Jeff Abbott - Cut and Run

A car pulled out after her onto the road, from across the street, a silver Jag she recognized as Bucks’.

He revved up close behind her. In the rearview he gestured to her to stop. She slammed her foot down on the gas, accelerating toward a red light that would put her back on Clinton.

Her cell phone beeped. Bucks’ name was on the readout. She scooped the phone up.

‘What’s the hell’s going on?’ Bucks said.

‘What?’ she screamed.

‘Why are you hauling ass out?… Why are there cops…?’

‘They’re dead!’ she screamed.

‘They?’

‘Doyle and some guy. And the money’s gone.’

‘What? What guy? Pull over and let’s talk. Right now.’

Her heart felt like it suddenly exploded. Who knew about the meeting? She knew, Paul knew, Bucks knew, Doyle knew. ‘You killed them,’ she said. ‘You shit, you took the money.’

‘No. Pull over, Eve,’ he said. The Jag drew closer; she floored her car, zoomed through another light shifting from yellow to red, went left onto Clinton, headed for the highway. Bucks stayed with her, leaving a chorus of honking cars in his path. ‘Where’s the goddamn money?’

‘I don’t have it,’ she said. ‘You killed them, you took the money.’

His voice was quiet as death. ‘Pull over right now, Eve,’ he said. She sped on and he rammed the Jag’s bumper into her rear. She tore the Mercedes around a pickup truck and a semi heavy with goods from the Port. The Jag wheeled around the trucks, started to pull even with her. A sharp ping sounded, of metal hitting metal. He was shooting at her.

She veered across the lines, into oncoming traffic, accelerating toward a truck that laid heavy on its horn. The truck roared off the road, plowing into a lumberyard’s wire fencing and a parked pickup. She glanced over, saw Bucks closing on her, rounding a station wagon, edging past a braking semi.

Eve tore back into the northbound lane as another truck thundered past, missing her by inches, and cut off Bucks. She aimed left, onto the entrance ramp for 610. A scream of metal sounded behind her. In the rearview she saw the Jag swerve around the back end of another service truck, piping and a ladder flying free from the truck, Bucks peeling away, the left side of his Jag damaged. But still coming.

Now on the ramp, she jammed the accelerator to the floor, hurtling into midafternoon Houston traffic, pounding on the wheel, going up the immediate rise of the bridge.

He came up fast after her, nearly clipping another semi carrying Hondas in a zigzag stack, ripping across lanes, leaving a wake of slamming brakes and screeching horns. Firing at her. Two bullets hit the edge of her rear windshield, ricocheting off. She swerved to the left, nearly colliding with a frightened woman in a pickup truck, a child in the passenger seat, screaming at Eve in terror, and Eve tore back to the right, away from them, thinking, that’s it, he’ll hit me.

But as they rushed down the incline of the bridge, Bucks went left, getting the pickup between him and her, and as he sheered back to follow her she darted into the speed lane, flooring the pedal, moving in and out of the array of trucks, cars now trying to get out of their way. A cloverleaf exchange came up; Eve went toward the exit that would put her on 610 E and watched him try to follow, and then she wrenched the wheel, bolted across every lane and hit the ramp for 1-45 to Galveston. He couldn’t get over, nearly spun out trying, and two cars behind him rammed into each other. Brakes squealed. She couldn’t see him then, merging into traffic now. But he didn’t come up in her rearview. She drove toward the coast, finally taking an exit after ten minutes. She’d lost him. She waited for another fifteen minutes, then ventured back onto 1-45. When she reached the 610 interchange traffic was backed up, two wrecked cars being cleared. No one looked hurt but there was no sign of the Jag in the few seconds she had to scan the stalled cars. She took 610 to Kirby, a major thoroughfare that threaded back into the heart of Houston.

The coldness in his voice played over again in her head, ordering her to stop. Shooting at her, determined to kill her. Sure. She was the last witness.

Bucks had killed Doyle and the other guy, taken the five million. And now he was going to accuse her of taking it. He said, she said, and who would Paul believe?

She knew the answer.

She pulled into a bagel shop parking lot. She fumbled for the phone, called Paul. Tell him. No answer except for Paul’s voice mail. She said, ‘I don’t have the money, I didn’t take it, and if Bucks says different he’s a goddamned liar. He took it, he’s trying to kill me. Don’t believe him. Call me, please, Paul. Please.’

Paul had to believe her. He had to know she was telling the truth. But, oh God, Frank had helped himself to money, Paul had threatened them both, he would believe she was ripe to run, the five million fueling her engines.

She steadied her hands on the wheel. She needed a place to go, a way to talk to Paul that didn’t put her at risk. Not face-to-face right now, that would be suicide if she’d been set up. And Frank. If they thought she’d taken the money they’d go after dumb sweet Frank. I’ll have his tongue cut out, he had said.

She dialed Frank’s phone. No answer.

Run, she thought. Run like hell. She tore out of the parking lot.

‘What is the difference between a tick and a lawyer?’ Charlie Fulgham asked.

Whit and his friend Gooch waited.

The tick falls off you when you die. What do you call a lawyer who doesn’t chase ambulances?’ Charlie shifted his balance, brightened his smile.

‘Retired,’ Whit said, praying this ended the routine.

‘Man, but you’re a judge,’ Charlie said. ‘You’ve heard them all.’ He shook his head, leaned against the doorway, stuck his hands in his pockets.

‘Look,’ Whit said, ‘a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.’

‘That’s even older,’ Charlie said.

‘And lamer,’ Gooch said in his throaty, low rumble.

‘My problem is, I don’t got a good comedy routine if I tell jokes. I have to tell stories, but if I tell stories on my former clients, I get sued. Vicious circle.’

‘Aren’t most of them in jail?’ Gooch asked.

‘Only the guilty ones,’ Charlie said.

‘Thanks again, Charlie, for putting us up on such short notice,’ Whit said. ‘This sure beats Holiday Inn.’ Whit walked to the guest bedroom’s window. Charlie’s house was in the tony West University Place section of Houston, near the Texas Medical Center and Rice University, old homes full of old money and new money and well-scrubbed families.

Charlie Fulgham didn’t look like a sharkish lawyer. He was boyishly heavy and apple-cheeked, with thick blond hair, wearing a summer Lilly Pulitzer shirt in the winter and rumpled khakis.

‘You’re welcome,’ Charlie said. ‘Yours to use. I’m heading out of town tomorrow. Got a gig in San Antonio. At an actual comedy club.’

‘Is it amateur night?’ Gooch stretched his massive arms above his head, gave a jaw-cracking yawn.

‘So I’m not very good yet,’ Charlie said, ‘but I’m totally fearless. A club’s just a courtroom with drinks.’

‘Except everyone is sitting in judgment of you,’ Whit said.

‘Go back to practicing law, Charlie,’ Gooch said. ‘I’m horrified that wealthy scum of Houston may be lacking representation.’

‘I need a good society murder,’ Charlie said. ‘People have way too much self-control these days.’

Gooch said, ‘Talk about being engaged three times but never married That’s a hell of a lot funnier.’

‘Yes, but that rips my heart open,’ Charlie said.