by Jeff Abbott
‘We should go to Port Leo now.’
‘I’ve given you the deal, Whit. Help me or let me go.’ She paused and, when he gave no answer, she stood.
‘Fine. Go ahead. Let them kill me.’
‘Now you sound like a mother.’
‘I know I was nothing as a mother. I know.’ Her voice grew hoarse.
‘Actually, my dad said you were a good one before you took off. I wouldn’t remember.’
She studied the warm wood of the kitchen table.
‘Were you bored? Decided kids were no fun?’ He kept his voice calm. ‘What was so wrong with us?’
‘You thought it was your fault.’ She passed her hand over her eyes. She went to the sink, ran fresh water in her glass. ‘Oh, God,’ she said, her back still to him. ‘I’m sorry. There was absolutely nothing wrong with you, Whit. Or your brothers or even your father. Nothing. It’s me. I’m the one that’s bent, I’m the one that’s broken.’
‘You broke everyone else by leaving.’
She drank her water, watched him over her shoulder. ‘You seem well-adjusted.’
‘I’m tough.’
‘But you came looking for me. You got a hole I’m supposed to fill?’
‘So you do have a nerve to hit,’ Whit said. ‘Now you’re sounding downright bitchy.’
‘Baby, I am downright bitchy.’
That probably served you well in your new life.’ He shook his head. ‘The mob. You traded your kids in for the mob.’
‘I hope you never have to make a really terrible decision, Whit. Most people don’t. They amble through life and they whine about moments of inconsequence.’ She finished her water. ‘I hope you get to amble.’
‘Don’t ask for pity. You made your choice. I doubt you’ve had years of sleepless nights worrying over us.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Eve said, ‘and I’m not going to explain to you. They’re going to kill me in the worst possible way to make me tell them where the money is.’ She steadied her voice. ‘I’ve never been more scared in my life, except on the day when I left you.’
‘You were scared.’
‘Very much so. You think it was easy? It wasn’t…’ She stopped. ‘I’m not going to try and explain it.’
‘You couldn’t.’
‘Then I won’t waste my breath.’ Eve went to the back door, opened it. The brisk, wet night lay outside, black under the arches of the live oaks. Rain dripped from the branches. ‘You won’t see me again. Thank you and thank Gooch for saving my ass tonight. I appreciate you delaying the inevitable. Bye, Whit.’
He got up, slammed the door shut. He didn’t want her to go. Found and lost, all in the matter of an hour. Her face was still, blank. Waiting.
‘Do you have a plan?’ he asked. ‘On how to get the money?’
‘I have a couple of ideas on how to nail Bucks, prove he’s betrayed Paul. Get evidence that Paul will believe. But I can’t do it alone.’
‘Here’s the deal, Mom.’ He let the little odd word settle between them. ‘We nail Bucks for Harry’s murder. Then you come with me to Port Leo to see my father and my brothers. And if you trick me or run out on me again, I’ll give you to the Feds myself in two fricking seconds and you can fry in hell for all I care.’
‘Deal,’ she said.
17
Friday morning in Port Leo was gorgeous, the air clear and the sky the color of pearl. When the light filtered in through her window and awoke her, it didn’t bother Claudia Salazar that she had gotten barely five hours of sleep. Last night the Port Leo police department, working with the sheriff’s departments in Encina and Aransas counties, had busted a burglary and fencing ring. Arrests and interviews had kept Claudia up until 2 a.m.
But the sun, even in winter, beckoned.
Claudia went for a leisurely run on the smooth flat of beach along St Leo Bay, the sand wet beneath her sneakers. The fishing boats already sailed the horizon, out past the thin barrier islands that guarded the Texas coast. The morning air was February-cool but she pulled off the windbreaker she’d worn down to the beach, tied it around her waist, turned around and ran back the length of the beach and the park, letting the warmth sift through her body. Her sweat was light and she felt good.
She walked back to her small apartment, stopping for a bottle of grapefruit juice and an egg-and-potato breakfast taco at a small convenience store up from the harbor. She sipped at the juice and ate her taco as she headed past Port Leo’s shopping and arts district and the courthouse square, watching the tourist birders heading out with the cameras and binoculars from the bed-and-breakfasts near the square, eager to spot the coast’s famed, precious whooping cranes. At home she stood under the shower’s hot spray, then turned the water icy cold for a deliciously long minute, then hot again. When she got out and toweled off, she went into her bedroom to dress. The message light on her answering machine was blinking and she frowned, hoping it wasn’t work calling since she’d put in well over sixty hours this week.
