Cut and Run (21 page)

Two Louis Vuitton bags, one for makeup and hair, one for clothes, were all his mother was taking to Vegas but to Paul her
packing process was slower than moving mountains. He was ready to shove his mother out the door when Tasha pulled up in the
circular driveway, ten minutes too early, in her little Honda.

Not what I need, Paul thought, but he smiled and gave Tasha a too-quick, just-friends hug, knowing his mother was watching
from a window.

Tasha leaned back from him. ‘I stink now?’

‘No. I’m tense. Bad, bad day. Getting my mother out of town.’

‘Introduce me. I bet I make her want to stick around.’

He took her into the hallway. Frank Polo and Mary Pat Bellini were already in the foyer, Frank wheezing, with Mary Pat’s two
packed-to-the-brim bags.

‘Mom,’ Paul said, ‘this is Tasha. She’s a friend of mine.’

‘How nice to meet you,’ Mary Pat Bellini said and her smile seemed to rise like a fence as she shook Tasha’s hand. ‘What a
lovely sweater.’

‘What a lovely home,’ Tasha said. ‘Paul has told me all about you. For hours on end.’

‘You’re catching me heading out the door.’ Mary Pat glanced at Paul. ‘Practically being pushed. My son thinks I need a little
vacation. He doesn’t give a lady much choice.’

‘He can be real pushy,’ Tasha said. ‘But in the sweetest way.’

‘Mom, Frank’ll drive you to the airport. Have a great time. Don’t go crazy at the baccarat tables, okay?’ Frank
looked surprised at the announcement of his assignment but he picked up Mary Pat’s luggage and carried it out to her Mercedes’
trunk.

‘Paul, darling,’ Mary Pat said. ‘You look like you’re considering a coronary.’

‘I’ll see you on Tuesday, Mom. Unless we got developments here and you need to stay in Vegas.’

‘I’m not being gone from your daddy that long, Paul. Forget it.’

‘Or away from Paul, either, right?’ Tasha said.

Mary Pat snapped a quick smile at Tasha. ‘Nice to meet you, dear.’

‘It’s great to meet the woman who raised Paul. The source of his brains and good manners.’

Mary Pat’s smile brightened but it was aimed at her son. ‘I’ call you when I get to my hotel, Paul.’

Paul kissed his mother, shut the door, watched Frank pull out past the extra guards at the gate. ‘Thank Christ she’s gone.’

‘The color went out of her face because of the color of mine,’ Tasha said.

‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ Paul said. ‘She treats all my girlfriends bad. She was very accepting of you. I have lots
of black friends.’

‘Business associates, yeah,’ she said, ‘but I doubt you have many black friends. Or friends, period.’

‘What’s that mean?’ Paul sounded hurt.

‘Friends are a luxury for a guy like you.’ Tasha ran a finger along his jawline, made her voice husky.

‘But I have you.’ He pulled her close, gave her a quick kiss. She allowed it, kissed him back, teased his mouth for a moment
with her tongue. She broke the kiss. ‘Ralph did that credit check you asked for on Bucks and Frank and Eve.’

‘Great.’

‘I need five thou to give Ralph, sweetie. For this and finding Eve’s credit card. I got to throw him a bone.’

‘If he can wait, I can pay him and you more when we get the money.’

Tasha considered his offer with a frown. ‘They’re all clean. Nothing unusual. I don’t know if that helps you or not.’

He looked a little deflated. ‘Okay. Come inside. I need a favor.’

She followed him into the grand living room, her eyes checking each piece of furniture, noticing the rich silk of the draperies,
the marble on the floors, the fresh flowers in every vase. She had imagined a former mob wife would lean toward zebra stripes
and magenta, bad taste run amok. Instead the house was simple and elegant, all at once, and a twinge sounded in her heart.
A lot of pain and death had bought this beauty and Tasha Strong fought an urge to smash it all, set it afire.

‘Dad moved his eyes a bunch more today.’ He led her upstairs and into a front bedroom. The room was dark, lit by the greenish
goblin glow of medical equipment. Tommy Bellini lay in the bed, eyes at half-mast. Tasha expected a nurse but instead Doc
Brewer was there, checking Tommy’s eyes.

‘How is he?’ Paul asked. ‘I think he’s more alert.’

‘He’s the same, Paul,’ Doc Brewer said.

‘Our guest upstairs still unconscious?’

