Cut and Run (20 page)

‘You don’t know me,’ the young man said, ‘but I have an important business proposition for you.’ He sat down next to Kiko
on the cool granite of the bench, not looking at him, watching the college students amble by, drinking their Saturday-morning
coffee.

‘Propose away,’ Kiko Grace said. He had been lying on the bed in his rented condo, watching a rerun of a boxing match on ESPN
with the TV set to mute, listening to his pregnant wife gripe on the phone about her morning sickness. He was about to switch
over to A&E and see who was on
Biography
when call waiting clicked. He thumbed the button and a voice said, ‘If you want the five million in cash that’s due to you
and you want to know why Paul Bellini’s screwing you over, be at Rice University in thirty minutes. Near the statue of the
man sitting in a chair in the main academic quad. Come alone. I see anyone with you, I call the police and your ass is in
jail in five seconds.’

‘How did you get this number?’ Kiko had asked.

‘I’ll see you in thirty minutes,’ the voice said. ‘Dress like a student. But no backpack. No weapons. We’re giving you critical
information. Do what we ask or you won’t be seeing your five million any time soon.’ The caller hung up.

Kiko clicked over to his wife and said in Spanish, ‘Baby, I’ll call you back. Go shopping, it’ll pick you up.’ Spending money
seemed to cure every other ailment she had, but he couldn’t deny her a thing.

Kiko, walking toward the rendezvous point, decided whoever called him had made a brilliant move. The quad
at Rice University was beautiful, a manicured expanse of lawn and walkways, the statue at the middle of the grounds, a few
students milling around the front of the library. It was Saturday, so there wasn’t a heavy traffic of people going to and
from classes. Not an easy place for him to bring José and tuck him away. He felt himself not fitting in, even though he wasn’t
much older than these kids. He wore jeans and a Miami Hurricanes sweatshirt, looking too old to be in college and knowing
it. He sat at the granite block under the sculpture of William Rice sitting, open book in hand.

José lingered in the archways near the art gallery at the quad’s corner, wearing a T-shirt and baggy khaki work pants, pretending
to be maintenance even without a uniform, poking at a shrub as though it were diseased, his pistol on a calf holster under
his trousers.

But Kiko couldn’t see him now. He risked a glance at the guy who had sat next to him. Blondish, thirtyish, dressed more like
a grad student than a professor.

‘Paul Bellini is screwing you over,’ the man said.

‘I don’t know any Paul Bellini.’

‘You had dinner with him Wednesday night. You ate a salad with way too much blue cheese dressing, most of a ribeye, caramel
cheesecake. The wine was an Australian merlot, you drank one glass. You didn’t stay to watch the strippers dance in the private
room.’

‘Who are you?’

‘A friend, because we have a common enemy,’ the man said. ‘Paul Bellini is setting you up, Mr Grace, because he’s desperate.
He has no intention of paying you your money. He’s going to take the candy you brought into town and then he’s going to whack
you.’

‘And why should I believe you?’

‘You don’t have to,’ the man said. ‘Wait for the bullets, then make up your mind.’

‘I’ll be gone from Houston by late tomorrow night,’ Kiko said.

‘They fly caskets out late? I thought that was more of a morning operation,’ the man said.

‘You got any proof or you just moving your lips?’

‘I can’t prove that he’s ordered a hit on you. That’s entirely your gamble if you choose to believe me or not. But he doesn’t
have your money. He had it ready for you, but it got stolen. You know Bucks? Bucks stole it.’

Kiko gave a smile. ‘Did he now.’

‘Has Paul confirmed with you the money’s missing? Or is he feeding you a steady diet of “just a minor delay”? Promised you
the money tonight, and he still doesn’t have it. Because Bucks has found his fool, and it’s Paul.’

Kiko didn’t answer the question. ‘Why you telling me this? What’s in it for you?’

The man didn’t look at him, watched two young women walk by, their laughter floating on the air. Waited until they were well
past. ‘Paul thinks Eve Michaels stole the money. If you want your money, force Paul to cancel a hit he’s put on Eve.’

