by John Decure
I scanned the pages, keeping count in my head of the different addresses I saw. “Six claims in the last twenty-eight months,” I said, “all for fire damage.”
“Seven,” Duke said. “If you count the claim they’ll make on the law center.”
“How come the insurers haven’t put it together?”
He leaned over the table and pointed. “Read it closely. Each policy is with a different carrier. Guess they haven’t figured it out yet.”
“They will when I send each insurer a copy of this report. So, Duke, how did a movie production company get so many properties all over the state?”
“Pasqual probably had a lot of adult bookstores at one time before videos came in,” he said.
“He might have owned some of the buildings the stores were in.”
“I think that’s likely.” Duke’s jacket was a deep navy color, but I could see deep water-spots around the collar, and as he hunched to pull it tighter, his shoulders quivered. “Then the IRS starts auditing him, he can see a bunch of liens coming at him down the line, figures out he’d be better off parking them somewhere else a few years beforehand. That’s probably how Alliance got created.”
I thought of the kick to the balls I’d taken from the Fed last year at tax time. I’d set aside five grand in savings to cover the extra income I made managing the sales of my friend Jackie Pace’s surf memorabilia. The tax bill was double my set-aside, close to forty percent of what I’d made. It was enough to make me want to vote Republican. But I’d paid.
“These fucks always find a way to be judgment-proof,” I said.
Duke started to laugh, but swallowed it when he saw that I wasn’t joking. “You’ve also gotta wonder what kind of tax advice they were passing out at that law center.”
“I doubt they gave much advice at all. The place had no lawyer. The best they could do was misuse Dale Bleeker’s bar number by slapping it onto pleadings here and there.”
Tito brought my teriyaki bowl and set if before me. I thanked him, waited until he retreated again, and pushed it aside. My mind was going too fast to think about eating.
I recalled my original view of the law center as a standard UPL operation, the kind that offers unsophisticated consumers the moon and stars, generating a river of up-front retainer fees for months on end. I thought of what Tamango Perry’s detective’s instincts had told him, that the arson was the key.
Tito delivered Duke’s special. Duke waited for him to walk back behind the counter before he said, “A cheeseburger and fries. What’s so special about a cheeseburger and fries? And why are you grinning like that? You look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.”
I related my thought about how typical UPL operations work, and how this one was so much smarter. Suddenly I felt starved. I sprinkled soy sauce on my teriyaki bowl and dug in hard.
Duke nibbled a steaming french fry. “What already?”
The beef was chewier than usual, and I took a moment longer with it before I swallowed. That’s what you get when you order the last bowl of the day, I suppose.
“For months the place is getting three thousand here, five thousand there to get the job going,” I said. “If someone bitches about the nonexistent timetable for completing the job, just feed them a five-dollar legal term or two, preferably in Latin. After that, a long string of phone calls just don’t get returned—‘So sorry, we’re on the other line, can you leave a message?’ Any client tenacious enough to stop in for an in-person status update gets the same glib little assessment about how the legal wheel turns slowly, but it does turn.”
“I’ve heard all that before from a hundred victims,” Duke said. “So what?”
I gnawed on a broccoli crown, making Duke wait again. “Here’s the original part. Just before the inevitable client uprising occurs, an accidental fire breaks out, destroying the unworked files and conveniently providing the confidence men that run the place with the ultimate excuse for nonperformance. ‘Hey,’ they tell the clients, ‘you’re bitching about your little files? Look at us! We lost everything, so cut us a break, we’ll follow up on your cases in due time.’ But the office never reopens.”
“Pretty sweet,” Duke said. “They keep all the retainers and disappear. Capitol Consolidators and Homeowners Fidelity don’t get fingered, ’cause they just came in to do their scam seminars, they don’t own the place.”
“And the real owner, Alliance Pictures, collects the insurance money.” I washed down a big bite of white rice with my ice water. “The few clients lucky enough to have had anything filed for them complain to the bar. The subject of the complaint is this schmuck lawyer they never met, but whose bar number is listed on their pleadings.”
