell the CDs on eBay. Or get me guest backup gigs. I still got a name, Eve. It would have worked. Then I would have fed the money back into the club, no one had to know. I figured you’d help me do it.’
‘Frank. My God.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ But she heard resolve in his voice. ‘I messed up, so I’m gonna save your ass.’
‘How?’
‘I can find where Bucks put the money,’ he said.
‘Frank, you can’t find your dick most days.’
‘Jesus, you’re good to me. What a sweetheart.’
‘I’m scared. For once, I’m scared, all right?’ Her voice shook. ‘I don’t have a way out of this. I can’t even come home, Frank.’
‘I’ll meet you. Anywhere.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘What, you don’t trust me now?’
She didn’t, but she wanted to trust him so badly her need was a sour taste in her mouth. The fact he’d stolen money and Paul hadn’t beaten him to a pulp … Paul wanted him healthy. To help find
her. Frank might be bait.
‘You don’t love me,’ she said. ‘This ends it, doesn’t it?’
‘Sweetheart, I do. But I need you to tell me where you’re at,’ Frank said.
‘Frank …’ she began, then stopped. ‘It’s not a good idea.’
‘You protecting me or yourself?’
‘Both. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Evie,’ he said, and his voice broke slightly. ‘I love you. Whatever happens … I love you.’ Like he expected to see her next in a coffin, to set a rose in her cold, folded hands. She felt a distance begin to widen, a gap between them that hurt her chest.
‘Has anyone … else been looking for me?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I …’ She couldn’t say it. Frank didn’t know about the husband and sons she’d walked away from; at the least she never told him. Port Leo seemed now like a story that had happened in another woman’s life. ‘Never mind. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good-bye.’
He started to protest but she clicked off the phone.
She believed that, with all his faults and vanities, Frank did love her. But love didn’t bind every heart as tightly. She loved her children, in a way, more as little playmates than as treasured responsibilities, but she had walked away from them. Love was a condition you could get over, and maybe Frank had recovered. Fear could make him leave. She couldn’t trust him. And she couldn’t put him in further danger.
She lay down on the bed. Her Beretta was at her side. Probably by tomorrow Richard Doyle would be identified, and the police would naturally scrutinize his dealings at the bank. She and Doyle had been very careful. But if Houston Police Department brought in the Feds, and Doyle had left any traces in moving money that she didn’t know about, it was probably over. HPD was a smart force, very capable, and of course so were the Feds. She might have to run from the mob and from the FBI. She could try and cut a deal for the Witness program, but she’d known of people who went into WitSec and still got killed.
Her cell phone rang again. No caller ID. She clicked it on.
‘Ms Michaels?’ A man’s voice she didn’t know, low.
She said nothing.
‘Silent treatment, and you don’t even know me yet.’
‘Who is this?’ Eve sat up on the bed.
‘My friends call me Gooch. I met a gentleman tonight named Bucks who is very protective of you. We had to beat him up to get your phone number.’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘Bucks seemed rather desperate to know why I wanted to find you. I got the impression you’d caused him to have a bad day.’
‘What do you care?’
‘I don’t like this Bucks guy at all. He’s got a black eye right now and he doesn’t like me either,’ Gooch said. ‘He’s a common enemy to you and me.’
‘And why do you want to find me?’
‘I can explain,’ Gooch said. ‘Meet me tonight.’
‘I’m not meeting anyone I don’t know …’
‘You know the Pie Shack restaurant over on Kirby?’
She did. Pie Shack was an all-night eatery famous for delectable pies and big-plated breakfasts, an eclectic favorite with the late-night bar crowd, Rice University students, night-shift workers. It was always crowded, presumably safe. If this was a trick and Bucks was planning an ambush, it was hardly a good choice.
‘Go there. To the rear booth. We can talk. Tons of people around, no need to be afraid. Because you sound kind of nervous and upset.’
‘I’m not meeting anyone I don’t know who calls me out of the blue.’
‘James Powell. Bozeman, Montana,’ Gooch said.
She let ten seconds of silence pass, her tongue drying into sand. ‘I don’t know that name and I don’t intend to continue this discussion.’
‘The police in Montana would be interested in talking to you even after almost thirty years.’
She finally gave a coarse laugh of disbelief. ‘If you’re a blackmailer, buddy, you’ve picked the worst day possible.’
‘You have something I want,’ Gooch said, ‘but it’s not money. Skip meeting with me and I’ll happily give every bit of information I have on you to the Feds and to the police back in Bozeman. I’ll see you at Pie Shack in thirty minutes. Come alone. No gun.’ He hung up.
She was scared, but she calmly checked the clip in her Beretta and put it in her purse. The leather of the bag was thin. She could fire right through it. She had closed the curtains but now she opened them slightly, looking out across the coastal plain, covered with strip centers and housing developments and chain restaurants that made this part of Houston practically indistinguishable from any other major city. She could burrow deeper down in the sprawl, hiding in the anonymity of sameness. Rain, starting, turned the lights of suburbia into smears.
