The Ophelia Cut

by John Lescroart

  Moses nodded, moved to one side, stared out through the mist at the Opera House across the street. When he heard a door open behind him, he turned.

  “Mr. McGuire.” The well-dressed young man advanced on him, the picture of confidence, smile in place, hand outstretched. “This is a pleasant surprise. Good to see you again. What can I do for you?”

  Moses did not take the proffered hand. Instead, he cast a disdainful glance at it and then looked up, meeting the young man’s eyes, speaking in a conversational tone. “You can leave my daughter alone.”

  Rick shot a quick look across at Diane. A twitch danced at the corner of his lips. “I thought I’d been doing that,” he said. “She hasn’t been talking to me.”

  “You’ve tried to talk to her.”

  “Okay, you mean at Peet’s. I wanted to try to get back together. But she wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “I heard you objected, and they had to throw you out.”

  “That’s an exaggeration. I wasn’t happy, but I left on my own.” He backed up a step or two.

  “That’s not the last time you saw her, is it?”

  Diane rose behind her computer. “Is everything all right here, Rick?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he said. Then, to Moses, “Although maybe we should continue this conversation out in the hall, let Diane get back to her work.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “You’re sure?” Diane asked with a nervous glance at Moses.

  “We’re good,” Rick said, then turned to Moses. “Good. Right?”

  “Peachy.”

  Rick started walking toward the exit, Moses a couple of steps behind him. Out in the hallway, the younger man turned to him. “Where were we?”

  “I was telling you that Peet’s wasn’t the last time you saw her.”

  Brazening it out, Rick stared into Moses’s face for a beat. “How is she?”

  “How would you expect her to be?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “I mean when you manhandle somebody, you throw ’em around, sometimes you cause some real damage.”

  Rick managed to hold out for some seconds before he looked down and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was an accident. She pulled away and slipped and—”

  Those words marked the end of any doubt about what had happened, and Moses struck with all the power he could muster. Rick, in the middle of explaining, wasn’t looking for it and couldn’t begin to block the punch. He never even saw the vicious right jab that hit him high on the cheekbone, knocking him onto his heels, his head snapping back and slamming into the wall as a blind flurry of three more punches—left, right, left, carefully aimed, surgically executed—turned his legs to jelly and dropped him.

  As blood, a good quantity, started to run out of Rick’s nose and mouth, pooling on the floor, Moses looked down at his victim in disgust. Leaning over, he got close to Rick’s ear. “You come near my daughter again,” he said, “and you are a dead man.”

  Straightening up, massaging his knuckles, Moses turned and walked at a normal pace back down the interior hallway, out to the majestic steps, down the imposing wide stairway, where the wedding was still going on, and out into the fog of the late afternoon.

  PART

  TWO

  11

  AT A LITTLE past three o’clock on Saturday, the last day of March, Rick Jessup looked up at the flight of twenty-seven steps that led to the front door of Jon Lo’s Victorian home on Divisadero Street. As if the street weren’t steep enough, ascending from Cow Hollow up to Broadway. He couldn’t imagine why anybody would buy a house that was so torturous to get to. Maybe Lo drove his Mercedes up and down the driveway directly into the attached garage every day and never used the steps. To anyone visiting, those steps were a definite physical and possibly psychological hurdle.

  At the top of the stairs, Jessup turned to look back over the roofs of the Marina District and out to the bay, which today was dotted with dozens of sailboats and hundreds of whitecaps. He was standing there, hesitating, when the front door opened. He whirled around.

  “How long were you going to wait before you rang the bell?” Lo asked.

  “I was just catching my breath and admiring your view.”

  “It’s the bay,” Lo said. “The gray bay. Would you like to come in?”

  “Thank you.”

  Jessup swallowed against his nerves and followed Lo into a lavishly decorated and overly furnished living room that featured the same view as the porch, minus the wind. Lo appeared to be at ease in his castle. He wore pleated light brown dress slacks, tasseled cordovan loafers without socks, a black V-neck sweater.

  No sooner had he offered Jessup a seat on the couch than a breathtakingly beautiful Asian woman in a wildly colorful silk blouse appeared bearing a platter: a white porcelain pot, fine china cups and saucers, a selection of teas and cookies. Without a word or even a glance at the two men, she placed the platter on the glass and chrome coffee table in front of Jessup. Straightening up, she put her hands together in a prayerful gesture and bowed, then disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.

  Lo sat across from Jessup in an overstuffed leather chair, his feet on a matching ottoman. “Please help yourself,” he said. “All of the teas are excellent.”

  “Thank you.” Jessup sat forward, dropped a tea bag into one of the cups, and poured hot water over it. “I appreciate your agreeing to see me.”

  “Not at all. I’ve admired your work with Liam for quite some time. He speaks glowingly of your talents and follow-through. I understand that you were more or less responsible for coordinating the timing with our friends from Alcoholic Beverage Control, and because of that, my businesses are no longer the mayor’s flavor of the month, which is all to the good. So what can I do for you?”

