The Ophelia Cut

by John Lescroart

  Something like a smile appeared on Glitsky’s face. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve had a hunk of beef?”

  “Probably too long.”

  “That’s the right answer. What can we bring?”

  Hardy gave him a grin. “Just your family and that sunny, carefree personality we know and love so well.”

  5

  LIAM GOODMAN AND his—at the time—paralegal Rick Jessup had worked with Jon Lo since 2008, before Goodman’s election to the Board of Supervisors, back when he was in private practice and Mr. Lo needed legal help handling the rezoning of ten properties that he owned downtown. Six of these multifamily apartment buildings had been residential units—rented almost exclusively to Korean tenants—for over forty years, ever since Lo’s grandfather built them in the 1960s. San Francisco’s aggressive rent control laws by themselves limited profits in the early years, to the degree that they would have been untenable as investments had it not been for the phenomenal rise in real estate prices. But the prices had kept rising, and it seemed that all was well.

  In the late ’80s, Lo’s father had refinanced and taken over $3 million in cash out of the properties, which he’d then invested in four more buildings, filled with more recently emigrated Korean renters. These tenants represented an influx of capital, true, but some of his tenant families, especially from the earlier buildings, were in their third or even fourth generation. Many of these tenants were paying under a thousand dollars a month when individual rooms in private homes or condos right next door often commanded two to four thousand.

  But the laws were unambiguous—as long as the tenant resided in the unit, the increase in rent was held at one percent per year.

  In 2008, Jon Lo found himself in a cash-flow bind. The recession and bursting of the housing bubble had wiped out two thirds of the equity in all of his downtown properties. At the same time, several of his tenants—laid off or cut back or simply poorer—stopped paying even the insanely low rent. In theory, Lo could evict these families, but it took forever, was vastly expensive, and sometimes San Francisco judges refused to order evictions. When Lo did get an eviction order, he had to convince the sheriff to enforce it, and that was a whole other cycle of obstacles. In the meantime, he was paying off his father’s refinancing, and the monthly rents weren’t covering his nut.

  There had to be a better way.

  Liam Goodman, his lawyer, had come up with the answer. Goodman had explained—though in truth, Jon Lo was more than passing familiar with the practice—that the apartment units should be converted from residential properties to massage parlors. The massage parlors would, in turn, be staffed by recent female immigrants from Korea who had been lured to the United States by promises of big money and clean, steady work as waitresses or models or hostesses; in fact, these young women often arrived owing thousands of dollars to the brokers who had arranged for their travel, documents, and relocation to America.

  To pay off this debt, their brokers—or owners in all but name—forced them to work in the massage parlors as sex slaves. They usually worked six days a week, entertaining as many as a dozen men every day, earning for their landlord fifty dollars per trick plus half of their tips (one to four hundred, depending on the services performed), with the remainder going for their freedom, a freedom that could and often did prove elusive.

  Bad as it was for the girls, the business was terrific for Jon Lo, and it solved all of his monetary problems. In the city’s super-permissive atmosphere, sexual behavior flew under the radar. Officials tended not to care about these so-called victimless crimes. Beyond that, in 2004, jurisdiction for the massage parlors moved from the police department to the city’s Department of Public Health, whose mandate to check on general cleanliness in these places of business did not necessarily include reporting signs of suspected or probable prostitution to the police. A used condom might be a health violation, but it was nothing to call the Vice Squad about. Besides, sex in a massage parlor, unless police saw money change hands, went ignored.

  In short, it was a good time to be the owner of several massage parlors in San Francisco, and Jon Lo, grateful to Liam Goodman for the legal and zoning assistance in turning his financial life around, had no problem with donating to Goodman’s campaign for city supervisor or with urging his fellow businessmen in the Tenderloin and in Chinatown to support that campaign as well.

