by Avery Duff
Awake and agitated, he’d riffled through the trust’s files for Teo’s photographs and had come up with that shot of hypocrite Vincent, posing with Carlos and Teo on the steps of Vincent’s first rental house.
Before today, Robert had focused on the human story on the steps—not the blurred image on the left doorjamb.
He’d seen that same image in the killing room: Evelyn’s father on the front stairs of her family home. On that left doorjamb, too: the identical object from the photograph of Vincent’s rental house.
Identical Orthodox crucifixes appeared in both pictures—slanted footrests pointing up to heaven and down to hell. Vincent’s Highland Park rental house and Evelyn’s Highland Park childhood home—they were one and the same.
Evelyn and Vincent had a definite connection years before their law-firm beef. Was it possible Evelyn had told the truth, at least part of it? That Evelyn and Vincent had a sexual relationship?
Before he could dig deeper, Agent Pascoe called him. She already knew Robert’s client had been kidnapped and about Robert’s part in saving her. Because of that, he’d turned a corner with her, becoming one of us rather than one of them. Them being lawyers. She was on the Westside, and, sure, she could meet him in an hour over at Evelyn’s.
For now, he slammed the doors of that Highland Park house and concentrated on the task at hand: securing his clients’ money.
Later that morning, Robert met Pascoe in the alley behind Evelyn’s residence. What Robert had told her about Teo’s hit and run had borne fruit. Alexandra, the woman driving the Lexus that struck Teo, had been pulled in, questioned, and asked for a lawyer.
“We’re confident she’ll cop a plea,” Pascoe said. “Apparently, these escorts were part of a larger extortion ring, working private mixers all around LA and Orange County.”
Hearing that, Robert had no doubt Carlos had attended just such a mixer. That’s where he’d started dating and where he’d eventually met the girl. The one Evelyn called Ilina.
Pascoe said, “Sharon Sloan lawyered up, too, late last night, rolled over on the Draganovs and her mother. Pregnant, two kids, fears for her life, Ms. Sloan wants immunity in the worst way. Turns out, her mother reached out to her while Sharon was still in college, before law school, and blamed their lifelong estrangement on some horrible lies told to Evelyn by Syd Levine.”
Robert was thinking: A mother’s long-lost love, finally found. Sharon was easy prey for Evelyn.
“Think the Famosa trust was a template for more money-laundering down the line?” Robert asked.
“Looks that way. Now, what’s this you said on the phone about locating my money?”
“Believe I know where it is,” Robert said. “First, though, let’s talk about my clients’ money.”
“Let’s hear it,” Pascoe said.
“My client might be in possession of some cash, arguably traceable to an illegal source. Originally, that money was stolen from my client, and if it ever saw the light of day, the government might assert a claim against it. A wrongful claim, by the way.”
“Claims happen. Even more so now that you opened up about your cash.”
“Possible cash,” Robert said. “What if I could find your money? That twenty million or so in Draganov drug money floating somewhere around LA? Would you think that—I’ll pick a number at random—three-point-eight million might be a fair swap for finding it, and you guys calling it a day?”
“You have a good idea about my money’s whereabouts, don’t you, Worth?”
“What can I say? I have a good idea now and then.”
Robert e-mailed her his bouncing-ball money narrative in the form of an affidavit. It laid out his clients’ claim to the money as sole beneficiary of the Vincent Famosa Family Trust: Carlos’ bogus investments and Evelyn Levine’s involvement; Carlos getting cash back under the table, hiding it in his floor safe.
Parts of the story he asserted on information and belief, but the gist of it was clear and true—the money was stolen from the trust by its trustee, his client had first dibs on it, and wherever that money might be, it was held in constructive trust for his clients’ benefit.
“Constructive trust. What’s that mean?” Pascoe asked.
“Lawyer stuff. Means it’s my clients’ money, not the FBI’s.”
“Let me call Westwood HQ, see what they think about your constructive line of crap.”
“Better hurry. Bet the Draganov bees come buzzing around their money before long.”
Robert waited until she’d explained the situation to her Westwood higher-ups, forwarded them his e-mail, and hung up.
