Power Blind

by Steven Gore

  “Assuming it was him, was he alone?”

  “Assuming it was him, no. I was thinking about it a while back. I have a really vague recollection Mr. Comb-Over was with him. A white guy, early sixties, gray hair—what there was of it.”

  “Has he been here more than once?”

  “Yeah. You don’t forget a hair felony like that.” Toby rested his palm on top of his head, then waved his fingers. “The kind that flaps in the wind.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last week. That’s what got me thinking. I’m off Tuesday and Wednesday, so it must’ve been Thursday or Friday . . . I think Friday.”

  “Driving or walking?”

  Toby turned and squinted toward the front window. “Driving. He needed change for the meter. An early eighties Toyota Corona.”

  “You know your Toyotas. They haven’t imported that model for over two decades.”

  “My dad owned one for like twenty years. I’ll never forget it.” Toby grinned. “It was the first place I got laid. Except Dad’s was white. Comb-Over’s was brown.”

  “Anything distinctive?”

  “Just what you’d expect with a car that old. Faded.” Toby closed his eyes. “No hubcaps.” He opened them again. “At least on the passenger side.”

  “What about the plate? Regular or personalized?”

  “Don’t know.” Toby pointed at a parking space directly in front of the store window. “He had that spot. All I could see was the side of the car.”

  “Can you get it for me if he comes by?”

  “I’ll call you right when he walks in the door. But . . .” Apprehension clouded Toby’s face. “But he’s not the shooter is he? I don’t want—”

  “No, he’s just the beginning of the trail.”

  Toby held up Gage’s business card. “You want me to tell him to call you if he comes in?”

  Gage shook his head. “I think I’d rather he doesn’t know I’m working on this. It’ll give me a chance to deal with him fresh.”

  Chapter 14

  Landon Meyer found himself pacing as he read over the updated FBI background reports on his nominees, Starsky and Hutch. They both had told the truth when he’d grilled them in August. They’d remained as clean as they were at the time of their appeals court confirmation hearings less than a year earlier. And both had done as they were instructed. Neither had made any public statements except from the bench. Each had avoided sarcasm and hyperbole in their usually dissenting opinions. Landon had read each one himself before they were filed to make sure. No verb stronger than “disagree,” no adverb more rabid than “respectfully,” no adjective more extreme than “learned,” and no noun more pejorative than “colleague.”

  Landon recalled fuming all through the Ardino confirmation. Not only had Ardino left fifty typhoonlike speeches in his wake, but his fifteen years of opinions had blown the door open to the Democrats’ exploration of nearly every major constitutional issue facing the Court: presidential power, the death penalty, torture, the role of international law, and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. It also hurt that Ardino’s forced and ominous smile engendered queasiness even among his supporters. The good news was he knew how to play the political game that was at the heart of confirmation hearings. The bad news was he appeared to be playing. His weeping wife fleeing the hearing room even seemed to Landon to be a stunt.

  Not this time. Not with Landon as Judiciary Committee chairman.

  Starsky and Hutch were going to play it straight and their wives were going sit behind them as poised and gracious as Laura Bush. If they didn’t, they’d be doing a whole lot of crying for real, in private, in his office.

  Landon walked to his desk and picked up the telephone. Committee staff lawyer Norvil Whithers answered on the first ring and arrived a few minutes later. He brought with him the list of lawyers appointed by the White House to Starsky and Hutch’s murder boards. These teams of experts would question and requestion the nominees on every subject of potential interest to the senators on the committee until they had perfected sufficiently vague and mind-numbing answers that would cause the opposition to surrender, wearied of combat and defeated by obfuscation.

  Landon directed Whithers to a seat in front of his desk, but kept pacing as he read the thirty-name roster: current deputies in the Justice Department, others who’d gone back to their national law firms, members of the White House staff, attorneys for the Republican National Committee, a general counsel to an oil company, two staffers from conservative think tanks.

  “This is good,” Landon said, coming to a stop behind his desk, “but I think we need a broader focus. Having smooth answers to hard questions won’t be enough.”

  Whithers pointed at the list. “It seems pretty comprehensive to me.”

  Landon dropped into his chair, then drummed his pen on the edge of his desk.

  “Let me ask you something,” Landon said. “What are the first polls going to say when the president announces the names?”

  Whithers shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you. The president gets the benefit of the doubt. Fifty-five percent in favor. Thirty against. And fifteen undecided”—Landon smiled—“because they don’t have a clue what the Supreme Court really does.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “But after the Democrats scare the hell out of the public and the media beats up the nominees a little?”

  “It’ll probably flop the other way.” It was Whithers’s turn to smile. “With fewer undecided because more people will realize how these nine little dictators control their lives.”

  Landon glanced at a photo on his bookshelf showing him standing before a group of reporters, digital recorders and microphones extended toward him.

  “Liberals make fun of FOX News,” Landon said, “but there isn’t one of their regular viewers who can’t name at least five members of the Court and six members of the Cabinet and who don’t know what an oil depletion allowance is—and none of them will be among the undecided.”

  He looked back at Whithers.

