by Don Winslow
Jack hears the whispers as he walks down the narrow aisle through the cubicles. Fired … perjury … kickbacks … crooked cop …
“I’m baa-aack!” Jack sings out.
Some of the dogs turn around in their cubicles, bury their faces in their monitors. Except one who picks up her phone, cups her hand around the receiver and starts whispering.
So Hansen has released a Be on the Lookout For and this babe can’t wait to drop the dime. But it’ll take them some time to work out how to handle it. There’ll be calls up and down, calls to Billy, calls to Mahogany Row …
So you have time but not a lot of time.
He sits down and starts banging the computer.
Gets into the California Secretary of State’s database and types in “Westview.”
Which is not the happiest name to be researching if you happen to be located on the West Coast.
The screen brings up a couple of hundred of them.
Westview Travel, Westview Realty, Westview Retirement, Westview Recreational Vehicles, Westview Condominium Association …
Westview Ltd.
Jack goes with Westview Ltd.
A limited partnership will only show the general partners, not the shareholders. They’re anonymous until you can get your hands on the actual limited partnership agreement, which would have to be subpoenaed.
So it’s a good vehicle to play the ownership shell game.
Jack double-clicks on Westview Ltd. and requests an LP1 statement, which lists the general partners.
A James Johnson, a Benjamin Khafti and an Orange Coast Ltd.
Another limited partnership.
Jack requests an LP1 statement for Orange Coast Ltd.
A Howard Krasner, a Grant Lederer, another limited partnership.
CrossCo Ltd.
Jack requests an LP1 for CrossCo.
And on and on and on.
Every hit gets him a couple of hypothetical people and another limited partnership.
The ownership shell game.
Find the moving owners under the shell.
Jack keeps playing.
He’s twelve layers deep when he hits on Jerisoco Ltd.
Bingo.
General partners: a Michael Allen, Kazimir Azmekian and something called Gold Coast Ltd.
Gold Coast Ltd.
Back to the shell game. He pops it for an LP1 and gets another meaningless name and two more limited partnerships. Those two get him three more.
And so on and so on and so on and then he hits it.
Great Sunsets Ltd.
Jack’s head whirls.
Great Sunsets Ltd.—the company that’s trying to develop Dana Strands.
And it’s hooked into Kazzy Azmekian and Nicky Vale.
Holy God.
Jack sees two security guys and Cooper, the ex-cop from SIU, coming down the aisle.
Jack requests an LP1 for Great Sunsets Ltd.
The computer hums.
Come on, come on, Jack thinks.
They’re fifty feet away.
Come on, Jack thinks.
Because he can feel the paranoia crawl up his back like a hot wave.
Jack looks around and feels like the walls are closing in on him.
They are.
109
He’s just managed to turn the computer off when Cooper lays a hand on his shoulder.
“You’ve been suspended, Jack,” Cooper says, “pending an investigation.”
“Fuck you, I quit.”
“Better,” Cooper says.
Goddamn Billy comes up.
“What the goddamn hell is going on here?”
“Mr. Wade has been suspended.”
“Who says Mr. Wade has been suspended?”
“SIU has uncovered some information involving kickbacks—”
“Bull-fucking-shit!”
“You’ll have to take that up with Ms. Hansen,” Cooper says.
“You bet your goddamn ass I’ll take it up with Mizzz Goddamn Hansen!” Billy yells. “This ain’t over, Jack.”
“It’s over, Billy.”
You don’t know how over.
They’re walking him out, Jack can see Sandra Hansen watching him from the corner. He waves at her.
Hansen’s not happy.
She’s thinking what a brainless, dumb stud Jack Wade is. She’s thinking that Jack’s surfboard has landed on his head once—make that twice—too often.
But he’s a good honest claims dog and it’s too bad he’s so damn stubborn. Out this morning still chasing the Vale file.
But she has three years and God only knows how much of her budget sunk into ROC and she’s not going to let one stubborn M-4 of an adjuster flush it down the toilet.
Not now.
Not when the deal goes down tonight.
So Jack Wade has to go.
Phil Herlihy’s watching the whole thing up on Mahogany Row on the security camera.
Phil’s gripping.
Seriously.
He’s been monitoring Wade’s computer screen, saw what he was working on.
Jack Wade has to go.
110
Jack feels like his head’s going to blow off his shoulders.
Nicky owns the Strands.
With SIU taking his back.
Very sweet.
Face it, you don’t stand a chance.
They beat you. Any move you make they’ll find a way to jam it.
They have the execs and the cops and the lawyers and the judges.
And face it, you don’t know who else Nicky owns. So fuck it.
Sorry, Pam.
Sorry, Letty.
Nicky Vale will get richer.
On his wife’s body.
And his kids’ heartbreak.
And fuck that.
He looks for a place to turn around.
Can’t, because there’s a big black Caddy coming up on his ass.
111
It’s a big humping old black Caddy and it’s right on his ass.