“They like it,” she said.
“Only one condition.”
“You wait till I go out on a limb before you . . . ?”
“Promise you, it’s an easy one. I just want inside Evelyn’s study. It’s not a crime scene, and besides, my clients’ll wind up owning every atom Evelyn ever owned for what she did to them.”
Pascoe thought it over.
“Want to know why Evelyn had such a hard-on for the Famosas?” Robert asked.
“Did you actually just say that?”
“Long night. Evelyn told me all the answers I needed were right down the street. Pretty sure she meant inside her study. C’mon, we can wear those cool latex gloves.”
“Starting to like you, Worth, and take my word for it—it’s pissing me off.”
Several hours later, Robert’s search of Evelyn’s study yielded two instructive items: a title report for Evelyn’s childhood home in Highland Park, plus a thick envelope filled with black-and-white photographs, all taken by Evelyn.
While Pascoe leafed through photographs, Robert delved into the title report and gleaned some quick answers.
“Serious city and county tax liens had been filed on Emil Draganov’s home, and he’s forced to sell it to Vincent Famosa, one step ahead of tax foreclosure.”
Then he showed Pascoe the signatures on the deed—Emil Draganov selling the house to Vincent Famosa. And Evelyn’s signature as notary public.
“Before law school, Evelyn worked in real estate, and here she is, notarizing her father’s signature. The deed taking away her father’s home—him a proud homeowner in a neighborhood of renters. It was more than paper to her. It was a trophy. She was in the closing room at the transfer and witnessed her arrogant father’s humiliation.”
“But that left Vincent on the title, not her.”
“Just a front man, a straw man, someone she believed she could control and hide behind.”
“Hide from her father?”
“Yeah, a violent drunk, she said. If he ever saw her name on that deed . . .”
He explained that Vincent and Evelyn must’ve had some sort of deal about the house—20 percent of profits to Vincent when they resold it, 50 percent, who knew? But by the time Vincent came to her firm—according to the title report and what Robert already knew—he’d sold her house and bought four apartments. And all of them in Vincent’s name. That’s what caused the big blowup at her law firm.
Robert said, “Vincent nullified her vengeance against her father, then challenged her at her own firm—do something about it, Evelyn.”
“I get it, but why go to her to draw up the trust? Go anywhere else but to her, right?”
“For a normal thief, sure, but Vincent was a narcissistic egomaniac, and he had leverage on her. Evelyn was half-Bulgarian, half-Latina, and back then, from way, way over on the wrong side of town. She’d been a party to taking away her own father’s home, maybe a party to fraud, and Vincent held it over her head, dared her to defy him, and she backed down.”
“For the time being anyway,” Pascoe said. “Balls on that Vincent.”
“Vincent had no idea he was dealing with a psychopath. She liked lying in wait, preferred it, I think. Waiting for Vincent, waiting for his son, Carlos, waiting for her own father and for Chet Jordan, reeling them in slow before she gaffed each one.”
“Wrong gal to tangle with,
huh?”
“I’ll say.”
Her envelope of photographs told a story, too. Landscapes, downtown LA, Chet Jordan posing for her in Mexico—Zihuatanejo, she’d written on the back, alongside the date.
Farther back in time: a match to Teo’s photograph of Vincent and his two boys on the steps of Vincent’s rental house. On its flip side: Highland Park, Vincent, Carlos, and Matteo, 1979.
Evelyn had shot the original of Teo’s print. That made Evelyn the mystery woman Teo had mentioned to Robert—Vincent’s girlfriend or the investor with a car—who had shown up with big-dog Vincent at the rental house.
From even earlier in Evelyn’s life: shots of five high school girls in a row of stadium seats. Her Franklin High classmates, he guessed. On the back of each shot, Evelyn had written each girl’s name, the date and location: Downtown LA, Olympiad 1970.
Pulse quickening, he recognized the date and place: Night of the Ramos.
The next shot took his breath away: Vincent Famosa, jacket buttoned, fedora snug, standing in the ring with Sugar Ramos. On the back, she’d written the same date and location she’d used for her classmates: Downtown LA, Olympiad, 1970, Vincent Famosa.