Kiko waited. ‘Why shouldn’t I let Paul deal with his own internal problems? I hate interfering with other folks’ staffing
issues.’

‘We have financial information that could bring Paul down. We give it to the Feds, they’re gonna know you were dealing with
him.’

‘No money’s changed hands,’ Kiko said. But he felt a sick little sinking of fear in his ribs, his gut.

‘We’ll tell the Feds, the police. They’ll watch your ass under a microscope, Mr Grace. You don’t want that.’ He shrugged.
‘Bucks turns over the money to either you or Paul, I don’t care, as long as they know Eve didn’t take it, we’re off safe,
we’ll give up our financial data to you and Paul. You see? We don’t want the money, we don’t want
the drugs. We want the hits called off, we want Bucks brought down.’

‘To do all you ask,’ Kiko said, ‘I have to kill both Bucks and Paul.’

‘Your call.’ The man stood, handed Kiko a slip of paper. ‘Here’s a phone number where you can reach me, day or night. You
do your part and I’ll do mine and then your name is safe.’

‘How do I know you’re not playing me against Paul?’

‘I guess you don’t. But Paul Bellini’s lying to you, and I’m not.’ The man smiled. ‘I’m going to walk away now. Good luck.’

‘I’m not done talking to you.’ Because he decided when meetings were done, not this nobody.

‘Yes, we are done,’ the man said. ‘And if you don’t take any action, you go down with the Bellinis. We want to be left alone.
You want your money. We have a mutual enemy. Take care of him. Please.’ He turned to walk away.

Kiko stood. Started to follow him, watching to see if José could see him now, glancing to the left. José was talking with
a man in a university maintenance uniform, pretending not to speak English, starting to back away from the college worker.

The man turned, held up a hand. ‘There’s a lot of windows in that building to the left. The classrooms are empty today. I’ve
got a friend up there with a high-powered rifle. He’ll take your arm off if you take another step or follow me until I’ve
left the campus.’

‘Don’t you threaten me.’

‘Not threatening. Promising,’ the man said.

Kiko watched him vanish around a corner. Stood there, hating that he couldn’t move, watching José turn and walk away from
the maintenance guy. Finally taking a step, walking, no shot coming.

No sign of the man in the parking lot. Gone. He got in his rented Lexus, José already sitting in the driver’s seat. Kiko got
in the back and didn’t say a word until he was on Main Street, driving on the edge of Hermann Park. His furnished condo was
on Fannin, in the heart of a trendy real estate area for those who favored convenience to downtown.

‘Well, this dink says there’s no delay in getting the money. He says there’s no money, period.’ He relayed the conversation
with the man.

‘You believe him? Think Bucks has got the money and is holding out on us?’

Kiko tongued his cheek, clicked his teeth. ‘I don’t believe Bucks would risk that film coming to light. So no, I don’t believe
our new friend regarding Bucks.’ He drummed fingers on the dashboard. ‘Now Paul-boy, Paul might be working a new angle and
not clueing Bucks in. Telling Bucks there’s a delay and Bucks don’t know better. That’s a serious worry.’

‘So now what?’

‘I don’t like complications. We’re gonna have an A-
I
serious talk with Bucks, right now. If he’s lied, he’s dead, too. I’m thinking this guy and Eve Michaels have the money and
want me and Paul shooting at each other.’

‘You’re dead-on right,’ José said. ‘Like Willie S said. “
Be able for thine enemy rather in power than use
…” ’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ He liked José but didn’t like José acting too smart.

‘Means that you have to be competent to deal with those who piss you off. No holds barred, Kiko.’

‘Fine. So when we get what we want,’ Kiko said, turning on the radio, fiddling to find a salsa beat, not wanting to hear another
word of Willie S, ‘we be able for our enemies on a big scale. We kill everybody.’

‘Not another roach motel tonight,’ Eve said to Whit as they drove away from Rice. They’d spent Friday night in a cheap dive
out on 1-45 north of downtown. ‘We can find one that’s laid out better for defense.’ The open lot of the motel made her nervous;
she’d been standing by the window when Whit fell into restless sleep, and when he awoke this morning.

