Power Blind

by Steven Gore

  “What are you going to say? TIMCO, the San Francisco Police Department, a respected lawyer, and a federal judge conspired to frame you for murdering two people who you hated for covering up the unproven cause of an explosion that killed your son fourteen years ago? And combine that with your recent trip to the psych ward—”

  “What do you want me to do? Just sit on my hands?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do I say in court?”

  “Tell the judge you need a couple of weeks to hire a lawyer. He’ll be so thrilled you’re finally talking, he’ll give it to you.”

  “Should I get one?”

  “You guilty?”

  “No. I’m not guilty.”

  “Then don’t waste the money.”

  “It won’t cost me anything.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Porzolkiewski smirked. “A bunch of those media-hungry cable TV lawyers contacted Suzanne at the store. Any of them will represent me for free just to keep their faces on television. They’re excited as hell. They all think I’m a serial murderer.”

  “Instead of what?”

  Porzolkiewski paused for a moment, then shrugged and sighed.

  “I guess that’s up to you.”

  Chapter 55

  It’s the White House calling,” Landon Meyer’s secretary announced over the intercom.

  “I’ll take it.” He punched the flashing button. “This is Landon Meyer.”

  A female voice spoke, “Please stand by for the president.”

  Landon pulled up his sleeve, then watched the second hand on the 1958 Elgin Durabalance his father had left him. He could gauge the importance of the call by how long the president kept him waiting.

  “Good afternoon, Landon.”

  Five seconds. The president was desperate.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. President.”

  “Three weeks.”

  “I know, Mr. President.”

  “And New Hampshire is three and a half months away. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, Mr. President, I know what you’re saying.”

  “Let’s get out there and kick those last two butts in line.”

  Brandon picked up on the first ring. Landon heard a crash in the background.

  “What’s that?”

  “A waiter dropped a tray. I’m at Tadich Grill with Anston.”

  “Where do we stand with my colleagues from Ohio and Massachusetts?”

  “Hold on. Let me step outside.”

  Landon heard shuffling as Brandon rose, then footsteps, then street traffic.

  “They each wanted a million,” Brandon said, standing next to a parking meter in front of the restaurant. “Part for them, and part for PACs and 527s.”

  “Can we cover it?”

  “Sure. We’ve got more than that from the Silicon Valley group. But the problem is how to explain a huge influx of money so far in advance of their primaries. They’re afraid it’ll seem like a payoff coming this close to the vote.”

  “It’s not a damn payoff.” Landon’s voice rose. “They want to vote our way, they just don’t want to pay the political cost.”

  “And what if Starsky and Hutch don’t get confirmed? Then every dime will get reported.”

  “There’s no turning back now. Get it done.”

  The big man sitting in the Yukon a block away punched off the recorder as Brandon slipped back inside the restaurant.

  Half a conversation was better than none.

  Chapter 56

  Shakir Mohammed studied the photocopy as he lay propped on the rented hospital bed in his room in the Oakland loft. His laptop was resting on an over-bed table.

  “Did you explain to your parents why you wanted to stay here?” Gage asked.

  “I just said that since you were continuing to pay my salary, I should try to do something for it.”

  Gage glanced down at the chart. “What do you think?”

  “They’re Arabic words all right. Naamah is ‘ostrich.’ Matar is ‘rain.’ ” Shakir smiled. “But I don’t think that’s the important thing.” He turned his laptop toward Gage. Centered on the screen was a picture of the night sky.

  “They’re stars?” Gage asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Gage inspected the photo. “I’m not much into astronomy . . .”

  “Pegasus. They’re the stars that make up the Pegasus constellation.”

  Gage shook his head. “I should have guessed. It was Charlie’s only hobby.” He pointed at the list. “And the numbers?”

  “It’s probably money. Seven point one million. Nine point six million.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because the first number below the column is the routing number for Citibank branches in New York City. And below that is the number for the Cayman Exchange Bank. It’s on their Web site. It uses that account at Citibank to accept dollar deposits from U.S.-based customers.”

  Gage paused as the acronym floated around in his mind.

  “CEB . . . CEB . . . hold on a second.”

  He walked over to where Alex Z was working in the next room.

  “You have Charlie’s spreadsheet handy?” Gage asked.

  Alex Z reached for a stack of papers.

  “No, on your computer.”

  Alex Z leaned over and bounced his mouse around the screen.

  “Show me the author information.”

  A few mouse clicks.

  “CEB, boss.”

  “Cayman Exchange Bank.”

  Gage was annoyed at himself for not catching on to it earlier, but then recalled that the bank was generally known in the trade as CXB and used that acronym as its logo.

  Alex Z straightened up. “Why would a bank send a spreadsheet? Why didn’t they just mail out statements at the end of the month?”

  “Because that’s what you get when you have a banker in your pocket.”

  Ten minutes later they had their first breakthrough in cracking the codes on Charlie Palmer’s spreadsheet.

