The Whistler (The Whistler #1)(88)
No, he, Clyde, had not spoken to Vonn since long before the accident, and now he really didn’t want to. Though Clyde had been looking over his shoulder and sleeping fitfully, things seemed to have settled down, until today anyway. Now the world was upside down.
Hahn ordered more sandwiches and fruit, and when they were delivered Westbay, and Bullington, stepped into the bedroom. It was almost 8:00 p.m., and Westbay said his wife might be getting worried. He called her and said he was taking care of some unexpected business.
As they ate, Allie Pacheco and Rebecca Webb tag teamed through another round of interrogation. When they finally finished, at almost 10:00 p.m., Clyde Westbay had been on video for over six hours and had given more than enough information to launch the assault against Dubose and his Cousins. Back in Tallahassee, another team of agents had watched and listened to it all, and were already weaving their web.
Clyde left the Surfbreaker a free man, free in the sense that he wore no handcuffs nor ankle chains. But he had left his soul up there in the Dolphin Suite, all duly recorded on film and filed away to torment him later. He would have a few days, maybe weeks of freedom before being snatched in a high-profile raid. Panic from his wife and kids; photos on the front page; frantic calls from family and friends. Clyde, as a member of a criminal syndicate, indicted for capital murder.
As he drove aimlessly around Destin, he gave a passing thought to his ex-girlfriend Tammy. What a slut! Sleeping with half the town, including that worm Walter. Perhaps his wife would never know. And how much should he tell her now? Should he get it all over with or wait for the raid, for the horror of being led away in chains?
How the hell was he supposed to know what to do? His life was over.
The more he drove the more he liked the idea of a bullet to the brain, of checking out on his terms, as opposed to some nasty hit ordered by Dubose. Or perhaps a long dive off a tall bridge, or a bottle of pills. The FBI had him on tape.
35
Vonn’s dirtiest work was handled by a longtime gun thug known as Delgado. Whether this was an actual name or just another fiction in Vonn’s world was not clear.
For his day job, Delgado ran a bar, one of the company’s many cash cows and laundry sites, but his real value to the organization was his moonlighting. He possessed astonishing technical skills with weapons, mechanics, and electronics. Delgado had taken Son Razko to the Mace home and calmly shot him and Eileen in the bedroom, then disappeared without a trace. An hour later, he bumped into Junior in a bar and bought him a drink.
After Junior’s trial, Delgado took the first snitch, Digger Robles, for a midnight boat ride and dropped him in the Gulf with chains around his ankles. The second snitch, Todd Short, came within five seconds of getting his head blown off by a deer rifle Delgado was aiming. The bullet would have hit his left ear before either ear could have heard the shot, but another head moved into view and Todd lived another day. He wisely fled the area. Delgado almost caught him in Oklahoma.
The ultimate mistake of Vonn’s career was choosing Clyde Westbay to take out Hugo, rather than Delgado. He picked an amateur and not a pro. His rationale had been solid: no one would ever suspect Clyde; guns were not involved; it was a simple operation, in relative terms; and Vonn wanted Clyde to advance in the organization. He saw talent there, and he needed deeper loyalty. Involve Clyde in a more sinister crime, and Vonn would own him for life. The deciding factor, though, which surfaced only at the last minute, had been Delgado’s sudden flare-up of kidney stones, a bout so severe he was hospitalized for three days. The debilitating pain hit just hours after he had broken into Lacy’s car and tampered with the passenger’s side air bag and seat belt. With Delgado temporarily disabled, and with the situation urgent, Vonn instructed Hank to visit Clyde and lay out the plan.
Delgado lived in a world of surveillance cameras and would never have gotten himself filmed at Frog’s.
At any rate, his kidneys were now free and clear and he was back in business. He parked his little red “Blann’s Pest Control” truck in the driveway of a small home on a golf course five miles north of the Gulf. The entire development was a gated community, but then Delgado knew the gate code. A company from the Bahamas built the place. A company from Nevis owned the company from the Bahamas. Somewhere far up the chain of title sat Vonn Dubose. The owner of this particular home was in court, where she spent her working hours. She recorded important matters for Judge McDover, who’d made the original suggestion to buy the place.
Delgado wore a cute uniform, red shirt and matching cap, and he carried a bulky spray can as if he just might annihilate every insect along the Florida Panhandle. He rang the doorbell but knew no one was home. He deftly slipped a thin screwdriver between bolt and latch and turned the knob. With the proper key, he could not have opened the door any faster. He closed it behind him and listened for a warning from the alarm. After a few seconds it began beeping. In thirty seconds all hell would break loose. He stepped to the panel behind the door and calmly punched in the five-number pass code, which he had hacked from the security company. Delgado took a deep breath and appreciated the complete silence. If the code had not worked, he would have simply left and driven away.
He put on a pair of tight rubber gloves and checked to make sure both front and rear doors were locked. He could now take his time. There were two bedrooms. The large one was obviously used by the owner; the smaller had a set of cheap bunk beds. Delgado knew the woman lived alone. She was forty-three years old and divorced, no children. He went through two chests of drawers and found nothing but clothing. Same in the closets and in the two bathrooms. In her small, cluttered home office he found a desktop computer and a printer sitting on a set of low-slung file cabinets. Slowly, methodically, he went through every drawer, every file, every sheet of paper.