Robert said, “My client Matteo Famosa has a print of the same picture. Teo kept it after Vincent died. Vincent got his print from Evelyn’s original shot.”
All of Vincent’s bluster to his sons—his decade-long string of brilliant boxing bets—had been fiction. Evelyn had made the down payment on the rental house, not Vincent. All Vincent had was his lie about knowing the Cuban-Mexican fighter, backed up by a photograph of him inside the ropes, taken by teenage Evelyn, a girl he’d met at the fight.
Looking at Evelyn’s classmates again, Robert understood the taunt behind her senior quote: Why didn’t Marlon B ever show up, Ewa?
Robert said, “Emil bragged to Evelyn he was driving Brando to the fight—still the most charismatic star in the world—so Evelyn did her own bragging and invited her classmates to meet him there.”
“And Daddy never shows,” Pascoe said.
He recalled Vincent’s boast to Teo about that night: that he’d bedded a sweet young thing. Evelyn’s own chilling words: What if I said Vincent was my first lover? Outside my own family.
“She was humiliated in front of her peers, and I believe, she left the fight with Vincent Famosa.”
Robert finally knew the answer to Delfina’s question: Why do they want to hurt my daddy? Same as the answer to the question he’d put to Evelyn: What’s your beef with the Famosas?
The answer was as simple and as complex as the human condition: In 1970, Delfina’s grandfather Vincent met and seduced a teenage psychopath at a downtown LA prize fight. Years later, Vincent double-crossed her over a piece of real estate. Simply killing Vincent hadn’t been enough for Evelyn—she’d wanted to wipe out his entire family.
One question remained unanswered—whether he would ever find the right opportunity to explain the full scenario to Delfina. Only time would tell.
Later that day, Robert and Agent Pascoe’s supervisor signed off on a memorandum of understanding about the drug money. The meat of it was this—the found money had to be at least $20 million; the kept money could be no more than $3.8 million. For every million below twenty in found money, the kept money went down by 5 percent.
By the time Pascoe lifted the varnished two-by-six on top of that killing-room partition, the negotiation didn’t matter. The found money inside the wall totaled $27,400,000.
Robert was relieved hearing the final tally—even though he’d already looked inside and seen stack after stack of Draganov drug money.
Two nights after the FBI seized the Draganovs’ stash and staked out the house, Gospodar, Pinky, and two of Gospodar’s top guys snuck into the killing room. Middle of the night, they’d already stacked close to $1 million for transport when Pascoe and two other agents busted in on them.
Later, after transporting Pinky to processing in her sedan, Pascoe told Robert: “That perfume Miss Pinky soaks in? It was so nasty, I had to steam-clean my back seat.”
CHAPTER 48
Robert and Gia were driving over to Saint John’s Hospital to visit Teo, who had been brought out of his coma a few hours ago. She carried a vase of yellow roses she’d cut from her front yard.
“Yellow’s the happiest color rose to me,” she said. “And in China, it’s the emperor’s color, the color of royalty.”
“Teo’s royalty, all right.”
They were halfway to the hospital, wondering if Delfina would be there, when Dr. Wan called Robert. He tried to keep his heart from sinking as he answered.
Dr. Wan said, “I’m sorry, Robert, Teo passed away two hours ago from a massive stroke. It was over very, very quickly.”
Robert thanked her and pulled to the side of the road. Looked over at Gia and shook his head, but she already knew the essentials from the tight expression on his face.
They held each other for a minute, then drove over to Ozone and crossed to the beach at the spot where Teo had knocked out Whitey. A languorous low tide let them walk out a hundred yards with Teo’s yellow roses, hopping over hissing, rippling wavelets. Scuffing their feet across the sandy bottom, they spooked a school of stingrays and stopped, knee-deep in a tidal pool. One by one, Gia slipped the flowers in the sea. They held hands and watched the roses undulate in the water, this way and that.
Robert said, “When I met Teo, I wondered if trouble followed him around. It didn’t. Evelyn did.”
“Tough guy, but a real sweetheart.”
