Jeff Abbott - Cut and Run

‘Except have it on my conscience if the Bellinis decide to use force to keep you from her. She might want nothing to do with you. She might not want to explain to her children where she’s been, what she’s been doing with her life.’

‘I’m coming up there. Tell me where she’s at.’

‘No.’

‘Harry, I’m your client. I pay you for information. You give it to me.’

‘I officially waive my fee. You’d be in way over your head, Judge.’

‘I’ve been in tough situations before.’

‘But this is your mother. You’re not thinking clearly.’ Harry paused. ‘She could run from you, Whit. She’s done nothing to have contact with you all these years. She hasn’t wanted to be found. I don’t mean to be brutal.’

‘I don’t care. I can come to Houston immediately, I’ll cancel court…’

Harry sighed. ‘No. I know how much this matters to you. Let me make the initial contact with her, okay?’ He paused. ‘My dad died ten years ago. What I wouldn’t give to see him again. I can’t deny you that, if it’s her.’

‘Tell me where to meet you in Houston.’

‘I’ll call you back, Judge. When I know. Speak with you soon.’ Harry clicked off.

‘Harry, please-’ Whit was talking to air. Fine. Finish court business, then head to Houston. Take his friend Gooch if he could go, Claudia if she was available and interested.

He picked up the phone, was three punches into her number when he slowly put the receiver down. Not Claudia. A police investigator might not be the first friend to introduce to dear old mom. And Claudia was opposed to this whole enterprise. But Gooch, he was fearless and nuts and inventive in tight situations. Harry might call Claudia, to check up on him, ensure he hadn’t come to Houston. So leave sooner rather than later, if Gooch didn’t have fishing clients today and could go. Do it before Claudia could stick her well-intentioned nose in and talk him out of going.

Houston. So close. He felt sick and dizzy and happy and afraid, all at once.

‘Edith?’ He called to his clerk. ‘Cancel my appointments for today and tomorrow. I’ve got a family emergency up in Houston.’

‘Military operation,’ Gooch said as he finished hosing down his boat. ‘That’s the way to look at your trip.’

‘I was thinking of taking flowers and seeing if she’d talk to me,’ Whit said.

‘Forget that, Whitman,’ Gooch said. He put up the hose, went belowdecks, pulled a duffel bag from a drawer and tossed clothes inside. Then three guns. Gooch was tall and massively muscled, ugly to the bone, the best fishing guide on the coast and the most intensely private man Whit had ever known.

‘Slow down, Dirty Harry,’ Whit said.

‘Families like the Bellinis, they understand a gun. Nothing else. The heartfelt emotion of a family reunion will be wasted on them. Especially if she wants nothing to do with you.’

‘She’ll want to see me,’ Whit said.

‘We’ll need a base of operations,’ Gooch said. ‘I got a client up in Houston. Charlie Fulgham. Rich defense lawyer. I’ll call and see if he’ll put us up.’

‘We can stay at a hotel.’

‘Naw, Charlie’s cool. He’s actually given up his law practice. He defended major scuzzballs. Wants to go into entertainment. Bet he knows about the Bellinis.’

‘Gooch, I want you to come with me because you’re my friend, not because I want to beat them senseless.’

‘Be honest with yourself,’ Gooch said. ‘You’re asking me because you know I can handle badasses like these. That’s the reason. Quit pretending this is gonna be a cakewalk.’

‘If they’re mob, yes, I’m scared.’

‘You should be,’ Gooch said.

‘But I think I’m more scared of her. Of what she might say to me. I shouldn’t care if she spits in my face and walks away. I shouldn’t care.’

‘But you do,’ Gooch said.

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Whit said.

Thursday morning Eve woke with a start, gasping at the hard dig of Bucks’ fingers in her throat. A memory turned to dream. She got up from the bed early, around six. Frank Polo snored next to her. She examined her throat in the mirror. Bruised, but with sickening precision. Bucks had half strangled her, had been going for his gun when Frank and the Miami dealers walked in, and an unforgivable line had been crossed. She could not be treated this way. There was a hierarchy, an order of respect in the organization, and Bucks had ignored it. In Tommy’s day, it would not have been tolerated.

But Tommy’s day wasn’t ever going to dawn again.

One of the monolith-sized bouncers had told her that Paul Bellini had left the club with Tasha Strong. Walking funny and in a big hurry, the bouncer said with a knowing laugh. While she was nearly getting killed by his pet loon, Paul was screwing a stripper. She had half a mind to call Paul’s mother, tell her. Save for the last moment that Tasha was black, which would kill Mary Pat Bellini on the spot.

But she didn’t; tattling would piss off Paul worse. She washed her face, and when she looked up from the sink Frank was standing behind her. He kissed the top of her head.

‘What if Paul sides with Bucks? Did you sleep on that last night?’ he asked.

‘He’s not gonna side with Bucks after I talk to him. Anyway, he needs us now, he needs mentors.’

‘Mentors,’ he said in disbelief. ‘Paul’s not a summer intern. He’s killed people.’

‘Frank, hush, that is not so.’

Frank rolled his eyes.

‘Anyway, killing a guy is a lot easier than running a business,’ she said. ‘Paul’ll listen to us when he’s not drunk and horny. I’ve got to talk to him before Bucks does. I’m heading down to the club.’

‘Leave it alone.’

‘What a classy boyfriend you are, really coming to my rescue here, Frank.’

‘Because I love you, that’s why you need to forget it happened. You’re not going to drive a wedge between Paul and Bucks.’

‘Hide and watch,’ she said. ‘Hide and watch.’

‘This ain’t never been a bad gig, sweetheart. Follow orders and keep your mouth shut.’ Frank staggered off to drink coffee.

She showered fast, grabbed toast, and eased her Mercedes down the driveway onto Timber. The house wasn’t technically theirs; rather, it belonged in name to Tommy’s sister. Eve liked living in River Oaks, perhaps the most exclusive neighborhood in Houston, even though they lived right along its edge. She took an immediate left onto Locke; stately homes lay on her left and the thin ribbon of River Oaks Park on her right. She turned onto Claremont, then onto the major thoroughfare of Westheimer. It was always busy but it was her favorite street in the city, snaking from near downtown out to western Houston. She drove past palm-lined Highland Village with its high-end shops and restaurants, catering to the old oil money and the new tech money, past the sprawling shopping utopia of the Galleria, then onto a longer, slightly less tidy stretch of road that included nightclubs, strip shopping centers, and Club Topaz.

Leave it alone, Frank had said. In other words, go ahead and paint a bull’s-eye on her back and hand Bucks the gun. Frank grabbed too hard onto the present rather than the long term. Save Paul from a mistake now, earn his undying gratitude. That was the way to solve this problem. Frank couldn’t see that. That same stifled vision was why Frank’s music career died when disco did. He had a voice suitable for the classiest pop ballads, for music with muscle. Instead, he jumped on a ship doomed to sink and complained no boat ever came to save his ass from the ocean of obscurity.

But Frank had a point. She took a deep breath.

Today, if Paul didn’t take her side, she’d act like she’d let it go. Pretend the encounter with Bucks didn’t happen. Get the cash for the deal with Kiko, show she could follow orders, show her unquestioned loyalty. And then quietly get ready to disappear again.