  “There’s no question the Democrats will want to filibuster the nominations,” Landon said. “Starsky and Hutch will have to use the hearings to reach out to the public through the television screen like they were George Clooney and Brad Pitt, and flip the numbers back by the time they reach the full Senate. Make a filibuster seem like treason.”

  “But these guys are judges,” Whithers said, “not actors.”

  Landon smiled again. “They will be when I’m done with them.”

  Landon picked up his telephone as the door closed behind Whithers.

  “Brandon? . . . We need to go Hollywood with Starsky and Hutch . . . I don’t know how much altogether . . . Let’s start with fifty thousand for acting coaches and a million for media to go after the opposition and see how far that gets us.”

  Chapter 15

  He’s here,” the late morning caller whispered. “He’s here.”

  “Who’s he?” Gage asked, leaning forward in his desk chair.

  “Mr. Comb-Over. At the table by the front window.”

  “Hold on.”

  Gage pressed the conference call button on his landline, then punched in a cell phone number.

  “Viz, start driving to the thirty-two hundred block of Geary Street.”

  “Toby?” Gage asked.

  “Still here.”

  “I’ve got a guy named Viz on the line. Was Comb-Over walking or driving?”

  “Driving,” Toby said. “At least there’s a brown Corona that looks like his parked across the street.”

  “What’s he wearing?”

  “Dark green sweater, baggy gray pants. A San Francisco Giants cap . . . I mean the cap is on the table.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s waiting for me to bring over his coffee.”

  “Viz, how far away are you?”

  “Fifteen, twenty blocks . . . Asshole.” Gage heard tires skidding. “No
t you, boss, some guy cut me off.”

  Viz’s gunning motor filled the silence.

  “I got around him.”

  “Toby,” Gage said, “keep Comb-Over there.”

  “I’ll make a show of brewing up a new pot.”

  “Viz. First get the license plate of the Corona, then set up to follow him.”

  “Shit,” Toby said. “I gotta go. He just got up and is heading my way.”

  Gage spotted Viz’s blue-green Yukon at Geary near Thirty-third Avenue as he pulled up to the corner of Thirty-second. Viz was parked facing west, four cars ahead of the Corona, at a meter in front of a Russian bakery. Gage slipped into a space next to a Chinese produce market.

  “What’s cooking?” Gage asked Viz over his cell.

  “Nothing. He’s just drinking his coffee. Lots of it.” Viz laughed. “Like it’ll grow hair on his head.”

  “You get the plate?”

  “I called it in to Alex Z. It’s registered to a John, normal spelling, Porzolkiewski . . . Por-zol-kiew-ski. Normal spelling.”

  “You win the spelling bee for today. Where’s he live?”

  “The car’s registered to a P.O. box downtown. But Alex Z did some database searches and found a street address, a house on Seventeenth Ave about a mile south of Golden Gate Park.”

  Gage saw Viz lean toward his window and peer into the side-view mirror.

  “Boss. Two guys in a blue Ford Explorer came charging up and pulled in behind you, three cars back. Neither got out.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “Too much reflection on their windshield, but the guy drives hard like a cop. What do you want to do?”

  “Sit tight until I find out whether they’re tailing me or are here on something else.”

  “What should I do about Comb-Over?”

  “If they’re following me, let him go. I don’t want them making a connection between him and us.”

  Gage put a couple of quarters into the meter, then strolled along the storefronts past Viz’s truck. He took a right onto Thirty-third, walking by pastel stucco bungalows and two-story apartment buildings. When he neared the end of the block, he climbed the steps onto the recessed landing of a duplex, then called Viz.

  “The passenger walked up to Thirty-third and peeked around,” Viz said. “He crossed the street to get a view down the block, probably trying to see where you stopped, then went into that kosher market.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Late thirties, blond hair, six feet, plus or minus, Levi’s, oversized plaid workshirt.”

  “Cop or ex-cop?”

  “My guess he’s ex. He’s wearing the 1990s undercover uniform.”

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “Pretending to take an interest in the after–Rosh Hashanah sale items in the window as he keeps an eye on the street.” Viz chuckled. “I never would have guessed. He seems like a mayonnaise and white bread kind of guy.”

  “I’ve been up here long enough,” Gage said, then walked back down the steps. “I’m heading your way. Hit me when he comes out of the market.”

  Gage’s cell phone rang as he walked on Geary back toward his car.

  “He’s thirty yards behind you,” Viz said, prompting Gage to duck into a liquor store to let the man pass. After buying a soda to make the stop seem authentic, rather than countersurveillance, he continued walking to his car.

  “I’ll drive back toward the financial district,” Gage said, pulling into the street, “but I’ll loop around and lead them by you first.”

  The Explorer remained five car lengths behind him as he passed by Viz and circled the block.

  “I’m almost back to Geary,” Gage told Viz. “Get ready. We’ll be coming by you in about thirty seconds.”

  Viz turned his ignition, then asked, “Why are they following you?”

  “My guess? It’s either Charlie or an antitrust case I’m working on.”

