Cut and Run

20

From a van idling on the other side of the thin strip of River Oaks Park, Whit watched the Jag speed away. Then he drove around to the side of the park that faced onto Locke, parked a block away, got out of the van. He jogged down the street, Eve’s house key in his hand, a backpack over his shoulder. He walked up to his mother’s house like it was exactly where he belonged.

Whit slid the key home, turned the lock, waited for the warning br-reep of the alarm Eve had mentioned. But it wasn’t armed, and there was only the soft chirp the alarm made when he opened the door. Bucks and Frank Polo hadn’t set the alarm when they rushed out. He closed the door behind him and locked it.

His mother’s house. He took two steps into the marbled foyer. A scent of coffee touched the air. The house was French Provincial in design on the exterior and the inside was simple but tastefully decorated. The Bellinis owned the house and it was a disco king’s castle, so Whit expected gold-necklace thug decor. But the antiques looked authentic, the dirty plates in the sink were actually fine china, and when he peered into the acreage of den beyond the kitchen he saw a TV as big as a giant’s eye and leather-upholstered furniture to seat twelve.

He took the knapsack off his shoulder, scooted on his butt underneath the huge oak kitchen table, and pulled the knapsack under the table with him. It was heavy; he had gone at ten this morning, when a Radio Shack off Kirby opened, and bought out the supply of small digital voice recorders. They needed to know what Bucks knew, and since Bucks’ Jag was parked in front of Eve’s house at 7 a.m. when Gooch drove by, Eve decided that Bucks was still sticking close to Frank Polo.

Whit unrolled a hunk of black duct tape with his teeth, checked the settings on the voice-activated recorder, and carefully attached the small device to the bottom of the kitchen table. He tore another chunk of tape loose, affixed it to the bottom part of the recorder, being exact so he didn’t cover the microphone. He tugged on his eavesdropping device; it didn’t give.

Illegally taped conversations would never stand up in court. But right now court didn’t matter, and he wasn’t trying to get evidence of actual crimes. He wanted to know what they were planning against his mother. Eve wanted to hear what Bucks said if he incriminated himself, so she would have evidence for Paul. Transmitters would be better, since he wouldn’t have to come back in a day to see if they’d gotten any results, but time had been short and he simply went with what was most expedient.

Whit slid out from under the kitchen table, headed into the huge den. A wall of old leather-bound books bought by the decorative yard rather than for their literary value lined one side of the mammoth TV. A thin layer of dust lay atop the gilded pages. He checked another recorder, stuck it behind the thick editions of Moby Dick and War and Peace, deciding they were safe from Frank’s, or Bucks’ interest.

He hurried upstairs, his feet quiet on the soft plush of the carpets. Down an upstairs hall he found the master bedroom. A mess, as though it had been searched. Probably by Bucks. A suit of clothes, stained with blood on the lapels and front, lay on the floor in a heap. He hoped he wouldn’t find a corpse in the tub. There wasn’t one.

One of the side tables was draped in silk, and he slid under its tenting to attach a digital recorder to its underside. There. Whit stood. The final request Eve had made was to copy the hard drive on her home computer.

I’ve got enough info there to put Paul away. If the worst happens to me, Whit, you need it for protection, she’d said over the morning coffee. Assuming Paul or Bucks hadn’t already moved it or erased it.

He found the office down the hall from the bedroom. Clean, tidy, no files, no papers out for the casual observer. He sat down in front of the PC and powered on the machine. It began its start-up whir.

Downstairs, the front door opened, the alarm system gave a little ping. Then the door shut.

He got up, went to the top of the stairs, moving silently.

Behind him the PC played its quiet but annoying startup fanfare. In a bedroom across the hall he peered out past a drape to the front driveway; a Honda that hadn’t been there before sat parked across the street. Whit moved quietly back into Eve’s office, thinking: I am so screwed.

He heard movement downstairs, heels on tile, then silence. Then the soft pad of feet on the carpeted stairs.

Whit drew the pistol Gooch had given him from the knapsack. He stepped back into the room’s small closet and eased the door shut. Most of the way. He could see the PC’s start-up screen completed, icons against a black background.

‘Frank?’ a voice called out. A woman’s voice, a little throaty. He listened for more than one tread. Footsteps went by the office door, down toward the master bedroom. ‘Frank Bucks? You here?’

Then the quiet again. He heard movement centering around the bedroom. The intruder checking out the room. He concentrated on breathing without sound. He squatted in the closet, a fur coat tickling his right cheek and throat, a long tweed coat itchy on the other side of his face. Clothes you could wear for five whole minutes in a Houston winter. He pointed the barrel of the gun toward the closet door.

You going to shoot another person? In cold blood?

He counted. Frank and Bucks could return at any second. He didn’t have forever to get out of this house.

Now footsteps approached from down the hall. On the PC screen, the desktop blanked into a colorful array of bubbles bouncing around the monitor. He figured whoever the other intruder was, she hadn’t heard the PC’s annoying trill.

A figure passed before the crack in the closet. Then took a seat at the system, pulled the office chair close to the desk.

He could see her back. A young woman, dressed in a dark blouse, black leather slacks. She turned, he saw her profile.

Tasha. The beautiful stripper with the computer equipment as her gimmick.

He watched her fingers dance on the keyboard, saw slivers of screens appear on the monitor. She took a CD out of her purse, popped it in the tray, moused around the screen. He heard the whir of the hard drive, the whine of processing.

Tasha sat back.

She was working on the computer. What? Copying files? Deleting them by reformatting the hard drive? Sweat inched along his ribs. She could be destroying the evidence Eve needed to dangle over Paul’s head. His teeth bit into his bottom lip. But if he showed himself, what would he have to do to her? He wasn’t going to hurt her and she could tell Frank and Bucks that he’d been in the house. If they had half a brain they’d search it then, find the voice recorders.

But why was she here when they were gone? She’d called their names, parked in the driveway, must’ve had a key to open the door.

He heard the click of keys being pressed.

‘Baby, they’re not here.’ She was talking on a cell phone. ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m getting it done. We’re good to go.’ A pause. Whit was suddenly conscious of every inch of his body itching, of sweat that felt like it was pooling in his shoes. ‘You ordered the hit yet?’

Whit closed his eyes. There was a long pause.

‘I don’t want details,’ she said. ‘Don’t go there. We ought to go down to the Caribbean for a few days, have a holiday.’ Another pause. ‘Don’t get all pissy-ass on me.’ Pause. ‘That’s right, that’s right.’

Screw the recorders. She knows what’s going down and I need to know.

Tasha said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and he saw her, in the crack of the door, drop the phone back into her purse, zip it shut. He counted to three and kicked open the closet.

She spun toward him but he had his pistol at her jaw line before she could turn entirely around.

‘Don’t move. Don’t scream,’ he said.

‘Please don’t.’

‘We never did get to finish our chat last night,’ Whit said. ‘Did we?’