The Vig

by John Lescroart

  “Why’d you draw it?”

  Drysdale grinned. “‘Cause it’s such a lemon. Locke gives it to a rookie here and bingo, end of career, or at least end of cooperation for a year or two with the department. Me, I’m immune I guess. Seniority. I’ve offended everybody at least once anyway. Can’t do any more harm.”

  “Who are the guys?”

  “Clarence Raines and Mario Valenti. Homicide. You know ‘em?”

  “No. But Homicide guys?”

  “I know.” Drysdale picked up an autographed baseball and tossed it back and forth. “Plus there’s my well-known discretion.” He flipped the ball across to Hardy. “But you, sir? Coming back to the trade?”

  Hardy laughed, said no and ran down his last twenty-four hours.

  Drysdale was thoughtful for a moment. “Ingraham left here after you, right?” He shut his eyes, remembering. “Something went wrong.”

  “What was that?”

  “Gimme the ball.”

  Hardy tossed it back to him. It flashed from hand to hand, faster than Hardy could follow it. Drysdale closed his eyes again, a juggler in a trance. Finally he stopped. “Nope, it’s not there.”

  Hardy lifted his shoulders. “Well, he’s dead anyway, I guess it can’t matter too much anymore.”

  “I know a guy, though, hates his guts. You might want to talk to him. Tony Feeney.”

  “He should’ve died a long time ago.”

  Feeney was Hardy’s vintage but a different grape. Dark hair, pressed three-piece suit, trim body, shined shoes. No hint of mellowing out.

  “Well, he did die this morning.”

  Feeney seemed to gather something inside himself. Then he astounded Hardy by giving himself a thumbs-up and saying, “Fuckin’ A,” like he’d just won a big one.

  Then, realizing what he had done, he came back to Hardy. “If he was your friend I’m sorry, but—”

  Hardy stopped him. “Before yesterday I hadn’t seen him in half a dozen years.”

  “How’d it go down?”

  “Looks like somebody shot him.”

  “I hope he walks, whoever did it.”

  “Well, whoever did it shot his girlfriend too.”

  “You know who it was?”

  “Yeah, they think so. I think so.”

  Feeney opened his desk drawer and popped a Life Saver. He offered one to Hardy. “Fuckin’ Ingraham. Always gotta be a woman around. Girl should’ve known better.”

  Hardy didn’t know what that meant, but he’d come back to it. “What’d he do to you?”

  Feeney had an unlined angular face with a small mole on the same spot of each cheek. Hardy thought he could be a model—not so much handsome but a definite “look.” “There was a cop named Hector Medina,” he began. “Used to be in Homicide. Now he runs security over at the Sir Francis Drake.”

  Feeney went on to explain that about seven years before, over a casual dinner with some D.A. friends, Rusty Ingraham had told the gang that “everybody knew” Hector Medina had killed Raul Guerrero instead of arresting him. Guerrero had been a lowlife who’d been hassling women for years in the lower Mission and had come under suspicion for rape and murder. When Hector had gone out to question him, the official story was that Guerrero pulled a gun and Medina had to shoot him.

  As with any incident of this type, there had been an investigation and Medina had been cleared.

  Now, though, at this dinner, Ingraham had gotten into it. He was showing off for the woman he was seeing, impressing her, Feeney guessed, with his inside knowledge, and he’d said everybody knew that Medina had planted a gun on Guerrero and simply blown him away.

  Okay, people are allowed to bullshit each other. But then the story got to the D.A., and Ingraham got called in and he didn’t retract it. It was the truth, he said. Everybody knew it.

  And so they’d started another formal investigation on Hector Medina, and Feeney had drawn the assignment.

  “You know what it’s like coming down on a cop?”

  Hardy nodded. “Drysdale was just talking about it.”

  “He pulled Valenti and Raines, didn’t he? Poor bastard. I hope he doesn’t need any investigating done for the next two or three years.”

  “They lock you out, huh?”

  “What do you think?”

  Hardy the ex-cop knew. Nobody closed ranks tighter than policemen. “So Ingraham testified, or what?”

