by Jeff Abbott
Whit drew the pistol Gooch had given him from the knapsack. He stepped back into the room’s small closet and eased the door shut. Most of the way. He could see the PC’s start-up screen completed, icons against a black background.
‘Frank?’ a voice called out. A woman’s voice, a little throaty. He listened for more than one tread. Footsteps went by the office door, down toward the master bedroom. ‘Frank Bucks? You here?’
Then the quiet again. He heard movement centering around the bedroom. The intruder checking out the room. He concentrated on breathing without sound. He squatted in the closet, a fur coat tickling his right cheek and throat, a long tweed coat itchy on the other side of his face. Clothes you could wear for five whole minutes in a Houston winter. He pointed the barrel of the gun toward the closet door.
You going to shoot another person? In cold blood?
He counted. Frank and Bucks could return at any second. He didn’t have forever to get out of this house.
Now footsteps approached from down the hall. On the PC screen, the desktop blanked into a colorful array of bubbles bouncing around the monitor. He figured whoever the other intruder was, she hadn’t heard the PC’s annoying trill.
A figure passed before the crack in the closet. Then took a seat at the system, pulled the office chair close to the desk.
He could see her back. A young woman, dressed in a dark blouse, black leather slacks. She turned, he saw her profile.
Tasha. The beautiful stripper with the computer equipment as her gimmick.
He watched her fingers dance on the keyboard, saw slivers of screens appear on the monitor. She took a CD out of her purse, popped it in the tray, moused around the screen. He heard the whir of the hard drive, the whine of processing.
Tasha sat back.
She was working on the computer. What? Copying files? Deleting them by reformatting the hard drive? Sweat inched along his ribs. She could be destroying the evidence Eve needed to dangle over Paul’s head. His teeth bit into his bottom lip. But if he showed himself, what would he have to do to her? He wasn’t going to hurt her and she could tell Frank and Bucks that he’d been in the house. If they had half a brain they’d search it then, find the voice recorders.
But why was she here when they were gone? She’d called their names, parked in the driveway, must’ve had a key to open the door.
He heard the click of keys being pressed.
‘Baby, they’re not here.’ She was talking on a cell phone. ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m getting it done. We’re good to go.’ A pause. Whit was suddenly conscious of every inch of his body itching, of sweat that felt like it was pooling in his shoes. ‘You ordered the hit yet?’
Whit closed his eyes. There was a long pause.
‘I don’t want details,’ she said. ‘Don’t go there. We ought to go down to the Caribbean for a few days, have a holiday.’ Another pause. ‘Don’t get all pissy-ass on me.’ Pause. ‘That’s right, that’s right.’
Screw the recorders. She knows what’s going down and I need to know.
Tasha said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and he saw her, in the crack of the door, drop the phone back into her purse, zip it shut. He counted to three and kicked open the closet.
She spun toward him but he had his pistol at her jaw line before she could turn entirely around.
‘Don’t move. Don’t scream,’ he said.
‘Please don’t.’
‘We never did get to finish our chat last night,’ Whit said. ‘Did we?’
21
‘Is there a problem, Officer?’ Gooch said. ‘I just want to get my car and go to my meeting.’
Tell me again why you waited so long to come back,’ the officer said.
‘I ran from the restaurant when the shooting started. Headed to a friend’s house off of Westheimer. Drank a bunch. Slept real late.’ Gooch put a shake in his voice. ‘I haven’t touched a drop in five years. Last night knocked me off the wagon. But I’m okay now. Had two pots of black coffee.’ He wiped at his lip. ‘I got AA over at St Anne’s in twenty minutes, I really need to make it.’
The officer examined the license Gooch offered. It was in the name of Jim O’Connor, a license Gooch had acquired a couple of years ago for emergencies.
Gooch stood at the back of Eve’s car and rattled the Mercedes keys in his pocket. Eve had told him that the car, owned by Paul, was actually registered in the name of a company fronted by an investment broker who was in Paul’s pocket. The broker liked gambling over in Bossier City and Biloxi a great deal on long weekends, and he liked the hidden lines of credit Paul provided him even more.
The cop said, ‘One minute, Mr O’Connor,’ and headed to the patrol car.
