Cut and Run

40

Claudia stood over Whit, holding a cup of steaming coffee in her hand, and he wondered for a second if she would pour it on his head.

‘You look terrible,’ she said quietly. A family was camped in the corner of the intensive care room, and she spoke in a hush.

‘Hello to you too,’ he said.

She handed him the coffee. It was close to six Sunday night, Gooch lying in critical condition for the whole afternoon.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Claudia sat next to him. He didn’t look at her.

‘Whit.’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

‘Sitting here with a coffee that my friend brought me,’ he said.

‘Don’t,’ she said in a low, harsh whisper. ‘Do you know what I’ve been through?’

‘Does it matter if I know? You’re mad at me before I’ve even opened my mouth.’

‘Walk with me,’ she said. ‘There’s a little garden outside. I’m going to yell at you, and I don’t want to disturb these people.’

‘Visiting time is in another fifteen minutes. I can’t miss it.’

‘Level with me and you won’t,’ she said.

‘I love it when you get all authority figure.’ He walked out past her. She followed him.

The evening was damp, rain having ceased its fall an hour ago, and the wet held the air in a swampy embrace. Whit sat down on the damp stone bench. Claudia stood.

‘I almost got killed last night,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘No,’ he said, watching her. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Greg Buckman. A shooter came after him. Nearly got me. A man got killed.’

‘But you’re okay.’

‘Yes, I’m okay.’ She sat next to him. He reached for her arm and she stood. ‘And you are so not okay, Whit. Not okay at all to me. You sit here like a stone statue, not answering a single reasonable question over the past three days.’

‘So ask me.’

Start easy, she decided. ‘For God’s sakes, what happened to Gooch?’

‘He had a heart attack.’

‘I don’t mean that, Whit.’ Claudia thought: infinite patience right now. ‘He was full of a cocktail of narcotics, morphine, a whole mess of junk. He’s been beaten.’

‘So much for medical privacy,’ Whit said. ‘Gooch does love to party.’

‘You protecting your mom, Whit?’

‘Claudia. Please go home. I don’t have anything to say.’

‘I nearly got killed trying to help you.’

‘I warned you that Bucks was dangerous. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

‘He wasn’t half as dangerous as Jose Peron,’ Claudia said. ‘That’s the shooter’s name.’

‘His name is Peron? Like Evita?’

‘Yes. Look at me, Whit.’

Instead he studied his shoes.

‘Whit. I love you, you’re my dear friend. Whatever you’ve done, I’ll help you. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I want you to take Gooch back to Port Leo, soon as he can travel. That’s how you can help me.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But on the condition you tell me what’s happening.’

‘First tell me everything that happened to you last night. Please,’ he said, taking her hand. She let him, and she told him about finding Robin and Bucks. When she was done he said, ‘Thank God you’re okay.’

Claudia turned his face toward her, looked hard into his eyes. ‘The police found Greg Buckman prowling around a house in River Oaks today. They were already headed there to talk to Frank Polo, who’s the manager of a strip club called the Topaz.’

‘Oh.’

‘The owner of the club, Paul Bellini’ – she put an emphasis on the last name – ‘got gunned down in a parking lot last night. His Porsche was abandoned near Shepherd and Alabama. It was wiped clean of prints. Oddly enough, there was a van parked not far from where Bellini’s body was found. Gooch’s van.’

Whit let go of her hand.

‘So I’m freaking, I’m calling hospitals, Whit, not knowing if you and Gooch are dead or alive. Eventually I find Gooch here. You haven’t talked to the police about all this, have you, Whit?’

‘I told the doctors my friend had gone missing for a few hours, turned up beaten and sick. They gave the information to the police. They ran a check, found his van was near the Bellini death scene. They came back and talked to me. I told them I didn’t know why his van was there. And Gooch isn’t up for much questioning yet.’

‘So you lied to the police.’ Claudia couldn’t keep the outrage out of her voice.

‘Tell them what you suspect. I don’t care.’

‘You came to Houston to find the Bellinis. You sure as hell found them, Whit.’

‘So where’s Bucks now?’

‘They questioned him and let him go. His story is that this Jose Peron is a hit man hired by disgruntled Energis investors to get rid of him.’

Whit raised an eyebrow. ‘They bought that?’

‘No. The man killed at Bucks’ place, a guy named MacKay, is a suspected drug dealer and hit man himself. But never arrested with cause. They don’t have a charge against Bucks, other than fleeing the scene of a crime. His apartment was clean. There’s nothing hard yet to connect Bucks to any illegal activity. He drove around Houston all night, slept in his car, then drove to Polo’s house this morning. The police are talking with his girlfriend, to see if she’ll give him up.’

‘Bucks is out there,’ Whit said. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘I get the feeling it’s not telling, it’s warning.’ She paused. ‘Where’s your mother?’

‘I have no idea. Dead, probably.’

‘Whit.’ She touched his knee; he didn’t move. ‘I’m sorry.’

