While I wait for my lunch at the Tadich Grill (the oldest continuously-run restaurant in California, apparently with some of the original staff), I look up “Chad Brandon Cort Mellon.”
The top hit is for Brandon Cort, which leads to Chad Mellin (strange spelling). Tech guys, mid-forties, made their first fortunes at Yahoo. They co-founded BizBang five years ago. The Wall Street Journal called BizBang “eBay for the Fortune 1000” before its IPO last year. Cort’s CEO; Mellin is COO. Fast Company says they had a falling-out over a bid Oracle made to buy them out about two years ago (Mellin was pro, Cort was anti; Cort won). All is supposedly forgiven (sure).
Artnet News ran a profile on Silicon Valley art collectors around the time of the BizBang IPO. Both Mellin and Cort showed up in it. They share a taste for Asian art: Cort buys both contemporary and antique pieces while Mellin is strictly old-school.
They also share an art advisor.
Bourbon and Branch hasn’t changed in the three weeks since I was here last. The millennials are different, but they’re dressed the same. I’m in the same booth as before. The password changed: tonight’s is “Glenfiddich.” The only thing missing is McCarran.
He’d emailed me at lunch to say he’d meet me at six. It’s now six-fifteen. I’m starting to get peeved—I told Savannah I’d take her to dinner at seven.
Trey ambles in at six-twenty and shakes my hand as he sits. Same leather bomber jacket, different work shirt. “Beg pardon for bein’ late. Once them Google boys get talking, they plain don’t stop. Glad to see you ordered.”
I drown my irritation with a pull from my Clase Azul Plata tequila, the same kind I got last time. “I’m sorry, too. I can’t stay very long—I have a date at seven.”
“Well, ain’t you the lucky one.” He gives me his crooked smile, then waves down a waiter and asks for a flight of bourbon. “Whatcha been up to lately?”
We chat for a few minutes about work without actually saying much. Part of it is from being dudes, but I know I’m trying to keep my work details from being traceable and I suspect he may be doing the same. Or maybe that’s me being paranoid, appropriately or inappropriately.
McCarran’s wooden platter of drinks appears. He samples from one of the snifters. “Those were some fine-looking Nam Ton pieces you got. I ‘specially like the tall one.”
“Me, too. The others were part of the package deal.”
He nods. “Them the ones you’re s’posed to donate?”
“Yeah. He got you on that too?”
“Yup. Which museum?”
“The one in Portland. You?”
“Someplace in San Diego. I told that ol’ boy, ‘Find me a museum in Texas I can donate to. Least then I got a reason.’” He rolls a sip of bourbon around his mouth for a few moments. “Gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Give ’em them pots?”
Something in his tone makes that a not-simple question to answer. “Did you?”
“Yup.” McCarran leans back into his seat. “Lorena makes it real easy. She writes the letter for you, all you gotta do is sign it. She’ll pack up everything and send it herself. You ain’t even got to touch ‘em if’n you don’t want.”
This sounds like something I’d expect to hear from Bandineau. “I don’t know. It seems like a lot of trouble for not much upside.”
He nods again, slower. “Yup, I reckoned the same ‘til I started thinkin’ on it. You do it a few times and it starts to add up.”
“Sounds like you think I ought to do it.” He shrugs. “It’s tax fraud, you know.”
He gives me a chuckle that sounds like it’s coming out of the subway. “Rick, you know as well as I do that when you get to where we are, the whole damn tax code’s a fraud. Think on all them things you ain’t gotta pay taxes on or you can write off that regular folk can’t. The way I see it? I’m givin’ these here pots to museums that probably can’t afford to buy ‘em ‘cause people like me and you holler so much about payin’ the taxes that fund their grants.”
“Just giving back.”
“Yup.”
This sales job is so comprehensive that I wonder if McCarran’s part of the scheme. Is he Bandineau’s way of following up, making sure I behave? If so, Jim’s got more on the ball than I’d thought. What happens if I say no? What happens if I say yes?
