her changing room, where she keeps her stuff. Nothing odd. A few pictures.’
‘Pictures.’
‘In a drawer. Of a boy. From being a baby to teenage years. Kind of looked like her, maybe was a brother. But the pictures were old, creased with handling. Not new.’ Robin cleared her throat. ‘Funny thing for a girl to keep, family pictures, in the place where she takes her clothes off. Most girls don’t.’ She sipped at the hypersweetened coffee. ‘I love my mom, we’re close, but she thinks I’m a cocktail waitress. I wouldn’t have her picture around in the changing room. Like she was looking at me in my getups.’
‘Was there a name or date on the back of any of the photos?’
Robin closed her eyes. ‘Yeah. Darius. On one of the baby pictures.’ She opened her eyes, looked at Claudia. ‘If Tasha doesn’t know anything I don’t want the cops crowding her. Cops keep wanting me to make a deal, like I’m holding back info to annoy them. Bucks wanted me to watch her because she was close to Paul, and he didn’t like that. But since she was closer to Paul, she might be able to help the cops. And then they’d leave me alone.’
‘Describe her to me, tell me where she lives,’ Claudia said, ‘and I’ll have a talk with her.’
‘Would you?’ Robin said. ‘We weren’t real close, so I don’t have her contact info, but Frank would.’
‘Frank Polo, right?’ His name had cropped up before, the singer turned nightclub manager. Eve Michaels’ boyfriend.
‘I’m not ashamed to say I love disco,’ Robin said. ‘Bucks hated it. But it’s happy music. And Frank’s really a good singer.’
‘Tell me about Eve Michaels.’
Robin shrugged. ‘Eve? She’s a bookkeeper for Paul, I think. Nice but distant. Tasha liked her, seemed interested in Eve’s work. Tasha wanted to get off stage, move into the business side of the club. But Paul never would have let her, you have to see her. She’s gorgeous.’
‘Did you like Eve? Is she nice?’ It suddenly and oddly mattered to her, if this was Whit’s mother, that she have at least one redeeming feature.
‘Nice as long as you didn’t get in her way. Cross her, you’d be missing a liver and she’d be licking her lips. I was a little afraid of her.’
‘You have her and Frank’s address? My sister was always a big fan of Frank Polo’s,’ Claudia said. ‘I’d like to get an autograph before I leave town.’
42
Whit said, ‘It’s time we reported Eve as officially missing.’ He hadn’t slept much in the past two nights and he rubbed at his unshaven face.
He and Frank Polo sat in a little diner off Shepherd, not far from Rice University, themed for fifties nostalgia. The jukebox played a mournful tune, appropriate for a nearly empty restaurant after the lunch rush. Frank didn’t respond to his suggestion as the waitress approached them. They both ordered omelettes.
‘When I was famous, we lived on breakfast food. You’re tired, you want comfort, but you can’t get full up. You never want to be stuffed when you’re onstage for a living. Did you know I was famous once?’ Frank said to the waitress, who was a cute college girl with a little silver ring piercing her pert nose.
‘I didn’t,’ she said.
‘I used to be a singer,’ Frank said. The waitress gave an indulgent, polite-but-I-don’t-care smile and took their menus.
Frank waited till she was out of earshot. ‘And tell the police what, Whit? That Jose has her? We don’t know he does, we don’t know where he is. Some cop named Gomez already stopped by to see me about her. I told them she took off, I don’t know where, gave him her cell phone number. The cops are going to think she’s running.’
‘But the police could look for her and Jose.’
‘And when they find her, they’ll stick her in prison and you’ll never see her again.’
‘I don’t believe-’ and Whit’s cell phone rang. He clicked it on.
‘Whitman Mosley.’ It wasn’t a voice he knew, a baritone, strong and steady. ‘Your mother’s alive. Thought you’d want to know.’
‘Who is this? Jose Peron?’
‘We’re going to keep her for a little while, then we’ll give her back to you. Alive and well. Unless you call the cops. Then we have to be mean, and we don’t want to be. Mean is not what we’re about.’
We. Jose was not acting alone. ‘I want her back, right now.’
‘Sit tight. Be patient. We’ll take good care of her, then we’ll give her back. We’ll arrange a meeting between us.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe or not,’ the voice said. ‘We could have killed her with Kiko. We didn’t. Take that as serious reassurance.’
‘Let me talk to her.’
‘What will you discuss? Her money-laundering skills? Her killing the guy in Montana all those years ago?’
Whit’s mouth went dry. ‘How did…’
‘Behave, she lives. Don’t, she dies. We’ll be in touch very soon.’ And the caller hung up.
Whit told Frank the gist of the conversation.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ Frank said. He wiped at his puffy eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Why would they want to keep her?’
‘Jose… if it’s him, he must want info on the Bellini operations. But he won’t let her go. He’ll kill her.’ Montana. Jose knows about Mom shooting James Powell in Montana. And that I’m her son. Because he took Harry’s notes off Harry’s body. He killed Harry.
The weight of the knowledge made him very still. He didn’t look at Frank, didn’t look at his plate.
‘So you’re going to the cops?’ Frank asked.
‘He says he’ll kill her if I do that.’
‘Then we have to listen to him. Not endanger her.’
‘Frank. I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can and you will,’ Frank said. ‘We play by their rules, we get her back.’
‘I need to know where Jose is, Frank. Where he has her.’
‘I can’t work wonders. Finding the condo they hid out in was tough enough. But I’ll put out word again. Money for information.’
‘Let’s say Jose’s the power behind all this. He kills Kiko. He kills or has Paul killed. He tries to kill Bucks. Why? So no one else is chasing after the money? That only works if he has the money, Frank, if he doesn’t want to be chased himself. I’m thinking he killed Harry and Doyle and stole the money.’
Frank shook his head. ‘How would Jose know where the exchange was?’
‘He followed Eve. Or, worse, Bucks told him. The police should compare the bullets in Kiko to the bullets in Harry Chyme and Richard Doyle.’ Whit finished his coffee. ‘Jose stuck that money into Kiko’s mouth. If he was stealing the money, why bother with gestures and symbols? He’s got his own agenda.’ The waitress brought their omelettes, hash browns, grits with a warm little puddle of garlic and cheese on top. They began to eat. Suddenly Whit laughed.
‘What?’ Frank asked, buttering a biscuit.
‘This is so freaking normal and domestic,’ Whit said. ‘Like if Eve had taken me with her when she took off, I probably would have had a lot of breakfasts with you by now.’
‘I would have been a crappy stepdad,’ Frank said. ‘Be glad she left you behind.’
‘Because abandonment is so awesome.’
‘Get over it,’ Frank said. ‘Actually, you seem pretty well-adjusted. Except for hunting down your mom. You got a problem letting go?’
‘No.’
‘You need your mom for what? To complete you as a person?’ Frank said. ‘You and Bucks are more alike than you know.’