  “The second column isn’t money,” Alex Z said, pointing Shakir’s laptop screen. “They’re dates: July 1st, September 6th, October 12th, November 4th, like that. And they match what appear to be money transfers on the spreadsheet.”

  Gage looked back and forth between the spreadsheet and the list of names.

  “Maybe that means Meyer was tracking when the money arrived, or was supposed to arrive, and Charlie was doing the accounting. And the stars’ names are codes for whoever sent it.”

  Alex Z scanned down the columns of figures. “But that only accounts for the money coming in, and we still don’t know where it’s from.”

  “This is what I want you to do,” Gage said. “Go back as far as you can. Try to match all these names and dates to the cases Meyer handled as a lawyer and as a judge. And call Socorro and get whatever telephone bills she has. Maybe we can recreate what Charlie was doing from his call records.”

  Gage paused and shook his head, thinking of the constellation and of Charlie and of how he’d spent his life.

  “I think ultimately we’ll be turning from Greek mythology to Shakespeare,” Gage said.

  “What do you mean?” Alex Z asked.

  “The fault wasn’t in Charlie’s stars, it was in himself.” Gage looked over at the wall calendar. “And whatever that was, we’ve got to figure it out fast. A week before Charlie died he had an argument with Brandon about something that was going to happen soon.”

  “You think the nine million dollars he took for himself figures in somehow?”

  “One way or the other.”

  “Then why aren’t they coming after it?”

  “Probably because it might expose their scheme. But it’s only a matter of time. Then they’ll be coming after it, real hard.”

  Gage headed toward the door. His final words told him he had a call to make. He reached for his cell phone as he started down the stairs to the street level.

  “Is anything wrong?�
� Socorro asked.

  “No,” Gage said. “But I was thinking maybe you and the kids need some time away.”

  “Your timing is perfect. They have a break from school coming up, and we were talking about a trip together.”

  “Would you like to stay at my father’s old ranch outside of Nogales?”

  “That would be wonderful, but I thought you’d rented it out.”

  “Just the land for grazing. The house has too many memories to let anyone live there.”

  Chapter 57

  Alex Z brought Shakir a cup of tea after Gage left and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “You doing okay?” Alex Z asked.

  “I guess.”

  “You sort of faded out of the conversation.”

  Shakir shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m in the right line of work.”

  Alex Z pointed at the bandage on Shakir’s cheek covering the stitches. “Because . . .”

  “No, not because of that. I could’ve just as easily been mugged walking down the street from my old job.”

  “You mean you don’t like working for Graham?”

  “It’s not that either. He treats everybody like an equal, never talks down, never snaps orders, never is afraid to admit he’s been mistaken about something. I don’t think I’ve ever had a job where my boss took me so seriously.”

  “Then what?”

  “I . . .” Shakir took a sip of his tea, then held the cup in front of his chest. “I don’t think I can do what he does.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hover.”

  Alex Z’s eyes fixed on Shakir. “What do you mean, hover?”

  “At the Federal Trade Commission, at least in the section I worked in, things tended to be black and white. You could spot telemarketing fraud or false advertising at first sight. And even if you were puzzled by something, you could make a call or do some research, and get it figured out by the end of the day. It was like there was always a solid place to put your foot down. But here it’s not that way.”

  “I get you.” Alex Z held his hand out, palm down, and rocked it. “It sometimes seems like Graham floats.” He lowered his arm. “I’ve seen him work on a case, everything going every which way, him in three countries in four days, back home and gone again a week later. And he’s e-mailing and texting and calling me. ‘Can you find out this?’ or ‘Can you find out that?’ Sometimes he spends months and months and months with everything in flux.” Alex grinned and raised his eyes skyward. “Then all of a sudden we’re standing on top of a mountain I didn’t even know we were climbing.”

  Alex Z’s grin faded, then he tilted his head toward their work area and asked, “What’s this all about?”

  “I guess it’s about how these guys moved money through Cayman Island accounts.”

  “Beyond that.”

  “Brandon Meyer?”

  Alex Z shook his head.

  “Charlie Palmer?”

  “Closer.”

  “Socorro?”

  “Almost.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “Tansy and John Porzolkiewski’s sons. The tragedy. Their suffering. That’s what anchors Graham in the world. Once we fight our way through all the words and all the paper and all the money traveling through cyberspace, for Gage that’s what’s real and at the heart of everything we’ve been working on.”

  Alex Z looked away for a moment. “I never expected when I started working here that what comes to mind when I think of Graham is that he has a kind of tragic sense. It’s something he carries with him, but it never seems to weigh him down or paralyze him. Maybe it’s because of his mother dying from MS when he was young.” He gestured toward the window facing San Francisco. “Ask Spike and Tansy about his mother’s last years. Graham won’t talk about it, but they may. Spike knows about it firsthand, Tansy knows from old Yaqui patients of his father.” He paused in thought. “Maybe part of it was growing up along the border. In some places it was more like the 1860s than 1960s. His father helpless to save cotton pickers and copper miners dying from lung disease and chemical exposure. Sometimes kids can witness too much, too soon.”

