Private Vegas Read online

  It was a theory.

  I’d hate for Ziegler to be right.

  Chapter 10

  I SAT ON a stool in the kitchen and watched as Justine unloaded the dishwasher, put away the blue earthenware bowls we had bought together.

  She said, “I can name a dozen people who want to see you dead, Jack, and that’s not counting your brother.”

  “Don’t count Tommy out,” I told her. “I wouldn’t count out Ziegler and Tandy either.”

  Justine said, “What does your gut tell you?”

  “From now on, park inside the gates.”

  She laughed, shook her head, put on a pot of coffee.

  The intercom buzzed. I went to the surveillance monitor. Del Rio stuck out his tongue. I’d phoned him as soon as the cops left, told him what had happened to my car.

  “I’ll be there soon,” he’d said.

  I pressed the button and a moment later, my friend, former copilot, and current chief investigator came inside. He handed me the keys to a fleet car we kept at the office in case I needed wheels.

  I smiled at him. “Coffee?”

  “Sure. Okay, no eyebrows. Nice look,” he said to me. Then: “How ya doing, Justine?”

  “I love waking up to a fiery explosion. Doesn’t everyone?” she said, handing him a mug.

  “I do! The bigger the better,” Del Rio said.

  I knew Del Rio better than I knew anyone, and he had full knowledge of a part of my life I didn’t know at all.

  What I remember about that night was that I had set Danny Young’s bleeding body down and then it was as though the ground had erupted. I felt a shocking blow to my chest and that was the end.

  I died. I went through the tunnel and for all I know, I was coming out the other side.

  I just remember swimming up to the light. My eyes flashed open and there was Del Rio in my face, his hands pressing down on my chest. He laughed and at the same time tears ran down his sooty cheeks. He said, “Jack, you son-of-a-bitch, you’re back.”

  He told me later that a chunk of shrapnel had struck my chest. My flak jacket prevented it from penetrating my body, but the concussion stopped my heart. Then the helicopter right behind us blew up and was consumed in flames.

  I wasn’t dead, but so many of my friends died that day. I swear to God, I would have traded my life for any of them.

  I watched Del Rio now, joking with Justine. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a brown canvas jacket, and had a two-day-old beard. Rick was a homely guy, not the type that got cast as a hero in movies. He was a hero anyway.

  But the People v. R. Del Rio didn’t care about that.

  He said to me, “Want to know what I think, Jack? Whether that car was firebombed because it was available or because it was personal, the price tag on it makes it personal. You live in a glass house, you know? Stay at Justine’s until this thing is closed.”

  I looked at Justine.

  She said, “Of course. Stay with me.”

  But she didn’t really want that. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a pretty good idea that she’d started seeing someone else. Maybe he was a man who could go the distance, the whole length of the aisle.

  “I’ll be fine at home,” I said. “But thanks.”

  “Well, then, my work here is done.” Del Rio put his mug in the sink, headed to the door.

  I called after him, “Rick. Make sure you shave.”

  “Yes, sir.” He gave me a salute and a grin. But his eyes weren’t smiling. He was worried.

  I was worried too.

  I said, “This time next week, this whole thing is going to be behind us.”

  “I always come out on top, right, Jack? When it counts.”

  “Yes, you do. See you in court.”

  Chapter 11

  BY THE TIME Justine dropped me off at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, I was caffeinated to the core and worried about Rick’s day in court.

  “He’ll do okay,” Justine assured me. “He’s got Eric.”

  I nodded, kissed her good-bye, and watched as she took off down West Temple Street. Then I lowered my shades to hide my missing eyebrows and headed for the entrance to the blocky nineteen-story high-rise commonly known as the Criminal Courthouse.

  There was a swarm of tabloid reporters and trial-junkie bloggers at the foot of the stairs. These “journalists” are what I call raccoons, carnivores who sift through garbage cans, and they’ll do grave mischief if you don’t lock the door behind you and bolt it shut.