  Feeney shook his head. “No. It never came to that. There just wasn’t any evidence. I couldn’t get it to trial. But you know how these things are. Medina was suspended for the second time during my investigation. The word got around. Soon enough everybody believed he’d purposely killed Guerrero, who, of course, was a scum. They reinstated Medina, gave him his back pay, but he only lasted about three months before he quit. Nobody feels too good about a killer cop, even if—”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “Well, there was no evidence. But sometimes two accusations are enough to put a man down.”

  “So what about Rusty?”

  “The only thing Ingraham did was screw up my career for the next few years. I mean, whatever Medina was or wasn’t, I was the guy digging up dirt on this inspector sergeant of Homicide. So testifying cops get sick on the day I go to trial, evidence isn’t tagged right or gets lost, reports get filed in the wrong folders, witnesses don’t live where they’re supposed to. They’re a real creative bunch, homicide cops, when they put their minds to it. And I had Ingraham to thank for it.”

  Hardy sat back, his ankle on his knee, and looked at the city behind Feeney’s back. All this was interesting, but didn’t seem to have much to do with Louis Baker, or Rusty being dead. “So that was it?” he asked.

  Feeney laced his fingers behind his head, arching his back. Hardy heard a few pops. “No. The good part is that old Rusty lost his credibility with Locke. The assignments just dried up. He only lasted maybe four months longer than Medina.”

  “He got fired?”

  “What he got was the message. He sought, as we say, other meaningful work.”

  “So you haven’t seen him in …?”

  Feeney straightened up in his chair. “Many years,” he said. “And when did you say he was killed?”

  “Last night.”

  He nodded. “Good. For the record, I was playing poker with four other guys from this office all last night. I can give you their names if you want.”

  It was like a thing, man. If you ran with Dido, you did something with your shoes.

  Lace was checking it out. It was like a sign in the cut that you were part of it. Lace looked down at his feet, at the high-top Adidas, the shoelaces curling like skinny snakes around his feet.

  He pushed off the building, hands in his pockets, and looked out through the cut. Dido doing some business. Couple of honkies waiting in the shiny black car. One guy out talking with his man.

  Dido looked bad. Dido always looked bad, but today, hot and still, you could see him. He wore the Adidas, like always, yeah, but that’s why he had his name. With the black tank shirt you could see the power—the dark skin looking oiled, shining in the sun. Arms like Lace’s legs. Couple of years ago, when Lace still a boy, he and Jumpup used to ride around, one each on Dido’s shoulders.

  The only man around bigger than Dido was just got back from the big house. He was out doing something now with his shack. It was in Dido’s cut, so it was Lace’s business.

  He kicked his way slowly down the cut, his long shoelaces trailing in the dust behind him. With a nod of his head, he drew in Jumpup, a year younger than himself, but bigger. At thirteen, Jumpup could nearly jam a basketball already.

  Lace didn’t know if the man planned to be on the street, if he had a name. Dido told them—the Mama told him—the dude was Louis Baker, but that wouldn’t be their name for him if he was going to be here. Like, Lace was Luther F. Washington. But he was Lace. Jumpup, same thing. Been called Jumpup since he could walk. Lace didn’t know his other name. Those names didn’t
matter.

  The man was working without a shirt, setting out a few cans of white spray paint. He wore some baggy pants with a thin black belt and hard shoes without socks. There was a long scar from the top of his shoulder swinging across his back and under his arm. It was old, blacker and shinier than the rest of him. His chest reminded Lace of a horse—maybe three times as broad as his own, covered with curly black hairs that here and there glistened with drops of sweat.

  Jumpup said, “Too buffed.” Impressed.

  His arms. Just moving easy, you could see the cords rippling under the skin. The man was humming.

  They stood across the cut in the shade of the building opposite him, watching as he shook one of the cans and began spraying white paint over the graffiti that covered the side of the Mama’s place.

  Lace checked far down to his right. Dido still doing that business. He nudged Jumpup on the arm, and together they moved out into the sun and across the cut.

