‘Paul, you’re gonna let him get away with that?’ Bucks said.
‘You shut up,’ Paul said. ‘You find Eve, Bucks, you can have the ninety thou.’
Bucks shut up.
‘I’m not trusting either of you too much at the moment,’ Paul said. ‘That’s why you both got to prove your loyalty. Bring her to me. Think of it as a modified contract. You two boys are the only bidders.’ He glared at Frank. ‘You give me your Katy account info and I’m moving that money back where it belongs.’
‘Sure, Paul,’ Frank said.
‘You steal one more cent from this club, and I’m going to kill you. With this broken record. An inch at a time.’
‘I understand, Paul.’
‘Not an inch. I’m going fucking metric. A centimeter at a time.’
‘I understand, Paul.’
‘I don’t think you do, Frank,’ Paul said, and he reached out, grabbed Frank’s hand, turned the palm skyward, and with one swipe of the shard laid the flesh open. Blood spurted. Frank screamed. Paul shoved him to the floor. Frank clutched the torn hand to his chest.
‘Next time, I’m slicing your dick,’ Paul said. ‘Now call Doc Brewer and get yourself sewed up.’
Frank staggered toward the phone. ‘You go downstairs and call the doctor. Get out of my sight. You get blood on the carpet I’m cutting the other hand,’ Paul said.
Frank tucked his hand inside his suit jacket and fled from the room.
‘He’s lying,’ Bucks said. ‘He knows where she is.’
‘Nah,’ Paul said. ‘No way he’d come back here if he knew.’ Paul gave him a smirk. ‘He’s an old guy and a has-been. He was stupid. You’re not stupid, are you, Bucks?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Because I got a couple of soldiers searching your crib right now. They’re not going to find five mil in cash there, are they?’
‘No. I told you I don’t have it. Thanks for the vote of confidence, man.’ Bucks stood, squared his shoulders. ‘You brought me into this business, Paul. I owe you everything. I’m not going to betray you. We both know that.’
‘You had the same opportunity as Eve.’
‘You hired me,’ Bucks said. ‘But you inherited her.’
‘Tell me again what you saw.’
Bucks took a breath. ‘I was running late getting to the exchange
…’
‘Why?’
‘Fender bender on 1-10. Two lanes closed for about fifteen minutes, traffic sucked.’ Bucks shrugged.
‘Then what?’
‘I get to Alvarez. Door’s open. I go in, find Doyle and this guy dead. Bodies still warm. No sign of the money.’ He paused. ‘I check Doyle’s pockets. His wallet, his ID’s gone. The man doesn’t have ID on him. The smell of gunfire is still fresh. There’s even a casing on the floor. I pick it up, pocket it. Then I get the hell out, being sure I’m not leaving prints.’ He tented his fingers. ‘I pull the Jag across the street, start to call you, and then here I see Eve tearing back into the lot. She goes inside. I wait to see what happens, then she comes tearing out before the cops show.’
‘If she had killed them and taken the money while you were stuck in traffic, why the hell would she come back?’
Bucks held up the casing. ‘She found she was missing one and came back for it.’
‘Eve would be thorough if she planned a heist like this.’
‘She’s Hot a hit man, Paul. She could have missed a casing in a panic. Or she was coming back for another reason.’ Bucks put the casing on the desk.
‘Her coming back was a huge risk.’ Doubt in his voice.
‘I’m telling you what I saw. Even a lady sharp as Eve isn’t going to think straight all the time.’
‘I don’t like not knowing who the man was with Doyle.’ Paul sat down. ‘I want you to find out. The cops are going to be looking closely at a banker getting killed down at the Port. They’ll come after us if they make the connection between my dad and Alvarez Insurance.’
‘First they have to make the connection,’ Bucks said.
Paul shook his head. ‘This is like finding out your favorite aunt is a two-dollar whore. It’s depressing.’
‘People often disappoint.’
‘You better not,’ Paul said. ‘I’m trusting you, man. Find her. Find the money. See if we can push back the deal with Kiko until Saturday night. But he can’t know we don’t have the green. He knows that, we’re dead in the water. No one will supply us. That money’s the starting point for us.’
‘Starting point,’ Bucks said.
‘The reason I wanted you working with me,’ Paul said, ‘is that I’m going to be bigger than my dad ever was. I need your expertise a lot more than I need muscle with guns. We’re gonna run Houston, Bucks. And when we’ve got that base to work from, I’m going after the men that humiliated my father, that drove him out of Detroit. Barici. Vasco. Antonelli. They’re dried-up old men now. The racketeering laws have broken most of them. They worry so much about the Feds, they won’t see me coming, but I’m going to annihilate them and they won’t be able to touch me.’ He jabbed a finger at Bucks, his face reddening. ‘But I need this deal to jump-start us. To build a stronger power base with an ally like Kiko.’
‘You’re not mob anymore,’ Bucks said quietly. ‘With all due respect, Paul, leave it alone. They’re old men. They don’t have nearly the power they once did. What’s to be gained from it?’
‘Eve knows those guys. She could run to them with the money, if she wanted. They’d give her sanctuary, shelter. She’s old school. She and them, they’d understand each other. She knows how I work. So you got to find her and the money. I’m not gonna let my family be humiliated again.’
‘If I can’t find her-’ Bucks started.
‘Hey, Bucks,’ Paul said. ‘If you don’t find her, nobody’s ever gonna find you.’
10
Whit passed under the eagle eye of the bouncer, who looked carved from a redwood, paid the twenty-dollar cover, walked into the thump of the music, the strobe lights blinking against his skin.
Club Topaz was dark as a dimly lit closet, a happy-hour crowd thinning out and a well-heeled, post-dinner crowd settling in. The only fully lit areas were the stages, awash with white glows from both ceiling and floor. The crowd was mostly men, with the exception of a few women who wore uncomfortable smiles, as if here under mild protest. The decor was heavy on gold and chrome, a strange mix of Roman antiquity (perhaps to suggest an impending orgy) and contemporary sleekness. The club had retro-guido written all over it, probably part of the cheese-factor appeal, but it was spotlessly clean, the waitresses moving among the tables with precise energy, the cogs of the club all warming up to produce a night of longing and money.
A woman was dancing solo on the stage, and her moves were not of the simple shake-the-tits variety. She was tall, redheaded, and she moved with easy grace and wry suggestion, performing to David Byrne’s cover of Cole Porter’s ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ as opposed to a generic dance-club beat. She was dressed as a skimpily clad cowgirl, a Stetson perfectly angled on her head, topless but wearing a thin bandolier that divided her high and mighty breasts, leather chaps over a sparkly G-string, and a holster. She drew her guns and sprayed a couple of heavy-jowled men with water. They hooted and clapped. She blew imaginary smoke from the gun’s barrel and the men howled in appreciation. She moved with the confidence and style of a Broadway dancer who happened to be showing her breasts, a funkier Fosse girl. Removing her gunslinger gloves, she dropped them on the balding head of a delighted patron.
Whit moved to the bar, looking for Gooch. They’d decided to come in separately. Gooch had been in for ten minutes already. He saw Gooch, sitting alone at a corner table, nursing a beer, watching the stage. He selected another corner table and sat down.
His stomach dropped as he realized his mother was possibly less than a hundred yards away from him. He could come face-to-face with the shadow that had always loomed over his life. While surrounded by strippers and men waving crisp dollar bills. It was not the reunion he had envisioned as a child. Little flowers of sweat blossomed under his arms, along his ribs, on his back.