  The Criminal Courthouse was like a raccoon feeding station. Some of the most famous defendants in the country had been tried here: O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, Conrad Murray, and other criminal superstars.

  Rick Del Rio even at his worst was never in that league, but because he worked at Private Investigations and was charged with a felony, his trial made for a sexy story that could be sold to celebrity magazines and supermarket tabs for big wads of cash.

  I worried about Rick and I worried about Private’s reputation. Private wasn’t “private” when it was top of the news.

  I waved to big and small raccoons I’d known for years, shouted out, “No comment, thanks a lot,” smiled like I meant it, and kept going, passing between the thick concrete pillars, through the tall glass doors, and into the granite-tiled lobby.

  From there, I took an elevator up to the seventh floor and exited into the wide corridor lit with overhead fluorescents and banked with rust-colored benches. I quickly found courtroom 7B, Judge Pat Johnson presiding.

  I didn’t know Judge Johnson, but she had a reputation for making quality decisions based on quirky logic. Rick was a quirky guy, and I wasn’t sure if the judge’s style would help Rick or hurt him.

  The sheriff opened the door for me and I entered the courtroom. It was paneled and appointed in blond wood, with six rows of twelve chairs in the gallery behind the bar. All of the chairs were occupied, and there was standing-room only in the rear.

  I squeezed into the crowd at the back and took in the whole room at a glance. Rick was sitting at the defense table, his back to me, his head lowered as if he was looking down at his hands. Rick had been in trouble before and had done four years at Chino, which he considered graduate work in underworld connections.

  Rick’s lawyer, Eric Caine, was Harvard Law, and a former staffer with the CIA. I was lucky he liked Los Angeles and was playing for our team. He was a good friend, and also head of Private’s legal department.

  Caine was standing before the judge’s bench along with the prosecutor, ADA Dexter Lewis, a kid of thirty to Caine’s forty-five. ADA Lewis had been schooled in Detroit, was ambitious, crafty, a member of three state bar associations, and a dynamic speaker. I knew he would go far.

  But not soon enough.

  Right now, Lewis was determined to put Rick Del Rio away for ten years, the maximum the law would allow. Shooting down a decorated war hero would help Lewis land a mid-six-figure job in a top criminal defense law firm.

  That would be good for Dexter Lewis, but Rick would lose everything, including his investigator’s license and life as he knew it. It killed me to think about that.

  I shifted my attention to the bench.

  Judge Johnson wore a big diamond brooch at the neck of her robe, and her hennaed hair was held back with a gold headband. She was shaking her head emphatically.

  She wasn’t buying whatever Eric Caine was selling.

  I heard her say, “Good try, Mr. Caine, but I’m not dismissing the charges. Are you ready to begin? Well, even if you aren’t, I am. So let’s go.”

  Attorneys Caine and Lewis turned, moved toward their respective tables.

  Caine had dialed his expression down to neutral, but I knew he was pissed. Dexter flashed a beautiful set of teeth. I hoped Del Rio would turn around so I could give him a thumbs-up, but his head stayed lowered. He was trying to control his anger.

  I hoped with all my heart that he could do it.

  Chapter 12

  RICK
DEL RIO sat at the defense table next to his lawyer, hardly aware of the muted activity around him: The bailiff talking to the court reporter. People coming into the row of seats behind him. Chitchatting. Giggling. He looked straight ahead, but inside, his mind was ranging around in the past.

  Rick had grown up in Branson Point, New Jersey, an industrial wasteland so hard, even weeds didn’t grow in the cracks of the pavement. He had lived in a small, overcrowded brick house on a single residential block between two factories. And down the street from his house was a used-car lot, chain-link fence around it, topped with razor wire and patrolled at night by a pair of Dobermans: Bambino and Lassie.

  Rick identified with Bambino.

  Both he and the big male dog had hair triggers. The dog, though, was permitted to go bug-fuck. That was his job. But after Rick vented his anger, he usually regretted what he had said or done.

