Claudia saw Ben Saturday morning, after the FBI and the police had questioned, him further. A guard stood outside his door, watching the nurses. She came into his room and he opened his eyes. He looked pale, a thick bruise on his face, his dark hair little-boy tousled on the pillow.
Thank God,’ Ben said and she came to the bed, crawled in next to him, hugged him. He hugged back, winced a little.
‘Are you hurt? They said you were okay…’
‘The ribs, a little, but not bad.’ His voice was throaty. ‘Face hurts. Jesus, I’m glad you’re okay. Gar said he was going to-’
‘He didn’t. Danny shot him.’
’That’s what your ex told me.’
‘You spoke with David?’ She sat up.
‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, he questioned me last night. For about an hour, around three in the morning or so, once they really couldn’t find Stoney anywhere.’
‘Please be kidding. He didn’t.’
‘Sure. Claudia, it’s fine. If it helps them find my brother.’
‘Did David behave?’
‘Perfect gentleman.’
‘That’s somehow worse.’ She touched his chest. ‘Tell me what happened. Everything.’
‘Gar… was furious about not getting the money. He said he was going to rape you. The other guy-’
‘His name is Zack,’ she said.
‘Zack, then. He freaked. I wanted to reason with him, tell him to call Gar off, but he belted me across the face with his gun.’ He touched at the livid bruise on his battered nose, his cheek. ‘When I woke up he had me tied and handcuffed in the forward cabin’s head.’
‘Where did he take you?’
‘I think in circles. He didn’t know much about boats, sweetie,’ Ben said. ‘Then he panicked, tried to call Danny on his boat, didn’t get an answer.’
‘Danny never mentioned that. He told me Zack would probably kill you.’
‘The dumb shit probably couldn’t operate the radio right. Asking on the wrong channels. But he did figure out the phone. I heard him make a call, asking someone to come and get him, he was stuck out on the Gulf in a big fucking boat he couldn’t drive with a hostage. Crying about his boyfriend, cussing Stoney for not being on the boat and it all going down wrong. You would’ve thought his car had broken down and he was calling roadside assistance.’
‘But Zack left Gar. He cut the lines.’
‘I don’t think so, Claudia. From what I heard, I think Gar cut those. To keep his boyfriend from interfering with him going after you.’
Claudia let out a long breath. ‘So someone came and rescued him?’
‘Not exactly. He told me he’d gotten the boat in close to shore and he didn’t know how to drop the anchor but he was gonna swim in. Said all this to me through the closed door of the head. I kept thinking, he’s gonna open it up, shoot me. Then he says he doesn’t want to face a murder charge. Says he’ll let me be if I just say Gar and Danny were behind it all, maybe do him a favor, not mention him. I’m saying, sure, not a problem. Thinking he’s just going to shoot me when it comes time for him to leave. But then he was gone. I didn’t hear another boat draw close, and I started hoping, he didn’t set the anchor, we might be drifting into the Intracoastal. I was hoping to be a threat to navigation. Jesus, it’d mean people found me.’
‘How’d you get out of the handcuffs?’
‘I found a little wrench under the sink. Had to pull it to me with my toes. Stoney probably left it there the last time he fixed a faucet. He never puts up his crap. So I used it to hammer the lock, finally broke it, and while I’m trying, Jupiter went aground. I’m sweating bullets. I’m thinking, God, am I sinking? I smash the cuffs, get out, see that I’ve run aground on a little oyster-shell beach, on a little strip of island not far off the Intracoastal. I could see a freighter in the distance, heading down toward Corpus. Zack tore all the wires out of the satellite phone and the radio. I was so ready to be off that boat, thinking maybe you could still be rescued. I just got into the water and swam. Halfway to shore I’m thinking, maybe I could have stayed on the boat, set off a flare. I was just mental. Reached Encina Pass.’ He squeezed her. ‘Claudia. I thought for sure…’
‘I know.’ She kissed him then, and he was gentle, like he couldn’t quite believe she was there.
He let the kiss linger and then said, ‘My brother.’
‘They’ll find him.’ She sat up. ‘I want to talk to you about your brother.’
‘Zack. Or his friends. They must have gone after Stoney for the money.’
‘Your brother knew we had been kidnapped, Ben. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t tell anyone.’
