Jeff Abbott: Cut and Run

He kissed the top of her head. ‘I didn’t want to scare you off.’

She managed a smile. ‘I’m proud of you. Really proud of you, honey.’

He felt a little kindle of pride that died instantly. ‘Sure. You should be. I killed a man. Let a criminal walk free. Lied to one of my best friends, lied to the police. I’m a real pride and joy, Mom.’

‘But you saved your mother,’ she said. ‘You saved me.’

‘We’re going back to Houston tomorrow.’

‘Okay,’ she said, suddenly surrendering. ‘I’m ready.’ She closed her eyes, sleepy again. ‘I’m actually very clean, you know.’

‘Charlie’s going to represent us. If needed.’

‘That should be good for laughs,’ she said and she went back to sleep.

The manifesto from Public Service appeared in six newspapers nationwide Thursday morning, including the Houston Chronicle. They claimed responsibility for the deaths of five drug lords, including Paul Bellini and Kiko Grace, and three others in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York in the past month. Two of the dead had been found with rolled-up money in their mouths, a signature of the group. The manifesto was both a scathing indictment of the government’s war on drugs, for not being tough enough, and against the drug trade, for its relentless waste of human lives, police efforts, and money.

The statement held a chilling promise: ‘We target the casual buyer, for you are the cash cow of the drug trade. If we see you buying drugs, even simply a joint to share with a friend, we will shoot you.’ And ending it with ‘ “God defend the right!” – William Shakespeare.’

Whit wondered where Tasha was, if she had written the letter. Or if Jose had before he died. The TV pundits had a field day on this twisting new front on the drug war.

When Whit met Charlie at his house, Charlie hugged Eve, shook Whit’s hand, and pointed to the letter in the paper. This, sweeties,’ Charlie said, ‘is called manna from heaven.’

Two hours later they sat in Gooch’s private hospital room, an artful arrangement by Charlie. Whit and Eve sat next to Gooch’s bed; Arturo Gomez, two of his detectives, and Vernetta Westbrook on the other side of the bed.

‘My clients will cooperate fully,’ Charlie Fulgham said. The party-loud shirt from his stand-up routine was gone, replaced by a gray Armani suit, fitted to the millimeter.

The police officers all looked at Charlie like they knew him. And didn’t like what they saw.

Gomez started. ‘All right, Mr Mosley-’

‘Actually, you should refer to him as Your Honor,’ Charlie said. ‘Judge Mosley is a highly respected magistrate.’

Gomez surrendered on the point. ‘Can you fill in the gaps for us, Judge Mosley?’

‘It’s really simple,’ Whit said. And he told them: he had hired Harry Chyme to find his mother. Harry told them that she was in Houston, he believed, living under the name Eve Michaels, and he and Gooch came to Houston to find her. They never heard again from Harry, but after making inquiries at a club Harry said her boyfriend managed, found Eve.

‘She agreed to meet us at Pie Shack,’ Whit said, and this was the risky part. Gooch could go to jail for this when he had saved their lives, saved the life of the young hostage the gunman had taken.

‘But Ms Michaels was followed there,’ Charlie said, stepping smoothly in. ‘By gunmen possibly related to this Public Service group. Vigilantes mistakenly seeking to harm Ms Michaels due to her connection – via Frank Polo – to Tommy Bellini’s businesses. We certainly know that Public Service had declared war on the Bellini family, right or wrong.’

Gomez grilled all three of them, but they stuck to their story with relentless precision: they ran, like everyone else, and in fact went into hiding because Eve was afraid the Bellinis or these gunmen were after her.

‘If the Bellinis did illegal activities,’ Eve said, ‘I didn’t know about it. I was the accountant for five of Tommy Bellini’s companies, and they are all perfectly legit. If his son started dabbling in the drug trade or screwing around with his father’s companies, it has nothing to do with me.’

‘What’s the relationship of the Alvarez insurance firm to the Bellinis?’

Here Eve threw them a bone to chew. ‘I know Tommy loaned money to the Alvarez family when their company was in bad shape, about to close. He was a silent partner. They sold a lot of life insurance. But they did their own accounting; I had nothing to do with them as a business.’ She paused. They always seemed like a nice family.’

‘But you lived in a house owned by the Bellini family.’ This from Vernetta.

‘That was provided to Frank Polo. He was an old family friend. So was I. That’s not illegal.’

Whit’s throat thickened as Vernetta said, ‘Mr Guchinski’s van was found at the Paul Bellini murder site.’

‘The Bellinis grabbed me when I stopped by Eve’s house to pick up her things,’ Gooch said. ‘She didn’t want to go back there, she thought Frank Polo would force her to stay. Paul and his guys beat me up, detained me.’

‘Paul Bellini wanted Mom to trade for Gooch. They knew about the shooting, they were afraid Gooch and I were involved with Public Service,’ Whit said.

‘They tried to get me to give them details on Public Service, but I didn’t know jack. They pumped me full of drugs, thinking if I were looped I’d talk,’ Gooch said.

Whit said: ‘Paul told me we could meet. We did. He had Gooch in the trunk of his car. He thought I was bringing my mother to him, but of course, I wasn’t. I drove Gooch’s van. Paul and I were talking and he was shot. He was clearly dead. I ran and took his car, because the shooter fired at me, twice, and I couldn’t abandon Gooch. We took off.’

‘And didn’t call the police,’ Vernetta said.

‘I asked Whit not to,’ Eve said, ‘because I was afraid, and because he’s a judge and I didn’t want him to lose his job.’

‘I take full responsibility for that decision,’ Whit said. They asked more detailed questions about Paul’s shooting, and Whit answered truthfully.

‘Of course, you could charge Judge Mosley with fleeing a scene of a crime,’ Charlie said. ‘Of course, in doing so, he saved his own life and that of Mr Guchinski.’

‘He didn’t report the crime,’ Gomez said.

‘At his mother’s request. They’d already been traumatized by one shooting, Detective. And Paul Bellini and his thugs were already beyond help. Charge them if you like, but then my clients will stop talking.’

Gomez made a noise in his throat.

‘The death at the Greystoke,’ Vernetta said. ‘Detective Tarrant here is in charge of that investigation.’

Tarrant was a thin woman, hair pulled back in a modest ponytail. ‘A man matching Judge Mosley’s description retrieved a van from the parking valets. Two rooms were abandoned there, belonging to an Emily Smith.’

‘We were at the Greystoke,’ Eve said. ‘But I don’t know any Emily Smith. I was going to meet Frank there; I wanted a public place because I was afraid of him. But we didn’t stay. Whit left because he wanted to see a friend of his, a police officer from his hometown. To explain to her what we’d been through. After Whit left, I thought I saw one of the gunmen from the diner, a man in dreadlocks. I left the hotel and called Whit on his cell phone. Whit rushed back and picked me up. I decided then to leave town. He took me home. Frank was there. I thought it best that Whit leave us to talk, and at my request, he did. Frank was calm as we talked, but he drank a bunch of wine and became violent. He beat me, knocked my teeth out. He drank more, passed out, and I went to San Antonio.’

‘Where’d you stay?’ Gomez asked.