He said nothing.

‘Wait.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Does that mean you found her? Or didn’t?’

‘It doesn’t matter, Claudia.’

‘You found her.’

‘Found and lost,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?’

‘What does that mean? She ran away from you again?’ Then she said, softly, ‘Did you kill Paul Bellini?’

‘No.’

‘You can tell me if you did, Whit. It’s okay…’

He crossed his arms, gave her a crooked smile. ‘And why is it okay if I killed Bellini? Because he was scum?’

‘I didn’t say it was okay if you killed him. I said it was okay if you told me.’

‘I absolutely didn’t kill him. Neither did Gooch.’

‘What really happened to Gooch?’

‘Gooch can tell you all about it,’ Whit said, ‘on that long drive home.’

‘And you’re doing what? Staying in Houston to play high noon with Bucks?’

‘Thanks for the coffee, but it’s visiting time.’ He stood up and walked away. If Gooch was conscious, now was the time to get their stories straight, whispering to each other under the hum of the medical equipment.

‘Jose Peron’s mother was killed two years ago,’ Vernetta Westbrook said. Claudia sat across from her in the hospital cafeteria, sipping coffee. ‘He was once on the fringes of the Miami drug trade, a guy who didn’t deal anything harder than pot, but after her murder he started taking on the dirty jobs no one else wanted and he accelerated up through the ranks.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does Judge Mosley know Peron? His Honor like to snort a little coke?’

‘No. Tell me about the mother’s death. Was she dealing?’

‘It’s the kind of story the drug czar tells to boost budgets,’ Vernetta said. ‘Mrs Peron was a high-school drama teacher. Staged Shakespeare in the Projects with underprivileged kids, did volunteer work, well-loved in the community. She walked into a drug deal going down in the school lot. She told the boys to get the hell off school property. They shot her four times.’

‘They catch the guys?’

‘The suspects – two of them, both eighteen – were found floating two days later near the very busy Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale. Shot in the head.

Dumped rather publicly, the police thought, to make a statement.’

Claudia’s eyes widened. ‘Jose Peron killed them.’

‘He had an airtight alibi. But I talked with the Broward County DA’s office and they believe the guys were offed as a favor to Jose. Then Jose began his heavier involvement in the organization. It’s headed by a guy named Kiko Grace. We got an anonymous tip today that his body was ready and waiting for us, in a leased condo near downtown.’

‘So Peron’s boss is here and dies around the same time as Paul Bellini.’ Claudia felt cold. God, Whit, did you… No. She could not believe it of him.

‘Your judge isn’t saying much more than what you told us. That he hired Chyme to find his mother, that he hasn’t found his mother, and that his friend Guchinski had nothing to do with Paul Bellini’s death. He either is lying or he really doesn’t know. Which is it, Claudia?’

‘I’m not a mind reader. If he says he doesn’t know, I have to believe him.’

‘I don’t,’ Vernetta said. ‘I don’t have to believe him at all. We’ll invite him for a long leisurely chat for hours on end.’

‘You won’t convince one judge to sign a warrant to arrest a fellow judge without hard cause.’

Vernetta shook her head. ‘Mosley’s a rural JP, not even a lawyer. He’s nothing to the judges here.’

‘Why don’t you drag in Greg Buckman again? He was friends with Bellini, and Peron and Grace must’ve wanted Buckman dead if Peron came after him with guns blazing. Leave Whit alone. Buckman’s clearly in the middle of this.’

‘We’ve got tit for tat. Kiko Grace comes here, wants to move into Houston drug territory. He whacks Bellini. Bellini’s group whacks Grace. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter who died first. They have a short little war and then it’s done. Peron shooting for Bucks is the next stage of the war. Let them kill each other. They’re a cancer.’

‘You have no problem with murder, Vernetta. Assuming innocent people don’t get hurt.’

‘That’s not so. And your pet judge isn’t innocent, Claudia. He knows more than he’s saying.’

‘If Grace is Miami-based, Jose Peron might head back to Florida and pull forces in here.’

‘I hope he goes home. Stays there and runs Grace’s ring. You wonder why a guy would get involved in the trade that killed his mother. Shortest line to revenge, I guess.’

‘Yes,’ Claudia said. But Vernetta had a point. It made her wonder. ‘None of your informants have skinny on Peron?’

‘He’s too new in town. Nothing yet.’

‘When Leonard Guchinski’s well enough to travel, and assuming he’s not charged with anything, I’m taking him back to Port Leo. It’s a long drive. He’s a friend, of sorts. I can hope he’ll talk.’ She stood.

‘Talk more than your precious judge, at least,’ Vernetta said. ‘But let me ask you a hard question. Guchinski talks, or Mosley talks to you, in confidence, tells you the truth of what’s happened between all these people, what do you do, Claudia? Rat on your friends if they’ve broken the law?’

‘I’ll worry about that when I cross that bridge.’

‘Girlfriend,’ Vernetta said, ‘you’re running out of road.’