“In this case, Dale Bleeker,” Duke said.
“Yeah, in this case.”
Tito’s worker lugged a metal bucket in the front door, a puff of frigid air blowing in with him. Duke rubbed his forearms to keep warm. “Until they open up the next shop in the next building Pasqual owns.”
“And do it all over again,” I said. “It’s a nice source of cash for a guy who can’t make any without the IRS grabbing it.”
“He probably makes back a hundred grand or more on the building,” Duke said.
“And at least that much on the UPL money, plus maybe a percentage on the commissions they’re taking from the annuity scam.” I pushed what was left of my lunch aside again and studied the corporate documents on Alliance. “Who’s helping him?”
“Read the statement of domestic stock.” Duke reached into the file and flipped some pages forward and back. “Here it is: Miles A. Abernathy.” He sat back triumphantly.
Miles A. Abernathy, what a world-class prick, I thought. “Pasqual is his client, so Abernathy is ringing up the money in more ways than one as well.”
“He profits from the annuity scam, and he’s probably charging inflated legal fees for funneling the insurance payoffs through Alliance and back to Pasqual.” Duke poked a finger at the name and signature on the page. “You’ve got him, J.”
I wasn’t so sure of that. “The fact that he prepared corporate documents doesn’t by itself mean he’s guilty of anything.” I scanned the list of officers. “What about these guys, did you investigate them at all?”
“Waste of time,” Duke said. “Looked up the CEO’s name. He died a few years ago. Ninety-five years old. They probably lifted his name from the obit pages. In the Bahamas, the rules aren’t too strict about setting up a company.”
“President, Barney E. Malthias,” I read aloud. “What kind of a goober name is that?”
“I know. Couldn’t find anything on him.” Reading the page upside down. “Good old Mr. Barney.” He snorted. “It almost sounds made up.”
I stared at the page, not following any particular train of thought.
Barney E. Malthias. The letters hung suspended in my mind’s eye. Barney E. Malthias. Cutting through my scattered thoughts about Carmen and Albert and Stone Me Stevie, the headstrong redhead napping in my car outside, where Rudy was now and whether Dale was close behind. B-A-R-N-E-Y-E.-M-A-L-T-H-I-A-S. Persisting for some unknown reason.
I ate the rest of my teriyaki bowl.
“J., did you hear me?” I heard Duke say. “This cheeseburger blows and I’m freezing my nuts off.” He tapped the face of his watch. “I gotta get back to work.”
I realized what the letters were triggering somewhere in my brain: a reshuffling.
“Don’t go yet,” I said, tugging a napkin free from the dispenser on the table. “Lemme borrow your pen.”
Duke paused. In his pocket was what looked like a Waterman, black with gold trim. “Lulu gave me this for Christmas.”
I gave him a sideways stare. “Your girlfriend bought you a pen for Christmas. How nice.”
“Okay, it was just a stocking stuffer. But you’re always bumming pens from me and not returning them.”
“Sorry. Sometimes I get distracted.”
I held out my hand and he gave me the Waterm
an. On the napkin I wrote out the name of the president of Alliance Pictures, Inc. Then slowly, beginning with M, I rearranged each letter in the space below, crossing off each letter from the top name as I went. When I was done, the napkin read like this:
BARNEYE. MALTHIAS
MILESA. ABERNATHY
Duke slapped his hands together so loudly that Tito stopped scrubbing the grill. “Hot damn, look at that!” Shaking his head over and over. “You’d think he would’ve been more cautious.”
“No,” I said. “It was a joke. I’m sure they laughed about it. Bunch of cynical fucks. They don’t even care.”
I thought of Skip Greuber, looking in on Duke a block away from here, maybe asking the investigator in the next cubicle if he’d been gone awhile. How could I handle that issue diplomatically?
“Look, Duke, we need to talk about something. I know you’ve been asked to investigate me, and I’ll understand if you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” Trying to sound reasonable, but getting the subject out there.