She listened to the message. ‘Ms Salazar? This is Barbara Zachary at Chyme Investigations. Please call me as soon as you get this message. Please.’ The voice was shaky.
Claudia dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and dialed the phone. She knew Barbara Zachary slightly, a single mother who did occasional support work for Harry. If there was a break in Whit’s case, she couldn’t imagine why Harry would call her with that news first instead of Whit.
‘Chyme Investigations.’
‘Barbara Zachary, please.’
‘This is she.’ The woman’s voice sounded wooden.
‘Hi, this is Claudia Salazar. You had left a message for me?’
‘Yes.’ Then silence. ‘Harry is dead.’
Claudia’s nice warm muscles turned to jelly. She sat on the edge of her unmade bed. Her breath seemed frozen in her chest. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘He was shot in Houston. Down near the port. Yesterday afternoon. It took them a while to ID him. He didn’t have any ID on him, but his rental car was parked nearby. The license plates were taken off. That slowed them down until they traced the VIN number.’ Barbara’s voice broke again. ‘I cannot believe Harry is gone.’
‘My God.’
‘I know he had a case in Houston he was working,’ Barbara said. ‘For Whitman Mosley, and Harry told me you were the referral.’ The barest hint of accusation tinged her voice, as though Claudia bore a terrible share of responsibility. ‘There’s no answer at Judge Mosley’s house. Can you contact him for me? The Houston police will want to talk to him.’
‘I’ hunt him down right now. Who’s the investigating officer in Houston?’ Claudia grabbed for a pad.
‘His name is Arturo Gomez.’ Now Barbara broke into sobs. ‘I’m sorry. This is … difficult. He was so sweet to me.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’d worked for him from the beginning,’ Barbara said. ‘He never took any dangerous cases.’
‘I want you to tell me,’ Claudia said. ‘Everything you know.’
‘They found Harry in an insurance office near the Port of Houston with some man, I don’t know his name. I don’t know anything about him.’
Five minutes later, Claudia was at the door of the guest house where Whit lived, behind the main Mosley house. No answer at the door, but Whit’s Ford Explorer sat in the driveway. She hurried back up to the main house, rapped on the door, rang the doorbell.
Irina Mosley answered the door in a cotton robe, hair looking disheveled, like she’d had a long night. She was a beautiful woman but the sudden weight of Babe’s illness had thinned her already waifish face. Claudia didn’t particularly like Irina, thought of her as the trophy wife who’d seen a rich old man as a passport out of Russian poverty, but the thought that her husband was dying softened Claudia’s heart.
‘Claudia, hello,’ Irina said. She always spoke so quietly, as though an eavesdropper lurked nearby. She looked exhausted, dark blotches under her eyes.
‘I’m sorry to d
isturb you so early. Where’s Whit?’
‘Off to Houston.’ Her voice hardened.
‘Why?’ Some man, Barbara had said. They found Harry with some man. Claudia’s skin prickled beneath her windbreaker. Oh, Jesus, Whit.
‘He didn’t tell me,’ Irina said. ‘He left right after court yesterday.’
‘Did he fly? His car’s still here.’
‘No,’ Irina said. ‘He went with that Gooch person.’ She frowned in distaste.
Claudia thanked Irina. She went back to her car, tried Whit on her cell phone. No answer on his. Please, not Whit, too.
She drove home and called Barbara Zachary. ‘Apparently Whit’s in Houston.’
‘Oh, my God. What if Judge Mosley’s the man with Harry?’
‘I’m sure Whit’s okay,’ Claudia said. She thanked Barbara, gave her sympathies again, and hung up. Then she called Whit’s cell phone again. Got his bright drawl on his voice mail, asking her to leave a message. She did, asking him to call her. Hung up and lay back down on the bed, a sick twist in her heart, her back, her throat.