Gooch sucked air through his teeth. He hoped that in the dives for cover and the mad run for the exits no one had seen him return fire or shoot the hostage-taker. The second gamble was that the in-the-Bellini-pocket broker would simply say, yes, Mr O’Connor is using my car, there’s no problem. Thinking that O’Connor worked for Paul and was using the car. But that broker would for sure be calling Paul as soon as he got off with the police. The Bellinis would know someone had grabbed Eve’s car from the scene. He was surprised they hadn’t yet, but they were allergic to cops, and there were several cars remaining in the lot.
The officer was taking a long time on the radio. There would be no criminal record for the policeman to access on Jim O’Connor. Gooch smiled. Finally the patrolman signed off, came back, asked Gooch for a statement of what he’d seen last night. Gooch said he’d seen the window shatter, and had run like hell with everyone else into the parking lot. He had not seen the shooters; they’d taken off.
‘And you left this really nice car sitting here?’ the cop said.
‘I thought more of saving my ass than saving the car.’ Gooch bit his lip, put on that anxious face that Whit seemed to wear so often lately. ‘It was nuts. I got to my friend’s house, started drinking, and lost myself in the bottle.’
‘Your car’s got what looks like a couple of bullet nicks in it.’
Gooch said, ‘Well, there was a lot of shooting going on. Y’all gonna get the guy who did it?’
‘He’s dead. It was on the news.’
‘I don’t watch TV much,’ Gooch said.
The policeman made a production of reinspecting his license, frowning again at the Port Leo address. He tapped it. ‘You’re a ways from home.’
‘I moved here this week to work for a company called Third Coastal Investments.’ He knew that was the name of the broker’s company. ‘I’m sure considering going back to small-town living.’
‘If you stay in Houston, you need to update your license. In thirty days.’
‘Yes, sir, I will.’
Fine. All right. Thanks, Mr O’Connor. We’ll be in touch if we need more information.’ The policeman nodded and his voice softened. ‘Good luck at your meeting. I’ve been clean eight years. You don’t want to slide.’
‘I know. One day at a time.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m gonna go to St Anne’s now. Thanks.’
Gooch drove the Mercedes past the police barricades and turned right onto Kirby. He headed away from River Oaks, toward the Southwest Freeway, toward West University Place. He watched the rearview mirror. Within four blocks, as he came to the intersection of Richmond and Kirby, a Mustang, inadequate-penis red, hovered up behind him.
‘Hello, goombah,’ Gooch said. He got out of the car, ignoring the braying honks from the cars stacked behind him. Went to the Mustang’s window, the driver behind it wide-eyed. Possibly reaching for a gun under the seat.
‘Hey,’ Gooch leaned down and yelled through the window. ‘You tell Paul and Bucks to back off, all right? And you’re gonna get the special served up last night at the Pie Shack if you follow me through this light.’
Fuck you, Mr Mustang mouthed through the window, but Gooch saw in the crinkle of his eyes that he understood. He was thirtyish, thick-armed, going gray early. Not bright-looking.
Gooch tapped
on the window with one finger. ‘You I’ll deal with first. The guy last night? Once through the throat, once through the heart, once through the balls. I like the symmetry of it.’
The Mustang’s window started to go down.
‘Listen carefully, dick,’ Gooch said, ‘you shoot me, you got me dead next to a car that’s attached to Paul. Police gonna remember it for sure. They’re already asking me about Paul Bellini when I’m picking up the car. So they know. They know last night’s dead guy’s connected to him.’ The police had said nothing of the sort, but Mr Mustang couldn’t know. Let them sweat.
The Kirby light turned green. The honking behind the Mustang doubled, a big-haired brunette in a convertible Lexus leaning on her horn like the blare alone could make traffic disappear.
‘You understand the message?’ Gooch said, unfazed by the other drivers.
Mr Mustang, a molten glare in his eyes, nodded.
‘Good,’ Gooch said. Cars began to pass him, five inches away, in the other lane, a symphony of blaring horns. He reached down to his calf, hefted up his jeans cuff, pulled from a leg holster a stainless-steel knife with a wicked blade, and rammed it into the side of the Mustang’s front left tire. The air whooshed from the sidewall. Gooch got back into the Mercedes and drove through the light.