I pretend to think about it as I finish my tequila. There’s probably more of a downside to “no”; the supply of pots could suddenly dry up. “I’ve gotta say, you’ve got a point. I plan to buy more this year. Do you have any wares lined up to donate?”
He sets down his almost-empty snifter and thinks about it. “As it happens, I do. Why?”
“Want to swap? I send mine to San Diego, you send yours to Portland. At least I’ve got a better reason to give to a San Diego museum than you do.”
McCarran finishes off the last swallow from his first snifter, then nods. “I reckon that’d work just fine.” He taps the tabletop. “Beg pardon, but I gotta see a man about a horse.” He pronounces it hoss. “Be back in two shakes.”
While he’s gone, I try to figure out why this conversation feels a little off. I didn’t expect a hard sell from McCarran on anything, far less on the donation scam. But I have a hard time seeing McCarran as Bandineau’s shill. If he’s legit, what would he get from it? If he’s a poseur like me, how can Bandineau afford him and still make money on this deal?
I’m frowning into my empty glass so hard that I don’t notice McCarran return until he thumps into the bench across the table from me. Only, it’s not McCarran: it’s a big, thick-featured, heavy-shouldered guy with a brownish crew cut gone too long between trims. Huh?
I say, “That seat’s taken.”
His mouth twitches into what he probably thinks is a smile. “Yeah. By me.”
My meerkat brain’s trying to tell me to dig a burrow and jump in. I don’t listen to it. “Friend, you’re not getting it. You’re sitting somewhere else. I—”
“Nah, you’re—” pronounced youah “—not getting this… Mr. Friedrich.”
An iceberg forms in my stomach. He knows my real name.
The guy reaches for the black lanyard I didn’t see around his neck until his hand went there. He pulls a black vinyl pouch from his black tee and lets it clank on the table. I stare at a gold eagle, a big “US” in the middle.
I say, “DEA.” He nods. “I haven’t touched anything stronger than weed since college.”
“Not about that.”
My meerkat brain’s burrow is about ten feet deep now, and he’s backfilling. I feel like the sentinel meerkat… the one the raptors take while the rest of the pack disappears. “This is a bar. Shouldn’t you be ATF?”
“Not about that, ethah.” His voice is from New England somewhere.
It finally dawns on me: McCarran’s DEA. Tonight was a setup. I walked right into it. “What’s it about?”
The DEA guy folds his arms on the table and leans in. “It’s about me and you having a long talk. At my place. Now.”
Chapter 29
When the FBI finally took down our gallery, they weren’t very nice about it. Gar tried to run, the stupid asshole. I’m sure that riled them up. I couldn’t do anything; I was stunned. They said they told me several times to raise my hands. I don’t remember hearing it. Actually, I don’t remember much of what happened at all. They took complete paralysis for resistance and, as the report said, “compelled the suspect’s compliance to direction.” Let’s just say I was glad I’d mopped the floor two days before.
DEA Special Agent Bruce Carruthers is a little more civilized. He doesn’t cuff me in public; he lets me lead him out of the bar. Two of his buddies meet us outside and escort me to a black Taurus, which zig-zags us to the Phillip Burton Federal Building a few blocks away. Some tiny part of my brain works enough to do what I’m told; the rest is trying to force itself into that meerkat burrow before the hawks eat me.
They
lead me to an interview room that looks exactly like every other federal interview room I’ve ever been in: eight by ten, beige walls, a steel door with a small reinforced-glass window on the latch side. I sit on a narrow wood-frame chair at the standard Formica-top table with its aluminum legs bolted to the linoleum floor. I’m still not cuffed, but they left shackles attached to the pipe across the tabletop to remind me how fast that could change. I’m facing a two-way mirror on the opposite wall. It shows me a pale, scared-looking bonehead who didn’t see this coming. Good thing I talked to Len this morning, otherwise my probation would be breaking along with the rest of my world.
I was terrified by the time I hit the sidewalk outside the bar. A five-year-old could’ve led me here. Now that I’ve had however long to get my brain working again—there’s no clock, and they took my phone once they got me in the car—I’m able to think more clearly about my situation.