  Along with his quick temper, Rick’s looks had shaped his personality. He knew he was ugly. His flat black eyes were set close together, his lower jaw was undershot, and he was a stocky kid, not very tall. But being stocky and having a first-class uppercut punch had made all the difference in the world.

  Rick punched good.

  And he’d been cut out for military service.

  After he killed a few carloads of Afghanis, after he survived the helicopter crash and brought Jack back from the dead, after he got a medal and a handshake from the high command and had a government pension in the bag, he didn’t care what anyone said to him or thought about him anymore.

  They had to watch out for him.

  If he had a motto, it was Do Not Fuck with Me.

  And now he was being fucked with.

  Rick thought about how, three months ago, he had been home in his very sweet house on Sherman Canal, drinking a Coors and eating pork chops in front of the TV, his plate on his lap, his feet up on the hatch cover he’d made into a coffee table.

  Godfather II had been on his fifty-inch flat-screen, and just at the point when Fredo was going for his boat ride, Rick heard the footsteps on the deck followed by a loud shout: “Open up. LAPD.” And then the door was kicked in and about eleven guys stormed his place.

  They threw him facedown on the floor, and one of those assholes put a knee into his back, almost crippling him. Another stepped on his hand with a boot, acting like the remote control was something dangerous. What? A grenade? A piece?

  Or were they just fucking with him?

  After the cops roughed him up and dragged him downtown, he got his phone call. Twenty minutes later, Jack was there with Eric Caine, who took pictures of the abrasions on Rick’s face and told him don’t say anything and don’t give the cops any reason to pile on extra charges.

  Next day, Eric had appeared with him at his arraignment and put up bail, a half million bucks, which had allowed him to go to work and sleep at home.

  After today, he might not sleep in his own bed ever again.

  The bailiff called out, “All rise,” and Rick stood up.

  How had this fucking happened?

  He just didn’t fucking get it.

  He sat down. There was a whoosh of the people in the crowd behind him taking seats, adjusting their clothing, whispering to one another. He felt Caine’s arm go around his shoulders.

  Rick’s ears were burning, but, man, he was doing his best not to let Bambino off the leash. Last thing he needed was to start barking at the ADA and his twelve peers in the box who were going to decide what happened to him.

  Chapter 13

  AFTER JUDGE JOHNSON instructed the jury, she asked Dexter Lewis if he was ready to make his opening statement.

  Rick thought, Right, like, is a shark hungry?

  The kid said, “Yes, Your Honor,” stood up in his sharp blue suit, and went through the short gate to the middle of the courtroom.

  He said “Good morning” to the jurors, looking like he could be the kid or grandkid of some of them: a polished, attractive young man with fire in his belly and blood in his eye.

  Lewis said, “Folks, this is a straight-up case of aggravated assault. The People will prove to you that on June fourteenth of this year, Mr. Del Rio went to the house of the victim, Ms. Victoria Carmody, a defenseless woman of forty, and gave her a beating that almost killed her.

  “Ms. Carmody isn’t in court today. She’s in a coma because of that beating—but before she slipped into this state of unconsciousness, she did testify to the police that Mr. Del Rio was the one who assaulted her.”

  Rick clasped his hands together so hard they hurt. He thought of other things: the boat he was building in his garage, what he would name it, what colors he would paint the hull, that if he got out of here, he was going to take a gun to the range and blow off a little steam.

  Lewis was saying, “This tragic story actually started a year ago, when Mr. Del Rio was dating Ms. Carmody. Ms. Carmody is an independent tax consultant and a quiet person who lives by herself. She met Mr. Del Rio in a singles chat room, and after a few months of seeing him, she decided that they were ultimately incompatible and she ended the relationship.

  “Then, six months after the split—that is, three months ago—Mr. Del Rio called up Ms. Carmody and said he had something that belonged to her and could he bring it over? And Ms. Carmody, having not seen the defendant in a while, said, ‘Sure.’