He reached for his cell phone, dialed Charlie’s house.
‘Hello?’ Eve.
‘I have your car,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘Call Whit. I’m not being followed at the moment. I took care of the tail, but your old friends will spot him stuck in traffic soon enough, will collect him, and head back to your house. Whit should be done by now.’
‘Are you coming straight back here?’
‘Yes,’ Gooch lied. ‘I don’t normally do fetching. Getting this car back was a big risk.’
‘It got them out of the house.’
Gooch clicked off without a good-bye. Instead of continuing south he cut over on Bissonet to Shepherd, headed back toward Westheimer. Toward Eve’s house. He didn’t like the idea of Whit alone there.
22
Tasha closed her eyes, the gun nuzzling along her jaw, and thought: It can’t end like this, not now, not when I’m so close.
‘I figure you owe me about sixty dollars’ worth of talk still.’ Whitman Mosley stepped back from Tasha, the gun off her jaw now, but still trained on her.
‘Sixty dollars’ worth,’ she said. She kept her voice steady. ‘That’s cool.’ When he took the step back she sighed out a held breath although she still sat ramrod-straight in the chair. ‘Odd spot for a movie location, scout.’
‘Why you playing with the computer?’ He glanced over at the screen. A status bar, burning files to a CD, showed it was halfway filled.
‘My friend owns this house and everything in it,’ Tasha said. The thought of Paul gave her confidence. ‘He gave me a key. I come and go as I please.’ She ventured a smile. ‘You’re the burglar, scout. Or did you have a key, too?’
Whit said nothing. Watched her.
‘Eve,’ Tasha said, putting a little creak of fear in her voice. ‘You found her.’
Whit shrugged.
‘She hiding in here, too, Whit?’ See what that got her.
‘No, she’s not.’
‘Whitman Mosley was the name on the credit card you used to charge my time last night. I Googled your ass this morning, scout. Whitman Mosley’s a justice of the peace down on the coast in Port Leo. Feature stories written about you in the Corpus Christi paper. A bad-ass judge. Took down a senator, busted up an illegal archaeology dig. Haven’t you been busy.’ Tasha squinted. They didn’t include a picture though.’ She’d played the one card she had; she knew who he was. If he was going to hurt her, he’d do it now.
Whit shrugged. ‘A name to use.’
‘Let’s say it’s you. Why does a small-town judge care about a woman like Eve Michaels?’
‘Why does a smart woman like you hang with thugs?’
‘Job market’s tough,’ she said. ‘Might be tougher for you real quick. Makes me wonder what the Texas Board of Judicial Review would have to say about a JP smacking people around and pulling guns on them and harboring felons.’
‘I wonder,’ Whit said, ‘what the FBI would make of you discussing a hit.’
‘I didn’t say hit. I said it. I have that urban accent thing happening.’ What else had he heard? Her throat tightened.
‘Who’s the hit on, Tasha? Eve? Me or my friend? All of us?’
The laptop stopped its whirring. ‘I’ll take that CD, please,’ Whit said.
Wordlessly, she ejected the CD and handed it to him. She thought: this is not good.
‘Copying files instead of taking the laptop,’ Whit said. ‘Makes sense if you didn’t want Frank or Bucks to know you had all these files. What’s the data about?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘We’re playing twenty questions until Bucks and Frank come back?’
‘Answer me. What are these files?’
‘Stuff Paul wanted,’ she said. ‘Everybody in this is cheating and stealing from him now, he wanted to know if there was any record of it.’ She shook her head. ‘Eve’s a dead woman walking, you know that?’
‘I want you to deliver a message for me, please.’
‘I love your manners,’ she said.
‘You tell Paul that Eve doesn’t have the money. She didn’t take it.’
‘She accused Bucks.’
‘He’s a solid bet. And now you’re all at each other’s throats, and Bucks could benefit. Or Kiko. Or someone else.’
Tasha crossed her arms. ‘Yeah. Eve.’
‘You’re wrong. I don’t give a. rat’s ass about the money,’ Whit said. ‘I want whoever killed the men at the office, all right? And I want Paul – and his people – to leave Eve alone. Forever. Guarantee her safety.’