  The man was covering a lot of Lace’s work. Dido favored a dark blue in his cut. ‘Course there were older colors too, from before—words, symbols, dicks, some magic stuff. Red and green mostly before the blue.

  The man was being careful. Starting at the corner, he was already halfway down the side of the building. Not doing the whole thing, just spraying white over the marks so there was new white and old white, but no colors. No sign it was Dido’s cut. It got Lace a little worried, but there might be nothing in it. The man had done his hard time—he got Lace’s respect.

  Lace and Jumpup were close enough now. He turned to face them and nodded. “How you boys?”

  Lace felt Jumpup go back a step, but the man went back to spraying. Maybe he didn’t know.

  “You stayin’ here?” Lace asked.

  The man stopped long enough to nod again. “That’s right.” Spray spray spray. Nothin’ to think about.

  “You back in from the big house?”

  He stopped again, straightened up. Way up. “You readin’ my mail?” he asked.

  “You ain’t be covering Dido’s name?” Jumpup, getting right to it.

  “The blue,” Lace explained.

  The man stepped back, halfway across the cut, looked at his work. “This be my home, now, with Mama. I like a nice white place.” He showed some teeth and stepped back up to the wall.

  Lace had to say something. “Jumpup and me, we do the color in the cut here.”

  He lowered the spray can. “No, I don’t s’pose. Gotta be just so.”

  “We been doin’ it.” Jumpup sounding tougher, but, Lace noticed, still standing behind him.

  The man shook his head. “I only got so much paint. Takes some skill with the can.” He stepped to the wall and sprayed, covering over a red circle. “Like that,” he said. “No waste. You learn that at the House. The Lord don’t like it much neither. Waste.”

  “I can do that,” Lace said.

  The man squatted down now, even with them. “If you could, it would be some help. I got some glass I want to put in. But I don’t know …”

  “Lace and me can do it,” Jumpup said.

  “We paint the cut,” Lace repeated.

  The man handed them each a can. “All right. Slow, though. Let me see you do a little.”

  Louis Baker positioned them about five feet apart and they started spraying over the graffiti while he took the plywood off the side window.

  “What’s happening here?”

  The boys, startled, stopped spraying and turned around. Louis Baker, about to put the glass into the window where the plywood had been, lowered the plate to the ground. Dido had his arms folded in front of him.

  “That’s a white wall,” he said. “These homeboys helping you out?”

  Louis Baker nodded. “That’s right. Cleaning up the new house.”

  Dido stood dead still, squinting into the sun. Without his saying a word, Lace and Jumpup put their cans down and began sauntering back down the cut.

  The two big men—one twenty-one, one mid-thirties—stood about two yards apart. Louis Baker straightened up, folded his arms across his bare chest the way Dido’s were. Lace and Jumpup were off a ways, looking on.

  A car honked out in the street. Dido took a last look at the wall, shrugged and began trotting back down the cut. Business was business.

  Louis Baker, humming again, opened a can of putty.

  5

  Johnny LaGuardia couldn’t understand why people didn’t seem to get it. The concept was so simple, and these hockey pucks—now it looked like two in the last two days—either kept getting it wrong or just blew it off altogether.

  Here’s the deal—you got a situation where you need some money. Gambling, women, speculation in municipal bonds—it didn’t matter to Angelo “the Angel” Tortoni. The banks, for one reason or another, would not help you out. Maybe they didn’t see the wisdom of your borrowing money to go put it on the nose of Betsy’s Delight in the fourth at Bay Meadows. Maybe you had defaulted on past loans. Maybe your collateral was already hocked. Whatever.

  Mr. Tortoni—the Angel—he’d help you out. Johnny LaGuardia had seen grown men go down on their knees with tears in their eyes, thanking the Angel for money that appeared when there wasn’t any cash to be found anywhere. He knew for a fact that the Angel’s money had paid for college tuitions, covered a guy’s “lost weekend,” helped out some married lady who didn’t want a fourth baby. This man—the Angel—took care of his people.