  Alex Z noticed a seasick look on Shakir’s face, revealing more than the vertigo of unknowing. “And that’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it? It isn’t just the uncertainty, it’s the cloud of tragedy that seems to envelop what we’re doing.”

  Shakir’s gaze fell on his now-cold cup of tea, then he sighed and nodded as he looked back up.

  Alex Z pointed at him and asked, “You ever hear that line from Isak Dinesen, ‘All sorrows can be borne if you can tell a story about them’?”

  “Sure. A lot of those new age self-help books use it and I’ve seen it on a bunch of places on the Internet.”

  “You know how it ends?”

  Shakir shook his head. “That’s all they ever say.”

  “Graham told me once when I was trying to work it into a ballad. It goes something like ‘At the end we’ll be privileged to view and review it, and that’s what’s called judgment day.’ ”

  Shakir’s eyes widened, then he nodded again and said, “I see why they leave the last part out.” Shakir shook his head, exhaling. “It seems to be saying that not just any story will do, not any life will do. But I’m not sure I can take that kind of pressure. I don’t think I’m tough enough. I’ve struggled for two years looking to find a way to tell my parents the truth about me and Rodrigo.”

  “But you will.”

  “I think so . . . I hope so. We’ve been trying to gather up the courage.”

  Alex Z looked at Shakir as if at a younger brother.

  “Remember this. Lots of people want to work with Graham, but he saw something in you and knew when the time came you’d see it in yourself.”

  “But how do you deal with feeling like you’re out to sea?”

  “My girlfriend, my music.” Alex Z smiled and tapped the blue-line image of Popeye on his upper arm. “And an occasional tattoo.”

  Chapter 58

  Play it again,” Gage said. He was sitting in Viz’s office lined with metal shelves crowded with computers, sound enhancement devices, monitors, and surveillance equipment.

  Viz ticked the play arrow on his screen, and Brandon Meyer’s voice came to life against the background of cars and buses passing on the street in front of Tadich Grill.

  “They each wanted a million. Part for them, and part for PACs and 527s.”

  . . .

  “But the problem is how to explain a huge influx of money so far in advance of their primaries.”

  . . .

  “And what if Starsky and Hutch don’t get confirmed? Then every dime will get reported.”

  “I wish I could’ve gotten more,” Viz said. “Back in my old DEA days, I’d have tapped his line and gotten both ends of the conversation.”

  “If they were dope dealers.”

  “Yeah. But somehow whatever is going on here seems worse.” Viz looked over his shoulder at where Gage sat. “What are they talking about?”

  “My guess? The votes on the Supreme Court nominees.”

  “How come so fast? I thought that took months and months.”

  “They were confirmed for appeals court seats less than a year ago. They’re known quantities. No need for lengthy FBI checks or extended committee hearings.”

  “And the Meyer boys are paying off some senators for their votes?”

  “Not them. Their campaigns.”

  “Same difference.” Viz pointed at his notes written on a piece of scratch paper. “I know what political action committees are, but what’s a 527?”

  “It covers a lot of things, but I suspect the Meyer boys are using the type that can raise all the money it wants but doesn’t have to register with the Federal Election Commission and doesn’t have to report where the money came from or where it went. Like the Swift Boat Veterans. Now a lot of contributors are going even further and are using super-PACs that sprang up after the Citizens Un
ited decision, but the public is getting suspicious of them so they might not go that way.”

  “And I take it the idea is to launder the money though these groups to hide the sources?”

  Gage nodded. “That’s how it looks. And it ties in with Landon’s genius as a strategist. He would get an initiative on the ballot in each state that he could uniquely tie to the senatorial candidate he was backing—abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research—then would flood the 527s supporting the initiative with money whose sources he doesn’t have to disclose.”

  “And Brandon’s the bag man? I’m not sure a federal judge ought to be doing that.”

  “He’s a federal judge who’s spent his whole career doing what he shouldn’t be doing—so stay on him.”

  Viz glanced at his watch. “He should be leaving court in a half hour or so.” He smiled. “Maybe tonight we’ll find out why he had the condom in his wallet.”

  “We know the why, we just need to figure out the who and where.” Gage rose. “I called Socorro and offered her and the kids the ranch for a couple of weeks. I made it sound casual so she wouldn’t get panicked.”

  “I spoke to her right afterward.” Viz pointed north. “Why not your cabin?”

  Gage shrugged.

  “Was it because it’s easier in the desert than in the forest to spot someone sneaking up?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “I’ve got a security system with cameras covering the property,” Gage said. “I’ll have Alex Z link into them through his computer in the loft so he can keep an eye on the place.”

  Chapter 59

  Gage lowered the lid on his gas barbecue, then sat down in one of the four chairs surrounding the wrought-iron table on the deck of his hillside home. FBI Special Agent Joe Casey was seated in another, sipping a beer and gazing out at the bay.

  “It’s another world up here, isn’t it?” Casey said. He pointed at San Francisco. “I thought you made a mistake when you bought this place because it meant having to look every day at a city where you worked so many homicides.”