Cut and Run

15

Ten seconds passed and Whit said, ‘Are you trying to figure out which one I am?’

‘You’re Whitman,’ she said. Her voice was a low, gravelly alto, roughened. She coughed once, cleared her throat. Put a hand up to her mouth as if stifling a hiccup, then back down again. Staring at him. Her mouth was open slightly, a little wet. ‘You’re Whitman.’

‘I’m impressed,’ Whit said.

‘I’ll sit up at the counter,’ Gooch said. ‘Let y’all talk.’ Whit rose, Gooch scooted out, Whit sat back down and the whole time she never took her eyes from Whit.

Whit folded his hands on the table.

‘You’ve got a nasty bruise on your face.’ Her voice was flat, not motherly.

‘Got one and gave one back. To your buddy Bucks.’

‘Good for you.’ She swallowed. Outside the rain pelted down harder, a cloudburst flowering, water puddling by the curbs, a laughing trio of Rice students running and screaming through the rain toward their car.

‘I figured,’ Whit said, ‘that when you saw me you were either going to run in shame, tell me you never want to see me or my brothers again, or say you’re sorry.’

She rubbed at her temples. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t even deny who you are. I guess that was the other option.’

She sipped at her coffee, set the mug down carefully. Her hand shook; she covered it with her other hand. ‘Denial would be pointless. You’ve found me. Congratulations.’

The waitress stopped across from their table, grabbing a fresh pot from the coffee stand, filled a carafe, set it on their table.

‘Don’t you want to know how? Or why?’ Whit asked. He kept his voice quiet.

‘Not right now, Whitman. I’m trying to collect my thoughts. Catch my breath.’ She tried to smile.

‘I go by Whit.’

‘Whit. Sure. Your father was never that crazy about the name Whitman, even though it was from his family.’

‘He grew to like it.’

‘May I touch your hand?’ she asked unexpectedly.

He hesitated. He had not imagined physical contact, but shock and rejection and angry words hitting like missiles. ‘Why?’

‘I would just like to touch you.’

Heat surged in the back of his eyes, in his throat, in his stomach. ‘Okay.’

She put her hand on top of his. Not holding. Touching. Her hands were worn, but her nails were freshly manicured, painted a mild red, and a good-sized diamond glittered on her left hand.

‘Are you glad I found you?’ he asked.

‘I have mixed emotions about it. But not because of you.’

He didn’t understand her comment, so he let it pass, his long-considered game plan of what to say evaporating in the heat of the moment’s reality. ‘I always figured this would happen on Oprah, Unexpected reunions.’

‘We’re more Jerry Springer,’ she said and it made him laugh for a moment.

Her lemon pie arrived; the waitress set it down by their joined hands; Whit said he didn’t need anything, thank you, as she took out her order pad. She left them alone.

‘How is your father?’ Eve asked. ‘Your brothers?’

‘Wow, a sudden bout of caring.’ He knew the words sounded ugly but he couldn’t help himself.

‘What else am I supposed to ask you, Whit?’ she said. ‘Your opinion on the Middle East? Your favorite TV show? Whether you prefer wine or beer?’

‘I’m not much for drinking,’ Whit said. ‘Daddy drank himself sick for years after you left.’

‘Is he still drinking?’

‘No. But he’s dying. Cancer. He has four months, max. That’s why I wanted to find you.’

She digested this news in silence. ‘You sent a man looking for me.’

‘Yes. A private investigator.’

She released a long, wobbly breath. She put her other hand over her eyes but now she took his hand, squeezed his fingers. ‘Fortyish? Dark hair, a little rumpled, looked like a schoolteacher?’

‘Yes. You saw him?’

‘Yes.’ Now she looked at him. ‘I saw him once.’ She reached for her coffee, drank it down. When he said nothing more, she said, ‘I’m truly sorry about your father. And to see you… I’m happy to see you. More than you could ever know, baby. But this is a bad time.’

‘There’s no good time, is there? In your line of work.’

‘Whit.’ Her voice shook. ‘What do you know about me?’

‘You work for Tommy Bellini.’

‘I’m in trouble. I may need to leave town very quickly.’

‘You’re not going to do that.’ He clutched her hand. ‘You’re coming back with me to Port Leo. See my father. Apologize to him before he dies. See my brothers. They’re all well. Happy.’

‘I can’t. I can’t.’

‘You have grandchildren,’ Whit said. ‘Beautiful grandchildren. Four of them. Teddy has three girls, Joe has a little boy.’

Her lips thinned; her eyes filled. ‘I can’t, please don’t ask this of me.’

‘You can. Please.’ Suddenly a truth pierced his heart, a certainty he hadn’t known before. ‘They’ll forgive you. In time. If you get to know them, let them know you.’

‘I would put your family in danger, Whit. People want me dead.’

‘All the more reason to come with me then.’

‘You have no idea of the trouble I’m in.’

‘What if I helped you?’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’ She reached for his cheek but then put her hand back atop his. ‘Seeing you means everything to me. But you don’t want this trouble, baby. You can’t handle it.’

‘Don’t call me baby. And I can.’

‘Oh, tough guy because you survived a black eye? These people will cut off your dick. Shove it down your throat. Rape you with a broomstick.’ Eve let the ugly words hang between them. ‘I don’t want you stepping one foot in this world.’