  “At the arranged date and time, five thirty the next evening, Mr. Del Rio went to Ms. Carmody’s house—and there is no dispute regarding that fact. A UPS deliveryman, Mr. Brad Sutter, is a witness and he will testify that he saw Mr. Del Rio ring Ms. Carmody’s doorbell.

  “Mr. Sutter knows Ms. Carmody because he does pickups and deliveries from her in-home business. He knows Mr. Del Rio from times he has seen him with Ms. Carmody. Mr. Sutter knows him by name.

  “On this particular evening, Mr. Sutter plainly saw Ms. Carmody answer the door and welcome Mr. Del Rio into her house.

  “After the defendant went inside and closed the door, Mr. Del Rio slugged Ms. Carmody in the face. He broke her nose, right here at the bridge.”

  Lewis indicated the site of the break for the jurors, turning so that they all got a good view of it. But he wasn’t finished talking.

  “Mr. Del Rio then proceeded to crush her right eye socket and knock out three of her front teeth. He also put bruises on her body and kicked her in the kidney, lacerating it.

  “As she raised her arm to protect herself, the defendant seized a table lamp, ripping its cord out of the wall, and used it to break Ms. Carmody’s right arm in two places.”

  Rick jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair, which fell, clattering loudly behind him.

  “This is bullshit,” he shouted. “That did not happen.”

  Chapter 14

  JUDGE JOHNSON SLAMMED her gavel down a few times, the crack of wood against wood sounding a lot like gunfire, causing Rick to violently hunch his shoulders, a startle reflex left over from the war.

  The judge said, “Mr. Caine, this is your one and only warning. If your client ever speaks in this courtroom again without having been sworn in, he will be excluded from this trial and you will be fined. Heavily. Get me?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Caine leaned over to Del Rio, whispered, “Apologize, Rick. Do it now.”

  Rick sat, feeling the scalding rush of blood through his veins and the fury pushing against the inside of his skull; hearing Bambino’s harsh growl, the jangle of his paws against the fence, his teeth gnashing; seeing the drool flying off his chops.

  “Your Honor, I’m sorry for my outburst. I won’t do it again.”

  Rick, feeling Dexter Lewis’s eyes on him, turned his head and gave the guy across the aisle a look that could peel paint off the Last Supper. It had no visible effect on the little shit.

  Caine murmured at his side, “Take it easy.”

  Rick felt shame wash over him. He’d made a mistake, and now Dexter Lewis was a very happy little shit, because the jurors had seen him lose his temper. It would be easier than
before for someone to prove to them that he’d beaten Vicky, that sad little bitch.

  Lewis was speaking now.

  “Your Honor, if I may show this to the jury.”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Lewis.”

  The ADA lifted a poster-size photograph of Victoria Carmody in the Cedars-Sinai ICU, looking like roadkill that had been lying in the sun for about a week. Lewis took the photo enlargement over to the jury box and held it up as he walked from one end of the box to the other, talking the whole time.

  “Ms. Carmody has had fifteen surgeries. Her face is disfigured, and one of her kidneys has been removed, as well as one of her eyes. And if she comes out of her coma, she will only have sixty percent use of her right arm. The extent of her brain damage cannot yet be assessed.

  “Ms. Carmody never stood a chance against the defendant, this ruthless man whom she had trusted.”

  Lewis said, “That’s what this trial is about, ladies and gentlemen. The People will prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Del Rio, a former first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, well-versed in the art of hand-to-hand combat, currently an investigator for Private, a lawless private investigation firm, did viciously assault Victoria Carmody without provocation, and without mercy.

  “It is by the grace of God that she survived, and with your help, we will put Mr. Del Rio where he can’t hurt anyone else for a long time.”

  Chapter 15

  RICK GLIMPSED THE faces of the jurors as Lewis took his seat. They were horrified. Dexter Lewis, that bastard, had done a good job burying him.

  Judge Johnson said, “Mr. Caine? Are you ready to give your opening statement?”

  Eric Caine stood up, said, “I am, Your Honor.”

  He buttoned his jacket and stepped out to the lectern in the well. He had no notes. And he didn’t need any.