Page 51 of The Children of Eve

“I asked him the same thing,” said Rybek. “He said he kept one at home and one taped under the driver’s seat of his car, but I wasn’t to sayanything to Zetta—not that I would have, even if she and I had gotten on better.”

“What was the problem?”

“A lack of common interests, Wyatt apart. She doesn’t smoke and doesn’t like the Chili Peppers.” He shook his head in sorrow. “I can understand the first, but the second?”

We left Dunkin’ and walked to our cars. Rybek paused beside his Daewoo. I urged him to get rid of it in favor of a less conspicuous ride. He might also want to avoid using his credit card for a week or so.

“I have enough cash to keep my girlfriend and me going for months,” he said. “BrightBlown isn’t alone in knowing how to work the system. What about my cell phone?”

“If you’re serious about not returning to BrightBlown,” I said, “get a new number, but be sure to share it with me. Look, we may be overreacting. Wyatt could have been talking through his hat after a long night, and his upping sticks may have nothing to do with Devin Vaughn or Mexico. There may be no children, in which case there’s no threat.

“On the other hand, if what he revealed to you was true, he’s left a spoor that leads here, and questions may be asked of anyone who’s been in contact with him. Questioning comes in two forms. You’ve just been on the end of the first kind, and you don’t want to experience the second. But even if Wyatt Riggins is a fantasist, my information on BrightBlown is solid. Devin Vaughn’s house of straw is shaking. You don’t want to be under it when it collapses and a torch is applied to the wreckage.”

“If Vaughn was involved with the abduction,” asked Rybek, “and he knows Wyatt has run, won’t he be worried?”

“Probably, but Vaughn has men and guns. Also, if he tries to hide, especially with his other difficulties, he puts the larger operation at risk. His allies will sense fear, and his rivals will taste blood in the water. Whatever part Vaughn played in that Mexican grab, he has no choice but to let the consequences work themselves out and hope whatever gamble he’s made pays off.”

“One last thing,” said Rybek. “If you’re looking for Wyatt, and these people, whoever they may be, are also looking for him, doesn’t it mean your interests and theirs may—”

“Coincide?” I finished for him.

“I was thinking ‘conflict.’?”

“Either way, the answer is yes.”

“I hope you got paid in advance.”

“Perhaps I’ll name you in my will in return for your cooperation, so you feel invested in the outcome.”

“You know,” said Rybek, with feeling, “everything being equal, I’d prefer if you didn’t name me at all.”

CHAPTERXXXVI

Devin Vaughn and Aldo Bern sat in a storage room at the back of a produce warehouse on Baltimore’s Frankford Avenue, their table illuminated only by early morning light. The business was currently another of Vaughn’s legitimate operations, although it hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning, fruit importation was a convenient means of smuggling narcotics. Perishables were usually fast-tracked through customs, even allowing for insufficient manpower to begin investigating random heavy crates of bananas and pineapples in the hope of uncovering contraband. In addition, Blas Urrea’s contacts, who included corrupt officials at the points of departure and arrival, ensured that searches were the exception, not the rule, which meant Vaughn’s losses were minimal, verging on nonexistent.

But all that was in the past. The animosity between Urrea and Vaughn had caused the collapse of all such arrangements, leaving Vaughn with a warehouse costing him more to maintain than he earned from selling its contents. Vaughn felt a fire coming on, followed by an insurance settlement. He’d have to be subtle about it, since the word was out that he might be having cash-flow issues. He didn’t want arson investigators sifting through the rubble because close behind them would follow the DOJ whispering of criminal charges coming down the tracks. It wasall about increasing the pressure on his operation, intensifying it until someone or something cracked.

To relieve some of that pressure, he and Bern had been seeking alternative sources for the supply and importation of more lucrative products than mangoes and grapes. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Bern, Vaughn had planned, funded, and carried out his little Mexican expedition in December. Bern had to give Vaughn some credit for keeping the whole affair secret until it was concluded, but it didn’t do much to make him happier. In Bern’s view, it was a risk that should never have been taken. It might result in war being openly declared on them, pitting Vaughn’s crew not only against Blas Urrea but also against his associates, some of whom made Urrea look like a declawed pussycat.

Yet the initial aim of the mission to Mexico had been achieved. The operatives had returned to the United States with their prizes, and no one on either side had been killed. Admittedly, the Mexicans had suffered nonfatal casualties, and one of Vaughn’s people received a minor stab wound. Still, considering the other possible outcomes, this counted as a triumph.