He seemed not the least surprised. “I’m not worried about that. I know you, J. To me, the only dumb thing you did was get too involved in that Bleeker guy’s mess. But what am I supposed to do with all this?” He hefted the file. “If I go back in there and lay this on management, Skip’ll probably get me suspended too. And it’s not like connecting the dots will be easy. Guys like this, they’ll put a spin on everything, whitewash the whole thing.”
“I know,” I said. “But that’s why I need you.”
He handed the file to me. “Sorry bud, you’re on your own.” He got up to leave.
I stood up and grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute.” He looked up at me, his round face blank with fear. I hadn’t intended to intimidate him, but he was giving up a good eighty pounds. My grip fell away. “Don’t go yet.”
Duke was straddling the bench awkwardly, but he made no move to extract himself further from the table. “I’m waiting.”
“You put all this together,” I said. “I’m a trial attorney, I can’t act like I’m the investigator, too. I can’t wear two hats at once.” I sat back down, but Duke remained standing. “Not to mention, I’m still suspended.”
“You should’ve thought about this. I handed you this stuff on a silver platter. Now it’s not enough?”
I slowed my breathing. It was time to make my pitch.
“I’ll need you to go on the record.”
He shook his head. “That’s more than we bargained for at Tommy’s, J.”
I was down to my last card. Duke knew it, too. “I’ll do what I have to do, if it comes to that.”
He looked trapped—yet defiant. “You would use me like that? Risk my job?” He paused. “Go to hell, bud!”
I didn’t much care for his choice of words. “You want to talk about using someone, bud?” I said. What, do you think I’m John Wayne or something? I risked my neck to attend a high school dance with an underage kid who was being stalked by a dopedealing thug and his buddies. And you’re offended that I’m using you?”
Duke hadn’t moved. “His buddies were there?” he said after a frozen moment.
“Yeah, man, he had friends. Nice guys, too, probably the same ones who relieved themselves on you that time you were facedown, spitting teeth like Chiclets. Great conversationalists.”
He gazed as if picturing a scene. “They hassled you?”
“We had a nice chat in the men’s room while I was taking a leak that night.”
“A fight?”
I held out my right hand, displaying the bulging knuckle on my middle finger. “Your sis kept the prom pictures from that night. I got this little souvenir.”
“I didn’t know,” Duke said, almost mumbling. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I stepped clear of the table, leaning over to scoop up the file Duke had brought me. “I just did.”
I couldn’t sleep worth a damn that night. Carmen was in another bed again. I’d made the foolish mistake of mentioning Therese Rozypal for God knows what reason. Carmen ran with it, said maybe my “obvious” shared attraction with Therese was an indication that I wasn’t ready for the commitment of marriage. I defended poorly, using plenty of cold, hard logic and not nearly enough reassurance, which, I realized far too late, was all that she had really wanted. Carmen and I had been together for two years—a relationship record for me. I’d always thought of her as a complete package, always assumed she was The One. But now, for the first time, I seriously questioned whether I possessed the versatility and stamina required to sustain a long-term relationship. Words deserted me with such great frequency these days. My feelings and motivations were even further out of reach.
Was my attraction to other women, however fleeting, merely a manifestation of the most primal urge known to man? What had it meant when I’d looked up and closed my eyes while making love to Carmen the week before and seen Therese, naked, the shadows of shimmying tree branches brushing the ceiling behind her in the dark? Not such an easy image to file away. Over and over, legs twisting in the sheets and blankets, I’m thinking, Hell, so I notice other women, is that a crime? Maybe I could love them under different circumstances, but reality makes that issue moot. The unhealthy impulses are there, I know, but what’s the harm if I never act on them? Does my face, with its sun wrinkles and liver spots and thick fighter’s nose, the eyes that go dull sensing confrontation, does it betray my secrets that easily? Am I telegraphing my longing with a laugh or a nod or a tip of a drink, and, conversely, confessing my guilt to the woman I love through a poor choice of words or a heated inflection? So I twisted and thrashed and when sometime well past midnight, those thoughts submerged beneath an incoming tide of sleep, I pulled up the heavy quilt, rolled over, and buried my face in the pillow, left with the one question I could not answer: Can I love just one woman?
