The Vig

by John Lescroart

  Well, no, it didn’t work that way.

  Fred had known where Brian kept his 9mm Beretta and had gone to that drawer while they fumbled and fussed, and shot them both. Wham bam.

  But then Valenti and Raines kept coming around with questions, and finally with a warrant. There had been that moment of panic, especially when he hit the ground after jumping out the window and the ankle had broken. But not five minutes after showing up at Gubicza’s office, it had all turned around.

  Two weeks before, he had been the subject of an investigation for a second-degree murder he had righteously committed. Now that investigation had gone south and his accusers were themselves the accused. It was beautiful. Gubicza was a genius.

  The doorbell rang, Poppy yipped the way he did, and Treadwell slowly put the stemmed glass down on the table, grabbed his crutches, and moved to the door.

  “Yes?” Through the wood.

  “Mr. Treadwell, please.”

  “Who is it?” You couldn’t be too careful, especially lately.

  “My name is Hector Medina.” A pause. “I represent Clarence Raines.”

  “I represent Clarence Raines.” Which wasn’t strictly true—he hadn’t been retained or anything. But let Treadwell think he was an attorney if he wanted. Attorneys were no threat. He’d get inside if he was an attorney. “I’d like a few words with you if you would open the door.”

  He waited, heard “Just a moment,” then some movement inside, a drawer sliding open and closed. After a moment the door opened.

  Treadwell was tall, thin, but not skinny. He looked like he had spent a lot of time working out when he was younger. Now Hector’s age, give or take five, he had a full head of black hair and a trim and solid physique, shown off well in a pair of shorts and a Gold’s Gym tank top. A goddamn little poodle yipped continually up at Hector.

  “Poppy, be quiet.”

  Hector looked around the apartment. White on white. Animal heads looking like they’d been bought at Cost Plus on the walls. A couple of paintings of pretty obvious phallic imagery. Some kind of music—he didn’t know how to describe it—playing softly in the background. Leather and chrome, white tile, high tech.

  The dog stopped barking. Hector stuck out his hand and Treadwell took it, his grip firm and dry.

  “Can I offer you something? Some wine. Stag’s Leap Chardonnay. Quite nice, the eighty-three.”

  “Sure.”

  Maybe the guy was nervous, the way he babbled getting a glass out of the cabinet across the room by the kitchen. Under the cabinet was a counter, some drawers, one of which Treadwell opened, then quickly closed. He opened the one next to it, searched a moment, came out with a coaster. Nervous would be good, Hector thought. It sounded right.

  “I can’t understand people who say you shouldn’t age your whites. Or that vintage is irrelevant in California wines. Especially the Cabernets and Chardonnays. It’s just reverse snobbery, really, if you ask me. An older Chardonnay, like this one, simply over-whelms its younger siblings …”

  Definitely nervous, Hector thought. But he took the wine and sat down on one of the white leather chairs, the coffee table in front of him.

  The wineglass was tinted smoky gray and was top heavy, the stem no thicker than a pipe cleaner. Hector thought it might snap off between his fingers, so he cupped his hand under the bowl and drank a little. It tasted like wine, all right.

  Treadwell made his way around and settled onto the couch, the coffee table between them. The poodle jumped up on his lap, and he petted it while he sipped. “Help yourself to the pâté,” he said.

  “Actually”—Medina leaned forward—“I’m here to talk about Clarence Raines.” Clarence had not really sent him, of course. Clarence was a good guy who played by the rules, and he was going to lose, maybe had already lost, because of it. Clarence had a wife and two children. He was going to get himself an attorney to defend this bullshit charge and maybe even beat it, as Hector had done seven years before.

  And lost for winning. You beat it and you still lost. You became a security cop or worse. You no longer hung out with people who cared about what they did. Everything became gray. At least it had for Hector.

  Until Clarence had come by for his advice. That had, for the first time in years, gotten him going again. Remembering what Ingraham had done to him. Ingraham.

