Simple.’
‘You’ll do that even if he kills her.’ Frank shrugged. ‘His way, he gets rid of a witness. He’s probably gonna get rid of you, too.’
‘If he lets her go, I stay silent about him killing Paul. Forever.’
Frank shook his head. ‘I don’t see this conversation going smoothly.’
‘I killed a man once, Frank,’ Whit said. ‘He tried to kill me. He had already killed a woman I loved. I killed him, and I thought guilt would gnaw at me forever, but you know, it didn’t. He was a murdering bastard, not too different from Kiko. I was sorry I had to do it, but I did it.’
Frank opened his mouth, then shut it.
‘I’m not going to let him kill my mother,’ Whit said. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
‘Usually I admire optimism,’ Frank said. ‘Right now this seems stupidity.’
‘But you’re going, too,’ Whit said.
‘Well, I’m stupid,’ Frank said.
They left in Frank’s BMW. Fifteen minutes later, a battered Jaguar pulled to a stop next to River Oaks Park, then circled around the neighborhood three times, and parked two streets over.
*
‘He doesn’t have Eve,’ Frank Polo said. ‘He doesn’t even have a face.’
They stood over the body of Kiko Grace, still sprawled on the floor of the condo’s breakfast nook. The whole drive over to the condo, Whit had felt like his skin was on fire, rushing to save his mother, rushing, possibly, to die. Let her see he hadn’t given up on her, hadn’t abandoned her. He was afraid she thought he had left her to be caught.
But the condo had been empty, the door unlocked, as if the killer didn’t mind if Kiko was found.
Gooch moved from room to room, making sure no one else was in the condo.
‘Kiko dead. Paul dead,’ Gooch said. ‘Guessing not a coincidence.’ His face was blanched. He leaned against a wall.
‘No,’ Whit said. ‘Dangerous world.’
‘You think?’ Frank asked. He prodded at Kiko’s shoulder with his foot. ‘You bastard, where is Eve?’
‘Your bravery’s a little late, Frank,’ Gooch said. But his voice was weak.
Whit said, ‘You okay?’
‘Fine.’ Gooch turned away.
‘We need to see if there’s anything here that could tell us where Eve is,’ Whit said. He pulled on gloves he’d gotten after last night’s shooting to finish cleaning Paul’s Porsche of his and Gooch’s prints when they dumped the car on a residential street. He handed a set to Frank and another to Gooch. ‘Don’t leave a trace you were here.’
‘Maybe she killed him,’ Gooch said, ‘and she’s waiting for us back at Charlie’s house.’
Whit handed him his cell phone. ‘Call. Or Bucks took her. Getting rid of the leadership on both sides. I don’t think Kiko shot Paul.’ He moved Kiko’s body to one side, peered down the back of the pants for lividity marks. ‘He’s been dead for hours, probably about the same time that Paul died.’
‘You can tell by looking at a dead man’s ass?’ Frank asked.
‘Um, yeah,’ Whit said. It wasn’t a good time to announce he was a judge and coroner, that he’d seen several gunshot bodies and recognized the timing of postmortem conditions.
‘I knew we shouldn’t have recruited from the corporate world,’ said Frank. ‘Those people give me the creeps.’
‘Whit, if Bucks killed Kiko, he would have killed Eve, too,’ Gooch said. His voice wasn’t so slurred now, but Whit didn’t like the pallor of his skin or the shakiness in his hands. He watched Gooch dial, but he felt by a sinking in his gut that Eve wasn’t curled up in front of the TV at Charlie’s.
‘What the hell?’ Frank pointed at Kiko’s mouth. A bit of green protruded from between the lips. Even though most of Kiko’s face was raw meat, his mouth was relatively untouched and Whit knelt
down, conscious he was disturbing a crime scene but not caring. He peeled back the little tube of paper. It was a twenty-dollar bill. He unrolled it and written in heavy black ink across the money was A PUBLIC SERVICE.
Frank peered over his shoulder. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Whit said. He carefully rerolled the bill, stuck it back between the dead man’s teeth. ‘But I don’t see Bucks leaving little notes on the body.’
There was no sign of a fight other than half of Kiko’s face being splattered on the breakfast nook wall. An answering machine held two messages from a young-sounding woman, in Spanish, asking Kiko to call her, she was better this morning.
The condo itself was sparse; a few pieces of leather furniture, TV with DVD player, a breakfast table, a toaster, and a coffee maker. More like a temporary camp than a home. Whit found a small amount of cocaine in the pantry, double-bagged, tucked behind the cornstarch box. Not a good hiding place. He expected better from Kiko. The outer bag had loosened masking tape on it, as though it had been stuck to the wall and hidden elsewhere. And moved.
Why move it out of the hiding place? To snort. To sell. But then you would hide it again, being careful was part of the job. It bothered him.
Whit tried the redial on the condo’s phone, got a Chinese delivery restaurant down the street. Hung up.
‘Jose’s not here,’ Frank said. ‘Kiko’s right-hand guy.’
‘Probably out mailing resumes,’ Gooch said.
‘So what do we do?’ Frank said. ‘Leave and call the cops?’
‘Are there more drugs here?’ Whit asked.
‘Thanks, I’m cutting back,’ Gooch said.
‘Or cash or records? Anything relating back to them being dealers.’
‘No cash that I found, but I haven’t looked hard,’ Gooch said. ‘Ain’t thinking they got receipts.’
‘Let’s look. Quickly.’
‘What, you’re gonna take the dead guy’s money?’ Frank said.
‘Yes, Frank. Go through his pockets for me,’ Whit said. Frank stood uncertainly over the body, as if deciding whether or not Whit was serious.
Whit searched, carefully, through the closet in the first bedroom. Silk shirts, polos, pressed linen slacks, stylish jackets. Of course, the better to hide a holster under. And expensive shoes, all perfectly polished. Kiko probably threw out a pair at the first scuff. He either packed heavy or planned a long stay in Houston.
He checked the rest of the bedroom. The bed was unmade and rumpled. Underneath the bed was nothing but a dust bunny or two. Whit expected firepower to be hidden under there, but nothing. No notes, no papers of any sort. No PDA, no cell phone.
The other bedroom’s empty,’ Gooch said. ‘All the clothes are gone.’
‘Then Jose took off,’ Frank said.
‘Then odds are Jose killed him,’ Gooch said.
‘Why turn on his boss?’ Whit asked.
‘Why not?’ Gooch said. ‘Jose thinks Eve has the money, decides to take it himself. Kiko’s in the way.’
Whit hated the clarity and simplicity of it, because it put them back at zero. ‘But she doesn’t have it.’
‘Are you absolutely sure, Whit?’ Gooch said quietly.
‘She doesn’t.’
‘Let’s say Bucks delivered the money to Kiko,’ Frank said. ‘Eve got the upper hand, killed him, took off with the money.’
‘No,’ Whit said. ‘She’d call me. She wouldn’t run away from me again.’
Frank said nothing, turned, went back into the den.
Whit went into the bathroom. He glanced through the materials in the cabinet. Nothing unusual. Mouthwash, allergy medicine to deal with the inescapable Houston pollen, shaving kit. He opened the toilet, thinking more coke could be hidden there, that it was the common place in movies but Kiko wouldn’t be that dumb.
Or yes he was. A package lay taped inside, heavily wrapped in plastic.
Carefully, Whit pulled it free, laid the package on the floor. Too thin for a cocaine brick. A DVD in a case,