Eloise Horton likes to come in to work early. I phoned right at seven-thirty, figuring her secretary wouldn’t be in to screen the call. I was right.
“We need to meet. Right away. You, me, and the chief.”
The line was silent. Then she said, “Forget it, Shepard. I learned my lesson. This thing’s going through the proper channels from now on. You can call your union rep if you want, but I’m sure you already know that, don’t you.”
“I don’t want to talk about getting my job back, Eloise. Not yet at least.”
“Then what is it?”
It would be a mistake to reveal too much of what I knew about the law center and the various players connected to it, but I had to give her something. “That law office they say I may have burned down in Glendale, I know the people that are behind it. They’re running an investment scam targeting the elderly, using offices just like it. They’ll run a UPL operation out of the office for several months, have their investment seminars there at night.”
She paused. “Go on.”
“I’ve got to know this conversation is confidential.”
“And why is that?” Giving me attitude.
“Someone who works with you is involved in it.” Shit, I thought, now I’m really out there.
“You’re not talking about yourself, Shepard?”
“No, boss, I’m not.” I silently cursed her shitty demeanor, then sucked in a deep, calming breath. “I’m very serious. I’ll stake my job and my reputation on it.”
I could hear her breathing on the other end. “Okay,” she said finally, “this conversation is just between us.”
“On your word. Say it.”
She let out a big sigh. “On my word.”
“What happens next is the office catches on fire. This way, the UPL clients have nowhere to go, and nobody gets a refund of the unearned fees. The company that owns the buildings—same company every time—they collect on the insurance policy.”
“Interesting. So how did a suspended DTC like you come to know these things?”
I wasn’t about to mention Duke.
“I have the documents to prove it. I’ll bring them
to the meeting.”
“Why do you need to talk to the chief?”
“This thing has bigger implications. The people involved are high profile. The chief will have to think about how to handle it.”
“Sounds fishy, but I’ll mention it to him,” she said. “Give me your number.”
“Mentioning it is not enough. You have got to get me a meeting with him. Ten, fifteen minutes, that’s all I need.”
“You’ve embarrassed me with your irresponsible behavior already,” she said. “And that was a lousy thing to do, having that uppity union twerp jump all over me.”
Let it ride, I told myself.
“Let me tell you something: I am not inclined to let you embarrass me again,” she added.
At that moment, I shut my ego off just long enough to remember whom I was dealing with. Eloise Horton, a litigation manager who didn’t know how to litigate, a Peter Principle stretch into the position at any rate, but worse, a woman with a daily opportunity to look damned foolish—and she knew it.
“Boss, here’s how it will be,” I said a little softer. “If I go in there and make an ass out of myself, you’ll be able to wag your finger and say, ‘There you go, Chief, the guy’s a knucklehead.’ You may even have something real to use to get rid of me. If that’s what you think of me already, I’ll just be proving you right.”
“Amen to that,” she said, but I sensed that she was troubled.
“But if I show the chief these documents,” I went on, “and he sees how serious this really is, and he takes action to stop the people involved … Well, you’re my manager. You brought me to him. You supported me when I was down. You showed some vision.”
“What you’re saying is, I’ll get a mention.”
I shook my head. Fucking Eloise.
“I’ll make sure of it.” I cringed at what I was about to say. “Who knows, you might even get promoted.” Christ, that result would do wonders for morale in the L.A. office. They’d be serving Jonestown Kool-Aid at the promotion party.
Max barked outside. Albert was not downstairs for breakfast yet. He’ll be down soon now, thanks to the two hundred-pound rooster out back, I thought. In the kitchen, Carmen pushed down the lever on the toaster. From the dining room where I sat, I could see half the kitchen table, the edges of a section of newspaper turning on it like a paddle wheel. She’s going for the crossword puzzle first, I thought. Christ, what had they done with Rudy Kirkmeyer?