  Then that guy this morning, Hardy, poking around. Funny how things just didn’t die sometimes until you put them to sleep yourself. Made sure.

  So that’s why he was here now. Increase the odds. Make sure. Suddenly the gray, like some internal fog, had lifted. He saw that he could do something. Clarence hadn’t hired him, but he sure as hell was representing him, his best interests.

  Treadwell sipped at his balloon glass. “I don’t know if I should say something about Mr. Raines. There’ll be a trial, I presume, and—”

  “You’re a fucking liar.” Treadwell reacted as though he’d been slapped, so Hector kept up the press. “You know good and well that nothing you said about these two guys is true.”

  Treadwell recovered. “Are these insults part of your legal repertoire? I can’t see them doing much good with a jury.”

  “I’m talking to you one on one.”

  “And calling me a liar. A fucking liar, actually.”

  Hector took a second, put his glass down, pulled himself back together a little. “Look, Mr. Treadwell. Clarence Raines has been a good cop for fifteen years. He’s got a wife and family and pension to consider.”

  “He should have thought of those things when he attacked me. Is he asking to settle?”

  “No. I’m asking. I want you to drop the charges.”

  Treadwell sat back, comfortable again. “You must be joking.” He leaned forward and spread himself some pale on a cracker. “Perhaps you don’t understand. These men are gay bashers. They were about to have me charged with the murder of two people, one of whom I cared about very much. Very much.”

  “It’s the classic, isn’t it?” Hector said. “You charge them to get the heat off you.”

  “I don’t think it’s impossible that they killed Brian and his friend.”

  Hector drank some more of the wine. This wasn’t working. He never really believed talking would do any good, but he thought it might be worth an effort. Okay, he’d made the effort. “You know,” he said, “you could get hurt a lot worse than you are right now.”

  Treadwell cocked his head, surprised, almost amused. He glanced behind Hector, to the cabinets in back. “That sounds very much like a threat.”

  “A statement,” Hector said.

  “I should warn you that on the advice of my attorney I have a voice-activated recorder in the apartment here.”

  Treadwell smiled, and Hector thought it looked very much like the smile Raul Guerrero had given him when he thought he had beaten another rap and was going to walk. The smile Raul Guerrero had been wearing as Hector shot him through the heart.

  Hector hung his head a moment, then looked back up, now wearing a smile of his own. He took another sip of wine, spread some pâté on a cracker. He held it out for the poodle, who obediently jumped off Treadwell’s lap and skirted across to Hector.

  The dog ate the cracker and Hector rubbed around its ears. It came a couple of steps closer and yipped cutely, begging. Hector moved his hand back from the ears, caught the poodle by the neck and flipped it by the head, breaking it over his knee.

  Treadwell screamed.

  Hector stood up, and while Treadwell struggled out of the couch in his cast, almost falling across the table trying to reach his dead pet, he went over to the drawers under the cabinet and lifted the tape from the cassette player.

  “You’re an animal!” Treadwell, looking up, tears on his face.

  Turning around, Hector clucked once. “I asked you nice first.” He started for the door. “Oh, and thanks for the tip on the tape,” he said.

  “I’ll get you for this. I’ll call the police.”

  “You do t
hat. That’d be good. Your good friends the police will certainly believe another far-out accusation. It’ll do wonders for your credibility.”

  Treadwell lunged for him, but the cast made the effort ludicrous. Hector moved back a step, now at the door. “There’s hardball,” he said, “which is a game. And then there’s the life-and-death one. Think about it.”

  Then he was out walking down the hallway, Treadwell’s sobs echoing through the closed door behind him.

  * * *

  The lap of the water.

  The moon out over the bay, its reflection like a long yellow aisle up the canal.

  Early on a balmy evening, a salt breeze carrying on it the soothing susurrus of the Friday night traffic on the Bay Bridge.

  On a bed, all the lights out, with a beautiful woman.