  “Well,” Jessup said, “it’s more what I hope we can do for each other. As you might have guessed from the fact that I wasn’t comfortable meeting with you in our offices, this is about Liam.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Before I go any further, I want to make clear that my first loyalty is to him. He’s been my mentor since I graduated from college. I hope to be with him as he continues his political career, whether it’s on to mayor or wherever he wants to go. He’s a great role model and an even better friend.”

  Lo brought his feet down and leaned forward. “I hear a ‘but.’ ”

  “Yes, you do. The dynamic between me and Liam has changed over the past few months.” Jessup stirred his tea, removed the bag, brought the drink to his lips. Killing time. Putting the cup down, he began. “The plain fact is that it started with an issue you brought up with him. One of our staff apparently taking advantage of his access to your businesses.”

  Lo’s mouth turned up into a small smile. “That’s one way to refer to it.”

  “It was atrocious,” Jessup said. “I’ve interrogated the entire staff but unfortunately haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was one of Liam’s political enemies, trying to drive some kind of a wedge between you and him.”

  “That’s not impossible.”

  “No. I think it’s actually quite probable. The problem is that I think Liam somehow got it in his head that it might have been me.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Well, this is somewhat embarrassing, but I want to be completely clear and up-front with you. Let’s just say I find some of your women amazingly attractive.”

  Lo spread his hands, let another smile bloom. “Listen to me. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re a young man. The appetite is there. If that weren’t a universal truth, I wouldn’t have a business at all. You were perhaps a bit presumptuous and overestimated your position. That can happen in a young man. You acknowledge your error and show respect. I don’t see a problem. Is that all you wanted to talk to me about? To reassure me on that score?”

  “To some degree, yes. But it leads to the grea
ter issue.”

  “Which is what?”

  Jessup paused again. “I fear that Liam may not be as understanding of the prerogatives of power as you are. I am concerned that he is losing confidence in my discretion and loyalty because of what he thinks I may have done with your girls—and which I swear to you I had no part in—or whether his political ambitions are driving him away from the people who have been his staunchest supporters and allies from the beginning. Now that he’s all but announced for mayor, I think his allegiance to me—and, frankly, to you—has become diluted. Again, I don’t want to be speaking out of school, but I’ve heard him make a few comments privately that he wants to build his campaign around a less politically compromised group of supporters.”

  “What did you take that to mean?”

  “No massage-parlor money. No connection with, forgive me, unsavory elements.”

  “That would be cutting his own throat.”

  “He thinks not. He’s getting a really strong bounce on this underage alcohol campaign, the morality vote. He thinks if he’s going to go beyond his supervisor seat, and eventually beyond mayor, he’ll have to jettison the people who put him there. Which means you. And, for different but connected reasons, me.”

  “You have my attention. What exactly are you proposing?”

  “I’m saying I think we can help each other. There was a time, not so long ago, when Liam listened to my political advice. I was a big part of a lot of programs and ideas, and even the alcohol sting, and look where that’s gotten him. I used to have credibility with him, and I don’t think I’m dead yet, but I’ve got to get back in his confidence. He’s listening to people telling him what he wants to hear who don’t have his best interests at heart. What he needs is a straight shooter. And that straight shooter would tell him he’s crazy if he thinks he’ll be able to fund a campaign without you and your pals and the organization we’ve all worked so hard to put together.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’d like you to tell Liam that you’ve discovered who it was messing with your business and your girls. You’ve taken steps. The guy’s not going to be a problem anymore. Make up a name if you have to, just have Liam believe it wasn’t me. Because it wasn’t me, and I can’t have him thinking it was. Then I’m back in his camp, where I can exert real influence. I can keep you on his radar, where you belong. He can’t win without you, and your interests are going to be in jeopardy without him. Both of you need to be working together. It’s win/win.”

  “I can see that. But if my money and my support can’t convince him, what makes you so sure that you can?”

  “I know the man, sir. I know a lot of his secrets, some of which he’d prefer didn’t become common knowledge, some of which would kill him politically. If you can help me get this monkey off my back, I’m willing to share some of those secrets, so if he tries to abandon you, you’ll be able to bring a fairly strong argument to the table that would convince him to serve your best interests.”

  After a long moment, Lo nodded. “I’ll talk to him on Monday and tell him we need to discuss his political future.”

  LOOKING OUT HIS picture window, Lo watched Rick Jessup descend the front steps and go left at the sidewalk. Turning back into his living room, he fixed himself a cup of tea. That young man, he was thinking, was a problem.

  Lo wondered whether he was using cocaine, if he’d snorted a few lines before gathering the nerve for his really bold end run here today.

  He sipped tea, warming both hands around the cup. Lo allowed his mind to settle until it let him know a few things with absolute certainty. First, it had been Jessup who stiffed his girls, slapping around a few of them while he was at it. Second, Jessup was willing to blackmail his boss over past indiscretions. Third, Jessup was mistaken if not truly deluded if he really thought that Liam would decline Lo’s campaign contributions going forward. Fourth, if Jessup was willing to betray his long-standing friend and mentor Liam Goodman, imagine how quick he would be to turn on Lo should an opportunity present itself.