‘They said they would kill us, Claudia.’
‘Did he or did he not refuse to pay ransom?’
Ben’s mouth worked. ‘My brother wouldn’t do that to us.’
‘Danny said the next morning that Stoney had agreed to a trade, thinking you were with Danny and me. So I’m assuming he hadn’t paid a ransom the day before.’
‘Stoney said his computer systems were down, he couldn’t do the transfer. Claudia, my brother’s not some cold-blooded monster. You can’t believe this of him.’
‘I know you love your brother, Ben…’
‘You heard him, didn’t you? You heard him repeat back the account numbers for the transfer, Claud. But he didn’t have this imaginary emerald that Danny wanted. Danny was fucking nuts, you know that.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘But your brother didn’t call the police. At any point.’
‘The kidnappers took him before he could.’
‘A judge – my friend Whit Mosley – saw him Friday morning at his house. Looking like hell. What if there’s no virus, Ben? He didn’t want to move the five million…’
‘No. He couldn’t move the money. He must’ve been waiting to hear from the kidnappers again. Zack’s friends grabbed him. It’s the best explanation. You don’t believe what Danny said, do you?’
‘I honestly don’t know what to think about Stoney.’
‘My brother-’ Ben’s voice broke.
‘If I’m wrong, I’m sorry. I hope to God I’m wrong.’
‘Stoney loves me.’
She said nothing.
‘He was afraid they would hurt us if he called the police.’ Trying to convince himself, convince her.
‘Ben, Gar knew I was a cop. He called me Officer.’
Ben stared down at the sheets covering his lap.
‘Did you tell them I was a cop?’
‘No.’
‘Did your brother?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore, please. My brother isn’t a bad guy, Claudia. We don’t know the truth yet.’ He moved slightly away from her on the bed.
He was too deep in denial. ‘I care about you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you hurt.’ He didn’t look at her and she felt the little gap grow. ‘Ben…’
He let go of her hand; she took his hand in answer, squeezed hard.
‘Don’t say these things about my brother.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You need your rest.’ She kissed his forehead. ‘I’m going to go for a while so you can sleep, all right? You need sleep.’
Ben said nothing and she went to the door.
‘Claudia?’ Ben’s voice, small, low.
‘Yeah?’
‘If he didn’t refuse to pay the ransom… they came and took him, didn’t they? They just don’t give up on five million, not when there’s another option to get it.’
‘I hope not, Ben.’
‘I mean, did he not think we were worth five million? He could have made it back in a few years, the way he worked, the deals he cut. God, I’m his brother.’
‘Maybe they took him, Ben.’ Odd, her tone of hoping that a guy got kidnapped, that it could be a remotely positive thing.
‘But if he can’t get to his money,’ Ben said, ‘won’t they kill him?’
Ben was staying at the hospital, at least through the day. Claudia, tired but hating the sterile walls and wanting her own bed, checked herself out around noon. Her mother, Tina, accompanied her home, fussing the whole way, fluffing pillows, fixing a pan of chicken enchiladas and a plate of chocolate chip cookies that Claudia uncharacteristically had no appetite for. Claudia went to go lie down on her bed, trying not to think about how Stoney could betray Ben so completely. She was still exhausted and she catnapped, loving the feel of her own pillows, sheets, the solidity of the bed. She didn’t like thinking about the water, with nothing but the depths beneath her feet.
A knock on the door woke her; Tina entered with a thick envelope. ‘Something from work. The officer said you asked for it. Sweetie, I don’t want you working, tiring yourself out.’
‘That’s okay, Mama.’ Claudia sat up. ‘Put it on the bed. I’ll look at it in a minute.’
Her mother did, doused the lights again.
Claudia waited. Mama was exhausted, worn out from staying up most of the night fretting over her. Fifteen minutes later she glanced into the small den. Tina Salazar lay on the couch, snoring softly. Claudia covered her with a light blanket, went back to her room, and opened the file. She’d asked the Port Leo PD to get her what they could find from the New Orleans PD on Danny Laffite and his suspected associates in the kidnapping. She began to read.
