Courage Matters: A Ray Courage Mystery (Ray Courage Private Investigator Series Book 2)

by R. Scott Mackey

  “That’s Burke,” Rubia said, indicating the stripper’s object of attention.

  “Yep.”

  We sat at our table for three songs, sipping Sprites and watching Pepper strip down to nothing, showering almost all her attention on Burke. By my estimate Burke rewarded her efforts with at least a hundred bucks. As “Shake Your Booty” died out and Pepper’s act wound down, she planted a kiss on Burke as she bent to pick up the cash at her feet. She departed and a blonde identified as Cayenne by the disc jockey replaced her.

  “What’s the deal with all these spices?” Rubia said. “Pepper, Cinnamon, Cayenne. Think those are their real names?”

  “Sure they are,” I said. “And they’re all working their way through med school.”

  Burke had moved back to the dark corner. Before we could approach him though, Pepper emerged from the curtains at the side of the stage, wearing only a G-string. She went straight to Burke and sat next to him. A moment later she was giving him a lap dance. When she finished she reached into his front pocket, fished around way too long, and eventually pulled out a wad of bills. She gave him a generous kiss on the mouth and then walked back through the curtains from which she had emerged a few minutes before.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Rubia followed me as we headed towards Burke. He didn’t see us as we approached, lost in revelry on some distant planet where 70-year old men are the sex toys of 20-year old bombshells.

  “An old salt and a young Pepper, a nice combination,” I said, the best I could come up with on the spot.

  “You!” Burke said, not pleased that my presence had brought him back to planet Earth. “Are you following me?”

  “You may recall, I am Ray Courage. And this is my colleague Rubia.”

  “Rubia? What is she your sidekick?”

  “Actually, I’m his body guard,” Rubia said.

  “I fear for your safety Mr. Courage if this is the best you can come up with for a body guard.”

  “You would be surprised,” I said.

  “What do you guys want?” Burke said.

  “I just need to ask you some questions. It won’t take long.”

  “I don’t want to talk with you. I only talk to Stroud. Why the hell hasn’t he returned any of my calls?”

  “You heard about Andrew Norris?” I asked. I sat down on one side of Burke, while Rubia grabbed a chair and sat on the other side.

  “Of course I did. Terrible thing.”

  “What about Craig Ziebell?”

  “Who?”

  “You’ve never heard of Craig Ziebell?”

  “Why should I?” he said.

  “For one, he was killed two days ago. It was in the Bee.

  “I don’t read the Bee. If it’s not in the Wall Street Journal then it didn’t happen.”

  “For another thing he was taking pictures of you.” I reached into my rear pocket and pulled out the photo of Burke that was on Ziebell’s laptop. Then I produced a photo of Ziebell. “Recognize him?”

  “Never seen him in my life,” he said. “He took this photo of me? Looks like Boulevard Cafe. I eat there a lot.”

  “So he never approached you?”

  “No. I told you I’ve never seen him. Now please get out of here.”

  “Do you have any idea why Andrew Norris was murdered?”

  “Absolutely not. And if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you. Now get the hell out of here before I instruct the bouncer to have you removed.”

  “Give my regards to Pepper,” I said as Rubia and I stood to leave.

  thirty-one

  We started again at six the next morning, parking three houses down from Barry Fein’s beige home in the Pocket neighborhood.

  “These houses all look the same,” Rubia said. “Beige or light gray. Every third one’s two stories but they all look the same.”

  “That one has a basketball hoop over the garage door,” I said.

  “Call the Homeowners Association. We’ve got a case of urban blight on our hands.”

  A couple of middle-aged women jogged by, showing some interest in us sitting idly in a car parked on their street at such an early hour. Here and there front doors opened and closed as those residents who still subscribed to the daily paper retrieved them from the front porch.

  “How do we know Fein’s an early riser?” she said.

  “We don’t.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Don’t want to take the chance of missing him,” I said.

  She turned on the radio and we listened to a sportswriter from New York tell the KNBR morning host why the Yankees would win it all this year. Something to do with their middle relievers historically having the best WHIP in the league in the months of June, July and August. It sounded like pre-season yammering to me. Paying us no mind, an overweight guy wearing headphones walked a Labrador on the other side of the street.

  “I don’t see why we don’t just bust Fein’s chops,” she said. “Guy flat-out lied to you. Call him on it.”

  “That won’t get us anywhere,” I said. “He’ll either tell us to buzz off or tell us ‘so what if I had lunch with Ziebell?’. We need to find out more about what he’s up to, then call him on that.”

  “You think he’s doing something naughty?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said.

  “What?”

  I shrugged.

  “What about Burke?” Rubia grew tired of sports talk so she punched on an FM station. Lady Gaga pleaded with Alejandro to stop calling her name.

  “He’s a rich jerk and something of a perv,” I said. “But I don’t think he has anything to do with either murder. I could tell he didn’t know Ziebell by his complete non-reaction to the name or the fact he took the photo of him.”