I’m not under arrest. They didn’t Mirandize me, they didn’t restrain me. Of course, Carruthers said yet, so they think they have something on me. What worries me the most is that they have my real name. How’d they do that? I didn’t tell McCarran. If they search my suite, the only name they’ll find is “Hoskins.” Yes, my fingerprints and DNA are probably in a bunch of government databases, but how would they have known to look? It’s good I didn’t have dinner; I’d probably have lost it by now.
Shit. Dinner. I’ve stood up Savannah. Not my biggest problem now, just another one.
The door’s electric bolt sounds like a starter’s pistol when it throws. Carruthers lumbers in, trailing another guy from the car, and sighs into the wooden chair across the table from me. The other guy leans against the wall next to some kind of control panel. Is that the one that gives me electric shocks?
Carruthers tosses two files on the table. I recognize the top one: it’s my federal jacket, or at least one of them. A sharp pain sears my stomach. Is it the FBI’s file? The Bureau of Prisons? The Probation Office? If it’s the last one, I’m screwed; they’d get that from Len. The last thing I want is for Len to know I’m in this jam.
He waves over his shoulder at the other guy, who looks like an extra from the movie Sicario. That guy pushes some buttons on the control panel. Carruthers recites, “The time is 1937 hours—” owas “—Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday, May 25th, 2016, in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency district office in San Francisco, California.” He points to me. “Tell ‘em who you ah.” His voice grates like a rusty hacksaw on old pipe. His accent’s way down my list of favorites.
“Matt Friedrich.”
“Full name.”
“Matthew Benjamin Friedrich.”
Carruthers applauds silently. “Also present are DEA Special Agent Carruthahs and DEA Special Agent Medina. This is an informational interview only. The subject has been informed that he is here—” heah “—voluntarily and is free to go when he chooses. The subject will acknowledge this.” He waits for me to figure out it’s my cue. When I don’t, he points to me again.
“So informed.” It’s the first I’ve heard about it, but I’m not in a position to complain.
First we go on a forced march through my criminal history. I had to do one of these for every single deposition I gave for all the other people I took down with me. It’s like, can’t you guys cut-and-paste? I think they do this so I’ll feel like a skunk, which I do by the time we’re done.
When we finally get to this year, I signal him to stop the recording. He scowls, then says, “Special Agent Carruthahs pausing the interview at 2041 hours.” When Medina gives him thumbs-up, Carruthers growls “what?” at me.
“I can save you guys a lot of time. Talk to ICE. I’m their CI.” CI = confidential informant. Hopeful Me thinks this is a typical interagency fuckup that they can settle among themselves with a phone call. Hopeful Me isn’t right very often, but it never hurts to try.
He stares at me for a while. His eyes are gray and bloodshot. “Which office?”
“Here. San Francisco.”
“Who’s the case agent?”
“I don’t know. It’s part of the investigation into Chad Mellin and Brandon Cort.” I spell it for him.
“How do you not know who the case agent is?”
“I’ve never met him. Look, this is a hands-off thing. There’s a cutout between us. But they’re getting reports.” Or, they’re supposed to be.
Carruthers sighs. He gestures to Medina, who pulls his phone and starts a murmured conversation while he faces the wall by the two-way mirror. Medina’s shoulders look like they’ll bust out of his black DEA polo any minute.
Carruthers says, “This bettah not be bullshit.”
I shake my head. “Look, I know how this works. Their people didn’t tell your people, and now things are all balled up. I’ve been there before. This interagency stuff just never seems to work right, does it?”
He snorts and leans back in his chair.
“How’d you get my name so fast?”
“Last time you were in that bah? We got your glass.”
Note to self: wipe the glassware. “So McCarran’s one of yours.”
“Neither confirm nor deny.”
Medina stows his phone. When Carruthers looks back, Medina shakes his head. Carruthers’ face is several shades darker when he glares at me.
I hold up my hands. “Wait wait wait. What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean, they don’t know you.” Medina folds his arms, which makes his biceps look huge. “Tried both names.”
