26
Friday evening, darkness settled over Houston, the sun painting the clouding sky the orange of joy, the gray of sadness. Whit wanted to drive back to the house on Timber; Eve forbade him and he decided it was a bad idea, an ambush waiting to happen. Or maybe they’d chased Gooch and he’d had to lose them and was taking his time getting home, ensuring he wasn’t followed back to Charlie’s house. The news came on; there was no report of a shooting along the quiet of a River Oaks street. No report of a man matching Gooch’s description turning up dead.
Whit sat with Eve at Charlie’s PC, studying the data on Tasha’s disc.
‘This isn’t exactly a backup of the hard drive, Whit,’ she said.
He leaned down, looked at the spreadsheets before him. Columns of numbers with annotations and footnotes inserted beneath that made no sense to him.
‘So what is it?’
‘These spreadsheets show operations from the legit Bellini businesses. And then these are the semilegit businesses, like Alvarez Insurance. We use them to clean the money from the drug deals, by making it look like the funds are coming from legit accounts from various holding companies. But these files’ – she pointed to an array of spreadsheet icons – ‘I’ve never seen before.’
‘But she was copying from your drive.’
‘You sure she wasn’t copying from this CD onto my hard drive? You were tense. Maybe it was the other way around.’
‘I should have taken the whole laptop,’ he said.
‘Then they’d know someone had been in the house.’
‘They’d know anyway once Tasha talked.’
She shook her head. ‘Honey, you think I kept records so a Fed with a search warrant could walk in, seize a system, and indict us? No. I switched out hard drives every few weeks and destroyed the old ones. But I kept the files that made the drug money look legitimate.’
‘So how would Tommy Bellini know if his books balanced?’
‘He and I would review them together before I destroyed the drug files. Of course that stopped after his stroke.’ She glanced at him. ‘The idea was to park a certain amount of real money in his legit interests. So you go ahead and pay the taxes on those. The rest went into his pocket, backed by the money-cleaning books. Out of that he paid salaries, expenses, and so on.’
‘And supplies. Like the coke.’
She nodded.
‘Why would Tasha have these other files and want to put them on your laptop?’ he said. ‘Unless she’s part of the frame. She’s in with Bucks.’
Eve scrolled down through the spreadsheets. ‘This looks more like an extra set of cooked books.’ She began to click open files, studying them. ‘Hey. These are files for businesses Paul doesn’t own. With lots of money parked in them. Look at these revenue figures.’
‘So why does a stripper at his club have an additional set of cooked books on a CD? Why?’
Eve frowned. ‘Let’s say Paul gives her the CD, asks her to back up the data on the laptop. Then these are extra files already on the CD – data he was keeping secret from me. I didn’t think he had operations I didn’t know about but now anything’s possible with Paul.’
‘Again, why not simply take the laptop? It’s his.’
‘Because he doesn’t want Bucks or Frank to know it’s gone.’
‘Because he suspects Bucks but doesn’t want to tip his hand,’ Whit said. ‘Or Frank’s. You said he embezzled from Paul.’ Whit leaned over her, watched the screen. ‘Let’s consider another possibility. She has these files on the disc. But did she also copy these files to the hard drive in return?’
‘Why?’
‘Part of the frame-up on you,’ he said. ‘Bucks could say you were incorrectly cooking the books with this data.’
‘Those files would have a date stamp for when they were placed on the hard drive.’ She clicked the mouse, expanded a view. ‘See. They’re showing as transferred today.’
‘But they could be edited once they were on the machine. Assuming Tasha has the computer know-how, and I’ll bet she does. Bucks didn’t want Frank around when the files were added. So he asks Tasha to do it when they’re gone.’
‘I prefer simplicity,’ Eve said. ‘She’s in bed with Paul, he wanted to know what was on that system without alerting Bucks and Frank. He’s a sneaky ass.’
‘She’s sneakier,’ he said. ‘She had that little gun hidden in a cell phone. Have you ever seen that used?’
‘No, but I’ve heard of them. Paul might’ve given it to her.’ She pointed again at the spreadsheet icons. ‘This bothers me. This data makes the Bellinis look like they’ve got way more income that is being cleaned than they actually do, in lots of places that don’t exist. I don’t believe Tommy or Paul truly has this money. So what would be the point of putting it on my computer or tying it to other Bellini financial records?’
‘What would the Feds do if they got this information?’
‘Start auditing each and every company. Start tracing the money trail. Start shutting down operations, making arrests.’ She pointed at the cooked-book files. This would make them pee in excitement.’
‘Then we have a negotiating point, right? We could put Paul in jail.’
‘And me in jail, Whit.’ She touched the back of his hand. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘I didn’t do the crime,’ Whit said.
‘No, you didn’t. I told you, I go to prison, they’ll still kill me. I have no doubt.’ She stood, walked to the window. ‘There has to be another way to use this to get Paul to back off on having me whacked.’
Whit said nothing for a few moments. He tried Gooch’s cell phone again, calling on his own cell, not wanting to call on Charlie’s home number. No answer. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said.
‘We have to assume they got him,’ Eve said. ‘You said he was pulling away but they may have shot him.’
‘In the middle of River Oaks?’
‘He’s not here, is he?’
‘I messed up,’ Whit said.
‘No. Gooch shouldn’t have shown up there. He told me he was coming straight back here. He didn’t stick to the plan, Whit. It’s not your fault.’
‘He saved me from getting shot, and I left him.’
‘You did what he wanted.’ She touched his face.
‘Where would they take him?’
‘The Bellinis own two houses in River Oaks. The one Frank and I were in, and another, much bigger house on Lazy Lane.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Lazy Lane’s a street where practically every house has a guard station. Dogs roaming property. Heavy protection. If they take Gooch there we’ll never get in.’
‘We’re not abandoning him.’
‘Paul owns a house down in Galveston, too, but it’s for sale. I doubt they would head down there.’
‘I can’t risk Gooch’s life. I’m calling the police,’ Whit said.
‘And tell them what?’ Eve asked.
‘Everything,’ he said.
‘Will that help your dad, Whit?’ she asked. ‘You want him to see you in jail before he dies?’
‘Your concern for my dad is a little late,’ Whit said. ‘Like thirty years.’
‘I’m more concerned for you.’
‘And your own hide.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You have me pegged, anyway. What I did to you defines every aspect of me as a person, right?’
‘Yes,’ Whit said. ‘Would anyone ignore abandoning your family in estimating your character?’
‘I suppose not.’ She sat down on the couch. ‘Call them, then. They’ll arrest the both of us. Me for the felonies
