‘No. Tonight.’
He knew he couldn’t back up further. ‘Fine. Be five million poorer.’
‘You’re not in a situation to make demands,’ Kiko said.
‘I have what you want.’
‘And so do I,’ Kiko said. ‘But I’m not an unreasonable man.’
‘Tomorrow at sunset,’ Whit said. ‘At the Mecom Fountain on Main Street. You come alone. You bring Eve, I’ll bring the money.’ Mecom Fountain was about as public a spot as you could get in Houston, on Main Street in a traffic circle that was constantly busy, between the Montrose arts district and Hermann Park.
‘No. Pick another place.’
‘Then I’ll count the money myself,’ Whit said. ‘I’ll buy Eve nice flowers for her funeral. But I’ll have the money, not you.’
Kiko was silent. ‘All right.’ Whit could hear the tinge of greed in his voice. ‘I’ll send my associate Jose with Eve. I’m not doing any more public appearances.’
‘Mr Grace?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Watch out for Bucks. He turned on Paul, he’ll turn on you.’
‘I appreciate the concern,’ Kiko said. ‘Don’t get cute and call the police. I have friends on the force. Any word from them that my name’s been mentioned to anyone, and Eve dies. You got it?’
Probably a bluff but he couldn’t risk it. ‘I got it,’ Whit said. Kiko hung up without another word.
Whit sat down at the kitchen table. Bluster. He had nothing left but bluster. This mess was of his making and he had nothing left but the kind of bluster he used to whip kids in juvie court into shape.
But bluster made the world go round some days.
Whit went to Charlie’s gun cabinet, the source of one of Charlie’s jokes (‘When you’ve got clients like mine…’), but the guns looked deadly serious. Rifles, pistols, an antique German gun from the turn of the nineteenth century. Wicked knives in hand-stitched leather sheaths. Whit opened the cabinet, staring for a moment, letting the life he knew slip away like a mere shadow swallowed in greater darkness. He would be dead or different by sunset tomorrow. The thought left him cold but suddenly less afraid. He reached for the first gun.
Whit wondered if this was what it felt like for his mother, years ago, abandoning one life for another.
34
‘He doesn’t show for a meeting,’ Arturo Gomez said. He had a pleasant voice, one that rang in his chest, an actor’s tone. ‘He doesn’t sound particularly cooperative. Does he need the serious encouragement an arrest warrant offers?’
‘You’re jumping the gun. I’m concerned for Judge Mosley’s safety,’ Claudia said. ‘I’m afraid he’s in danger.’
‘Or he’s blowing smoke up your butt.’ Gomez shuffled through a file. Claudia and Vernetta Westbrook sat on the other side of his desk at HPD headquarters.
‘Frankly, sir, I don’t like the tone you’re taking,’ Claudia said. ‘Whit’s not hiding anything. He made an allegation to me, one he said he couldn’t prove. But he wouldn’t accuse another person lightly. And it’s entirely unlike him to miss a meeting with me. He’s a professional.’
Gomez locked his gaze on her, raised an eyebrow, as if asking what more do you know, never mind your friend?
‘Art, you got Advil? I don’t even know this friend of Claudia’s and he’s given me a bad-ass headache,’ Vernetta said. Trying to defuse the attention.
He pulled a bottle of aspirin from his desk, pushed it to Vernetta.
‘Given what Judge Mosley told me,’ Claudia said, ‘will you question Greg Buckman?’
‘On what grounds? Your tipster, who can’t make a simple meeting? I need cause. I need a boatload of cause before I approach anyone connected to the Bellini family.’
‘You have enough cause to question him,’ Claudia said. He’d taken a tone of speaking down to her, and she suspected it wasn’t his usual way of dealing with officers from other jurisdictions; he wanted her on the defensive, giving in to a rise. ‘And Whit is a respected judge, not a sleazy back-alley informant.’
Gomez studied her. ‘Chyme’s looking for Mosley’s mom, right? Mosley won’t come talk to you and instead points the finger at an Energis exec, which is synonymous with leper in Houston. So where’s the mom? Why hasn’t your friend brought you around to meet this mother?’
‘He said he hasn’t found her.’
‘Yet he can find all these people who are supposedly connected to her. Like this Greg Buckman,’ Gomez said. ‘Doesn’t ring true, and if you weren’t friends with this guy, you’d see that clearly.’
‘Perhaps the mom,’ Vernetta said, ‘doesn’t want to be found.’
Gomez nodded. ‘Because she’s committed a double homicide. Say she didn’t want to be found by her kid real bad. We’ve acted like Chyme was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it could have been he was the target and Doyle got in the way.’
‘Harry was looking for Eve Michaels,’ Claudia said. ‘We don’t know that she is Whit’s mother.’
‘Sure, I can bring in Buckman. Or Eve Michaels. They’re in with the Bellinis, they promptly shut up, get a lawyer who starts prepping for another harassment lawsuit against HPD, and we get nowhere.’
‘So you do nothing? Surely not.’
‘That’s not what Art is saying,’ Vernetta said, diplomacy warming her words. ‘Art, checking into any connection between Greg Buckman and the Alvarez family, or with Buckman or Doyle and Chyme, might bear fruit.’
‘Or the Bellini family,’ Claudia said. ‘Or Ms Michaels. I think it’s time to start looking hard for her, since Whit isn’t having luck.’
‘Fine. We’ll start making inquiries,’ Gomez said. ‘Get your friend in here. Or I’m going to tell the TV stations that I’m looking for a judge who may be withholding information on this case. What do you think that will do to his career?’
‘You’d ruin him but tiptoe around the Bellinis. Are you so afraid of another lawsuit?’ Claudia asked.
Gomez shrugged. ‘Afraid? No. Aware? Yes. If Buckman killed Doyle and Chyme, or if he knows who did, we will absolutely bring him to justice. But I’m a realist, Ms Salazar. I have to be. That means anything connected to the Bellinis is handled carefully and with thought, so our asses are armored.’ He glanced at Vernetta. ‘We have found it very difficult to break into any information about the Bellinis. Tommy Bellini learned from his past. We don’t catch them committing crimes. We don’t find people willing to roll over on them. If they’re still breaking the law, they have been extremely careful. It’s frustrating when we can’t find a crack in the door to get a search warrant.’
‘I don’t envy you your job under these circumstances,’ Claudia said. ‘Thank you.’
‘If Judge Mosley doesn’t feel safe,’ Gomez said, ‘we could provide him with protection if he’ll come in.’
‘I don’t know that he’s in any danger, but this behavior isn’t like him.’
‘Is there another aspect to this case you’re not telling me?’ Gomez said.
He found, his mother and is protecting her. It would be easy to admit what she believed to be true. But she forced herself to be silent. Gomez and Vernetta might believe a man would do anything to protect his mother. Lie. Kill. They didn’t know Whit. She did.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Detective Salazar, don’t get a cute idea or two. You have no jurisdiction here.’
‘I’m absolutely aware of that,’ she said.
‘Absolutely is good,’ Gomez said. ‘Remember it and live it.’
They left, and she drove Vernetta home.
‘Claudia,’ Vernetta said, ‘go home. And I don’t mean back to the luxury of the Hampton Inn.’
‘Whit’s in trouble. I’m not leaving.’
‘Your friend’s not worth you getting involved in his extreme mess. You could be a police chief one day. Not a