She called her police chief, said she was going to Houston for the weekend. He wasn’t happy but she was quietly insistent and told him that a friend had been murdered. She did not say that possibly two friends had been murdered. Then she left a message for Arturo Gomez at HPD headquarters, explaining that she had information on the Harry Chyme case and asking him to call her as soon as possible. Then she packed her gun, her permit, two extra clips, her badge – although, of course, she had no jurisdiction in Houston, but she felt she needed it – and her clothes, called her mother to tell her she was going out of town for a couple of days, and headed for her Honda.
Whit is okay, she told herself. He is okay. Repeat as needed.
Claudia drove fast, a steady twenty miles above the speed limit.
18
‘Don’t bother talking to the hit men,’ Bucks said. ‘Let me. Best that you don’t know who’s doing what in case the police ask questions.’
‘Wrong,’ Paul said. ‘That’s been part of the problem.’ He stood at the window, watching the sun start its slow peek above the oaks. Early morning haze lay on the grounds of the Bellini estate, off Lazy Lane, and Paul had awoken Bucks with a 6 a.m. phone call, demanding he get to the family house. Bucks had been sleeping on Frank’s sofa in the faint hope Eve would return to the house. Not likely, but he couldn’t take the risk of not putting forth a clear and visible effort.
‘Chad Channing says it’s really important to delegate, and you do that beautifully,’ Bucks said.
‘Delegate your ass,’ Paul said. ‘Don’t lecture me this morning. I’m not in the mood.’
‘The money being lost is a matter of trust, not delegation,’ Bucks said. ‘You trusted the wrong woman.’
‘I don’t trust anyone, Bucks. Except my mom.’
Bucks, nervous, no coffee yet, lit a cigarette, blew smoke away from the comatose figure of Tommy Bellini.
‘Don’t smoke in here around my dad, for God’s sakes.’
‘He doesn’t have a lung problem,’ Bucks said, but he inched open a window and thumbed the cig out into the garden.
‘If the trellis catches fire, I’m kicking your ass.’
‘Paul. Has it occurred to you I’m pretty much all you’ve got right now?’ Bucks said. ‘If you and I don’t stick together, we’re sunk. Frank’s useless. Eve’s gone. Kiko’s gonna go nuclear if we can’t deliver the money. You’ve got Nicky dead after the moron shoots up a diner. I’m the one who’s standing by you, man, and you treat me like I’m a leper.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Gratitude lightens the heart.’
‘Did Chad Channing say that, too?’
‘No, Sister Mary Clarence.’
‘That was Whoopi Goldberg in those nun movies.’
‘And my algebra teacher back in school.’ Bucks shut the window. ‘Fine. You want to talk with the hit guys, that’s fine. They get caught, they sing, they finger you instead of me. It’s really no skin off my back. All I want is this thieving bitch caught and punished for the hell she’s put us through.’ Bucks forced himself not to glance over his shoulder at Paul to watch for a nervous tic of reaction.
He knew it was Paul’s hot button. Paul would either trust him or not. The silence stretched to ten seconds, and Bucks thought I’ve played the wrong card. But then Paul said, ‘Fine. You handle it. But I’m picking who you work with. MacKay. The Wart. Jerry Smacks. You got it? And I expect detailed progress reports from each of them. I want to know exactly what’s going down. At all times.’ He jabbed a finger toward Bucks’ face. ‘Don’t mess up.’
‘Yes, Paul,’ Bucks said. Now he could capture Eve entirely on his own terms. He kept his smile inside. It was important, Chad Channing stressed, to keep certain victories private.
The tacqueria on Mandell, not far from the heart of the artsy Montrose district, was a faded jewel. The door flaked once-bright paint like shredded lettuce. The young cook who had taken over for the gifted old woman who had run the kitchen for four decades inevitably scorched the beans and served runny eggs. Therefore the restaurant was empty in the early haze of Saturday morning, when Bucks slid into the back booth. The waitress brought him coffee and he drank half of it down in a long, steady gulp.
If the new owner had half a brain she’d torch the place for the insurance. He’d suggest that to her, burn the building with the beans, take a cut. Say eighty percent. The place looked starved for goals and resolve.
