Delta Ghost by Tim Stevens Page A

the West Coast, do the San Fran and LA tour, then come east to New York. Then double back to Nashville. Kind of do things out of order, you know? Shake up the sequence a bit. Have you read Dylan’s memoir, Chronicle ? Brilliant, subversive stuff. It’s all over the place, chronologically. I wanted to -”
    “Shut up,” said Venn. “Stay focused.”
    “Okay,” said Clune hastily. “So I reached Los Angeles. I was trying to blag my way onto a tour of the Sunset Sound Recorders studio, the Mecca of the West Coast, when a contact I’d made there told me of a potential source of income. By this time my money was, um, running low.”
    “Your university grant,” Venn said.
    Clune glanced away awkwardly. “Yeah. The grant. I’d misjudged my budget a fraction, in Seattle and San Francisco, and was a bit strapped for cash.” He looked back at Venn. “Have you ever been to LA? Do you know just how expensive it is out there?”
    “For God’s sake...”
    Clune held up his hands. “This contact said there was a bloke in Texas, a businessman, who needed help with managing various transfers of money between bank accounts. My contact knew I was good with computers – I’d proven it to him by getting him access to certain free internet content which he’d normally have had to pay for – and so he’d passed on my details to this man in Texas. I agreed to go and meet the man, as long as my expenses were paid. The next thing, I was being escorted in a Cadillac by four silent geezers, wearing shades and chewing gum, to San Antonio.”
    Clune paused. He looked at Beth.
    “Could I bother you for a drink of water, Dr Colby? I’m a bit parched.”
    Before Beth could reply, Venn said, “Wait. Wait. How do you know her name?”
    Clune touched a fingertip to his head. He smirked.
    “It’s all on the police database, Lieutenant.”
    Venn stood. He took a step toward Clune, who cringed away.
    “Sure. You can have all the water you need. Filtered through a cloth, that’s smothering your face.” He grabbed a cushion, brandished it. “Because that’s what we do, here in the US of A. We waterboard people. We drown them, to get them to talk.”
    Venn sat back down. He didn’t look at Beth.
    The kid seemed finally to collapse after that. His bravado disappeared, his posture changed to a huddle.
    He said, in a dull monotone: “In San Antonio I met the businessman. Oscar Flowers. A Hispanic guy. I put his money into various bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Geneva, Cyprus. I never asked where the money came from, and he never said. He set me up in a nice apartment, sent me a girl or two, paid me well. I put my studies on hold, and became a fully fledged employee.”
    Clune stopped. His expression was distant. Fearful.
    Venn said, “Then what happened?”
    Clune’s eye rolled toward Venn.
    “Then, one day, I decided to follow him on one of his business trips. I’d hacked his own email communications, of course, and I learned he was going to meet this Mexican, Salazar. The name had come up a number of times before, and I gathered Salazar was some kind of big shot. They never mentioned in their emails exactly what kind of business they were transacting, but I assumed it was illegal. Drugs, maybe, or guns. This meeting they were setting up, it sounded as though there was some hostility between them. I was curious. I thought that if I overheard something, got a sense that Salazar was asserting some kind of authority over Flowers, I might be able to take advantage of it. Jump ship, and join Salazar’s side.” He broke off, as if in wonder at his own stupidity. “I got greedy, I suppose.”
    “Go on,” said Venn.
    “So, I rented a car and followed Flowers and his entourage to some remote spot in South Texas. He took a bloody army with him, I tell you. Turned out Salazar had brought an army of his own. Sharpshooters with rifles. There was an argument between Salazar and Flowers. Then Salazar shot him dead, right before my