  Fein’s garage rolled open and he pulled out in an older blue Lexus sedan. I figured he’d leave in the general direction of his office so I let him get a good head start before following. Once I pulled onto 43rd Avenue I spotted him about two hundred yards ahead. We kept our distance all the way to the Victorian on 21st, where Fein parked in the back. Instead of going into his office, he walked down the street away from us, entering a Starbucks on the corner.

  “Ziebell’s the common thread,” I said. “He contacted Norris. He contacted Fein. And he contacted Stroud. Stroud even threatened Ziebell. Now Norris and Ziebell are dead. If we are going to get answers they’re going to come from Fein and Stroud.”

  “Why not start with Stroud?”

  “Because I think he’s at the top of the food chain in all this. We need to know all that we can first before we bust in on him, especially if I’m going to accuse him of anything.” Something bothered me when I watched Fein walk from his car to Starbucks. It took a few more moments before it dawned on me. “Did you notice something unusual with our boy Barry Fein?”

  “No,” Rubia said. “Is this a trick question?”

  “He was wearing a suit, a nice one at that,” I said. “Remember what Horner said yesterday that he usually wore t-shirts when he worked and that it was unusual that he wore a collared shirt at lunch with Zeibel?”

  “I do remember.”

  “When I dropped into his office yesterday he was wearing a t-shirt.”

  “Must have some important business to take care of,” Rubia said.

  “Appears so.”

  I didn’t want to tip my hand yet with Fein, but I was curious about why he might be so dressed up. Could be nothing. We waited for Fein to walk out of Starbucks. Rubia started singing “Alejandro,” much too loudly and much too off key for my liking. After another two minutes I’d grown tired of the waiting and the serenading.

  “Go talk to him,” I said. This bought me a startled look and peace and quiet.

  “Huh?”

  “He doesn’t know who you are. Try to engage him in a conversation and see why he’s all dressed up.”

  “How do I do that?” she asked.

  “Pretty thing like you? Use your charm.”
>
  “Pretty thing like me? Is that a compliment?” She smiled and preened her hair. “I guess I may have to give it a go at that.” She started for Starbucks only after demanding five bucks for a café mocha.

  “Better make it worth my investment,” I said as she left the car.

  The radio played a song that I didn’t recognize before it cut to a commercial. I turned it off and checked the clock. Rubia had been gone almost ten minutes. There was no sign of either she or Fein. Maybe she was getting somewhere. I punched the radio back on only to hear a report on bay area traffic when both Fein and Rubia walked out of Starbucks together, laughing. They walked to Fein’s office building, waved good bye to each other and then Rubia continued on, looking back to make sure Fein had entered the building before slowing and approaching the car.

  “You guys are regular buddies now,” I said once she entered the car.

  “Not a bad guy,” she said.

  “Well?”

  “He’s got Duke, UCLA, Kansas and Georgetown making it to the NCAA Final Four. I’ve got North Carolina, Alabama, UCLA and Syracuse in my bracket.”

  “That’s all very interesting,” I said. “Did you find out why he’s all dressed up?”

  “No, it would have been too awkward.”

  “You’re worthless.”

  “He did say something about seeing a lawyer. At the very end I told him to have a good day, and he said no day can be good when it starts by visiting your lawyer.”

  thirty-two

  Turned out Barry Fein’s morning didn’t include a meeting with just any lawyer, which explained the fancy threads. Attorney Prudence Carruthers, managing senior partner in Carruthers, Overland and Moore was the go-to counsel for the wealthiest and most prominent of Sacramento. In an era of specialization, Carruthers’ specialty appeared only to be the importance of her clients, whom she represented in negotiating compensation packages, divorces, mergers and acquisitions, lawsuits, patent negotiations and anything else a moneyed bigwig would pay her $800 an hour to perform. Her victories for the unoppressed regularly scored headlines in the Bee, adding to her storied reputation. When she walked out of the Carruthers, Overland and Moore offices with Barry Fein and got into his car my jaw dropped.

  “Who’s the mujer?” Rubia asked, noticing my surprise.

  “Top dollar lawyer. Someone out of Fein’s league. At least I would have thought so.”

  The Lexus pulled from the curb and wound its way through the downtown streets. I stayed closer than might have been wise, but I’d rather risk Fein spotting us than losing him. At I Street he turned left and followed it west until he hit the connecting ramps for the 99, 5 and 80 freeways. He took the ramp for 80 west, accelerating quickly.

  As I drove, I provided Rubia background on Prudence Carruthers as memories of her past exploits came to me. Her leading the defense in an anti-trust lawsuit filed by the federal government against the then-largest social networking Website. Her class-action suit on behalf of homeowners whose subdivision was built atop a natural asbestos deposit. Her rumored relationships with movie stars of several different eras, most recently George Clooney, at least fifteen years her junior. And of course, her successful injunction that kept the previous governor from being sworn in until a ballot recount could be completed and which ultimately led to the man’s opponent winning the election.

  Fein reached speeds of 85 miles per hour at times as we whizzed by the cities of Davis, Dixon and Vacaville. I lost sight of the Lexus at the Nut Tree exit as I became trapped in a cordon of slower moving cars.

  “Damn,” I said as we reached Fairfield, the Lexus still out of sight.

  “Maybe he pulled over,” Rubia said.