Alex had stayed away from Stoney for the morning, sleeping a little later in his new, no-better motel room, dreaming of his dad, the two of them diving for treasure in the shallow waters off the Keys. He hadn’t slept well; someone had knocked on his door at some point near midnight, waking him instantly, and he’d crept to the door with his gun in hand, finally peering through the peephole. No one there. He could hear teenagers laughing down the hall – probably just kids. But it unsettled his sleep and he didn’t go back for a while, wondering how to best get his sick father to Costa Rica without attracting too much attention.
He got up, showered, dressed, turned on the local Saturday morning TV news. All Stoney – the missing financier. Nothing on Danny Laffite, though, nothing on the murders at Black Jack Point. But still. He needed to get moving. And he needed to take some precautions.
He drove the van over to the big grocery near the Port Leo harbor. It was a chain superstore, an H-E-B, the megachain in Texas, and the store was pink. Coral pink, the whole building, like all they sold was Pepto-Bismol. He slipped on sunglasses and a Marlins cap and went inside – it was busy, full of retirees and young babies, families, Mexicans, Vietnamese, Anglos, sunburned Yankees asking where the juice was in their nasal whines. He bought some doughnuts, a coffee, a small milk, and a box of hair coloring. Time for a change. Go punkish blond, cut the hair short, dump the van at the Corpus airport. The cashier looked a little funny at him, a guy buying blond hair coloring, but bagged it up with the food and took his money.
Alex was halfway across the parking lot when he saw Helen Dupuy.
She was walking toward the store just out of a truck – an old beat-up red truck, walking with a monster of a guy. Big-built, freak-ugly face, military burr of dark hair. And he thought she might have seen him, just two rows over, if she hadn’t been looking up all goggle-eyed at this freak.
Can’t be Helen, he thought, and he took a hard left, heading away from his car, asking himself what the hell he was doing, stepping behind an SUV, peering at her. Maybe not Helen. It couldn’t be her. The two of them walked into the grocery, now forty feet ahead of him, and he turned and followed them, thinking, No way it’s her, no way.
He kept his sunglasses and his cap on as he entered the store, scanned the register lines, the crowd of shoppers going their separate ways into the aisles. Didn’t see them. He looked to his left, over at the bakery section clogged with morning pastry buyers and saw them, the guy pulling Helen through the maze of carts and screaming kids and tables of pies and doughnuts. He followed, hanging back, trying to keep at an angle where the woman couldn’t see him. It was Helen, Jesus. She was wearing a halter, a plain blue one, not slutty – it was a hot morning. Above the top of the halter on her back was a discolored hatch of lines, the scars he must’ve put on her skin when he flung her through the glass window.
Big Ugly and Helen stopped, a round-faced man greeting Big Ugly with a call of ‘Gooch!’ Big Ugly starting to chat, introducing Helen to the old man. Now ten feet away, Helen’s back still to him, Alex stood at the corner of the aisle where the bakery fed into the beer-and-wine section, trying to hear.
The old man must’ve been part deaf or just one of those old guys who likes to talk loud. Alex heard him say: ‘You take me out next week. I got two buddies from Dallas want to come down and get tight lines. You open on Wednesday morning?’
‘Might be busy, let me check.’ Big Ugly had a low rumble of a voice.
Two kids arguing over a chocolate doughnut passed, their mother chiding them, and he missed what was said but then Big Ugly – Gooch? – said, ‘I got a hot spot for red drum, over on the south side of the bay. I’ll take you there, but you got to keep it secret, Fred.’
Fred roared. ‘Yeah, I’m your man for keeping secret fishing spots. I call you tomorrow, we set it up? And think about where maybe we land some big tarpon?’
‘Fine,’ Big Ugly said.
A fishing guide, Alex thought. He heard the conversation end, held his breath, glued to the floor, waiting for Helen and this Gooch to turn into the beer-and-wine section and see him. Ten seconds. He risked a glance around the corner. They had moved past the baked goods, Helen holding a big bag of bagels, moving off into the milk and dairy, sticking close to Gooch, turning to smile up at him. He knew the line of her jaw, the slant of her smile. Her.
What to do? Suddenly the huge grocery store felt cramped as a cell. He moved past the registers, out into the lot. He hurried back to his car, scrambled inside.