  Gage paused in the intersection to let traffic pass, then turned onto Geary, driving east slow enough for the Explorer to catch up. He glanced over at Viz’s Yukon. Viz was staring down toward his floorboard where he had anchored a six-inch monitor fed by a camera hidden in his oversized side mirror. He controlled it by a joystick attached to his steering column.

  “Got ’em,” Viz said.

  “How’s the reflection?”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Gage saw Viz jerk his hand up to cover the left side of his face as the Explorer approached, then lower his head as if he was reaching for something on the floor.

  “What is it?”

  “A scumbag named Boots Marnin is driving.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Ex-DEA. Started about the same time as me.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why scumbag?”

  “He got indicted for taking kickbacks from an informant he put on the payroll. About two hundred grand.” Viz sat up after the Explorer passed. “Boots would get a lead on where some dope was and feed the information to the informant. He’d then use the guy as his snitch, seize the dope, and apply to Washington for a reward for the informant—”

  “And they’d divide up the money.”

  “Right. Until he got caught.”

  Gage watched his rearview mirror as he drove. The Explorer was gone. “What’s going on?” Gage asked.

  “Boots dropped out. He pulled into the Jack in the Box lot.”

  “I don’t see anybody close enough behind who could stay with me.” Gage looked ahead. “I think they may have someone in front of me. Maybe the brown Ford Taurus. It has a hesitant feel about it.”

  Gage watched the Taurus slow, then pull into the curb lane. Gage took the hint and passed it. The Taurus kept slowing until it was half a block behind Gage, then matched his speed.

  “You’re out of my view, even with the zoom,” Viz said. “Where are you headed?”

  “Down to the marina, then along Fisherman’s Wharf to see if any other cars are involved.”

  “What about Comb-Over?”

  “We’re going to have to let him go for now.”

  Gage checked his mirror again. The Taurus was still matching his twenty-nine miles an hour.

  “So, how’d Boots get caught?” Gage asked.

  “His partner figured out the informant couldn’t be in two places at the same time, comatose from an OD in the county hospital and in the Hip Sing Tong basement watching China white heroin being cut. Boots got two years in the federal pen. Out eight years ago. I thought he went back to Texas. I’m surprised to see him around here.”

  “Call Alex Z. Give him everything you’ve got on Boots and the license plates of the Explorer and Taurus. Then head back to the office and get the van. Call me when you’re ready and I’ll lead him up the Embarcadero so you can get behind him.”

  “I think you’re reading him right, boss, he was always too arrogant to look over his shoulder. That’s why he got caught.”

  “Have somebody else drive so he doesn’t spot you.”

  “How long should we stay with him?”

  “Until you’re sure you know where we can find him when the time comes to kick in his door.”

  Chapter 16

  What rhymes with Porzolkiewski?” Alex Z said as he walked into Gage’s third floor office.

  “Don’t tell me you’re trying to work it into a song,” Gage said, looking up from his desk.

  “Just practice. I’m thinking if I could find a rhyme for a name like Porzolkiewski, I could find one for anything.”

  Gage checked his watch. Six forty-five P.M.

  “Isn’t it past going-home time?”

  “Sorta. We’ve got the first of a week of gigs at Slim’s tonight. I figure I’ll keep working until we have to go set up. Shakir the night owl will be here, too. I’m letting him work from 6 P.M. until 3 A.M.”

  Gage’s phone beeped with a text message. He glanced at it. It was from Viz telling hi
m he’d run the surveillance car license plates by Spike. They were both stolen.

  Alex Z sat down in a chair across from Gage. He slid a binder across the desk and kept a matching one for himself.

  “That’s what I’ve got so far on Comb-Over,” Alex Z said. “Pretty tragic life. Wife died of cancer. Son died in an explosion over at the TIMCO refinery about fourteen years ago. Kid was an engineering student at Cal, working a summer job when it happened.”

  “I remember it. Some other workers were killed, too.”

  “Porzolkiewski came to the U.S. from Warsaw when he was eleven years old. Lived with an aunt in Chicago. I don’t think the American dream turned out to be what he’d hoped. He now runs a market-slash-sandwich shop on Turk Street. It’s on the bottom floor of one of those skid-row hotels. The Milton.”

  Alex Z pointed at the binder. “It’s all in a probation department presentence report. It’s the second tab. He got busted for aggravated assault. He beat up some homeless guy who tried to steal an egg. One of those hard-boiled ones they sell over the counter. The public defender got him a no-time deal. Just restitution to SF Medical for them treating the victim, and they made him take anger management classes.”

  “What kind of business owner gets a public defender?”

  “The kind who’s not making any money, or at least not much. He was supposed to pay them a couple hundred dollars after the case was over, but he never did. I guess the PD doesn’t send out bill collectors.”

  Gage flipped to the TIMCO tab. The first document was the wrongful death complaint filed by the families of the dead workers. He skimmed through it.

  “This is pretty vague,” Gage said. “Like they filed the complaint before they knew exactly what happened, before the root cause investigations were even completed.”

  Gage turned to the twenty-five-page, single-spaced court docket, then jumped to the end.

  “It was dismissed,” Alex Z said. “No trial. No settlement. The judge ruled it was just a workers’ comp case because they were working within the scope of their regular duties and because it was just an accident.”