Cut and Run

by Jeff Abbott

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

  ‘Sitting here with a coffee that my friend brought me,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said in a low, harsh whisper. ‘Do you know what I’ve been through?’

  ‘Does it matter if I know? You’re mad at me before I’ve even opened my mouth.’

  ‘Walk with me,’ she said. ‘There’s a little garden outside. I’m going to yell at you, and I don’t want to disturb these people.’

  ‘Visiting time is in another fifteen minutes. I can’t miss it.’

  ‘Level with me and you won’t,’ she said.

  ‘I love it when you get all authority figure.’ He walked out past her. She followed him.

  The evening was damp, rain having ceased its fall an hour ago, and the wet held the air in a swampy embrace. Whit sat down on the damp stone bench. Claudia stood.

  ‘I almost got killed last night,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘No,’ he said, watching her. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Greg Buckman. A shooter came after him. Nearly got me. A man got killed.’

  ‘But you’re okay.’

  ‘Yes, I’m okay.’ She sat next to him. He reached for her arm and she stood. ‘And you are so not okay, Whit. Not okay at all to me. You sit here like a stone statue, not answering a single reasonable question over the past three days.’

  ‘So ask me.’

  Start easy, she decided. ‘For God’s sakes, what happened to Gooch?’

  ‘He had a heart attack.’

  ‘I don’t mean that, Whit.’ Claudia thought: infinite patience right now. ‘He was full of a cocktail of narcotics, morphine, a whole mess of junk. He’s been beaten.’

  ‘So much for medical privacy,’ Whit said. ‘Gooch does love to party.’

  ‘You protecting your mom, Whit?’

  ‘Claudia. Please go home. I don’t have anything to say.’

  ‘I nearly got killed trying to help you.’

  ‘I warned you that Bucks was dangerous. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘He wasn’t half as dangerous as José Peron,’ Claudia said. ‘That’s the shooter’s name.’

  ‘His name is Peron? Like Evita?’

  ‘Yes. Look at me, Whit.’

  Instead he studied his shoes.

  ‘Whit. I love you, you’re my dear friend. Whatever you’ve done, I’ll help you. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I want you to take Gooch back to Port Leo, soon as he can travel. That’s how you can help me.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But on the condition you tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘First tell me everything that happened to you last night. Please,’ he said, taking her hand. She let him, and she told him about finding Robin and Bucks. When she was done he said, ‘Thank God you’re okay.’

  Claudia turned his face toward her, looked hard into his eyes. ‘The police found Greg Buckman prowling around a house in River Oaks today. They were already headed there to talk to Frank Polo, who’s the manager of a strip club called the Topaz.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘The owner of the club, Paul Bellini’ – she put an emphasis on the last name – ‘got gunned down in a parking lot last night. His Porsche was abandoned near Shepherd and Alabama. It was wiped clean of prints. Oddly enough, there was a van parked not far from where Bellini’s body was found. Gooch’s van.’

  Whit let go of her hand.

  ‘So I’m freaking, I’m calling hospitals, Whit, not knowing if you and Gooch are dead or alive. Eventually I find Gooch here. You haven’t talked to the police about all this, have you, Whit?’

  ‘I told the doctors my friend had gone missing for a few hours, turned up beaten and sick. They gave the information to the police. They ran a check, found his van was near the Bellini death scene. They came back and talked to me. I told them I didn’t know why his van was there. And Gooch isn’t up for much questioning yet.’

  ‘So you lied to the police.’ Claudia couldn’t keep the outrage out of her voice.

  ‘Tell them what you suspect. I don’t care.’

  ‘You came to Houston to find the Bellinis. You sure as hell found them, Whit.’

  ‘So where’s Bucks now?’

  ‘They questioned him and let him go. His story is that this José Peron is a hit man hired by disgruntled Energis investors to get rid of him.’

  Whit raised an eyebrow. ‘They bought that?’

  ‘No. The man killed at Bucks’ place, a guy named MacKay, is a suspected drug dealer and hit man himself. But never arrested with cause. They don’t have a charge against Bucks, other than fleeing the scene of a crime. His apartment was clean. There’s nothing hard yet to connect Bucks to any illegal activity. He drove around Houston all night, slept in his car, then drove to Polo’s house this morning. The police are talking with his girlfriend, to see if she’ll give him up.’