Bucks had summoned three of them and they arrived within five minutes of each other. For an odd reason he thought of the Magi, the Wise Men in loud garb. MacKay was a tall, dark fellow, a Jamaican with dreadlocks that had once hung to his waist but had now been trimmed to a more modest shoulder length. An ugly scar bisected his upper lip and he wore a plain white shirt, untucked, loose green pants and sneakers. He smelled like sandalwood; too much scent in the close air of the tacqueria.
‘Hey.’ MacKay slid into the booth. ‘Who else you taking bids from?’
‘Wart and Jerry.’
‘Aw, man. Wart is a sick one,’ MacKay said. He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘He killed a family, you know that? A family, man, there are lim-its.’ He gave the last two syllables the emphasis of disgust.
‘Not if he got paid.’
‘Jerry can’t shoot his pee in the bowl,’ MacKay said. ‘How ’bout you give me the deal and we close it right now. Save you from dealing with an ass like the Wart.’
‘I’m opening it to all three of you. Competition is good for the soul,’ Bucks said.
MacKay lit a cigarette. ‘Man, do you keep plaques in your jacket so you always got advice to offer?’
‘Yes, and they’re bulletproof.’
MacKay laughed. ‘Bucks, I set you up with Bob Marley, Ziggy, Miles Davis, instead of that self-improvement tripe. Too much prepackaged advice, it’ll soften your head.’ He looked at Bucks’ face. ‘Man, order yourself a raw steak for that eye.’
‘I fell and hit a stair railing.’ No one was believing that lie. Bucks fought the urge to put a bullet through MacKay’s skull and instead sipped at his bad coffee.
The other two men arrived at the same time. Darrell Branson, called the Wart, was fortyish, balding, with the carefully cultivated look of a CPA. He wore a summer suit five years out of fashion, no tie. The third man was called Jerry Smacks, and Bucks hated the habit of marathon gum chewing that had earned Jerry his nickname. He was thirtyish, always sunburned because whatever money he made got spent down in Cancun. He rearmed his mouth with a fresh stick of spearmint as he sat down, folding the foil into a perfect square and tucking it into his shirt pocket.
The waitress brought them coffee and then Bucks said, ‘Maria, why don’t you and the cook go for a walk. Get yourself doughnuts down at the 7-Eleven.’ He slid her a twenty.
The woman vanished into the kitchen and after a moment, she and the cook left, turning the OPEN sign to read CLOSED, shutting the morning cool out behind them, all
without a word or a change in their poker faces.
‘Gentlemen,’ Bucks said. ‘The deal is simple. We’re looking for a woman named Eve Michaels. She’s stolen cash. A large amount. She stole it practically right under my nose, so the pressure’s on me to get it back. Fast.’ He cleared his throat, fixed each man in turn with the kind of forceful gaze corporate VPs blasted at hopeless underlings. They waited, blank-faced, unimpressed. ‘I’ve got to have the cash back; I believe she’ll keep it on her or close at hand. She has two men who are working with her. One of them is a killer. He’s ugly as a baboon, about six-six, big, broad-shouldered, goes by the name Leonard. He killed one of our men. The other is smaller, around six-foot, normal build, hair blondish and a little long, looks like a surfer type. His name may be Michael or Whitman Mosley, or he may be using a credit card in that name. Him I want hurt badly.’
‘Man, I’d pick a cooler alias,’ said MacKay. ‘Whitman sounds like a school principal.’
The Wart said, ‘They local?’ He had a voice as soft as just-washed baby clothes, little more than a whisper.
‘Eve we know.’ Bucks pushed a picture of her he’d taken from Frank’s house to each of them. ‘The men, we’ve never seen them before.’ He pushed pictures of Gooch and Whit, slightly grainy images recorded on a Club Topaz security camera when they had paid at the door and entered.
‘You said the deal was a single hit,’ Jerry Smacks said. ‘Now you’re talking three-for-one. This ain’t coupon day, kiddo.’
‘I sure don’t mind a multiple job,’ the Wart said and dosed his coffee with milk. ‘Assuming multiple job, multiple paycheck.’
‘Getting Eve is priority one. I want her dead. The other two guys, box ’em if you want. I’ll pay a bonus of ten biggies for each of them. Mosley hurt as much as you want before you’re done.’
The three mulled this. MacKay finished his cigarette, lit another, sipped at his coffee, gave Bucks an odd little smile.
‘You got any idea where they at?’ the Wart asked.