drink?’
‘I’d love a Coke.’ Claudia sat down while Whit busied himself dumping ice cubes in a glass and cracking open a liter bottle of cola. He brought Claudia her soda. The silence between the two women hung thick as fog on a cool winter morning.
Claudia broke the quiet. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Mrs Hubble. I just confirmed with Anders Sorenson that he was hired to represent Pete in suing for custody of your son. I thought you might be able to help us understand why.’
‘As I was just telling the judge,’ Faith said slowly, ‘Pete’s legal concerns were his own matter. He’d ignored Sam for most of fifteen years, and he was no parent. He had zero grounds for a serious bid for custody.’
‘So why hire Sorenson?’ Whit asked. Anders Sorenson was from an old Port Leo family, one of the best- regarded attorneys in the area, almost seventy, a scrappy, dapper little man feared in the courtroom.
‘Because Sorenson’s a big-money Republican who’d love to see Lucinda lose?’ Faith flared. ‘Shit, I don’t know what Pete was doing. I can’t repeat that too many more times without thinking the two of you are brain- damaged.’
Neither Whit nor Claudia spoke.
‘I have to go, unless you have further questions,’ Faith said. ‘Sam is expecting me for dinner.’
‘I would like to speak with Sam,’ Whit said. ‘Briefly.’
‘Call me tomorrow and we’ll set up a time.’ She picked up her purse and didn’t give Claudia another glance as she walked out the door. Whit followed her out of the guest house, past the pool. She didn’t break stride and she didn’t look back, and he didn’t call out to her. He went back to the guest house.
Claudia stared at him. ‘I heard her yelling at you before I knocked on the door.’
‘I’ve known her for a while. She’s upset.’
‘And?’
‘Her kid’s the most important thing in the world to her,’ Whit said. ‘But she’s right. Pete wouldn’t have a prayer in family court.’
‘Unless she’s done something far worse than adult films,’ Claudia said.
Whit sipped his wine.
‘I thought you and I could talk to Jabez Jones together tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘Your clerk said it’d work with your schedule.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said.
She touched his arm. ‘Anything else you want to tell me. Honorable?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing else at all.’
18
Velvet eased the magazine out of her Sig Sauer 9mm automatic pistol. She tucked the Sig far down into her purse. Then she yanked it out of concealment, past tissues and car keys and compact. Four seconds. Too long, but stacking the gun atop her billfold and cosmetics made her nervous; she had no concealed weapons permit. She supposed she could always just fire through the thin leather of the purse.
Finding the gun had been easier than she imagined. She’d hired a cab to take her to Corpus Christi, rented a Chevy Caprice at the airport, and driven to a ragtag collection of pawnshops. She found that cash and a quick but ardent display of her professional skills spoke volumes to one particular dealer. She’d never seen a registration form.
She’d picked up a small tape recorder as well, the kind used by reporters. Voice-activated in case someone said something interesting she wanted to keep. This she stuck down in the depths of her purse.
Velvet practiced pulling the automatic from her purse for ten more minutes until the motion felt fluid and natural and the gun didn’t feel so alien in her grip. If Junior Deloache became a problem, she thought, she’d have to fire without flinching. She imagined shooting him in the stomach – clearly the biggest target on him – and tried not to think about how much blood might explode from his guts.
Him or you. Just think of it as him or you if it comes to that. Junior was, she thought, most likely full of bluff, and he might even be useful to her.
Her fantasies shifted from gunning down a hot-breathed Junior Deloache to placing the cool barrel of the Sig against Faith Hubble’s head and forcing that snide bitch to sing the truth. Yes, I killed him, I killed him, please don’t hurt me…
A gentle knock rapped on the door. She went and peered through the peephole. Faith Hubble stared back at her through the security hole, arms crossed, frowning like she wanted to bite the world in half.
‘Velvet? You there?’ Faith called. She knocked again.
Velvet hurried back to her purse. She clicked on the recorder and found the ammunition in the bottom of the bag.
‘You’re stupider than I thought,’ Gooch said.
Whit nursed his beer. He and Gooch sat in a deserted corner at Georgie’s bar at the Shell Inn. Being a Tuesday night, the bar was mostly empty, only a few figures quaffing down liquid forgetfulness in the shallow light. The tarpons on the wall, mounted over draped netting, caught the glow of the television along their preserved curves. Georgie sat at the bar, smoking a cigarette and working the New York Times crossword puzzle with a bloodred pen.
He had just confessed to Gooch about his affair with Faith and was now receiving a quota of due lashings.
‘What do you think Buddy Beere might make of this, Whitman?’ Gooch rattled the ice in his near-empty glass of bourbon. ‘He’ll fry you into political hash.’
‘Buddy doesn’t have to know. And Pete’s her longtime ex. I don’t think there’s a professional conflict in me handling the case.’
‘Buddy will. And no secret in this county gets kept forever,’ Gooch said. ‘There’s too many big mouths and prying eyes and booze.’ He finished his drink with a toss and signaled to the vapid barkeep for a refill. She didn’t see him, giggling with Eddie Gardner at the bar. Whit watched Gardner, who had pointedly ignored him. If Claudia was slaving over the Hubble case tonight, Gardner wasn’t.
‘I’ve discovered the silver lining. You blow the election, you can work for me,’ Gooch mused. ‘I’m thinking of buying a much bigger boat, you know, a serious party barge. If I do it, you can wriggle out from under Babe’s wing and grab a real life.’
‘Yeah. Scrubbing decks, gutting fish, keeping drunks from going overboard. And best of all, taking orders from you. My life’s dream.’
‘You ain’t got room for snooty.’ Gooch finally got the bartender’s attention when she turned from laughing at a joke of Gardner’s. She nodded and brought Gooch his drink. Whit watched the young woman hurry back to Gardner, intent on not leaving him shifted in neutral too long.
‘Why do cute girls like a greaseball like Gardner?’ Whit wondered.
Gooch shrugged. ‘You ask this while diddling Faith Hubble.’
Whit considered. ‘She’s fun.’
‘And willing. Is that all you require?’
‘No.’
‘What else? Breathing?’ Gooch put a hand over his heart in mock horror. ‘God help us, you’re not in love with her, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ Whit said.
‘So she’s just someone you sleep with?’
‘She’s…’ Whit stopped. Lover implied more emotional depth than either he or Faith had yet brought to the bed. One-night stand was logistically incorrect. Sexual release carried all the warmth of freezer burn. He just liked her; he still liked her. ‘We’re in a shadowy area.’
His map of Faith’s heart consisted of the roughest sketch. He knew Sam was her north star, her everything, with perhaps Lucinda and her political career a near second. But when they were together – from the first time –