The Greystoke was a quiet, elegant hotel, owned by an old oil family, at the edge of the Galleria shopping district. Eve liked
it because anyone following them or trying to find them could not park on Westheimer to watch the flow of traffic in and out
of the hotel’s doors. All the hotel’s parking was handled by valets, so you couldn’t be watched from the hotel lot. Across
from the Greystoke a gas station had been razed, and construction was under way on yet another needless upscale restaurant
and shopping plaza. Security constantly guarded the construction site, so it could not be used for surveillance.

‘This feels relatively safe,’ she told Whit.

Safe. It wasn’t necessarily the condition he worried most about as he went about life, but life wasn’t life any more. Frank
had called this morning, said, ‘Gooch sedated, okay, roughed up a little’ and hung up. And now Whit had hopefully unleashed
Kiko against the Bellinis. While Whit waited in the quietly tasteful hotel lobby, Eve – wearing dark glasses and a blondish
wig – got them adjoining rooms with her Emily Smith Visa card. Within five minutes they were in their rooms.

‘I’m not sure Kiko believed me,’ Whit said. ‘I got the distinct impression he knew more than I did. He seemed
overconfident. Could he be behind this? The theft of the money?’

Eve looked blank. ‘I don’t see how. He couldn’t have known where the exchange point was.’

‘Harry followed you. Why couldn’t Kiko have? In a way, it would be brilliant. He’d have the money and the Bellinis are turning
on each other, self-destructing without him lifting a finger. Then he steps into the vacuum, with their money, and still with
his five million in coke to sell. He’s doubled his profits in a day.’

He saw that the thought had not occurred to Eve, with her unrelenting focus on Bucks, and her face went ashen. ‘Whit. Let’s
just run,’ she said.

‘And leave Gooch? Absolutely not.’

‘He matters a great deal to you, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sort of odd, considering you have five brothers. You hardly needed another one, honey. Aren’t you close to your brothers?’

‘I’m close to Mark. Not so much to the others. I love them all. But we don’t all see each other much, I’m the last one still
in Port Leo. I’ve seen them more since Daddy got sick.’

Eve knotted her fingers together in her lap. ‘I would have thought me leaving brought you all close together.’

‘The wounded crawl off to their own corners,’ Whit said. ‘We all died a little then. In certain ways it toughened us, did
make us close. But it screwed up how we got close to people.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Whit said. ‘You know, I don’t hate you. Clearly I don’t, considering what I’m risking to save you. But an
“I’m sorry” won’t cut it. Because I don’t believe you’d change a thing about what you did. You’ve had the life you wanted,
Mom.’

‘How do you know that, Whit?’

‘Because you chose never to come home.’

She sat next to him. ‘I’d change one thing,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d have taken you with me. I nearly did. But Babe would have
never let you go.’

‘You’re right. He loved his children.’

She winced. ‘I loved you, too.’

‘Abandonment is a strange form of affection.’

‘I was a strange mother.’

‘So, really, why’d you do it?’

‘Does it matter?’ She got up from the bed, went into the bathroom, washed her face, washed her hands. She came back into the
room, mopping at her face, wiping it clean.

‘Does it matter why me and my friend might die trying to save you?’

‘In your heart, you’ve either forgiven me or you still love me. The human heart is capable of a lot more than it gets credit
for.’ She folded the towel. ‘I’m not sure I still loved you a few days ago, Whit. You and your brothers were abstractions
to me. I didn’t know you as men. I didn’t know the people you’ve turned into. I had no years of memories to tie you to me.
Although God knows I’ve imagined. And I sacrificed more for you, years ago, than you’ll ever know.’

‘Like what?’

She pursed her mouth, like she had said too much. ‘It doesn’t really matter. If I tell you, I sound like I’m pleading a case
for you to understand me. Or to love me. You either do or you don’t,’ Eve said.