‘The same,’ Doc Brewer said. He patted Tommy’s hand and excused himself.

‘Brewer’s an idiot. Dad knows what’s going on,’ Paul said. ‘Knows I’m in trouble. He’s fighting up toward consciousness.’
He lowered his voice. ‘I was changing his diaper earlier and he was sporting wood. That’s a good sign, right?’

‘Sure, Paul.’ It surprised her he would tend to his dad.

‘Maybe he needs additional stimulants to regain consciousness.’

‘That’s not how comas work, sweetpea,’ Tasha said.

‘Well, Mom’s been reading to him. Or leaving books on tape playing next to his bed. All his favorite books. Robert Ludlum,
Louis L’Amour. He loves those. And I run Mel Brooks movies on the DVD player for him.’

‘So read to him.’

‘What about a direct approach?’ Paul said. ‘You could do a lap dance for him.’

She blinked. ‘A lap dance.’

‘It couldn’t hurt. And he had a woody earlier, so he’s still got some juice in his brain.’

‘Do you ever hear yourself talk, Paul?’ A lap dance for a guy two seconds from choking on his own drool.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I admire your concern for your dad. Really. But you have millions missing, Kiko isn’t waiting forever for his money, you’ve
got a guy half-dead upstairs you’re going to start torturing, you’ve got Eve and this Whit man gunning for you. The police
could descend on you any second. And you want me to lap dance for your comatose daddy.’

Paul slapped her.

She fell back against the withered legs under the covers. His legs felt like sticks under the sheets.

‘Don’t mouth off at me. Especially in front of my dad.’ Like Tommy Bellini was going to open his eyes, shoot them a disapproving
look.

‘You hit me, Paul.’ She slowly got up from the bed. ‘After all I’ve done for you …’

‘I hit you because I want you to realize the seriousness of my request. I didn’t ask you to do him, that would be gross.’
He took a step toward her. ‘Just rub against him. If it works, it works. I’m sorry, baby, please.’

‘And we could all get written up in a medical journal.’ She moved to the other side of the bed, keeping it between her and
Paul. ‘Charming. He can wake up and slip the tip in my G-string.’

‘Tasha. I need my dad. I need him bad now because I don’t know what to do.’ He started to cry. More than cry. Blubber.

‘Paul, don’t.’ She was still spitting mad and the sight of tears on his face made her even madder. She hated to see a man
cry; it turned her stomach.

‘Kiko’s gonna put my balls in a grinder. I got to have that money.’

If he had cried for his father, her heart would have softened toward him. But he was crying because he was afraid for himself.
It wasn’t tears for his dad or for anyone else. She wanted to slap him.

‘Hush now,’ she said quietly. ‘Be strong, Paul.’

‘I need my dad. We’ve spent all this money to take care of him, he sure ought to get better.’

Tasha counted to ten silently. ‘Paul. Your father’s not going to recover. Ever. That’s clear to everyone but you. You’ve got
to take charge, take responsibility.’ She touched his shoulder. ‘Let me help you.’

Her pager beeped. She glanced at the readout. Ralph, her computer hacker friend. She pulled a cell phone – a real one, not
the clever little gun she carried that no one knew about except, now, Whit Mosley – out of her purse and dialed his number.

‘Tasha. Ralph sounded excited. ‘Emily Smith is using her Visa again. At Greystoke Hotel. The charge is for two rooms.’

‘Which rooms?’

‘Charge doesn’t say.’

‘Ralph, you are a god.’ She clicked off and turned to Paul, told him what Ralph reported. ‘You got ’em in your
sights, sugar. Call Bucks, call your dogs in for the kill and act like a man.’ She lowered her voice, came to him, put a
hand on his chest. ‘I done the work for you. I got a lock on Eve and her buddy. Now go make your daddy proud.’

‘You lied to me,’ Kiko said.

‘I told you exactly what I was told,’ Bucks said. ‘That there was a delay in getting the money.’ He rock-steadied his voice.
‘Paul lied to us both because Eve robbed him blind. She’s gutted him. He has very little left he can quickly convert to cash
with that money gone.’

‘Why should I believe you now?’ Kiko said.

‘Eve stole the loot, I swear. Kiko, you know I wouldn’t screw you over, I’ve got too much to lose. I’m about five minutes
from capturing her ass. I got a team working to grab her for Paul.’

‘There’s been a change in plan,’ Kiko said.