She sat back down on the bed. James Powell. She had not thought of him in weeks. You could not kill a person and wipe them from your mind, but James Powell did not haunt her every day.
James Powell. Her sons. The past rising up out of nowhere, this phone call and the strange man today, it could not be coincidence.
Eve got up and dug her car keys out of her purse.
She headed out the door.
13
‘I have a surprise for you.’ Tasha was a little breathless after the sex. The first night with Paul, him wine-drunk, had been nothing to savor. But tonight, nervous and seeking release, he had been a smarter lover, conscious of her pleasure, taking an interest in it first with his fingers and mouth. The good, leisurely lovemaking done, she smoothed out a raised lock of his brown hair. ‘It might make your night,’ she whispered, getting up from the bed.
‘Baby, my night was already made.’
She went to her computer, checked her e-mail, keyed a button. Papers peeled out from the printer. She picked them up, read them, tossed them on his naked stomach.
‘What’s this?’ he said.
‘Credit reports.’
He picked up the pages. She waited for him to speak. He blinked at the data, but it was clear his mind was fuzzed so she sat down next to him.
‘About your problem with Eve,’ she said. ‘I know a guy who’s a black hat.’
‘A what?’
‘A hacker. Gets through computer systems. He worked with me at Houston PrimeNet as a security consultant. We both lost our jobs at the same time. Energis was our big client. They went under, we went under.’
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘So my friend Ralph, he’s what you call socially maladjusted.’ She ran a finger along Paul’s leg, watched the flesh goose-bump. ‘He started hacking because he couldn’t find a job for the longest time. He hid himself a Trojan inside the Visa and MasterCard authentication systems.’
‘A what?’
‘A Trojan.’
Paul still gave her a blank look. ‘It’s not a condom, baby,’ she said. ‘It’s hidden computer code that does what you want. Get you account information, for example. He uses it now and then to steal an account. He’s been asking me business advice, ways we could make the most money off of this little private access. He doesn’t want to get caught before he can make serious profit.’ Tasha patted the papers. ‘I can solve your Eve problem.’
‘You could get me five million?’
Tasha took a very subtle, calming breath and locked her smile in place. ‘No, sweetpea. He can’t get you five million in cash. But let’s say Eve planned to run. And let’s say she took the precaution of getting new credit cards under new names.’
Paul’s eyes widened.
‘When a credit card is used for the first time, it creates an initial entry in the account file. So I asked him to find all first-time credit charges in Houston and Galveston for today. For planes, trains, rental cars. Hotels if she’s hiding out. And to key it to women’s names or cards with the same initials as the name.’
‘Holy shit.’ Paul stood up and scanned the pages. ‘Her name’s not here.’
‘N
o. And this only works if she hasn’t used the card before. But there’s twelve women who bought plane tickets, one named Margaret Scott to Detroit. That could be Eve. Or if she’s hiding in town, she might’ve rented a room. Three rented hotel rooms as initial charges as of eight tonight. Alice Masters at the Doubletree over on Post Oak. Deanna Lopez at Moody Gardens, down in Galveston. Emily Smith at the Hilton out by Addicks, out on the edge of town.’
‘My God, baby, you are amazing.’ Paul kissed her, hard, slow, grateful, and she felt him rise in her hands. She tickled him with her fingertips.
‘There’ll be time for that later,’ she said. ‘See how I can help you?’
‘Tasha, what a team we could make.’ He tongued her ear.
‘Sweetpea.’ She cupped his chin with her hands. ‘If I give you Eve Michaels, what are you going to give me?’
He smiled, put her hands back on his erection.
‘That’s a given,’ she said. ‘I’m asking for a bonus.’
‘Okay.’ He kissed her. ‘But I need to make a call, get guys out to those hotels.’ He started to scoot off the bed.
She gave him a little squeeze and he stopped, one leg on the floor. ‘Let’s move beyond bonus to an actual cut.’ She curled her feet up under her rear.
‘You’re cute when you’re smart,’ he said.
‘I’m never not cute, then,’ she said.
‘How big of a cut?’ A tease touched his voice, one she liked. He ought to shove her out of the way, make those phone calls. But he was giving her time to listen. He was passing her test. She slid her fingernail down his strong Roman nose, along his cheekbones, as though she was mapping out a course.
‘Call your guys first. See if they can find her.’
He hurried to the phone, made the calls while she watched. Two guys each, dispatched to each hotel. When he was done, he came to her, gave her another kiss.
‘Now you,’ he said.
‘My cut should be about a half million.’
He laughed, looked blank, laughed again. ‘Don’t we aim high?’
‘I’m serious. Ten percent, finder’s fee. I got to pay Ralph for his help. And I want to quit stripping and get a new job.’