‘I’m not walking away from you. We could call the police, get you protection.’

‘No,’ she said, her voice a strained whisper. ‘It never works well enough. They’d find me, kill me.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘Go have a good life, Whit. Tell your brothers I’m glad they’re happy. I’m sorry for Babe, I truly am.’ She put her purse in her lap, glanced out the window. The showers had lessened in the last minute, the storm taking a breath, and a Lincoln Navigator eased past the restaurant, slowing for a car about to pull out from a parking slot.

‘You changed soaps,’ Whit said. ‘You don’t smell of gardenia any more.’

She froze. ‘What?’

‘That’s really my best memory of you. Gardenia. Your neck always smelled of it.’

She wiped tears from her eyes, her mouth trembled.

‘I need more from you than the smell of soap. I really don’t want you to leave,’ Whit said. ‘If I ask Gooch, he’ll toss you over his shoulder, throw you in his van, and drive you all the way to Port Leo, Ellen.’

‘Eve. No one calls me Ellen.’

‘Eve,’ he said, as though tasting the word. ‘Look at me. I want to know exactly what’s happening. Exactly. Otherwise I’m going to go to the police and-’

The window exploded.

Whit hit the floor in front of the booth, airborne chunks of pie and a gush of hot coffee flying around him, shards of glass bursting in from the barrage of gunfire. His mother screamed. She was cut or shot, trying to get down into the well of the booth, blood streaking her face. Whit grabbed her shoulders and dragged her below the window line into the mess of gunshot pie and pooling coffee and water.

The gunfire stopped.

Screams wailed around them, ranging from full-out shrieks to hiccuping moans of terror. The party girls were facedown on the floor or huddled in the leather womb of their booth, the window by them cracked and webbed. The waitress lay sprawled by Whit, a shattered plate still in her hand, eyes open and still, gray hair dislodged from a bun, her throat a wet wound.

‘Back door,’ Eve said. ‘Run…’

He clutched her head to him, searching for the wound. ‘You’re shot.’

‘No, oh no,’ she said. Her eyes went wide.

Then people started running, a mad stampede out of the restaurant, toward the front doors.

Whit pulled Eve toward the swinging doors of the kitchen and his mind registered Gooch, his gun drawn from a back holster under his jacket, jumping from booth top to booth top, heading for them, and a man, swarthy, rushing the window, jabbing the remaining cracked glass out of his way, swinging the eye of a semiautomatic toward him and Eve.

The gunman paused to smile – a smile that said you’re so fucked – and the gesture cost him because the next bullet fired came from Gooch’s Sig Sauer and the gunman fell back.

‘Back door,’ Eve said again, crawling past the dead waitress, pushing Whit along. He grabbed her, rammed through the swinging doors as the gunman, either hit or not, blasted off another round. Whit, Eve, and Gooch landed on the cool tile of the kitchen, the cooks and bakers mostly gone, one girl babbling into a wall phone. Whit got Eve to her feet, followed two terrified dishwashers barreling toward a fire exit.

As he reached the door, the dense, staccato thrum of gunfire hit pots and pans and countertops. A hard gong sounded, a bullet striking the exit door north of his head. Gooch returned fire and Whit shoved Eve out the door. The kitchen staff scrambled through the parking lot, running, yelling in Spanish.

Gooch’s van was parked near the rear of the lot and Whit steered Eve toward it. He glanced back. Gooch had taken cover near a Dumpster, gun leveled at the back door. Waiting.

More shooting inside. Whit pushed Eve through a line of cars, putting vehicles between them and the door. ‘Gooch!’ he screamed. ‘Get out, come on…’

The gunman came out the door, holding the young woman who’d been on the wall phone as a human shield. Gooch didn’t lower his gun.

The cops will be here in thirty seconds,’ Gooch called. ‘Let her go.’

‘We want Eve!’

Eve and Whit ducked down by a red pickup truck. Her hand tightened on his.

‘You hit Eve, man,’ Gooch called, ‘and she’s bleeding bad.’ From his vantage point the gunman couldn’t see if Eve was with him or not. In the distance police sirens began to shriek in their approach.

Then a Lincoln Navigator wheeled around the restaurant. The gunman shoved the young woman to the pavement and dashed toward the car.

He made it three steps and Gooch gave him a bullet for each. He skittered a little dance, collapsing before the open door of the Navigator. The SUV sped onto Kirby, door still open, rumbled into a shopping center parking lot and hard-turned onto a side street.

The girl ran back into the restaurant, and Gooch sprinted from the Dumpster toward them.

‘Go,’ he yelled. ‘Now.’

‘The guy…’

‘He’s dead, Whit. We got to get out of here.’

‘We can’t leave,’ Whit started. ‘This is a crime scene… that waitress is dead…’

‘We have to.’

‘But…’ Whit almost said I’m a judge, I can’t do this, but if his mother heard that, she’d take off running herself.

‘You want the cops to take in your mom? Because they will when they find out her connection to this,’ Gooch said. ‘Find her, lose her, all in short order.’

Whit pulled Eve into the back of the van with him and Gooch powered up the engine, tore out the back of the parking lot onto a feeder street that ran parallel to Kirby, vanishing with a right into a residential neighborhood, and was two blocks away by the time the police cars and ambulances tore into the lot, red and blue lights making the broken windows glitter like diamonds.