  THE PROXIMATE CAUSE of the city’s sting this week against bar owners and underage drinking had been the third trickledown effect that had begun two months before with an unexpected federal sweep of the city’s massage parlors. The sweep resulted in the arrests of one hundred masseuses, most of them Korean. In response, the mightily embarrassed mayor, Leland Crawford—who was shocked, shocked, to discover that there was a lot of sex at these locations—called for the formation of a task force of health and police inspectors to step up their surveillance and enforcement of the city’s antiprostitution laws.

  In the much publicized second event from only a month before, Crawford, accompanied by members of his new task force and a brace of reporters, had waited in the cut, or narrow unnamed alley, abutting the Golden Dream massage parlor, owned by Jon Lo and licensed by the Department of Public Health, while a plainclothes Asian policeman rang the doorbell. When the metal security door opened, the decoy officer duct-taped the lock so the mayor’s party could get in, just in time to discover a man in the middle of a sex act in the building’s lobby.

  Not too surprisingly, this had caused a stir, and in its aftermath, Crawford had all but declared war on sex trafficking in the city. Unfortunately, all the immediate hue and cry came to naught when the inspectors who’d accompanied Crawford could cite the Golden Dream only for inadequate ventilation, for employees who were improperly attired, for using the business address as a living quarters, and for using a bed instead of a massage table. Since no one had seen money change hands and neither party had talked, the blatant sex act they’d all witnessed couldn’t be charged as prostitution.

  A week later, an administrative law judge—Liam Goodman’s wife’s former law partner, Morrie Swindell—declined to revoke Mr. Lo’s permit to operate the massage parlor; and not one woman who worked at Golden Dream, rumored to have been threatened into silence by the owner, would testify against him. By this time, the federal case that had netted the original hundred arrests had foundered as well. The ten massage parlors were still in operation.

  In spite of the zero sum change in prostitution in San Francisco, sex trafficking had officially become one of the city’s hot liberal issues. Crawford had claimed it as his own; his concern over the victims of this international humanitarian crisis would translate to hundreds if not thousands of votes from women and Asians as he set his eyes on the state capitol. It was only a matter of time before his task force grew some teeth and started negatively impacting the businesses of Jon Lo and his colleagues.

  Liam Goodman wasn’t afraid to be proactive. He knew that the average voter’s span of attention could be measured in seconds, if not less. He also knew that the city’s Vice Squad was strapped for both personnel and money, and if he could siphon off a few officers for other duties, the sex-traffic task force would take that much longer to reach a minimal level of competency. Further, if Crawford got elected to Sacramento next year, the mayor’s office yawned open for someone with sufficient profile and name recognition. Someone just like Goodman, if he could get his name in the news a little bit more often. And once Liam was elected mayor, the task force would be allowed to atrophy and then go away entirely.

  He had been reading the paper last week when he came across a very sad article about a drunk teenager who’d run a red light and killed a young couple in town from Boise for their honeymoon.

  Underage drinking, he thought. As a bonus, most of the kids in these upscale drinking establishments were middle- and upper-class whites, so he could crack down without the accusation of racism that hampered any effort to interdict the dope traffic in the city’s
poorer, mostly minority communities.

  Underage drinking. That was the ticket.

  GOODMAN FINISHED GIVING his press conference at the top of the grand staircase in San Francisco’s city hall. Present were reporters from the Chronicle and the Courier as well as all the local networks and a few cable and Web-based outlets. He had started off with the unfortunate couple from Boise and managed to include statistics on the increase in traffic problems and other crimes involving minors who had been drinking; on bars that served as distribution centers for drug sales; even down to a few riffs on the proliferation of fake IDs and the threat they posed to national security. “We are a tolerant city,” he had concluded after a robust Q&A, “and rightfully proud of it. But that tolerance cannot extend to premises and people where illegal activity threatens lives and is a danger to individuals and to public health.”

  He was feeling good as he turned away from the knot of reporters to walk to his office. When he saw Jon Lo standing in front of his door, Goodman at first thought that his client had come down to congratulate him on a job well done. But there wasn’t any pleasure in Lo’s face, no sign at all of approval.

