‘Let me talk to her,’ Gooch said. ‘I’m much more charming and refined.’
For now, she was Emily Smith.
Insurance came in many different forms, and for Eve, protection lay in a safe-deposit box at a branch bank on Kirby, west of the Rice University campus and the sprawl of the Texas Medical Center. Inside the box, a black purse held an Illinois driver’s license, a mint Visa credit card, a passport in the name of Emily Smith and five hundred in tidy bricks of cash. She retrieved the purse after listening to news radio in her car to hear if there was breaking news about a double homicide near the Port. There wasn’t. But it wouldn’t be long and she’d know how much of a description, if any, whoever called the police had given of her.
At least the police won’t kill you. Why should Paul believe you after Frank’s skimming?
And the answer to that question made her blood race.
She’d seen what happened to thieves in Detroit. Pliers, blowtorches, broom handles were the toys of choice of the men charged with finding where missing money lay. If they believed Paul and Bucks over her – and given Frank’s recent pilfering, it was more than likely – they would torture her for days before putting a bullet in her head, even if she couldn’t reveal where the money was hidden.
If she ran, she looked guilty and they would never give up. She had saved herself once before, taking the stolen cash back to Tommy, and she figured it was the way to save herself again. Find the money, prove Bucks took it, get the money back to Paul.
She needed a hiding place to wait out the crisis and hatch a plan. Paul might not be watching the airports yet; he would be soon enough. He could pull Kiko into the search as well. Kiko would have a vested interest in getting hold of the cash. She could drive anywhere in the country. But then that would leave Frank alone, and she was afraid of his bearing the brunt of her supposed guilt.
She decided to stay in Houston, at least for the moment.
Hiding out at a dive motel was out of the question; her car wouldn’t fit in. So late that afternoon she headed west on I-10, out into suburbia, took the Addicks exit on the edge of Houston, and got herself a room at a nondescript Hilton. She used the Emily Smith card to pay, believing that paying in cash would attract undue attention at a nicer hotel, holding her breath while the card was processed. She’d paid a lot of money for the Emily cards and documents, getting them from an old friend in Detroit who specialized in false identities, and when the desk clerk handed her back the card along with a slip to sign she nearly collapsed in relief.
She tried Frank on the phone. No answer. She showered. Put her clothes back on. Ordered room service, soup and salad, and ate. She needed basics but she didn’t want to go to the nearby sprawling malls. She’d found her rock, her comfort zone, and she wasn’t eager to get out of it.
Would you like to see one of your sons?
She poured a soda from the minibar, drank half of it down, wiped at the tears that chugging the fizz brought to her eyes. Maybe the man wasn’t from one of her kids. Maybe it was a trick of Bucks’. He might have found out about her background. A way to shock her into leaving the exchange.
But there were much easier ways. The guy who took her picture had to be legit.
Her sons. She did not think of them every day but she did on their birthdays, at Christmas, when classes started, although they were all grown now and long past anxious first days of school. She had pictures of them, hidden in the house in Houston; not even Frank knew about them. The thought of losing those photos, never seeing them again, made her ribs hurt.
Eve turned on the news at ten. It was the lead story: two people found shot in an office near the Port. The glossy-lipped anchor faked a frown of personal concern. The two bodies have not been conclusively identified.’
Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID: Frank. She clicked it on.
‘Frank?’
‘They’re going to kill me because of you,’ Frank said. His voice was low, aching. ‘Paul sliced my hand open, You happy?’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘I told them that. They don’t believe me.’
‘Bucks did it,’ she said.
‘I knew it, that bastard.’
‘He’s got the money.’
‘Can’t you prove he did it?’ Frank said.
‘No.’
‘He’s sticking to me like a horny fan,’ Frank said. ‘I’m calling from the men’s room on the second floor at the club. Hiding in the toilet.’
‘Frank…’she started, then stopped.
‘They gave me a Valium shot; I’m a little fuzzed. I do love you, babe. Even if you did this. I’m having to act, though, like I hate you. Or they’ll kill me dead. I told ’em you’d called me, wanted to meet at the Galleria. So don’t go there. Where are you?’ he asked.
‘It’s better for you if you don’t know. I need to get that money back, Frank. Or prove I didn’t take it.’ She suddenly didn’t feel tough or smart, she simply wanted to be at home in bed with him, watching an old movie, snuggled under the covers.
‘Make a deal with the cops. They’ll protect you.’
‘I’m not doing that.’
‘Eve. Baby. Then come in. Talk with me, with Paul.’
‘If he doesn’t already believe me, I’m dead. Or Bucks will shoot me dead to protect himself before I get two words out.’
‘You stay away, Paul believes even more that you stole it,’ Frank said.
Her anger at Frank boiled suddenly. ‘Your damn skimming. You’re half the reason I’m in this trouble. Why on earth did you take money from the club?’
‘Everybody pinches,’ Frank said. He sounded as mournful as a schoolboy called before a growling teacher. ‘But this guy in LA, he said if I could front the money, he could get me recorded and we could sell the CDs on eBay. Or get me guest backup gigs. I still got a name, Eve. It would have worked. Then I would have fed the money back into the club, no one had to know. I figured you’d help me do it.’
‘Frank. My God.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ But she heard resolve in his voice. ‘I messed up, so I’m gonna save your ass.’
‘How?’
‘I can find where Bucks put the money,’ he said.
‘Frank, you can’t find your dick most days.’
‘Jesus, you’re good to me. What a sweetheart.’
‘I’m scared. For once, I’m scared, all right?’ Her voice shook. ‘I don’t have a way out of this. I can’t even come home, Frank.’
‘I’ll meet you. Anywhere.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘What, you don’t trust me now?’
She didn’t, but she wanted to trust him so badly her need was a sour taste in her mouth. The fact he’d stolen money and Paul hadn’t beaten him to a pulp… Paul wanted him healthy. To help find her. Frank might be bait.
‘You don’t love me,’ she said. ‘This ends it, doesn’t it?’
‘Sweetheart, I do. But I need you to tell me where you’re at,’ Frank said.
‘Frank…’ she began, then stopped. ‘It’s not a good idea.’
‘You protecting me or yourself?’
‘Both. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Evie,’ he said, and his voice broke slightly. ‘I love you. Whatever happens… I love you.’ Like he expected to see her next in a coffin, to set a rose in her cold, folded hands. She felt a distance begin to widen, a gap between them that hurt her chest.
‘Has anyone… else been looking for me?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I…’ She couldn’t say it. Frank didn’t know about the husband and sons she’d walked away from; at the least she never told him. Port Leo seemed now like a story that had happened in another woman’s life. ‘Never mind. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good-bye.’
He started to protest but she clicked off the phone.
She believed that, with all his faults and vanities, Frank did love her. But love didn’t bind every heart as tightly. She loved her children, in a way, more as little playmates than as treasured responsibilities, but she had walked away from them. Love was a condition you could get over, and maybe Frank had recovered. Fear could make him leave. She couldn’t trust him. And she couldn’t put him in further danger.