Blas Urrea had then proceeded to do just what Bern himself would have done under similar circumstances. He began walking back the cat, testing the chain to establish who might have moved against him. Vaughn would have been on his list of suspects from the start, but probably not high. Urrea would first have looked to enemies closer to home because such a level of incursion required local knowledge. Since Vaughn had indeed been obliged to call on certain natives, even if they weren’t aware of whom they were working for, the identity of those individuals was always at risk of being discovered by Urrea’s men. So it came to pass, and once Urrea had the first link in the chain, he could proceed to the next.

Except Vaughn, to his credit, had been careful to distance himself and the other major shareholders in the venture. Until recently, the children had been held together in a secure location, and only a handful ofpeople were intimate with every facet of the operation. Unfortunately, one of those people was Roland Bilas, who had been stupid and greedy enough to go back to Mexico while Urrea was on the warpath before managing to get himself picked up by U.S. Customs with contraband in his suitcase. By the time Bern had sent two of his Los Angeles contacts to the motel, Bilas was already dead, having most assuredly given up all he knew: that was not in question. Bilas was discovered naked on the motel bed, and Bern’s people had stopped counting the wounds on his body once they reached double figures. Under similar duress, Bern would have capitulated, and he was a lot harder than Roland Bilas—but then, Jell-O was harder than Roland Bilas.

So Blas Urrea now knew that Devin Vaughn was responsible for the abduction of the children from Mexico, but no message or ultimatum had been received from Urrea, and Bern doubted any would be forthcoming. Even were the children to be returned, Urrea would not be minded to forgive. He would want blood, particularly that of Vaughn and anyone close to him, including family members.

Vaughn was nearing the end of divorce proceedings. It would be better if the full extent of his troubles remained concealed from his estranged wife, Karin, and her legal representatives, but she and their two children also needed to be protected. Bern’s first task, then, as agreed with Vaughn, had been to persuade Karin and the children to go into hiding. That wasn’t easy, for obvious reasons, not least work, school, and Karin’s understandable anger at her unloved spouse for putting his family in a position of danger, even if its exact nature was not a subject for discussion. Bern had personally advised Karin of the need to safeguard herself and her children, but he also intimated that Devin Vaughn might be forced to reassess his uncombative approach to both funds and custody should Karin not cooperate, which helped focus her mind.

Karin had found employment with a start-up that was piggybacking on that Marie Kondo decluttering shit—wealthy people emptyingtheir closets of once-worn clothes just so they could fill them with new stuff—and was reluctant to give up a position that paid well, especially when the commission she received from designer resellers was taken into account. Bern reminded her that there would be other start-ups, while she and her kids had only one life. Also, if she’d wanted a Regular Joanne existence, she shouldn’t have hooked up with a man like Devin Vaughn to begin with, though Bern didn’t have to say that aloud, Karin being able to join those dots for herself. As for the kids, it wasn’t like they were studying for their SATs; they were four and six, for Christ’s sake. As long as they had Mommy with them, they’d be fine. The result was that, as of the day before, the family had been packed off to Nowheresville, in Nothing County, Wisconsin, there to watch Netflix and eat cheese curds until—

Well, there was the rub, as someone much wiser than Bern once wrote. Karin had asked Bern how long they’d be expected to lie low. He guessed it would be no more than a month or so, but he’d hesitated before replying, which was when Karin put herself right in his face.

“Two weeks,” she said. “Get this shit sorted by then or—”

She let it hang. Bern didn’t push her with an “or what?” because that didn’t sound clever even in movies. He knew she was just letting off steam. There was no “or” worth countenancing. Once she and the kids were safely housed, bodyguards would be with them everywhere they went, so trying to escape was off the cards. And what would be the point in running if Devin Vaughn’s enemies were prepared to hurt them to get at him? Of course, Karin could turn to the feds if she was desperate, but their protection would come with a price, requiring her to share all she knew about her husband and his dealings. Nevertheless, if the crisis dragged on, or Urrea’s people made their presence felt, she might regard it as a price worth paying. Bern would then be forced to shorten Karin’s leash in case her desire to preserve herself and her children made her forget her obligations—to tighten it so hard she choked.

However, that was for another day. Today’s challenge was DevinVaughn himself. In an ideal world he, like his family, would have holed up somewhere safe, but with his syndicate on the verge of collapse, the option of concealment was denied him. It was all about maintaining a front, keeping Vaughn simultaneously visible yet protected. Extra manpower had been drafted, and security overhauled. Bern was confident the main house in Manassas remained safe, so that would be their base for the time being. Any movement beyond its walls, such as that day’s warehouse excursion, would be limited: planned well in advance, but revealed only at short notice.

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