  Goodman rearranged his own expression, a quick smile, then all concern. “Jon,” he said. “Something on your mind?”

  “Maybe inside?” Lo replied.

  The suite featured two small anterooms where the clerical staff worked, although this being Friday evening, none was in attendance. Behind those rooms, overlooking Van Ness and peering out to the Opera House, Goodman worked in surroundings that were both traditional and somewhat opulent—red leather chairs and a mahogany desk on a Persian rug, file cabinets, bookshelves, and sideboards hugging the wall space.

  Lo went over to stand by the windows, hands clasped behind his back. Short and stocky, in a tailored blue business suit, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts, his shoulders rising and falling, until finally he turned back to Goodman. “I do, as you say, have something on my mind.”

  Goodman nodded. “I’d like to hear it. I thought it went very well out there, but if there was some note I didn’t hit—”

  Lo held up a hand. “It’s not about that. That went fine. Everything with the alcohol strategy has been good. This is about one of your people.”

  “My people? Constituents?”

  “No. The young people working here, in your office. The interns.”

  This was a surprise, and Goodman showed it. “What about them?”

  “How many are there?”

  “It varies by day, paid and unpaid, part-time and full, but six average. Always at least three, plus my secretary. Why?”

  “All men?”

  “One woman. Plus my secretary, Diane, and a new temp we’re got here from Berkeley. What about them?”

  “All right, then, four men. One of them . . .” Lo stopped and drew a breath. “One of them has been visiting my houses and not paying for services. Worse, when the girls complain, he threatens them. He has manhandled one.”

  “Which one of my interns?”

  “I don’t know. You will laugh, but my girls say they can’t tell, the clients all look the same. Truth is, they’re afraid. They don’t want to make trouble, to be caught in the middle. So when I ask them, they say they don’t know. One says she heard it from another. When I question that one, she says she heard it happened, but not to her.”

  “Then how do you know it was somebody from this office?”

  “Because I know.” Lo shrugged. “Understand, Liam, that is not why I’m here. I am not asking, I am telling you it is someone from your office, and I cannot let this continue. It is my job to prevent it. It must stop. I don’t want my girls hassled like this. They perform a service. They get paid. They pay me my share. Everybody is happy. If you can’t find a way to do this and it keeps being a problem, the solution will fall to me. But I would much rather you handle it yourself before it causes bad feelings between us.”

  Goodman got the message. He backed up a step and put a haunch on the corner of his desk. “I’m really not sure I believe this, Jon.” He held up a hand. “I believe you, of course. This is what you hear from your girls, and you bring it to my attention. Which is as it should be. But anybody could say he works for me and try to stiff them.”

  Lo nodded. “Please don’t underestimate how serious this problem is. I’m sorry to have to talk to you about this, today of all days, when you should be happy, when the bar sting has worked so well. But I just found out about it myself, and I can’t leave my girls unprotected.”

  “No. Of course not. If it’s really one of my people, I’ll find out who it was and fire him immediately. I promise you.”

  “That would be good,” Lo said. “At least that.”

  TONY SOLAIA WENT home to his third-floor studio apartment on Ellis near Mason, in a building bordering the notorious and dangerous Tenderloin district. He showered, then slept on his Murphy bed for four hours before he woke up hungry and worried.

  Even for a studio, the place was small. The side walls were eight feet apart; front to back was twelve feet. A sink in a thin counter hugged the wall next to the refrigerator, so the bed barely cleared them when he lowered it. Above the counter, two wall-mounted cabinets held the glasses and plates and mugs that had been there on his arrival. The other two cabinets held various canned foods and coffee and Top Ramen and spaghetti. The color scheme of the walls and counters was pale yellow, with the occasional brown water spot for accent. Bracketed on one side by a scratched end table and three-way lamp and on the other by the unit’s only chair, a mostly black couch of indeterminate fabric sagged under the windows. He had no television. A tiny closet and bathroom took up the rest of the footprint.