  “This is romantic,” Flo Glitsky said.

  Abe tightened his hand in his wife’s.

  “I mean, this is much better than all the dates our friends have. They do boring old things like go out to dinner or a movie. Get together with friends. Concerts, the opera, dancing. Not me and my man, though. Uh uh. The romance has not faded from our lives. We go to murder scenes and hang out.”

  “We’ll be going to dinner soon enough,” Abe said.

  “I’m serious, who needs dinner.” She moved her hand on his leg. “I’ve got hors d’oeuvres here anyway.”

  “Flo …”

  “I know,” she said. “All right.”

  “I’m just trying to see it,” Abe said. “This was about the time, maybe a little later.”

  “Didn’t you say like ten o’clock?”

  “Between eight and midnight is the best guess. I figure after It was dark. Like now.”

  “The moon—” she began.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. Fog, remember?”

  “Would the fog have muffled the shots?”

  “Well, nobody heard any. But the people at the next boat up were out ‘til about ten-thirty, eleven.”

  “So it was before then?”

  Glitsky nodded in the dark bedroom. “Likely.”

  Flo turned sideways and rested her head on the pillow that remained at the head of the bed. She wore designer-style jeans and wrapped her legs around her husband’s waist and closed her eyes.

  “I’m just trying to picture it,” he said.

  “I know.” She leaned forward a little and rubbed his back. “Take your time. I was kidding about dinner.”

  The high tide was running a little stronger and the barge bumped lightly against the tires on the walk. Abe let out a long breath. “You think I take this too seriously, don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  “But sometimes?”

  Flo turned on her side, resting on her elbow. Her blond hair gleamed in the moon’s light that came in through the open back door. “I find a time like this a little difficult to understand, yes.”

  “Why is that?”

  She thought about it a minute. “Because of the hassles with your work lately, I guess. Applying down to L.A. One side of you pulling away from all this, and the other here at the scene with sexy old me on our night out.”

  “It’s habit maybe.”

  “No. It’s not habit. I know your habits and this isn’t one of them.” She paused. “Thank God.”

  They were both comfortable. Her legs were still wrapped around him and he rubbed the one across his lap with both his hands.

  “So what does being here tell you?” she asked.

  “Nothing I didn’t know. Consciously, anyway.”

  “They found the gun—the murder weapon—in the canal?”

  “Yeah, they found a gun, but I had a hunch she wasn’t poisoned anyway.”

  “Maybe it’s Dismas.”

  “Oh, it’s partly Diz, no doubt about it.”

  “What part, huh?”

  He nodded. “That’s the thing.” He extricated himself from her legs, ignoring her “hey!”, and walked to the door of the bedroom, flipping on the light switch.

  “Diz has got Louis Baker coming in here and blowing Rusty Ingraham away. Diz is not dumb. And he is legitimately seared.”

  “Right.”

  “But the problem is, where is Rusty’s body?”

  “Maybe out in the bay?”

  Abe walked over to the back door and leaned against the sill. “Washed out by this raging torrent, huh?”

  She had gotten up and stood next to him. “Maybe.”

  “And the girl—excuse me, woman—Maxine Weir? Why was she killed?”

  “Because she was here, Abe. That makes sense. Louis Baker killed her too.”

  “Okay, but why the neck brace? M.E. report says her neck was fine.”

  “That I don’t know.”

  Glitsky sat down on the bed again. “Why is everybody so quick to believe it’s Louis Baker?”

  Flo came beside him. “Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? He threatened Ingraham and Hardy both. He said he’d do it, Abe.”

  “It’s pretty convenient. Or stupid. I’m not sure which more. The actual day he gets out of prison …”

  Flo shrugged. “Crime of passion. Waited a long time and couldn’t wait anymore.”

  “Then he would’ve done Diz too, wouldn’t he? Or tried?”

  “Maybe he did. Maybe he couldn’t find him.”