Bucks listened to what Kiko said, closed his eyes. ‘I understand.’ He clicked off the phone, waited for the horrible
thumping
in his chest to subside.

Adapt. Adapt. He could still come out on top. The phone rang in his hand and he answered it, heard Paul telling him where
they thought Eve was now, and truly thanked God and Chad Channing together for the strength they were giving him.

Bucks waited in his Jag with MacKay. They were parked a half block from the Greystoke Hotel in the shadow of a new real estate
development, in a parking lot where a restaurant was closed and shuttered. They could see most of the porte cochere for the
Greystoke. Cars arrived in a steady stream; the hotel had an upscale martini bar that attracted locals. Valets scrambled around
the vehicles. But what pissed Bucks off was a car pulling in next to
them, a Cadillac with Jerry Smacks driving and the Wart in the passenger seat.

Bucks sipped from a water bottle. The next hour would determine how he played his next card. He felt warm and calm, confident
for the first time in a day.

‘They gonna wonder why you’re here with me,’ MacKay said. Now both men were looking over into Bucks’ Jag. Jerry Smacks gave
a friendly little wave with his hand. The Wart didn’t smile.

‘Why are they together?’ Bucks asked.

‘More likely to make the hit, working together,’ MacKay said. ‘Better to split the fee rather than none at all. Cut me out,
too.’

‘So why are we here together? In case they ask.’

‘My car broke down, you giving me a ride,’ MacKay said. ‘Quit worrying, you’re the boss.’ He eased down the window; Jerry
did the same.

‘Gentlemen,’ MacKay said. He didn’t volunteer why he was in Bucks’ car and Jerry Smacks didn’t ask.

‘So you boys sitting here jerking or what?’ the Wart said. ‘We gonna go in?’

‘Need to know,’ MacKay said, ‘which of the fifteen-odd floors they’re on, for starters. The registration desk isn’t gonna
give that up.’

‘I’m not inclined to walk through a front door,’ Jerry Smacks said.

‘Yeah, you struck me as a back door kind of guy,’ MacKay said.

Jerry folded a rectangle of gum into his mouth, muttered to the Wart. Then he looked past MacKay to Bucks. ‘How you want us
to handle it, Mr Buckman?’

‘I pay the bounty, gum boy,’ Bucks said. ‘I don’t do the job for you.’

‘Fine,’ the Wart said. He started to get out of the car. ‘Then I’m gonna—’

‘Whoa,’ MacKay said. Target number two.’

A tall blondish man stood at the valet spot. He gave the attendant a dollar and hurried to a slightly decrepit Volkswagen
van that had been brought up to the curb.

‘That’s our boy,’ Bucks said. His bruised eye throbbed at the sight of Whit. ‘Eve’s alone in the hotel. MacKay, you and Jerry
go in. You know what I need. I’ll follow our boy. Wart, you come with me.’

‘Why me?’ the Wart yelled.

‘He’s part of the contract,’ Bucks said. ‘Kill him, you still get paid.’

MacKay was out of the car already, buttoning a leather jacket, lifting his dreadlocks free from the collar, hurrying across
the pell-mell rush of Westheimer. Jerry Smacks followed. The Wart huffed into the Jag and before his door was shut Bucks wheeled
into traffic, earning a blare of horns. He cussed. Honking might attract Mosley’s attention. But the van, four cars ahead,
stayed in the left lane, didn’t slow, didn’t turn.

A charge of electricity played along Bucks’ skin. Man, this was a rush like cutting a deal with California power buyers, seeing
how far he could shove the rates down their desperate little throats, calculating his enormous commissions in his head. He
jammed in a Chad Channing tape, upped the volume. Chad’s reassuring baritone filled the car. ‘It’s important to remember,’
Chad Channing said, ‘that goals are as real as the air we breathe. They surround us. They permeate us, like oxygen. They sustain
us. The life lived without goals is life without breath.’

‘I heard this about you,’ the Wart said. ‘But I didn’t want to believe it.’

‘Listen and learn.’ Bucks drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, as though the tape had a pelvis-grinding backbeat.

‘Yeah, a tape’s gonna tell me how to live.’

‘Do you have goals, Wart?’ Bucks asked.

‘Yeah. Pop this guy, collect my money, and spend the evening with good Thai pad noodles, a bottle of Glenfiddich, and a couple
of hours with a nice little whore I know.’ The Wart checked his gun again, keeping it low, below the line of the windows.
‘Loser’s got to get off Westheimer first. Too many people around.’

