Jeff Abbott - Cut and Run

‘Why don’t you drag in Greg Buckman again? He was friends with Bellini, and Peron and Grace must’ve wanted Buckman dead if Peron came after him with guns blazing. Leave Whit alone. Buckman’s clearly in the middle of this.’

‘We’ve got tit for tat. Kiko Grace comes here, wants to move into Houston drug territory. He whacks Bellini. Bellini’s group whacks Grace. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter who died first. They have a short little war and then it’s done. Peron shooting for Bucks is the next stage of the war. Let them kill each other. They’re a cancer.’

‘You have no problem with murder, Vernetta. Assuming innocent people don’t get hurt.’

‘That’s not so. And your pet judge isn’t innocent, Claudia. He knows more than he’s saying.’

‘If Grace is Miami-based, Jose Peron might head back to Florida and pull forces in here.’

‘I hope he goes home. Stays there and runs Grace’s ring. You wonder why a guy would get involved in the trade that killed his mother. Shortest line to revenge, I guess.’

‘Yes,’ Claudia said. But Vernetta had a point. It made her wonder. ‘None of your informants have skinny on Peron?’

‘He’s too new in town. Nothing yet.’

‘When Leonard Guchinski’s well enough to travel, and assuming he’s not charged with anything, I’m taking him back to Port Leo. It’s a long drive. He’s a friend, of sorts. I can hope he’ll talk.’ She stood.

‘Talk more than your precious judge, at least,’ Vernetta said. ‘But let me ask you a hard question. Guchinski talks, or Mosley talks to you, in confidence, tells you the truth of what’s happened between all these people, what do you do, Claudia? Rat on your friends if they’ve broken the law?’

‘I’ll worry about that when I cross that bridge.’

‘Girlfriend,’ Vernetta said, ‘you’re running out of road.’

Eve no longer knew if it was day or night. After killing Kiko, Jose had given her another painkiller, bound her, dumped her in the back of a black Suburban, tossed a cover over her, driven into the dark of Houston. She slipped into the emptiness, dreamed of gunfire, heard Jose jumping back in the car. Then driving, fast, short, lots of sharp turns that made her nauseated, then a long haul on the highway. She fell asleep.

She woke to a radio, tuned to jazz, played soft as a gentle whisper in the dark. Jose bound her to a narrow cot, then sat by her with a syringe in his hand, sliding the needle under her skin while she protested, pumped her full of chemical bliss that made her head hazy and cloudy and sweet. She was conscious of Jose coming in once, feeding her a chocolate shake and a package of lukewarm French fries. Then another shot. In the darkness once, cool water sponged on her face, her hands, a kindness, then medicine daubed the back of her mouth, where her teeth had been, across her busted lips. The taste of the medicine lingered a long while. When her thoughts became clearer she remembered Kiko, his face blown away. But mostly she thought of Whit.

Whit. Here and gone. Like the life she should have had. She wanted to cry but her face felt too numb to know whether or not she was weeping. An ache that defied the drugs settled in along her arms, her chest, her jaw, like years of unshed tears letting her know they waited for release. She slept. Awoke in the dark. Listened. Heard voices, a man and a woman.

Her purse lay on the floor, all its contents spilled across the carpet. Makeup, brush, a package of mints. Her gun was gone. And something else. She tried to remember what was in her purse that would matter so much. The room was small, carpet the color of clay, the ceiling old and worn. It had the impersonal dimensions of an office. Boards covered the one window.

She tried to reason it out. They knew she didn’t have the money. They found the money? Or had they had it all along? They didn’t need her. But they did. They’d kept her alive. Through the fog she remembered he had called her the key. Key to what?

She made a noise in her throat, tongued her numb, parched lips.

They were keeping her for bait.

The idea rose up, tumbled back into the mess of her drugged brain. If they wanted her alive, it was because they wanted Whit.

The door opened. Jose stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. He shut the door behind him, crossed to the bureau, extinguished the cigarette in a small plastic ashtray.

‘Secondhand smoke’s bad for you,’ he said. His voice was quiet but not warm.

She said, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own anymore.

Feed you. Eggs. Toast. Sound okay? Mouth up to eating, or you want another shake?’

‘Depends. Is it my last meal?’

‘I told you that you were valuable to me.’ Now he smiled, a bully’s knowing, taunting grin.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’re Open Sesame,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna tell us how they do it. How they hide and move the money.’

‘They.’

He smiled. ‘We’ll start with Kiko Grace’s organization and his rivals back in south Florida.’

A cold nausea prickled her guts.

‘Then the Dominicans in Dallas and New Orleans. The cartels in New York and Los Angeles. You’re gonna help us break their backs.’ Jose’s voice went low. ‘We call ourselves Public Service. We do what the cops can’t. Take the war on drugs to the streets. We get in with the dealers. Learn their setup. Then we kill the leaders, gut the organization, take their money and go after the next group.’ He leveled a hard look at her. ‘Dealers killed my mom.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No you’re not. You’re not one bit sorry, bitch. What was my mother to you or your kind?’

The door opened. Tasha Strong stepped inside. Beautiful face stern. A gun in her hand, barrel lowered.

‘Tasha?’ Eve blinked. ‘Tasha?’

‘ “O tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide!” ’ Jose quoted, making guns with his fingers, grinning at Tasha.

‘Don’t give her more of a headache with that crap,’ Tasha said. ‘Mouth better, Eve?’

Eve managed to nod.

‘She’s been tending to you. She worked Paul’s side, I worked Kiko’s.’ Jose smiled. ‘Tasha lost her brother to a drug gang. It tends to gnaw at you, knowing that the police alone can never beat these people. So we work together. Dozens of us.’

Eve glanced over at the spill of her purse. The CD Whit took from Tasha. It was gone. ‘The cooked books…’ she said.

‘Those files that listed other revenue sources for Paul on the CD? Faked. By Tasha and me. Paul gave her access to your house so she could check your finances, see if Frank had been doing any more stealing. But that was a chance to copy those fake files to your hard drive after she copied your real financial files without anyone knowing. False trail for the authorities to follow if you got caught or killed right away. She already planted those files on the computers at the Topaz after you vanished. We didn’t want the Feds grabbing the Bellini money before we could. But that’s not a worry. Now that we have you. See? We plan as thoroughly as you do.’

She closed her eyes. ‘You want me to help you, but I can’t. I don’t know how other rings clean their money.’

‘You know the tricks. The processes. Like, I’m intrigued, the exchange place for Kiko’s money being done at what appears to be a simple insurance company. You cleaning money through insurance policies?’

‘Yeah.’ Suddenly there was no point in not telling him. ‘You buy a life insurance policy, overseas, then cash it out a few months later and transfer the money back into the country. You don’t get watched as closely. It’s a loophole I found. You can move millions in short order and there’s no question of legitimacy.’