  “If he found Rusty …”

  She was silent.

  “I think what bothers me, still, is that it might be because he’s black and an ex-con—”

  “Black ex-cons can be bad people, Abe.”

  “So can white ex-cons. How about whites with no records? How about a husband who’s jealous as hell and comes out here and kills his wife and her lover with nothing to do with Louis Baker?”

  Flo was rubbing his back again. “You said you’re checking that, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “So check everything—as if you wouldn’t anyway.”

  “And meanwhile what if Louis Baker kills Diz?”

  Flo stopped rubbing. “Ah,” she said. “Getting to it.”

  “Right. You know me, Flo. I never think of this black/white bullshit. Maybe I should’ve arrested Baker already. Maybe I’m just dragging my heels ‘cause he’s black and I’m—”

  “Abe, you’ve arrested tons of black people.”

  “Yeah, but usually, I hope, with a little evidence.”

  “And you don’t have any evidence here? Then that’s it, not race.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why I had to come here. I want to get that son of a bitch off the street and I got motive to burn, attitude like you wouldn’t believe and no hard evidence at all.”

  Flo was silent a moment. Then, quietly, “And you’re not sure he’s a son of a bitch?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure he’s that. I’m just not certain he committed this particular murder. But I don’t know if I want to risk Hardy’s life on it one way or the other.”

  Glitsky’s wife stood up again and came around in front of him, pulling his head into her chest. “Is there anybody else who worries about doing the right thing as much as you do?”

  Glitsky grunted. “I should just bring him in, shouldn’t I?”

  She kept him hugged close. “Maybe a lot of people would.”

  He pulled away and looked up at her. “I can’t, Flo.”

  “I know,” she said. Stepping back now, businesslike. “So given that, what do you see here?”

  “What I want to see,” he corrected her, “is … okay, the door maybe forced, but some sign of cat and mouse, Ingraham trying to get away. I mean, look, he’s sitting here thinking Baker is going to come and kill him. Then, lo and behold, Baker shows. What would you do?”

  “The woman was naked. He was on the bed. Could be they weren’t paying attention.”

  Abe shook his head. “Not if he thought someone was going to come and try to kill him. Nobody pays that little attention.”

  She smiled. “You have.”

  But
he wasn’t playing. “Not in a situation like that, I wouldn’t.”

  “How about this?” Flo asked. “The whole night before, he’s been up worrying about it. He lies down for a nap. The woman is in the shower. Baker knocks open the door, but it’s more a bump than any big noise. Ingraham rolls over but doesn’t wake up. The woman goes on with her shower, thinking the barge just moved against a piling or something.”

  “Okay,” Abe said, “okay …”

  “So Baker comes in and shoots Ingraham in bed. No doubt now the woman hears the shot and comes running out. Bam, bam, bam. Baker runs, knocking over the lamp on the way out in the dark. Ingraham, it turns out, isn’t dead yet. He staggers out of bed and goes outside and over the side.”

  Abe sighed. “To be washed away by the tide?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why the neck brace?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the gun in the canal?”

  Flo had no answer. Abe put his hands in his pocket and walked back to the open door. The moon was higher, its harvest quality gone. Now it was a bright silver coin above the bridge. Flo’s was a theory he at least hadn’t independently arrived at, and it was as plausible, or implausible, as any of the ten he’d come up with. And what really happened might be one of the ten, or Flo’s, or something else altogether. Lots of people were good at theories. What made a good cop was finding one with evidence to back it up or—more—finding evidence and going from there.

  Flo came up behind him, putting her arms around him. “How ‘bout dinner?” she asked.

  “It’s all bass aekwards,” he said. “I don’t see anything I hoped to find here.”

  Flo turned him around and put her hands up to his face, closing his eyes with her thumbs. “Just set it in that brain of yours, what you see and feel now, and it’ll click in when you need it, if you need it.”

  He felt her up against him and closed his arms around her. “Like you do when I need you.”