‘Love doesn’t leave. It doesn’t die. People walk away from love. I love you because at the least you gave life to me and I
loved you when you were with me. And I loved you when you were gone, because I wanted you back, more than anything in the
world, I wanted a mother. Maybe this time I’ll be the one who walks.’

‘You haven’t walked away yet,’ she said and he heard the little tremble of fear in her voice, and he felt ashamed for what
he had said, the pointless hurt of it. Nothing he said to her was going to hurt her the way she had hurt him. Words could
not equal years of indifferent silence and for a moment he hated what she had done to his family with a depth that made his
stomach turn.

‘I’m trying to save you, not change you,’ he said. ‘What happens if we make it through this? You run again? Or you suddenly
decide you’re my mom for real.’

‘I’m never, ever going to let you go again, Whit. Not after what you did for me.’ She came, sat next to him, put her arm around
him and for a moment her touch was like a memory, and he could see her cradling him against her arm and shoulder, sitting
on their back porch, reading him a book, his brothers nowhere around. He wanted to believe her, with a thrum in his chest
as hard and real as sudden pain.

‘Let’s order room service,’ she said. ‘You used to love pizza, I remember. Pepperoni with mushrooms, thin crust.’

‘It’s still my favorite,’ he said. His voice was hoarse but she didn’t seem to notice.

She called room service. He went back into his room, shut the door, showered fast, tried not to imagine Gooch with his nails
being pulled out or a bullet tearing through brain matter or his penis stuffed into a blender or whatever bit of deranged
sickness Paul and Bucks might inflict on him if all went wrong. He dressed and went back to her room. Eve sat on her bed watching
the local news.

‘Nothing new about the murders or the shooting at the Pie Shack,’ she said.

‘We’ve clearly made the decision to trust Frank up to a point. Can we?’ Whit said.

She switched off the TV but kept her gaze fixed on the blank screen. ‘He loves me.’

‘That’s not always an indicator of loyalty.’

Now she looked at him. ‘Stop swiping at me. For a while, so we can function as a team.’

He gave her a smile. ‘I wasn’t jerking your chain. Besides, you’ve had an almost thirty-year break from Mosley-family sarcasm.’

She laughed. ‘Yes, that’s true. God, you boys had mouths.’

Her cell phone rang. Frank calling. Whit answered.

Frank’s voice was as hushed as if he were in church. ‘Paul’s getting his mother, kicking and screaming, off to Vegas now.
If Paul’s working over Gooch, it will be soon.’ And clicked off, no good-bye.

Whit turned to Eve. ‘I want Frank sticking close to where they have Gooch. We need someone else to stick on Bucks.’

‘I don’t have a traitor in mind,’ she said.

‘Actually, I have an idea,’ Whit said. ‘But it’s really risky. More to me than you.’

‘Who?’

‘Her name is Claudia,’ he said. ‘And I’m going to ask her to go against her grain in helping us. But I need Bucks’ address.’

Eve wrote it down for him and he went into his room. God, this could be a mistake. If Claudia found out he’d left the scene
of a crime, failed to report Gooch’s kidnapping, and harbored a fugitive – even if it was his own mother – she would lose
all respect for him. Their friendship would fracture. Permanently. Claudia believed in rules, fiercely. He was breaking them
right and left, caring that they were broken, knowing the pain of leaving a little of himself behind each time, but he was
making the choice. She was his friend. She would help. If she could
focus on Bucks, it could save Gooch without calling the police and having to turn over his mother.

He paced for a minute, deciding, and then called Claudia’s cell phone before he talked himself out of it. She answered on
the second ring.

‘Are you speaking to me?’ he said.

‘Depends. I want you to answer my questions.’

‘All right.’

‘Are you really okay?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know who killed Harry?’ Surprising him with the bluntness of her question.

‘I have a suspicion but no proof.’

‘Who?’

He swallowed. ‘A man named Greg Buckman, also called Bucks. He’s a former energy exec involved in a crime ring here. Doyle
was delivering money for a drug deal. Bucks killed the banker for the money and Harry was at the wrong place at the wrong
time.’