  ‘Bucks is out there,’ Whit said. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘I get the feeling it’s not telling, it’s warning.’ She paused. ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘I have no idea. Dead, probably.’

  ‘Whit.’ She touched his knee; he didn’t move. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Wait.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Does that mean you found her? Or didn’t?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Claudia.’

  ‘You found her.’

  ‘Found and lost,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?’

  ‘What does that mean? She ran away from you again?’ Then she said, softly, ‘Did you kill Paul Bellini?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can tell me if you did, Whit. It’s okay …’

  He crossed his arms, gave her a crooked smile. ‘And why is it okay if I killed Bellini? Because he was scum?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was okay if you killed him. I said it was okay if you told me.’

  ‘I absolutely didn’t kill him. Neither did Gooch.’

  ‘What really happened to Gooch?’

  ‘Gooch can tell you all about it,’ Whit said, ‘on that long drive home.’

  ‘And you’re doing what? Staying in Houston to play high noon with Bucks?’

  ‘Thanks for the coffee, but it’s visiting time.’ He stood up and walked away. If Gooch was conscious, now was the time to get their stories straight, whispering to each other under the hum of the medical equipment.

  ‘José Peron’s mother was killed two years ago,’ Vernetta Westbrook said. Claudia sat across from her in the hospital cafeteria, sipping coffee. ‘He was once on the fringes of the Miami drug trade, a guy who didn’t deal anything harder than pot, but after her murder he started taking on the dirty jobs no one else wanted and he accelerated up through the ranks.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does Judge Mosley know Peron? His Honor like to snort a little coke?’

  ‘No. Tell me about the mother’s death. Was she dealing?’

  ‘It’s the kind of story the drug czar tells to boost budgets,’ Vernetta said. ‘Mrs Peron was a high-school drama teacher. Staged Shakespeare in the Projects with underprivileged kids, did volunteer work, well-loved in the community. She walked into a drug deal going down in the school lot. She told the boys to get the hell off school property. They shot her four times.’

  ‘They catch the guys?’

  ‘The suspects – two of them, both eighteen – were found floating two days later near the very busy Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale. Shot in the head.

  Dumped rather publicly, the police thought, to make a statement.’

  Claudia’s eyes widened. ‘José Peron killed them.’

  ‘He had an airtight alibi. But I talked with the Broward County DA’s office and they believe the guys were offed as a favor to José. Then José began his heavier involvement in the organization. It’s headed by a guy named Kiko Grace. We got an anonymous tip today that his body was ready and waiting for us, in a leased condo near downtown.’

  ‘So Peron’s boss is he
re and dies around the same time as Paul Bellini.’ Claudia felt cold. God, Whit, did you … No. She could not believe it of him.

  ‘Your judge isn’t saying much more than what you told us. That he hired Chyme to find his mother, that he hasn’t found his mother, and that his friend Guchinski had nothing to do with Paul Bellini’s death. He either is lying or he really doesn’t know. Which is it, Claudia?’

  ‘I’m not a mind reader. If he says he doesn’t know, I have to believe him.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Vernetta said. ‘I don’t have to believe him at all. We’ll invite him for a long leisurely chat for hours on end.’

  ‘You won’t convince one judge to sign a warrant to arrest a fellow judge without hard cause.’

  Vernetta shook her head. ‘Mosley’s a rural JP, not even a lawyer. He’s nothing to the judges here.’

  ‘Why don’t you drag in Greg Buckman again? He was friends with Bellini, and Peron and Grace must’ve wanted Buckman dead if Peron came after him with guns blazing. Leave Whit alone. Buckman’s clearly in the middle of this.’

  ‘We’ve got tit for tat. Kiko Grace comes here, wants to move into Houston drug territory. He whacks Bellini. Bellini’s group whacks Grace. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter who died first. They have a short little war and then it’s done. Peron shooting for Bucks is the next stage of the war. Let them kill each other. They’re a cancer.’