Tasha shook her head. ‘Better ask for nuclear disarmament. More likely to get it, scout.’
He held up the CD. ‘This buys me a treaty, Tasha. FBI would love records relating to the Bellini family.’
She didn’t want him to leave with that CD. A cell phone lay on the desk by her purse, a bigger, old model, and she slowly took it, turned it toward him. ‘Fine. You win. Call Paul yourself.’ She turned the antenna toward him, her finger sidling to the side button, and thought you don’t want to kill him but girl, you better.
He started to reach for the phone but then he shoved her hand and the phone went off, a shot popping from the little snub antenna, and the window that faced out onto the backyard shattered. He yanked her up from the chair, smashed her wrist against his knee. The phone gun dropped and she screamed. He kicked it under the desk.
‘Bad girl,’ he said. ‘I read about those in the papers. Big with gangs in DC and Miami. And I saw the antenna was open-ended. Handy if you don’t want anyone to know you’re armed.’
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘You just tried to shoot me, so you lost all room to complain,’ Whit said, but he let her go, pushed her back into the chair. He steadied the barrel of his gun at her face. ‘Give me a reason why I shouldn’t shoot you right now.’
‘I aimed at your shoulder,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t gonna kill you.’
‘Let’s be friendly and clear. I’ll shoot you in the knee if you do one more single thing to piss me off.’
She was silent.
‘Now. Who’s the hit on, who’s carrying it out?’
Tasha bit her lip. ‘The hit’s on Eve,’ she said. ‘Paul could get any of a dozen people locally to carry it out.’
‘Give me names.’
‘Well, Bucks.’
‘How about fresh new names?’
‘There’s a guy, real vicious bastard, named the Wart. He used to have a bad one on his face, but he got it taken care of. The name stuck.’
‘Who else?’
‘I don’t know. Truly. I don’t. Probably more. Five million is a lot of money to lose.’ She squinted at him. ‘Simplify, sc
out. Tell Eve to give back the money. Leave it in an airport locker, call us, leave the key where we can get it. Tell her to walk away and I can chill Paul down.’
‘She doesn’t have it. Bucks framed her.’
‘Or she’s got it and she’s sharing it with you, and you’re blowing smoke,’ Tasha said.
‘If we had it, and we intended to keep it, we wouldn’t be sticking around Houston. She wants to prove to Paul she didn’t take it. Tell him for us.’
‘Since you have the gun,’ Tasha said. ‘You didn’t do it. Not at all, scout. Let’s all go have a latte.’
‘If we get into a fight with Paul,’ Whit said, ‘this will end badly. For everyone. I assume you don’t want Paul or his business hurt.’
‘Useless to negotiate with me. I’m merely the girlfriend.’
‘Behind every great man,’ Whit said. ‘You’re smart and you can help me. And help yourself and Paul.’
‘I’ll tell him you’re trying to find the real thief,’ she said. The cold look that had come into Whit’s eyes scared her a little now. He meant business as much as Paul did. She suddenly envisioned him taking her with him, forcing a deal with Paul, and that would ruin everything. Like Paul would pay to get her back. He wouldn’t.
‘I already gave you the message he needs to hear,’ Whit said. ‘But I want information. Has the deal with Kiko Grace been called off?’
‘If Eve didn’t have a death sentence on her for stealing the money, she’d have one for telling you about the deal.’
‘Answer me, please.’
‘You don’t have to say please when you have the gun,’ she said. ‘As far as I know the deal’s still on.’
‘So what’s Paul going to tell Kiko if he can’t get the money back?’
‘Call off the deal, I suppose.’
‘And what? Ask Kiko not to sell to Paul’s rivals?’
‘Call Paul and ask him. What do I look like, Robert Duvall in The Godfather? I’m not his consigliere. I’m just a dancer.’
He held up the CD. Tell Paul to cancel the hit on Eve. Look hard at everyone else who has a motive to bring him down, because she didn’t do it. If he doesn’t want the Feds to get a detailed phone call from Eve about the Bellinis over the past thirty years, with these files, he needs to back off. Am I making myself crystal clear?’
