They would find nothing left of Jose. He closed his eyes. Killing Jose, strangely, didn’t bother him. It was almost as if he hadn’t done it. Eve had told him about Public Service, what Jose had told her, and he could not shake the thought that, in letting Tasha go, he had released a woman who, however misguided, was trying to do good. Justice wasn’t often a straight line, but he wasn’t sure what he had done was justice any more than what Jose or Tasha had done.
The oral surgeon took his time with Eve and when she came out she was groggy, her mouth padded with cotton, armed with pills.
‘That wasn’t fun,’ she mouthed. ‘Need to sleep.’
So he took her back to the hotel. She lost herself in a heavy doze. He checked the voice mail on his cell phone. One from Vernetta Westbrook, one from Arturo Gomez, five from Claudia. He called her.
‘Where are you?’ she said.
‘I found my mom. In San Antonio.’
‘Whit, is Frank Polo with her?’
‘No. They’re not together anymore. She left him.’
‘We found a partial of a fingerprint of Polo’s at Harry’s murder site,’ Claudia said. ‘Actually, on the underside of Harry’s rental car bumper. If he was wearing gloves he probably tore the latex taking off Harry’s plates. The police are looking for Polo. Whit, you can’t protect this man.’
‘I promise, I’m not.’ He paused. ‘We’ll come back to Houston in a few days. She got hurt, I had to get her medical attention.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘Yes. Frank Polo roughed her up.’ A cold rage settled in his bones. Frank’s prints at the murder scene. That devious little bastard. ‘Claudia, I want to tell you everything. I’m not sure I can. Because I have to take care of my mom first.’
‘When you come back to Houston, you have to talk to the police and the DA’s office. You understand that.’
‘I’ll call right now and set up a time to meet,’ he said. ‘How’s Gooch?’
‘Continuing to improve. Continuing to not cooperate. And Greg Buckman is dead.’
‘Really?’
‘You don’t know anything about that, do you, Whit?’ There was a coldness in her voice he’d never heard before.
‘No,’ he said, watching his mother. ‘I don’t.’
‘Come home, Whit.’
‘This is over now,’ he said. ‘I will. Claudia. Thank you.’
‘I’m going back to Port Leo today, Whit. Without Gooch. I can’t take off more time. Call me when you get home.’ And she hung up without a good-bye.
He thought of calling her back, but instead called Charlie Fulgham’s cell phone. ‘Are you back home?’
‘Yes. Should I not be?’
‘Your house is safe now. Are we all still your clients?’
‘Still got my three dollars in my pocket,’ Charlie said.
‘Buy some legal pads, Charlie. Fast.’
‘I don’t want to talk to the police, Whit,’ Eve said. It was Wednesday morning, and she was curled on the hotel bed. She’d taken another Vicodin but it hadn’t kicked in hard.
He sat down next to her, touched her shoulder. ‘Where would Frank run?’
‘Anywhere, if he’s got five million. I really don’t know.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Mom,’ he said. He touched her swollen jaw. ‘You and Frank strike me as people with contingency plans. Where is he?’
‘I told you, Whitman, I don’t know.’
‘He put you in mortal danger when he could have cleared your name in an instant. He ran when it was time to save you,’ Whit said. ‘He doesn’t really love you.’
‘He loved me,’ she said. ‘Just not enough. Like how I loved you when you were little. Just not enough.’
‘There is no parallel,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a judge?’ she said, surprising him.
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I didn’t want to scare you off.’
She managed a smile. ‘I’m proud of you. Really proud of you, honey.’
He felt a little kindle of pride that died instantly. ‘Sure. You should be. I killed a man. Let a criminal walk free. Lied to one of my best friends, lied to the police. I’m a real pride and joy, Mom.’
‘But you saved your mother,’ she said. ‘You saved me.’
‘We’re going back to Houston tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ she said, suddenly surrendering. ‘I’m ready.’ She closed her eyes, sleepy again. ‘I’m actually very clean, you know.’
‘Charlie’s going to represent us. If needed.’
‘That should be good for laughs,’ she said and she went back to sleep.
The manifesto from Public Service appeared in six newspapers nationwide Thursday morning, including the Houston Chronicle. They claimed responsibility for the deaths of five drug lords, including Paul Bellini and Kiko Grace, and three others in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York in the past month. Two of the dead had been found with rolled-up money in their mouths, a signature of the group. The manifesto was both a scathing indictment of the government’s war on drugs, for not being tough enough, and against the drug trade, for its relentless waste of human lives, police efforts, and money.
The statement held a chilling promise: ‘We target the casual buyer, for you are the cash cow of the drug trade. If we see you buying drugs, even simply a joint to share with a friend, we will shoot you.’ And ending it with ‘ “God defend the right!” – William Shakespeare.’
Whit wondered where Tasha was, if she had written the letter. Or if Jose had before he died. The TV pundits had a field day on this twisting new front on the drug war.
When Whit met Charlie at his house, Charlie hugged Eve, shook Whit’s hand, and pointed to the letter in the paper. This, sweeties,’ Charlie said, ‘is called manna from heaven.’
Two hours later they sat in Gooch’s private hospital room, an artful arrangement by Charlie. Whit and Eve sat next to Gooch’s bed; Arturo Gomez, two of his detectives, and Vernetta Westbrook on the other side of the bed.
‘My clients will cooperate fully,’ Charlie Fulgham said. The party-loud shirt from his stand-up routine was gone, replaced by a gray Armani suit, fitted to the millimeter.
The police officers all looked at Charlie like they knew him. And didn’t like what they saw.
Gomez started. ‘All right, Mr Mosley-’
‘Actually, you should refer to him as Your Honor,’ Charlie said. ‘Judge Mosley is a highly respected magistrate.’
Gomez surrendered on the point. ‘Can you fill in the gaps for us, Judge Mosley?’
‘It’s really simple,’ Whit said. And he told them: he had hired Harry Chyme to find his mother. Harry told them that she was in Houston, he believed, living under the name Eve Michaels, and he and Gooch came to Houston to find her. They never heard again from Harry, but after making inquiries at a club Harry said her boyfriend managed, found Eve.
‘She agreed to meet us at Pie Shack,’ Whit said, and this was the risky part. Gooch could go to jail for this when he had saved their lives, saved the life of the young hostage the gunman had taken.
‘But Ms Michaels was followed there,’ Charlie said, stepping smoothly in. ‘By gunmen possibly related to this Public Service group. Vigilantes mistakenly seeking to harm Ms Michaels due to her connection – via Frank Polo – to Tommy Bellini’s businesses. We certainly know that Public Service had declared war on the Bellini family, right or wrong.’
Gomez grilled all three of them, but they stuck to their story with relentless precision: they ran, like everyone else, and in fact went into hiding because Eve was afraid the Bellinis or these gunmen were after her.
‘If the Bellinis did illegal activities,’ Eve said, ‘I didn’t know about it. I was the accountant for five of Tommy Bellini’s companies, and they are all perfectly legit. If his son started dabbling in the drug trade or screwing around