‘Those are powerful goals you got, Wart. You’ve got a rich life.’

‘I’m content,’ the Wart said. ‘You didn’t say if you prefer head shots.’

‘Let’s get him alone first,’ Bucks said. ‘Make him hurt. Make him talk. And if he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear, you
can take as few or as many shots as you want, buddy.’

‘Nice-looking guy,’ the Wart said, ‘Reminds me of the jocks who treated me like a nothing in high school. Guy like him, I
usually take special care of the face. Dead or not. You ever see what’s left of a face after you hook a gun along the gumline
and fire through the lip?’

‘See? You’ve got a goal.’

‘So embrace your goals. Say them, each morning, like a prayer,’ Chad Channing intoned from the tape. ‘Make meeting your goals
not simply your challenge, but your bliss.’

‘Turn that crap off,’ the Wart said. ‘It’s working my last nerve.’

Bucks could smell the five million, feel it in his hands. Not just money. Sudden power. Now. So close. Eve and this bastard
had hidden it and if his luck was sweet the guy was driving to get it right now. That thought, that thought was golden. This
was his reprieve.

‘Oh, please, yes,’ he said as Whit turned onto Richmond. ‘Yes, buddy, take me right to bliss.’

*

MacKay and Jerry Smacks walked into the handsome lobby of the Greystoke, Jerry muttering about taking the front door. The
valets nodded but gave them no special notice as a crowd of departing guests came out at the same moment. MacKay made a beeline
for the lobby phones. He didn’t even glance at Jerry as he picked up a phone.

‘You want to tell me the plan, friend?’ Jerry said.

‘Just play along.’

‘You aren’t cutting me out of the action, bud.’

‘Emily Smith’s room, please,’ MacKay said into the phone.

‘Very direct approach,’ Jerry said.

‘Ms Smith,’ MacKay said after a moment. ‘Hello. Paul sent me. The tall young man who just left? He’s here with us now. We
have him. You understand me?’

There was a pause.

‘You have two minutes to come down to the lobby. We’ve taken him away in a car.’ MacKay kept his voice low and friendly. ‘You
are not to make a scene. You are not to scream or do anything other than what I tell you to do. Or your young man pays the
price. Do you understand me? You have a minute and fifty seconds now. I’ll see you momentarily.’ He hung up.

‘Cool,’ said Jerry Smacks. ‘I like your efficiency.’

‘Follow my lead and don’t get in the way,’ MacKay said.

Jerry pasted a smile on like MacKay’s, quiet and friendly, and the two men went to the elevator bank. There were five elevators.
MacKay studied the numbers. Two young Asian women pushed the up button, an elevator arrived empty, they boarded and held the
door for MacKay and Jerry.

‘Thanks. Waiting for a friend,’ Jerry said.

The elevator shut.

‘A minute left,’ MacKay said. ‘We’ll see how much this guy matters to her.’

Eve replaced the phone in the cradle. How? How could they have found her, how could they have grabbed Whit? They called her
Ms Smith. They knew about the credit card. They had her son.

She dialed Whit’s cell phone, her fingers shaking, expecting there to be no answer or worse, the cool steel of Bucks’ voice.

‘Yeah?’ Whit answered after two rings. Calm.

She nearly collapsed in relief. ‘A man just called, said they snatched you.’

‘No one has me. I’m driving.’

‘I have two minutes to get to the lobby or they say they’ll kill you.’

‘Get out. Get out now.’

‘How? They’re in the lobby.’ Eve tried to keep her voice calm but the urge to run surged in her bones.

‘Find another way, I’m heading back to the hotel,’ Whit said.

‘No. It’s a trap. Don’t risk it.’

‘Get the hell out, Mom. Come to the back of the hotel. I’ll pick you up there.’

‘Don’t risk it. I’ll call you where to come get me. Don’t come back here.’

‘Stay calm. I’m coming, head for the back,’ he said.

She hung up the phone. She left the small bag she’d packed, grabbed her purse, checked her gun inside. Closed her hand around
it. The CD with Paul’s files on it was in there, too. Whit had left nothing valuable in the room. She put on the wig, hat,
and glasses she’d used checking in. She opened the door, peered down the hall. Nothing but empty hallway, with an abandoned
room-service tray a couple of doors down. The soft buzz of a
basketball game played on a television a room away. She ran for the elevators, pressed a down button.