  ‘You have no problem with murder, Vernetta. Assuming innocent people don’t get hurt.’

  ‘That’s not so. And your pet judge isn’t innocent, Claudia. He knows more than he’s saying.’

  ‘If Grace is Miami-based, José Peron might head back to Florida and pull forces in here.’

  ‘I hope he goes home. Stays there and runs Grace’s ring. You wonder why a guy would get involved in the trade that killed his mother. Shortest line to revenge, I guess.’

  ‘Yes,’ Claudia said. But Vernetta had a point. It made her wonder. ‘None of your informants have skinny on Peron?’

  ‘He’s too new in town. Nothing yet.’

  ‘When Leonard Guchinski’s well enough to travel, and assuming he’s not charged with anything, I’m taking him back to Port Leo. It’s a long drive. He’s a friend, of sorts. I can hope he’ll talk.’ She stood.

  ‘Talk more than your precious judge, at least,’ Vernetta said. ‘But let me ask you a hard question. Guchinski talks, or Mosley talks to you, in confidence, tells you the truth of what’s happened between all these people, what do you do, Claudia? Rat on your friends if they’ve broken the law?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that when I cross that bridge.’

  ‘Girlfriend,’ Vernetta said, ‘you’re running out of road.’

  41

  Eve no longer knew if it was day or night. After killing Kiko, José had given her another painkiller, bound her, dumped her in the back of a black Suburban, tossed a cover over her, driven into the dark of Houston. She slipped into the emptiness, dreamed of gunfire, heard José jumping back in the car. Then driving, fast, short, lots of sharp turns that made her nauseated, then a long haul on the highway. She fell asleep.

  She woke to a radio, tuned to jazz, played soft as a gentle whisper in the dark. José bound her to a narrow cot, then sat by her with a syringe in his hand, sliding the needle under her skin while she protested, pumped her full of chemical bliss that made her head hazy and cloudy and sweet. She was conscious of José coming in once, feeding her a chocolate shake and a package of lukewarm French fries. Then another shot. In the darkness once, cool water sponged on her face, her hands, a kindness, then medicine daubed the back of her mouth, where her teeth had been, across her busted lips. The taste of the medicine lingered a long while. When her thoughts became clearer she remembered Kiko, his face blown away. But mostly she thought of Whit.

  Whit. Here and gone. Like the life she should have had. She wanted to cry but her face felt too numb to know whether or not she was weeping. An ache that defied the drugs settled in along her arms, her chest, her jaw, like years of unshed tears letting her know they waited for release. She slept. Awoke in the dark. Listened. Heard voices, a man and a woman.

  Her purse lay on the floor, all its contents spilled across the carpet. Makeup, brush, a package of mints. Her gun was gone. And something else. She tried to remember what was in her purse that would matter so much. The room was small, carpet the color of clay, the ceiling old and worn. It had the impersonal dimensions of an office. Boards covered the one window.

  She tried to reason it out. They knew she didn’t have the money. They found the money? Or had they had it all along? They didn’t need her. But they did. They’d kept her alive. Through the fog she remembered he had called her the key. Key to what?

  She made a noise in her throat, tongued her numb, parched lips.

  They were keeping her for bait.

  The idea rose up, tumbled back into the mess of her drugged brain. If they wanted her alive, it was because they wanted Whit.

  The door opened. José stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. He shut the door behind him, crossed to the bureau, extinguished the cigarette in a small plastic ashtray.

  ‘Secondhand smoke’s bad for you,’ he said. His voice was quiet but not warm.

  She said, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own anymore.

  Feed you. Eggs. Toast. Sound okay? Mouth up to eating, or you want another shake?’

  ‘Depends. Is it my last meal?’

  ‘I told you that you were valuable to me.’ Now he smiled, a bully’s knowing, taunting grin.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re Open Sesame,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna tell us how they do it. How they hide and move the money.’

  ‘They.’

  He smiled. ‘We’ll start with Kiko Grace’s organization and his rivals back in south Florida.’

  A cold nausea prickled her guts.