Shit. The fear seeps back in. I shouldn’t be surprised something fell in a hole, but Hopeful Me was so sure it wouldn’t this time. My brain throws up a straw, so I grasp at it. “Walter J. Harrison. He’s a federal judge here. The order for my early termination was drafted for his signature. Call him—he should be able to tell you.”
Carruthers leans in over the table. “Not rousting a federal judge at nine at night to check your bullshit story. So, thanks loads for wasting twenty minutes of my life. Now we get back to—”
“Wait.” My fear’s strong enough now that I’m more afraid to not do something than I am to piss them off. “If you won’t call the judge, then I want my phone call and I want my lawyer.”
“You’re not under arrest, remembah?”
“Maybe not now, but if I walk out of here, I will be by the time I hit the front door. I want to help you guys out, but I don’t want to get screwed doing it. So.”
Carruthers’ face darkens a couple more shades. He twists to look at Medina. “Recording’s good?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fuck it.” He stands and glares at me. “Matthew Friedrich, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit tax fraud. Please stand. You have the right to remain silent…”
A holding cell.
The upside: I’m by myself. No tatted-up gang neck-breakers, no meth barons, no biker thugs.
The downside: I’m alone in a tiny cell. The walls closed in about fifteen minutes after the door slammed behind me. Two hours later, I feel like I’m in an Altoids tin.
I called Olivia before they tossed me in here. It’s lucky I memorized her number, because they wouldn’t give me back my phone. She promised a lawyer would be here “as soon as possible.” But it’s the middle of the night; who’s going to come here now?
Since I’m scared wide awake, all I can do is stay curled up in the corner of my steel bed and let my brain bounce from one random thought to another.
Why the DEA? How do pots tie in with dope?
I have no way of telling Savannah what happened—even if I knew what to tell her.
Will they notify Len right away that they arrested me, or wait until morning? Either way, I just violated my probation.
I won’t get bail. A felon facing a second felony charge? It’s pre-trial detention for me.
This is the first day of another really shitty part of my life.
As my thoughts circle the drain, I apprec
iate what a good idea it was for them to take my belt and tie.
The worst part in a whole sea of bad parts: there’s no day, no night. Only humming fluorescent lights. The coldest, nastiest artificial interior lighting there is except arc light.
Appropriate for the coldest, nastiest night I’ve spent since I left prison.
Chapter 30
36 DAYS LEFT
A contractor in a khaki uniform leads me to a dowdy conference room in the DEA office suite in the Federal Building. It’s shocking to see daylight out the windows. The digital clock on the wall says it’s 7:48. I got maybe an hour’s worth of sleep in five- or ten-minute increments during a night that lasted an eternity.
I wonder why I’m in a conference room and not an interview room. The guard didn’t say. I could try to walk out, but the roomful of cops outside makes that seem like a bad bet even as poorly as my brain’s working now.
At ten after eight, an admin ushers in an elegant, silver-haired black man wearing a navy three-piece pinstripe suit that looks like it grew on him. He says, “Are you Friedrich?”
“Yes, sir.”
He extends his hand. “Lemuel Samson, Esquire. Lazarett, Holt and Singleton. I’ll be representing you.” His mellow baritone feels like a warm blanket. Just what I needed.
“Thanks. Olivia sent you?”
“Ms. DeWitt sent me. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
“Why are we here and not downstairs?” Meaning, in the holding area.
“I have a meeting here with the DEA at nine.” Samson slips on his readers and starts hauling files out of his Maxwell Scott briefcase. “All this splendor is for us until then.”
“This is splendor?”
“All the lights work and all the ceiling tiles are in place. For a federal building, that’s splendor.” Samson speaks calmly and deliberately, like he’s talking me off a ledge. He slides a multi-page document in front of me. “Our standard representation letter. Please initial each page and sign at the end. Until you sign it, I can put anything you tell me on Facebook.”
Chasing Clay (The DeWitt Agency Files Book 3) Page 18