How? Think it through. Someone made a connection to Helen Dupuy and brought her to Port Leo, how, who… Jimmy Bird. Jimmy had called him twice at that motel when he was in New Orleans, in his room, nervous about the several nights they planned to spend on Patch’s land, searching with the metal detectors to find the buried cache. Giving him the motel number in New Orleans was a mistake. Jimmy dead, his phone records must have been searched for some reason. Found the calls to his room at the Bayou Mee. Why would a fishing guide bring Helen to Port Leo?
He fumbled for his cell phone, dialed Stoney at the fishing cottage. ‘There’s a whore I met in New Orleans here. At the freaking grocery, Stoney.’
‘So?’
‘So I met her when I was taking care of Danny, you dumb shit. She knows what I look like.’
‘Get rid of her.’
‘She’s got a six-six musclebound bodyguard with her. I think he’s a local fishing guide.’
‘You must’ve made a mistake.’
‘She blew me nine times in four days,’ Alex said. ‘I know what she looks like, man.’
‘What exactly do you want me to do about it, Alex?’
‘Don’t take that tone with me, asshole.’
‘I got my own problems. They have got my picture all over the news this morning. Christ, what Ben must think of me.’
‘Like you care.’
‘He’s my brother.’
‘But he was too heavy, wasn’t he, Stoney?’
‘You’re not funny,’ Stoney said.
‘If I were your brother I’d shoot you in the knees for what you did,’ Alex said. ‘I’m coming over there. I got a couple things I need to do, but I’ll be there soon.’
He hung up, weighed the options. Run. The mess had gotten deeper; it was now time to get the hell out of the entire situation. He thought about following this Gooch and Helen – and risk she’d see him? She might be even more dangerous than Stoney. No, it was too much right now; he needed to act but go on the defensive. He waited, saw them return to the truck, holding cups of coffee and a small plastic bag. They pulled out of the lot, drove down the street past the harbor to the curve of Port Leo Beach. He followed, four cars behind. Big Ugly’s truck turned in, parked. Alex drove by, did a U-turn, drove by again. Big Ugly and Helen walked to one of the picnic tables near the beach, sat down, pulled bagels out of the bag, a little plastic knife, cream cheese. A breakfast picnic by the bay.
He couldn’t get closer without parking near them, and he couldn’t risk it. He turned and drove off from the park, scared now for the first time and feeling mad. Stupid Stoney. Stupid Jimmy Bird. Alex went back to the motel, scarfed down his breakfast without tasting it. He went through the Encina County phone book, going through the yellow pages for the fishing guides. Most had pictures of sun-squinting men smiling next to gargantuan fish. No picture of Big Ugly. But one ad, small in the corner, was for Don’t Ask Fishing Services, just listed a phone number, and in little quotes below read: Go with Gooch. Alex dialed the number. A machine answered, ‘You’ve reached Leonard Guchinski and Don’t Ask Fishing. I’m probably booked, but leave a message and I’ll give you a call back.’ Alex hung up.
Leonard Guchinski. Now he had a name.
Alex applied the blond hair coloring, forcing himself to be consistent and careful, and while he waited twenty minutes to shower it off before finishing the treatment, he checked and rechecked the clips in his gun. He suspected he would need several. It was just shaping up to be that kind of day.
‘I got some business to tend to today,’ Gooch said. ‘Whit’s arranged for you to meet a guy who does criminal sketches. Describe Alex to him. He’s driving in from Corpus. Then the folks on the boat next to us, they invited you to sail with them while I’m gone.’ He slathered cream cheese on his bagel. ‘They’re friends of Whit’s, too.’
‘Business. About Alex?’
‘Maybe,’ Gooch said.
‘Do you know where Alex is?’
‘Nope.’
‘But you know something, Gooch.’ She frowned.
It was a little crazy. This girl could read him easier than most people, whom he presented the blank page to, and he’d only known her a couple of days. ‘I just think you’ll have fun with Duff and Trudy on their boat for a few hours.’
‘Duff? Trudy?’
‘Don’t hold their names against them. They’re bankers. They got to have names like that. FDIC requirement.’
‘Did Whit tell them what I am?’
‘What are you, Helen?’
‘I’m a…’ She stopped, as though the word had gotten harder to say.
‘See. It’s a blank. Fill it in with what you like.’
‘Do you not want to have sex with me because you think you’re gonna fix me?’
‘I haven’t known you long enough to have sex with you,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘You’re a strange man, Gooch.’
‘You’re not the first to notice.’