The Vig dh-2

by John T Lescroart

  "How'd he know about the Shamrock already? Who's telling him this stuff?"

  "Diz, we're jamming here. He comes again, what do you want me to do? Then I gotta go."

  What could Moses do? Hardy knew the bar at this time on Friday nights, and if it was normal, Moses was right-it was jamming. Two deep the length of the bar.

  Hardy couldn't believe Glitsky still hadn't arrested Baker. And now the guy shows up at Hardy's work.

  "Diz?"

  "I'm thinking, Mose."

  "Think faster, okay."

  Hardy heard Moses tell people he was coming. Just a second. Be right there.

  "Go tend bar," he said.

  "What about-?"

  "I don't know," Hardy said. "Later."

  It was something Louis Baker had done in the yard. He didn't much think about whether it did any good, or what its function was at all. But he had done it, day in and out, for the last six or seven years, and the habit wasn't going to get broken. It was also probably what had kept him in shape. Now he took the basketball and began dribbling back and forth at the public court just up the hill from Holly Park. Except for the trees surrounding it, the court was about like the one in the yard. There were no nets on the baskets-you ran on pitted asphalt with no key, half-court or foul lines.

  Mama had come back home sometime midafternoon with a load of clothes and some high-top sneakers that fit. Maybe she'd gone down to the Goodwill-you picked the right one, they could have better stuff than K-Mart.

  Full dusk now, the park lights came on enough to continue. Louis hoped somebody would come by and try to get him off the court for their own game. He felt like kicking a little more ass. An hour before, he had had it out with Dido and his blood was still hot.

  Warming up, he dribbled down the court, pounding the ball into the ground, laying it up to the hoop soft as patting a baby's butt (that was for the control) and then slamming the pole coming around, getting the ball on the first bounce and doing it again, full court.

  What he would do then in the yard was stand at about the free-throw line and forget about the basket. There was only the backboard, and he would stare at it, visualizing faces -other guys at the House, Ingraham, Hardy.

  And he would slam the ball-two-handed shots or overhand-up against the backboard hard enough so it would come back to him at the free-throw line on one bounce max, sometimes even on the fly. Smashing the ball up against the faces he saw, grunting with the exertion, getting it out that way so the hatred and anger didn't overtake him-so he was in control.

  Dido had been strong but didn't know how to fight, and Louis had hit him in the throat and put him down. Then, standing over him as he struggled for breath, he told him he wanted his house white again by the morning. He knew he might have to finish things with Dido, and he had come out here pumped up. But now it wasn't Dido's face he kept seeing on the backboard-it was the other D.A., Hardy -the one who had blown him the kiss.

  He slammed the ball, barely hearing its boom against the backboard or its echo against the project houses down the hill.

  Hardy's face, smiling at him, taunting. He threw again and again until he was covered with sweat. He was in the courtroom, struggling to get at Hardy, fighting against the restraints of the guards, then later against the bars, until his arms hung down heavy as lead, useless.

  He stood in the pool of artificial light, unable to lift the ball anymore, Hardy's face still up there, smiling down at him.

  Chapter Eight

  " ^ "

  Fred Treadwell had his broken ankle propped up on his coffee table. He was listening to some old Lou Reed and feeding Poppy, next to him on the couch, bits of the pate and crackers he was munching with his Chardonnay. Poppy ate almost everything he did. A dainty eater, hardly spilling any crumbs from the crackers. And he waited until Fred put the morsel right up to his mouth, then slowly took it right from his fingers. A poodle was the pet to have-neat, well-trained, smart.

  Fred scratched at Poppy's head behind the ears and was rewarded with a sweet dry lick at his clipped mustache. He kissed the dog back lightly.

  Fred Treadwell was beginning to realize that he was going to walk on the murder charge and it made him very happy. Not many people could kill their ex-lover and his new boyfriend and get away with it, but Fred knew that he was going to pull it off. He had already pretty well pulled it off.

  Whoever had said the best defense was a good offense was certainly right. These straights-especially the good cops Valenti and Raines-just didn't understand the city's politics the way he did. Or the way his attorney did. His attorney, Manny Gubicza, was the best.

  Brian had told him he just needed to get some space, to think things over. He hadn't said he had someone else, so when Fred had caught them both there together, in the act, he had just lost his head. Brian couldn't do that to him. Brian had been nothing, a mailroom clerk, where he was division manager. He had brought Brian up, finally made him his assistant, and then Brian hadn't needed him anymore.

  Well, no, it didn't work that way.

  Fred had known where Brian kept his 9 mm 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 overwhelms 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 pate," 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 pate 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 pate on a cracker. He held it out for the poodle, who obediently jumped off Treadwell's lap and skitted 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 that. 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?"

  Ro 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 h
is 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 scared."

  "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?"