The ’Stang is a nice car but it doesn’t have the weight to stand off the souped-up Caddy this doofus is pushing at him.
The Caddy’s on his tail through a tricky S-curve, which breaks open into a short straightaway that bends into a huge outside turn, and Jack taps the brakes because you do not want to go into this curve too fast unless you want to be Orville Wright.
So he slows down but this asshole stays right on him.
Then he moves to pass.
Jack can’t freaking believe it, but this asshole pulls right alongside him as the curve turns in.
Comes around and stays beside him.
The Caddy’s in the wrong lane on a curve and doesn’t pull back in.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Jack yells, because there’s a cliff wall on the inside and a two-hundred-foot drop on the outside and this is bad news.
Which is true, because now another car has come up behind him. A muscle car, a Charger, and now it’s right up on his ass.
Which is bad, because now Jack has nowhere to go.
He can’t even hit the brakes.
Then he sees the truck coming.
In his lane, straight at him.
He either crashes head-on into the trailer truck or he goes off the road.
Which is the plan.
Jimmy Dansky, he’s sitting in the cab of the truck and sees the cars headed straight for him. The new guy is good, the new guy is doing just what he’s supposed to. Trap the Mustang in place.
A game of chicken.
Which Jimmy figures he’s going to win, because he knows it’s psychologically impossible for a car to hang in. The driver sees a truck coming he’ll hit the brakes and swerve—human nature. And when he swerves he loses it on that curve and he’s over the edge.
Bye-bye.
He goes, and then the chase car can take the oncoming lane, and everyone gets home safe.
Except the Mustang.
It’s in a crater at the bottom of the c
anyon.
A very tricky stunt, a real ball tightener, but it’s going like a bomb.
So he bears down on the Mustang and waits for it to chicken out.
Jack doesn’t swerve or hit the brakes. What he does is he steps on the gas. He pushes the ’Stang toward the trailer truck like she’s going to take it out.
Kamikaze Mustang.
Ban-fucking-zai.
Jimmy Dansky can’t believe it.
They told him this guy was hardcore, they didn’t say he was crazy.
Or suicidal.
Turn, cocksucker, turn is what Jimmy Dansky is thinking.
What Jack is thinking is like, Fuck you, asshole.
You turn.
And all this is going on in like seconds and there’s about to be a spectacular four-car crash on the Ortega and Jack lets one hand off the wheel and grabs Teddy’s pistol with the other, shoots out the driver’s window, then wings a shot at the Caddy, and that’s when the Caddy driver chickens out. He swerves the Caddy inside toward the rock face.
Jack moves left into the now vacant space in the oncoming lane. The Charger tries to get out of the way, but it’s too late.
Dansky’s truck sheers the top off the Charger, taking the driver’s upper body with it as it smashes through the guardrail and launches into the sky above the canyon.
Like, Uhh, Houston, we’ve got a problem.
Jimmy’s up there with half a Charger and half a Charger driver jammed in his grill; the front of the truck is pointing toward the sun. For a second he fantasizes that the truck has enough momentum to sail across the canyon and land on the other side, but then the laws of physics rule against Jimmy and the front of the truck takes a downward tilt.
And Jimmy without his parachute.
A few seconds later the truck smashes headfirst into the lower slope like some suicidal ski jumper, then it does two somersaults and comes to a rest.
But by that time Jimmy Dansky’s neck has snapped in numerous locations.
Jack’s not doing so great either.
He scrapes the wall, bounces off, plunges toward the edge of the cliff, jerks the wheel, heads for the wall again, pulls out and goes into a spin.
He’s doing three-sixties—wall, cliff, wall, cliff, wall, cliff—he’s spinning toward the edge of the cliff and then skids to a stop.
With the front of the ’Stang hanging over the edge.
Jack’s looking down at eternity.
He gets out—gently—his legs are weak and the world is spinning and the Caddy and Charger are long gone.
He checks out the ’Stang.
Major damage.
Front-left quarter panel banged in. Passenger-side door banged. Gashes and scrapes along the whole passenger side.
You’re talking Bondo from here to eternity.
It’s never going to be over, he thinks. You know too much, Letty knows too much, they won’t let you just give up.
And face it, you won’t let you just give up.
It won’t be over until you’ve finished your job.
Your job is to not pay claims you don’t owe. You don’t pay people to burn their own houses down, and you don’t pay them to kill their wives, and you don’t let them rip off your company. You do the job you started to do.
And do it right this time.
So quit your whining and find Nicky’s fucking furniture.
And how the hell are you going to do that?
It could be anywhere in the freaking world.
Nicky has apartment buildings, Nicky has condos, Nicky has—
Yeah.
Jack pats the back of the ’Stang.
“Goodbye, old paint.”
He puts his shoulder to it and pushes it off the edge.
Watches it somersault down the canyon and explode in a ball of flame at the bottom.
He starts walking west with his thumb out.
Into a great sunset.
112
Young waits for the sun to go down.