MacKay said. ‘Her two minutes are up.’

‘Give her one more,’ Jerry Smacks said.

‘Hardly, man,’ MacKay said. ‘Go get the car, bring it around fast. We’re leaving in a hurry.’

Jerry left, and MacKay watched the lights above the elevator, watching for each elevator to make its inevitable drop to the
lobby, letting out couples, an elderly woman, a teenage girl. Then one car stopped at two.

MacKay headed for the middle of the lobby, watching the stairs exit. Waiting to see if she’d come out, gambling to herself
he wouldn’t grab her with other witnesses in the lobby.

Another minute passed. MacKay bolted for the front door.

On the second floor, Eve ran past the hotel’s conference center, past a spa and an exercise room, past a set of meeting rooms
named after famous Texas artists, dead and living. The Ney. The Umlauf. The Kohler. Laughter bubbled behind doors, people
who didn’t have a life-or-death care in the world. A stairway led to the pool and she hurried down it.

She called Whit on her cell. ‘I’m heading to the back of the hotel.’

‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

‘Stay on the phone,’ she said.

The pool was empty, but in the Saturday afternoon sun a couple of women in their forties sat at a table, sipping coffee and
chatting quietly. A waiter set a two-tiered tray of cakes between the women. Eve walked past them. There was no gate opening
to the back of the hotel but she spotted a service entrance, leading to the kitchen.
Dinner prep work was under way, a couple of men in chef’s clothes glancing up at her as she rushed past their chopping and
dicing.

‘Excuse me, ma’am …’ one started and she ignored him, heading for the red glow of an exit sign.

‘Hey!’ the chef yelled again, petulant as a toddler. ‘You can’t barge in here …’

She turned back to the chef, put the phone down for a second. ‘My ex is in the lobby. I have a restraining order against him.
Excuse me.’

The chef started to apologize, conciliation in his voice, but she didn’t wait. She hit the door. A hallway, another exit sign
at the end. She ran through that door into the cloud-broken light of Houston winter, the narrow lot behind the hotel empty
except for valet slots lining the back lot, the hum of traffic from 610 like a ghost whispering in her ear. Next to the lot
sat an office building, a squat crystal of green glass, ten stories high, and beyond it a concrete parking garage. Deserted
on a Saturday. Then an Italian restaurant with a gargantuan neon sign, then a steakhouse, both lots a third full.

And then the Cadillac wheeled around the back of the lot, thundering for her.

Eve turned and ran, skimming the back of the hotel, aiming for a loading bay at the far corner of the hotel. She jammed her
hand deep in her purse, closed her fingers around her Beretta. She turned to fire but the car was now seven feet behind her,
slamming brakes, and she went across the hood, the windshield, the air in her lungs whooshing out. With a gasp she fell off
the Caddy, the asphalt biting into her face and palms.

A car door creaked open by her head.

‘Nice braking, man,’ a voice above her said. Jamaican accent. She scrabbled to her feet; her ribs, her legs
thrummed as if on fire. Her gun and phone were gone. Dropped.

‘Eve Michaels,’ the Jamaican said. He smashed a pistol across her head. She hit the pavement again, blood trickling along
her cheek. The Jamaican picked her up, handcuffed her, shoved her in the car.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ A gravelly male voice, not Jamaican, yelled. ‘Waste her and let’s—’

Then the distinctive double pop of a silencer. Eve waited to draw breath, wondering if the passing from life to death was
truly so instant and painless that you didn’t realize it had happened. But she still needed to breathe. She did. A car door
popped open, and she heard the dull thud of dead weight hitting the pavement. Then the car started.

She risked a glance upward. The Jamaican, in the driver’s seat, leveled her own gun at her.

‘Eve,’ he said. ‘You see how it is? That guy wanted to hurt you. I killed him. Makes me your friend.’

She put her head down on the backseat.

If she raised her head, Whit might see her. He would be heading back to the hotel. He’d chase them, get himself killed. Stupid
kid.

Just let him go. Stay down and keep him out of it. Do the right thing for once in your life, Ellie
. She thought of him as a baby, her easiest because he was the last and she was too tired to worry about every little cough
or scrape. She sure hadn’t wanted another but here he came, her best. The only person ever in her life to truly come looking
for her. Like she mattered.