“Sure was. A restaurant owner named Sonny, he told me Teo had a big smile on his face before he was hit. And I know for a fact that Teo was sober.”
“Good. Think we’d ever do as good a job as Teo did, raising a child?”
He nodded. “If we tried half as hard as he did, cared half as much. That what you want?”
“I don’t know. It hurt so much, thinking something terrible would happen to Delfina. And that was after one week, not even my own child.” She turned into him. “You were so sweet with her. I’ve never seen that side of you.”
He pulled her closer. Gia, the coolest girl he’d ever met as she glided through life. But when it really mattered—he had seen it after Delfina was abducted—Gia was on fire.
“You’re ferocious, Gia, and I’m not going anywhere.” The last of Teo’s roses floated past, caught in an unknown current. “Let’s see what happens.”
“Let’s,” she said.
At Teo’s graveside service, a caseworker from children’s services showed up with Delfina and her new foster parents. Delfina was thinner than Robert remembered. Sadder, too. She ran over to Gia first; Gia hugged her for a long time. Watching them cry tore Robert up inside. Then it was his turn to kneel and hug the little girl. That tore him up even more.
“Are you sad about Daddy, too?” she asked him.
“Very, very sad, Delfina. I think I liked your daddy as much as you love him.”
She thought about what he said, then whispered, “My foster parents are nice, but you and Gia are more fun.”
“They look nice to me, Delfina. You’re so lucky to be with them. A man down at the courthouse gave me a nickname because my middle name is Logan.”
“What is it?
“Wolverine. Like it?”
That drew a smile from her. “Yes, a lot. I like Magna Carta Man better.”
“Me, too. Much better.”
Erik and Reyes were there. Benny Smartt from AA showed up off a call from Robert. Drew Freize, the framer, showed, too, because he was a decent man. Gia told Robert she had expected Reverend Andy from the Mission to make an appearance, but she guessed the Mission had enough on its hands with the living, so Reverend Andy got a well-deserved pass.
Carlos’ grave and his blank headstone rested right down the row; a preacher he’d never seen asked Robert to say his prepared words about Teo, and he was glad to do it.
“Teo Famosa was a courageous man,” he sai
d. Delfina waved at him. He waved back. “I saw him do things he didn’t want to do and face things he didn’t want to face—difficult parts of his life he’d tried to forget. Family issues, mostly. Families, they’re a funny thing. They come and go, some work better than others, but I’m beginning to think they’re judged, not by what they do, but more by the love the members show one another. And these two Famosa brothers, they did love each other, and did care about each other, and they felt that way despite what had lined up against them as boys. Their timing was bad, that’s for sure, but their feelings for each other, deep down, I know they were loving. And I know, too, Delfina, how much Teo loved you. You, and the way you are, you are the Famosa family’s greatest accomplishment. One time—it was the last time I talked to your daddy—he told me you were his rock. You were his higher power, and you still are. You made him feel stronger and made him believe in himself. You and your daddy made me feel stronger, too.”
He thought it a little odd that Delfina had stopped looking at him. Then again, she was only nine. But when she took off running across the cemetery, toward the cars, his eyes followed her. Reverend Andy stood next to a woman, as fair as she was thin. Gia was looking at her, too. From Teo’s description, he knew she had to be Bee, Delfina’s mother.
Robert wrapped up his eulogy, then joined Gia, and together, they watched Delfina and her mother hugging each other, talking and crying. After a few minutes, they walked over to join Reverend Andy, who filled them in on Bee’s treatment up in Bakersfield.
“Meth changes the brain,” he told them. “It needs time to repair. But she’s had over a year of sobriety, thought she was ready to step up for Delfina.”
Delfina pulled Bee over and introduced her to Robert and Gia.
Bee said, “What you two did for my daughter, I can never thank you enough.”
“Our pleasure,” Gia said. “She was a delightful houseguest, and welcome back anytime.”
Robert gave Bee a big smile and mustered kind words, too, knowing full well that no matter how long Bee stayed sober, she would always feel the pull of the streets. And what was it Teo had told him? Once Bee gets high, she’s open to suggestion.