  He was a vicious, undependable, and therefore dangerous man.

  Oh.

  Another sip of tea.

  As the fifth certainty sifted through his consciousness, its deviousness brought a smile to his face.

  Fifth, Lo was now sure that not only would Jessup betray him at the first opportunity, he would not hesitate to turn today’s meeting into something other than it had been, spinning it completely around, turning Lo into Liam’s betrayer. Lo could almost hear Jessup’s words: I’m telling you, Liam, keep your eye on Mr. Lo. He’ll co-opt your campaign and end up owning you. Don’t meet with him anymore. Don’t talk to him. Use me as a go-between so you can deny any connection to him. Otherwise, all you’ll ever be is Jon Lo’s hired boy.

  Lo raised his cup to his lips and was surprised to find it empty. He went back to the coffee table and placed it on the platter. On the other side of the entrance hall, directly across from the living room, he had a home office with a globe, three hundred books in a dark wood built-in bookshelf, four red leather chairs, a television, a wet bar, and a landline telephone. He picked it up, pushed a memory number, and listened as it rang three times before a familiar voice answered.

  “Liam,” he said. “Sorry to bother you on a weekend, but I believe we have a problem with your chief of staff.”

  JESSUP WAS DONE taking shit from everybody.

  First was the issue with Liam losing faith in him, maybe even interviewing other candidates for his job. If Jessup didn’t move quickly—which he had just done, and it felt like it had gone pretty successfully—he was going to find himself unemployed.

  Which could not happen. Not in this economy. Not with his expenses and expectations. He wasn’t going to stop drinking good wine, going to nice restaurants. He wasn’t going to give up cocaine. These were not options. Not in his life.

  He’d woken up feeling that enough was enough, and he’d made his move, getting things a little way back toward the right track. And sure, it had been risky, going to Jon Lo, but obviously, he’d convinced him, and now Lo would be calling Liam on Monday, setting the stage for reconciliation with his boss.

  That, at least, would all work out.

  The second thing, while he was at it, would be getting back at Brittany and her lunatic father, who’d blindsided him.

  Back home at his place in the Marina, pumped up over the way things had gone with Lo, he picked up the phone and punched in the contact he still hadn’t erased. He knew that when she saw who was calling, she wouldn’t talk to him, so he sent a text instead: Brittany. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but your father came down to my office. It’s not so much that he assaulted me. That was no big deal. But he seems genuinely crazy and dangerous, and I really think someone needs to get him off the street. I feel like I should report this to the police. I’m sorry if he has to go to jail, but what if he goes crazy again and hurts someone else? I would feel responsible.

  Maybe I’d feel differently if I were convinced your father wasn’t dangerous. If you convince me that’s the case, that can be the end of it. I’ll be at Perry’s on Union tonight at nine. One drink, neutral territory, lots of people around, totally safe. Or any other date and time you want. I hope to see you there.

  WHEN SHE CAME in and he saw her again, he realized he truly hated her. What she’d put him through, what she probably put every guy through.

  Unbelievable! She couldn’t even walk the length of the bar to where he sat without three guys hitting on her as she passed. Here she was, getting to him, awkwardly lifting one hand, pulling out the chair across from him at the small table. “Hey.”

  “Hey. Thank you for coming.”

  “Sure.” She tried to arrange her face into a neutral expression, but under it, he sensed a low thrumming of fear.

  Good.

  “What can I get you?” he asked.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  Good again, he thought. “Sazerac.�
�� Bitters and absinthe.

  “Bring it on.”

  “Save my place. I’ll be right back.”

  “They’ve got waitresses.”

  “I know, but I’ll be quicker.”

  When Jessup returned with the drinks, he carefully put hers down in front of her, then moved his drink to the far edge of the table. It wouldn’t do to spill one or mix them up.

  He sat down, took up his drink, held the glass out to her. “I won’t say to new beginnings or anything like that, but thank you again for coming.”

  Sighing, forcing a smile, Brittany picked up her glass and brought it up to his. “I’m so sorry about everything.”

  “Me, too. Really.”

  He brought the glass to his lips and watched as she did the same, made a little face, took another sip. “While I’m being sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know about my dad and you. I didn’t even tell him you’d touched me. I told him I just fell down. But he’s had some experience with fights and bruises.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “At the time, it was pretty bad. I didn’t see it coming.”

  “That’s my dad.”

  “I’ve been pretty pissed off at him.”

  “I get that. I don’t blame you. But I hope you don’t want him to go to jail. It would be nasty and embarrassing for everybody.”

  “Well.” He picked up his glass. “Here’s to your dad maybe not going to jail.”

  “Really?”

  “Really maybe. A few more toasts, and we may get all the way to really really.”

  They both drank.

  “The waitress is coming up behind you,” she said.

  “One more?” he asked.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  12

  “GRAPE LEAF POTSTICKERS?”

  From his corner booth, Abe Glitsky was looking over Wes Farrell’s shoulder at the blackboard above the cash register at Lou the Greek’s. Today—an unseasonably warm and pleasant Monday in early April—the place was at its usual near capacity.