  Solaia rolled over, put his bare feet on the floor, and stood up. He raised the bed into the back wall and closed the doors over it, instantly tripling his living space. In the bathroom, he peed and brushed his teeth, then took a two-minute shower.

  His dinner table folded out of the side wall opposite the refrigerator, and ten minutes after his shower, he was sitting down to a bowl of Dinty Moore’s beef stew that he’d cooked on his one hot plate, chased by a sixteen-ounce can of Coors Light. He was dressed in clean jeans, hiking boots, and a stylish Jhane Barnes sweater.

  After rinsing the dishes, he sat at the table, pulled out his cell phone, and punched up a number he’d marked as a favorite.

  On the second ring: “Tony. How you doin’?”

  “Hey, Frank. I’m doin’ okay. Going on the assumption that you didn’t see my name in the papers?”

  “No. What happened? You make up another fancy cocktail?”

  “Not this time.”

  “You really shouldn’t be getting your name in the paper, Tony. This or any time. No picture, I pray to God.”

  “I’m hoping that, too. I don’t remember any pictures.”

  “Well, there’s a plus. Pictures really wouldn’t be good.”

  “I hear you. I kind of remembered that from the initial briefing. It wasn’t something I had control over, but I don’t think there were any pictures.”

  “Okay.” Pause. “So what happened?” Tony told him. When he finished, Frank asked, “Who’s this lawyer?”

  “Just a guy I met where I swim in the mornings.”

  “Does he know?”

  “No. I don’t know why he would.”

  “So why’d he come down and pick you out?”

  “Luck of the draw, I guess. I think he’s just a good guy who thought he could help.”

  “Right. From all the lawyers who grow on the good-guy lawyer tree.” A mirthless chuckle. “Okay, what else?”

  “Well, what else is, I’m out of a job.”

  Frank’s sigh echoed in the cell phone. “What do you want me to do about that?”

  “Nothing at the moment. I’m in wait mode, see what happens to the bar. Hardy—the lawyer?—he says Rome is probably going to reopen in a couple of days. Meanwhile, I can make a week or two, but if it doesn’t reopen, I’ll ne
ed something else.”

  “All right,” Frank said. “I’ll keep my eyes open. Another bar, I presume?”

  “I’ve got experience in bars. That would be easiest. Hardy’s offered me some shifts in the place he owns.”

  “This good-guy lawyer also owns a bar and says he’ll hire you?”

  “Strange as it seems.”

  “It seems like a miracle, you ask me. This guy have wings?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Jesus. All right.” Short pause. “So. Did they print you?”

  “Sure.”

  Another sigh. “I’ll have to talk to somebody down there, then. If they run you for outstandings . . .” He let the phrase hang.

  “I get it, Frank. That’s why I called. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “I’ve got to know, Tony. Your cover gets blown, guess who takes the hit for it? Your friendly U.S. Marshal, that’s who.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, Frank.”

  “It wasn’t you pouring drinks for the kids?”

  “I poured the drinks, but I didn’t know they were kids. They had IDs. They got stamped at the door. Not my fault.”

  “No. I guess not. But not the best luck, either.”

  “No,” Solaia said, “no, it wasn’t.”

  6

  BRITTANY WAS STARTING to wonder if this was the way it always would be.

  Last night she’d been waiting at the Shamrock, passing the time with her dad and the Beck, and Rick had appeared, dressed up in coat and tie and looking every bit as hot as he did during the week when he stopped in at Peet’s. Seeing her, he lit up. He and Brittany and the Beck went into the back room and shot darts and drank some whiskey, and everybody was getting along great, Brittany thinking that the night was going to work out, textbook—she knew she would have her hands and everything else all over Rick Jessup tonight and as far into the future as she wanted to hold on to him.