‘How big of a cut?’ A tease touched his voice, one she liked. He ought to shove her out of the way, make those phone calls. But he was giving her time to listen. He was passing her test. She slid her fingernail down his strong Roman nose, along his cheekbones, as though she was mapping out a course.
‘Call your guys first. See if they can find her.’
He hurried to the phone, made the calls while she watched. Two guys each, dispatched to each hotel. When he was done, he came to her, gave her another kiss.
‘Now you,’ he said.
‘My cut should be about a half million.’
He laughed, looked blank, laughed again. ‘Don’t we aim high?’
‘I’m serious. Ten percent, finder’s fee. I got to pay Ralph for his help. And I want to quit stripping and get a new job.’
‘What job?’
‘Eve’s,’ she said. ‘Let me be your money minder from now on.’ She moved her fingertip along his mouth, stuck the fingertip between his lips. He flicked his tongue across the nail, kissed the flesh.
His voice thickened as her finger roamed down across his stomach, tickled at his navel. Think you’re qualified?’ he said.
Okay, he had flunked. ‘Qualified?’ Tasha pointed at the papers. ‘I handed you Eve and your five million. You lose her this time, she gets away, maybe I don’t ask Ralph for his help again. We can let her walk off if you aren’t interested in playing nice.’
‘How about I give you and Ralph fifty K? It’s a lot for a few minutes work.’
‘Not if it saves your ass.’ She got up from the bed, knelt down, searched under the bed for her panties. ‘I’m sorry I bothered.’
Tasha didn’t hear him rise from the bed as she stood. His fist closed in her hair and he yanked her head back, bared her throat, gave her flesh a little nip. He eased her onto the mattress, his grip still tight. It didn’t hurt, much, but a hot boil of anger rose in her chest.
‘You’re not going. We’re not done,’ Paul said.
‘Let go. Please.’
‘You don’t threaten not to help me. You got that, Tasha?’ He pushed her face down into the sheets. ‘Now. What are you going to do?’
‘Help you.’
The pressure on her head eased slightly and his voice softened. ‘Besides that, baby.’
‘Paul,’ she said, ‘I can do a lot more for you than be good in bed.’
‘Clearly. You’re the smartest person I know right now, Tasha. But I don’t like it when you make me get rough with you.’ He let go of her hair.
Like his ill temper was her fault. She crafted a careful smile, made it rise on her face, looked up at him with a mix of patience, desire, and calmness. She reminded herself that right now, she needed him. That wouldn’t always be the case. And she filed this nasty minute of roughness away, to remember, to use later. ‘So. I help you, you’re gonna help me, right?’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘You usually deliver the goods before collecting the reward. But I’ll give you and Ralph a hundred thou, final offer.’
‘Okay,’ she said. She didn’t believe him.
Now he smiled, kissed her lips. She stayed still. ‘Cool, baby, and you’ve given me an idea with Ralph. I want to know everything Frank Polo’s been charging on his accounts. Eve, too. And Bucks.’
‘Bucks?’
‘Tasha, he’s my friend. But that doesn’t mean I trust him right now.’
‘Do you trust me?’ she asked.
‘Sure I do,’ he said. ‘Sure I do. And that’s why I’ve got a real special job for you to do.’ He leaned down, gave her a slow, gentle kiss, and this time she kissed back.
14
Gooch slipped the hostess a ten-dollar bill and nabbed a large booth in the back of the Pie Shack. Whit sat across from him. The place had the treasured atmosphere of an old neighborhood cafe: mirrored walls, neon art of thick slices of pie on plates, coffee steaming up from a mug at every booth. The huge window by the booth that faced out into the lot was smeared with rain. Thunder sounded far off, a brief rumble.
‘Now we wait,’ Gooch said.
Whit glanced back at the doorway. ‘I shouldn’t sit here, by the window. She could see me. Run.’
‘I doubt she’ll know who you are after thirty years, Whit.’
‘I don’t know.’ He fidgeted in the booth, checked his watch. ‘She’s late.’
‘She’s going to be. At least fifteen minutes. If she’s survived this long working for a crime ring she’s going to be cautious. She’ll put us on the defensive.’
‘She’s not going to talk to me in a busy place.’ The Pie Shack was full. The two closest booths – there were no tables – were both occupied, one by three gay guys rehashing their evening at a local club, the other by a wine-happy quartet of women, laughing at themselves and digging through thick slabs of meringued pies, attempting to sober up with pots of black coffee. Both groups seemed wholly captivated by their own conversations. A riser of plants separated the booths from each other, obscuring views and dulling sounds.
Whit watched a Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows drive through the lot, mist rising from its tires. Then a pickup truck, then a Lexus.
‘Easy, boy,’ Gooch said. ‘She’ll talk to you. She has a nice-sounding voice.’
‘She’s probably more nervous than I am.’
‘She has reason to be. Sit at the counter and keep your back turned to the front door,’ Gooch said. ‘You won’t scare her off that way when she walks in.’ Gooch cocked a finger at him. ‘It’s gonna be okay, buddy.’
‘Thanks.’ Whit took a seat at the long, curving counter. Turned his back to the front door. He ordered a cup of decaf, dosed it with milk, and hunched his shoulders over the curl of steam. On his right a woman in a security-guard uniform plowed through an omelette doused in chili and cheese; she gave him a glance that showed she noticed his bruised face but said nothing. On his left a young man with three earrings ate butter-soaked waffles and read Sports Illustrated.
Whit stirred the milky swirl of his coffee. No mirror was mounted above the bar to let him watch arrivals and departures. But he heard the jingle of the door as it opened and closed, and each time the little bell tinkled he tightened his grip on his coffee cup. He tried not to care. He glanced over at Gooch’s booth; he could barely see the top of Gooch’s crewcutted head over the divider of fake ivy.
He had played out in his mind a thousand times what he would say to his mother. Why did you do it? What did we do wrong? How could you? I hate you. I forgive you.
The day she had left, his four oldest brothers had gone with family friends to see a movie in Corpus Christi. He and Mark, the littlest boys at two and three, had played in the backyard, worn themselves out playing chase while his mother sat and watched. She’d put them down for naps and, while they slept, she put her bags in her car, placed signed divorce papers on the dinette, and left Port Leo forever. He imagined that before she walked out the door she kissed him good-bye, cuddled him, told him she was sorry. She probably had done none of those things.
Sweat tickled the undersides of his arms, the backs of his legs.
The door jingled.
He waited, watched the hostess leading a young couple to a front booth. He relaxed a moment. Then he saw an older woman, her back to him, dressed in a rumpled suit and no raincoat, heading right for Gooch’s back booth.
‘I don’t know you.’ Eve Michaels slid into the booth. She clutched her purse close to her right side. My God, she thought, the guy was a bruiser. Built big and broken-mirror ugly. Hands as big as hubcaps.
‘I’m Gooch.’ He didn’t rise from the booth, wisely not making any move to scare her, but he did offer one of the plus-sized hands. She didn’t shake it. She had her hand on the Beretta, pointed at him inside the purse. She flicked her gaze to her left; the kitchen door was right there. In case she had to shoot and run.
‘That’s a very nice purse, by the way,’ Gooch said.
‘Thank you.’
‘What are you aiming at me? A. 357 Magnum?’ Gooch asked.
The waitress approached, took her order for coffee and lemon pie, and left.