He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, envisioned a to-do list with clean little checkmarks, the beauty of completion.
Next angle to work, go reassure Paul. Bucks roamed back to the party suites. He found Paul in one, leaning back from a worked-over plate of enchiladas and a couple of empty Shiner bottles. Hiding in beer and comfort food while Bucks did the heavy lifting. In the corner a basketball game was on, the Rockets overpowering the Jazz.
‘What happened to your eye?’ Paul asked. ‘Squeeze the wrong ass?’
‘Accident. It doesn’t hurt,’ he said. He’d break that jackass Michael/Whitman’s fingers the next time he saw him.
‘You’re not bringing me Eve’s head on a platter, or my five million,’ Paul said. ‘I’m not sure why you’re here.’
‘No, Paul, I don’t have her yet,’ Bucks said. ‘But I got an extension with Kiko. Said it was a bank problem.’
‘Good.’
‘New problem,’ Bucks said. ‘I found a couple of guys who seem extremely interested in Eve. They might be a help to us.’
‘Who?’
‘Guys were here looking for her, gave me a line about her cleaning money for them. Wanting to find her real bad.’ Bucks didn’t mention their supposed Vasco connection or that they didn’t seem to know Eve’s cell phone number because it didn’t fit into the theory he wanted to feed Paul. These two, they’re her partners, they can lead us to her,’ Bucks said. ‘But-’
‘Bucks.’ Paul stood, turned off the television, shrugged into his jacket. ‘If these guys know where she or the money’s at, rip it out of ’em. Then kill them. Do your job, man. Now.’
12
‘I had no idea you were a mafioso from Detroit,’ Whit said.
Gooch turned his van into a diner parking lot. Pie Shack, off Kirby, the lot half-full of cars. ‘Lots you don’t know, hoss.’
Whit traced his finger along the phone number he’d written on a napkin downstairs in the club before heading for the doors, suddenly afraid he’d forget it in the rushing thrill. Eve Michaels’ phone number. The combination of numbers that could open a long-confounding lock. What if this woman wasn’t his mother? What if she was?
‘Bucks can figure out we’re not real mobsters with a couple of phone calls,’ Gooch said.
‘Yes. He’s strange. Bucks looks more like he’s a corporate lackey than gang muscle,’ Whit said. ‘You pushed him too far. I saw it in his face.’
‘Because we hit a very raw nerve. He’s scared, and he’s willing to switch sides to someone who could outgun his boss. Maybe Bucks is on precarious footing. Something’s rotten in Bellini-land.’
‘Or he’s an opportunist,’ Whit said. ‘This is one great ally you pick for us, Gooch.’
‘Fate picked him, not me. Surprised you punched him.’
‘He’s between me and my mother, and he would have shot me if we hadn’t been in a busy club.’
‘He would have shot you anyway. Those rooms are soundproofed. No one would have heard over the bump- and-grind. And they’d carry you out after the club closed.’ Gooch kept his eyes on the parking lot, on cars coming in and out. ‘We weren’t followed. That means he doesn’t want the rest of Paul’s crew knowing about our chat.’
‘You spoke with authority back there, Gooch.’
‘Marine Corps. You learn how to speak properly. Hoo-rah.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Whit said. ‘You know this world, don’t you? These men. Organized crime.’
‘I watch a lot of movies.’
‘Which bear no resemblance to the real world,’ Whit said.
‘You hitting him was a smart move,’ Gooch said. ‘Act afraid of him, you’re dead. This is social Darwinism at its next-to-most advanced. Only prison is more brutal.’ Gooch glanced over at him. ‘This is a side of you I didn’t quite expect, Your Honor.’
‘This is me…’ Whit stopped.
‘What?’
‘This is me finding my mom. It’s like training your whole life for a single event, like the Olympics or the Super Bowl or the World Series, and now you can’t make a single misstep. If I screw this up…’ He could roll down the window, wad up the napkin, toss the number into the street. Go home to his dad, take care of him. Walk away from clearly serious trouble.
‘Call her,’ Gooch said quietly. ‘Tell her you’d like to see her.’
‘What if she’s not my mother, then won’t I be a fool?’ Whit said. ‘I can think of one threat to get her here, and it’s not how I want to start a new relationship.’
‘Let me talk to her,’ Gooch said. ‘I’m much more charming and refined.’
For now, she was Emily Smith.
Insurance came in many different forms, and for Eve, protection lay in a safe-deposit box at a branch bank on Kirby, west of the Rice University campus and the sprawl of the Texas Medical Center. Inside the box, a black purse held an Illinois driver’s license, a mint Visa credit card, a passport in the name of Emily Smith and five hundred in tidy bricks of cash. She retrieved the purse after listening to news radio in her car to hear if there was breaking news about a double homicide near the Port. There wasn’t. But it wouldn’t be long and she’d know how much of a description, if any, whoever called the police had given of her.
At least the police won’t kill you. Why should Paul believe you after Frank’s skimming?
And the answer to that question made her blood race.
She’d seen what happened to thieves in Detroit. Pliers, blowtorches, broom handles were the toys of choice of the men charged with finding where missing money lay. If they believed Paul and Bucks over her – and given Frank’s recent pilfering, it was more than likely – they would torture her for days before putting a bullet in her head, even if she couldn’t reveal where the money was hidden.
If she ran, she looked guilty and they would never give up. She had saved herself once before, taking the stolen cash back to Tommy, and she figured it was the way to save herself again. Find the money, prove Bucks took it, get the money back to Paul.
She needed a hiding place to wait out the crisis and hatch a plan. Paul might not be watching the airports yet; he would be soon enough. He could pull Kiko into the search as well. Kiko would have a vested interest in getting hold of the cash. She could drive anywhere in the country. But then that would leave Frank alone, and she was afraid of his bearing the brunt of her supposed guilt.
She decided to stay in Houston, at least for the moment.
Hiding out at a dive motel was out of the question; her car wouldn’t fit in. So late that afternoon she headed west on I-10, out into suburbia, took the Addicks exit on the edge of Houston, and got herself a room at a nondescript Hilton. She used the Emily Smith card to pay, believing that paying in cash would attract undue attention at a nicer hotel, holding her breath while the card was processed. She’d paid a lot of money for the Emily cards and documents, getting them from an old friend in Detroit who specialized in false identities, and when the desk clerk handed her back the card along with a slip to sign she nearly collapsed in relief.
She tried Frank on the phone. No answer. She showered. Put her clothes back on. Ordered room service, soup and salad, and ate. She needed basics but she didn’t want to go to the nearby sprawling malls. She’d found her rock, her comfort zone, and she wasn’t eager to get out of it.
Would you like to see one of your sons?
She poured a soda from the minibar, drank half of it down, wiped at the tears that chugging the fizz brought to her eyes. Maybe the man wasn’t from one of her kids. Maybe it was a trick of Bucks’. He might have found out about her background. A way to shock her into leaving the exchange.
But there were much easier ways. The guy who took her picture had to be legit.
Her sons. She did not think of them every day but she did on their birthdays, at Christmas, when classes started, although they were all grown now and long past anxious first days of school. She had pictures of them,