Has his troops assembled in the parking lot of the Ritz and they all have their assignments. He’s edgy as a mother duck because if he pulls this off tonight it’s the biggest organized crime roundup since the Appalachia raid. He has names, records, aliases, safe houses. He knows where the weapons are, what they are, who they belong to. He makes half these busts, he can start a ball rolling across the whole country. Start winding ROC up in Arizona, Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York.
He’s just waiting for dark.
Jimenez is likewise stoked. Got him his share of the list, his share of the collars, because for once the Feds are playing team ball. So he has his guys posted all over So-Cal. Got a freakin’ battalion ready to hit in L.A., another squad down here in Orange County, some more troops in San Diego. Just waiting for the sun to go down.
Sandra Hansen, she’s sitting in the room at the Ritz, guzzling Diet Cokes like they could settle her nerves. She won’t get the satisfaction of going on the busts. She can’t ever even admit that Cal Fire funded half this investigation. All she can do is sit by the phone and hope that it goes down right, that something doesn’t come along to fuck it up.
Because it’s a tricky deal.
The bust’s tonight.
Fifty million dollars’ payment in the morning.
Then her guy starts filling them in, in exchange for complete and total immunity for anything except a capital offense. The whole deal signed off on by Claims, Mahogany Row and an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies.
So tonight’s a big night.
She looks out the window at the beautiful stretch of beach and one of those incredible red California sunsets and all she wishes is that it would be morning.
Nicky’s gazing at the sunset, too.
Lev and Dani behind him on the lawn like lengthening shadows.
“It is as if we’re in the cell again,” Nicky says. “The three of us in a corner against the world. We are fighting for our lives. New lives. Years ago in that hell I promised you new lives. I promised you Paradise. Tomorrow—if we do what we have to do tonight—we will have those new lives.
“We are just a few steps from safety. Tonight will tell the story.”
Just a few steps from safety, but all the plans are made.
It will be a bloody night.
It already has been. Jimmy Dansky and Jack Wade dead in a fiery pas de deux.
And the sister.
There can be no mistakes this time, which is why he’s ordered Lev to do it. Lev will make no mistakes.
All other problems will disappear.
And I am a shifting cloud in a twilight sky.
113
Letty’s in no mood for sunsets. She feels like hammered shit.
Which is about right, she thinks, considering.
A deputy drives her home. Another drives her car for her.
“Want me to stay?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“The boss said—”
“I know what the boss said.” Letty laughs. “I’m fine.”
She has an ice pack and a bottle of Vicodin and some hopes that Jack will show up tonight to pamper her a little.
Fetch me a drink, fluff my pillow, make sure I get a good night’s sleep.
Because first thing in the morning, I’m taking my broken wing to Mother Russia’s house and questioning Nicky about what two missing kids were doing at his crib the night before they disappeared.
Boss told me to lay off Pam’s case and work the missing kids.
Follow it where it leads.
Well, guess what?
It leads to Nicky.
And where the hell is Jack?
You’d think he’d be falling all over himself to do the concerned male number.
She calls him at the office.
Gone.
Calls him at home, gets his tape, leaves a message.
She knows where he is.
He’s out working the arson case.
Lifer claims dog on the scent
.
Job or no job, Jack will never give up.
It’s just one of the things she loves about him.
She loves him and she’s worried about him and she says a little prayer that he’s okay.
Then she takes two Vikes, gets into bed and turns out the light.
114
Natalie turns on the bedside lamp.
“Go to sleep,” she says to Michael.
“I can’t.”
He’s crying again.
“Why not?” Natalie asks.
“Ghosts.”
“They’re not ghosts, they’re shadows.”
But they are scary, Natalie admits. The branches of the big eucalyptus tree outside the window are blowing in the wind, making ghostlike arms and heads on the bedroom wall.
“I’m scared,” Michael says.
“Of what?”
“Fire,” Michael says. “Like burned up Mommy.”
“This house won’t catch on fire.”
“How do you know?”
I don’t know, Natalie thinks. She’s scared, too.
She has bad dreams.
Where there’s fire everywhere.
And Mommy’s asleep and won’t wake up.
“There won’t be a fire,” she says, “because I am the princess and that’s my command.”
“Who can I be?” Michael asks.
“The princess’s little brother.”
Michael whines, “Can’t I be something else, too?”
“Like a wizard?”
“What’s that?”
“Like a magician,” Natalie says. “Only better.”
“Can I make things disappear?”
“Yes.”
“Like ghosts?”
“Yes,” Natalie says. “Now go to sleep.”
“Leave the light on.”
She leaves the light on.
And lies awake and watches the shadows move.
115
Jack sits in the darkness.
All but invisible against the bluff, he’s waiting for there to be just enough light for him to see without being seen.
So he sits down and just watches the ocean.
Like he used to do as a kid.
Just sits at Dana Strand and does nothing.
The waves are silver under the full moon.
They fall on the beach with a sound like shhhhhhhh.
A Pacific lullaby.