  And most of those Mr. Tortoni helped showed him respect. They paid the vig, the vigorish—a reasonable ten points a week—until they could repay the principal. Then most of them came in, not just with the money but often with a gift to show their gratitude that Mr. Tortoni had believed in them when no one else would, had fronted them some of his own hard-earned money to help them out in their difficult time.

  And most of them understood that the reason Mr. Tortoni could do this important community work was because he remained a good businessman. He didn’t lose out on his loans. The vigorish kept him liquid.

  That was most of ‘em.

  The other ones were why Johnny LaGuardia had a job.

  He stood at the entrance to the lobby of Ghirardelli Towers and looked back over his shoulder at the deep purple sky. Over the Golden Gate Bridge a high cloud-cover glowed deep orange, the kind of clouds he used to think, when he was a boy, had been raked by the angels.

  Someone was playing congas pretty well on the steps by the Maritime Museum and the lights above Ghirardelli Square had just been turned on. It was still warm from the day, with a light breeze off the bay—the smell of crabs cooking down at the Wharf.

  This was Johnny’s favorite time of year, of day and of his life so far. He was meeting Doreen for dinner at Little Joe’s in an hour. He’d have the cacciuco and a bottle of Lambrusco and then they’d go back to her place.

  He should feel great.

  But last night was Rusty Ingraham, and now he had a bad feeling about Bram Smyth, who was supposed to have met him at the bar at Senor Pico’s at 4:30, nearly three hours ago.

  He ought to have a talk with Mr. Tortoni, he thought. About these guys who do the ponies. Well, maybe he wouldn’t, now he thought about it. Mr. Tortoni didn’t need two cents from Johnny LaGuardia about how he ran his business, but the fact was these guys were unreliable.

  He pushed open the lobby door and crossed the marble to the bank of mailboxes with buttons under them. Bram and Sally Smyth lived in number 320.

  He pushed the button, waited ten seconds, pushed it again. He looked at his watch, knowing that his impatience might make him hurry things. He counted off thirty seconds.

  Okay.

  One-twelve, the third button he pushed, answered. He had a delivery for Mr.—he looked at the mailbox of one of the other two that hadn’t answered—Ortega in 110. Could he leave it with her?

  He stood at the inner door until it buzzed. Then he quickly pushed it open and was inside. Taking the stairs up to the third floor, he couldn’t get over wha
t a joke these security buildings were.

  The third-floor hallway was wide, carpeted, quiet. The Smyths’ door was immediately to Johnny’s right as he came out of the stairwell. He put his ear to the door and listened for a moment. Somebody was in there talking. He knocked.

  The talking stopped. He could imagine Smyth holding a finger up to his lips.

  Come on, come on. Don’t make it so hard on everybody.

  Johnny LaGuardia had several weapons that he used for various jobs, but the silenced Uzi was probably his favorite. Like the Secret Service guys, he carried it in a swivel-up holster under his arm. The thing was really small for so much firepower, easily concealed under a sports jacket.

  He moved the jacket out of the way and swung the Uzi up. There was some more movement inside the apartment.

  He could just wait. He knew that after about five minutes Smyth would creep to the door and listen, then—with the chain on—he’d open the door a crack. But Johnny had a date with Doreen, and it was getting late. He’d given Smyth every opportunity to be civil.

  He crossed to the far side of the hallway and aimed at the deadbolt. This part was fun—the way the gun made a little zipping sound and the door exploded inward. As far as the chain.

  He took a few steps, shoulder down, across the hallway and hit the door with his shoulder; the chain gave way like so much tinsel.

  Bram Smyth and, he guessed, Sally were halfway out of their dinner seats, staring at the doorway, at him. He realized he still had the gun in his hand. “Bram, goddammit,” he said. He started unscrewing the silencer.

  Smyth looked like what he was—a Yuppie stockbroker. He still had his tie on, his tasseled moccasins.

  “Did we have an appointment or what?”

  Bram looked at the woman, put on a sick smile. “Hey, was that today? I thought it was tomorrow. I’m sorry, I got the—”

  Johnny shook his head. “You didn’t hear the doorbell? I come up here and knock?”

  Bram motioned ambiguously. “Johnny. We’re having a romantic dinner here. Were.”