‘Why was Harry anywhere around these people?’

‘Bucks is connected to the Bellinis.’

‘Where is your mom, Whit?’

‘I haven’t found her. Yet.’ The lie felt fine in his mouth and he closed his eyes.

‘So you rushed to Houston, on what, impulse?’

‘I wanted to be here if Harry found my mom. I couldn’t sit around waiting in Port Leo.’

‘The Houston police want to talk to you, Whit.’

‘Fine. When?’

‘As soon as possible. Why, are you booked today?’ Losing patience.

‘Not today. Tomorrow or Monday.’ When this had played out and he had Eve safely hidden. Where she couldn’t be taken away from
him.

‘I’m sorry that your calendar is so full.’

‘If you want to help me, truly, Claudia, turn the police onto Greg Buckman. But he’s very dangerous.’

‘No. You should talk to the police with me. Or the DA’s office. I have a friend who works in Special Crimes; she can help
us.’

‘I don’t want to talk to anyone but you right now.’

Claudia said nothing for several seconds then said, ‘I’m listening.’

‘Buckman lives at 3478 Alabama, number 12. It’s a fancy townhouse. He’s about six-one, maybe one sixty, thinning blond/brown
hair, dresses very conservatively, like a Brooks Brothers poster boy. He drives a silver Jaguar, late model. Vanity license
plate of B-L-E-E-V.’

‘Believe?’

‘He’s a big fan of Chad Channing, the self-help guy.’ Frank had given him this information.

‘He sounds very frightening.’

‘I believe he has killed at least two people,’ Whit said.

‘There’s no mention of him in Harry’s records. His assistant gave those to the Houston police. She faxed me a copy this afternoon.’

That meant the police now knew the name Eve Michaels. ‘Harry mentioned Bucks in a phone conversation.’

‘Whit, you tell me the truth right this second. Have you found your mom or this Eve Michaels? Are you protecting her?’

‘Claudia, please.’

‘You have found her. Where are you?’

‘I can’t tell you. Please don’t ask me.’

‘Whit. Do you want the police actively looking for you or your mother as material witnesses? They are insistent on talking
to you.’

‘I’m asking for your understanding.’

‘You’re asking me to suppress information related to
two homicides. To Harry’s murder! I can’t. I’m a peace officer. You’re an officer of the court. You’ve sworn an oath, Whit.
You—’

‘I’m asking you to get information. To follow Buckman, watch him. He killed Harry for this money, he’s got to have it hidden
close to him. But no police, Claudia, please.’

‘You have freaking lost your mind,’ Claudia said.

‘Meet me,’ he said. ‘Meet me and I’ll explain. But no police. Just you and me.’

‘Of course I’ll meet you. Where?’

‘There’s a little Mexican restaurant off Montrose, on Richmond. Chapultepec’s. It’s in an old house. I’ll meet you there in
thirty minutes.’

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘Claudia?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve really messed up,’ he said. ‘I thought I did the right thing and now, I know I’ve really messed up.’

‘We’ll fix it,’ she said, and he wanted to believe her. ‘I’ll see you in thirty.’

Claudia clicked off the phone. She wrote down the address and description for Greg Buckman. This morning she had driven to
the murder site, drawn by a need to be close to where Harry died. But it was still roped off, under police tape. She didn’t
get out of her car, drove by twice before heading back to her hotel. But now. Now she could do something. She picked up the
phone.

‘Vernetta? I heard from my friend that was Harry Chyme’s client. I need you to come to a meeting with me.’ She sighed. ‘He
won’t be happy about it but I need you to help me talk sense into him.’

Thirty minutes later, Claudia sat in a booth at Chapultepec’s, sipping water, nibbling from a mound of nachos. Vernetta sat
four booths over, waiting for Whit to arrive
and sit so she could join them. Claudia traced the beer rings on the worn wooden table with her fingertips, waiting for Whit,
waiting to see if he was still the man she knew, afraid of what she had heard in his voice.

The nachos grew cold. Whit never showed.