  ‘Then the Dominicans in Dallas and New Orleans. The cartels in New York and Los Angeles. You’re gonna help us break their backs.’ José’s voice went low. ‘We call ourselves Public Service. We do what the cops can’t. Take the war on drugs to the streets. We get in with the dealers. Learn their setup. Then we kill the leaders, gut the organization, take their money and go after the next group.’ He leveled a hard look at her. ‘Dealers killed my mom.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No you’re not. You’re not one bit sorry, bitch. What was my mother to you or your kind?’

  The door opened. Tasha Strong stepped inside. Beautiful face stern. A gun in her hand, barrel lowered.

  ‘Tasha?’ Eve blinked. ‘Tasha?’

  ‘ “O tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide!” ’ José quoted, making guns with his fingers, grinning at Tasha.

  ‘Don’t give her more of a headache with that crap,’ Tasha said. ‘Mouth better, Eve?’

  Eve managed to nod.

  ‘She’s been tending to you. She worked Paul’s side, I worked Kiko’s.’ José smiled. ‘Tasha lost her brother to a drug gang. It tends to gnaw at you, knowing that the police alone can never beat these people. So we work together. Dozens of us.’

  Eve glanced over at the spill of her purse. The CD Whit took from Tasha. It was gone. ‘The cooked books …’ she said.

  ‘Those files that listed other revenue sources for Paul on the CD? Faked. By Tasha and me. Paul gave her access to your house so she could check your finances, see if Frank had been doing any more stealing. But that was a chance to copy those fake files to your hard drive after she copied your real financial files without anyone knowing. False trail for the authorities to follow if you got caught or killed right away. She already planted those files on the computers at the Topaz after you vanished. We didn’t want the Feds grabbing the Bellini money before we could. But that’s not a worry. Now that we have you. See? We plan as thoroughly as you do.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘You want me to help you, but I can’t. I don’t know how other
rings clean their money.’

  ‘You know the tricks. The processes. Like, I’m intrigued, the exchange place for Kiko’s money being done at what appears to be a simple insurance company. You cleaning money through insurance policies?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Suddenly there was no point in not telling him. ‘You buy a life insurance policy, overseas, then cash it out a few months later and transfer the money back into the country. You don’t get watched as closely. It’s a loophole I found. You can move millions in short order and there’s no question of legitimacy.’

  José patted her cheek. ‘Sweet lady, you’re exactly what we need to destroy the worst people in this country.’

  ‘I said, I can’t.’

  ‘You got a choice,’ he said. ‘Help us, give us what we want, crack open the vaults for the major dealers in this country, or watch Whit Mosley die. Slowly. Painfully.’

  Tears of anger, frustration, welled up in her eyes. ‘But Whit’s not a drug dealer, he’s not Kiko or Paul.’

  ‘Definitely. He’s a judge, a justice of the peace down on the coast,’ Tasha said.

  Eve gave a sharp little laugh. ‘A judge.’

  ‘I had a chance to kill him when I killed Paul, and I didn’t,’ Tasha said. ‘You owe me one. Don’t forget it.’

  ‘I don’t consider your partner a good guy,’ José said. ‘He’s a guy who could cause us a lot of trouble. And if you want him to keep breathing, you do what you’re told.’

  ‘Eve,’ Tasha said. ‘I kissed Paul, slept with him, listened to him cry about his dad. Then I killed him. We won’t show Whit one moment of mercy if you don’t help us.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ Eve pleaded. ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’

  They left her alone in the room, an old office at one end of the warehouse, walked to the other end of the warehouse.

  ‘You think she’ll cooperate?’ José said. ‘With what she knows, she could accelerate our schedules.’

  ‘No,’ Tasha said. ‘We need her son. Whit.’

  ‘Son?’

  ‘Look at him, look at her, José. It’s obvious. If he was just her business partner she wouldn’t plead for him like that.’ Tasha shook her head. ‘She’s been in the business for thirty years and was never caught. She’s forgotten more than most people know. She could lead us down blind alley after blind alley, slow us down without us even knowing. We need Whit where she can see him hurt. Hear him scream.’ Tasha touched José’s shoulder. ‘Weigh his life against all the lives we save doing this. The innocents. The kids. He’s nothing compared to them. He’s the guarantee she’ll work her best.’