  I considered taking the next off-ramp to see if Fein may have exited there. I vetoed that idea, deciding to continue another ten miles or so in hopes of finding him. After some work, I was able to get a clear shot in the fast lane and brought my speed up to 90 to make up as much lost ground as safely possible.

  Soon enough we hit another bottleneck, the entire freeway slowed to 65 miles per hour. When I started to try weaving through the traffic I saw the cause of the slowdown: a California Highway Patrol officer in the center lane was setting the pace, none of the civilian drivers willing to risk a ticket to pass him. In the fast lane just to the CHP car’s left was Fein’s blue Lexus. I maneuvered behind him, two cars between his and ours. Once the CHP pulled over in Vallejo, Fein sped up to 75 and we followed a safe distance behind.

  “They’re going to San Francisco,” Rubia said, once they passed the last Vallejo exit.

  “That’d be my guess,” I said.

  At mid-morning traffic across the Carquinez bridge remained light, picking up at Berkeley and bottle-necking into a ten-minute backlog at the Bay Bridge toll plaza. Through it all we kept Fein and Carruthers clearly in front of us. We followed as they took the Fremont Street exit and turned left onto Fremont, heading towards the financial district. They turned left on Pine, continuing about a quarter mile, before turning left again onto Montgomery. I pulled to the curb when they turned into the entrance for the underground garage at 44 Montgomery Street.

  “Now what?” Rubia said.

  “This is probably where they are meeting whoever it is they are meeting,” I said.

  “Did you think that up all by yourself?”

  “I do have a PhD.”

  “Wow.”

  We couldn’t follow them into the building. It would be too easy for Fein to recognize either Rubia or me. “You have a smart phone, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Google ‘tenants of 44 Montgomery Street, San Francisco’ and see what you get.”

  “We could just go in.”

  “This way might be faster,” I said. “Try it.”

  She pulled her phone from her purse and started pushing keys with her thumbs with impressive dexterity. She began looking through the information that she’d retrieved.

  “Let’s see, there’s a bunch of law firms,” she said. “A couple of investment firms. Could be any of them.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “There isn’t a directory of tenants?”

  “Not so far.” She continued to scroll and read. “There’s a real estate company with vacancy listings for 44 Montgomery. Here’s what their sales blurb says, ‘Skyspace Inc. has placed several clients in this building including Millennium Imports, Platinum Investor Relations, Claris & Company and others. 44 Montgomery continues to be one of the best buildings in the city for our clients to locate. The property offers a fantastic location in the center of downtown,’ blah, blah, blah.”

  “Not helpful,” I said.

  “Why don’t you look then.” She held the phone in my direction.

  “You’re doing fine,” I said. “It probably is one of the law or investment firms, but keep looking.”

  “I’ve already gone through eight pages.”

  “Humor me.”

  She heaved a melodramatic sigh. For another couple of minutes she scanned the different Web pages that Google had yielded. At one point she paused and with her forefinger emphatically hit a key.

  “Here’s something different,” she said. “it’s a PDF that came up titled Securities and Exchange Commission v. International Investors, Inc.”

  “Why does that pop 44 Montgomery?”

  “Let’s see it shows the people involved in the lawsuit or whatever. Here’s Jane Tierney of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose address is listed as 44 Montgomery Street.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “He and Carruthers are meeting with the SEC.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’d bet on it. Check out what they do at this particular office. Try ‘SEC field office San Francisco.’”

  Rubia keyed that in. It took a few seconds for the results to appear.

  “Got it,” she said. “You’re right this is where the SEC field office is. Let’s see, there are administrative services, ethics counsel, administrative judicial
services, acquisitions, office of compliance inspections and examinations, an office—”

  “Stop,” I said. “Read to me what the office of compliance inspection and examinations does.”

  “Okay, hold on a second,” she said. “Here we go. It’s pretty long.”

  “Just read the high points.”

  “Here goes,” she said. “’The OCIE protects investors through administering the SEC's nationwide examination and inspection program. Examiners conduct examinations of registered entities, including broker-dealers, transfer agents, investment advisers, investment companies, the national securities exchanges…’ then there’s a bunch of blah, blah, blah and ‘OCIE’s mission is to protect investors, ensure market integrity and support responsible capital formation through risk-focused strategies that improve compliance and prevent fraud’ and then there’s a bunch more blah, blah.’”

  “What do you think about that?” I said.

  “Sounds like the SEC might be calling Barry Fein onto the carpet.”

  “Either that or he’s turning himself or someone else in,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s routine,” she said. “You know like as a CPA you have to meet with the regulators every year or two, kinda like renewing a driver’s license or something.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “By the time they get back to Sacramento, they will have burned the whole day. You don’t pay a full day’s wages to an $800 an hour lawyer just to get your license renewed.”

  “Whatever the reason, we’re not going to find it out sitting here,” she said.

  “What, you want us to go into the SEC office and ask?”

  “Don’t be dense professor,” she said. “Our work here is done. We’re in The City. Let’s go to Aliotto’s and get some crab and clam chowder.”

  “About time you had a good idea,” I said.

  “About time you listened.”