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Chapter 28

  Justine stepped out of the high school and onto West Second Street. She had just opened her phone when a black car swept up to the curb. The window buzzed down.

  “Need a lift, lady?”

  “Bobby. What are you doing here?”

  “Just looking after my girl. Get in, Justine. I’ll drive you to your office.”

  “I was just calling a Town Car. What timing. Thanks.”

  She went around to the passenger side of his Beemer and got inside. She leaned over for Bobby’s kiss.

  “How did it go with the kids?” he asked, pulling the car into the stream of traffic.

  “Pretty good, I think. If they ever listen to anyone over thirty.”

  “You don’t look over thirty, sweetie. Not a day, not a minute.”

  “What do you want, Bobby? What else do you want?”

  “Yeah. There is something. Uh, Justine, I wanted to tell you before this gets out. I’m thinking of running for governor. I’ve been approached by the DNC. Financial backing is there for me if I want it. It would be a hard race but worth it if I won. The powers that be think I have a good chance. Bill Clinton called me.”

  “This is kind of sudden, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I didn’t want to say anything until I’d made up my mind to take the idea seriously.”

  She didn’t show it, but Justine was stunned by the announcement. She told Bobby he’d make a great governor, and she believed he would-but her heart was sinking. She had feelings for Bobby. He was the first man she’d been able to trust since she and Jack had broken up. If Bobby became governor, he’d move to Sacramento. Then what would happen? Where would she be?

  “It would be great if we could find the dirtbag who’s killing the schoolgirls,” Bobby was saying. “In fact, it’s got to be done. A conviction would really help me right now.”

  “Sure,” Justine said. She felt a chill coming off the air-conditioning and dialed it down. Bobby seemed to be telling her something with a lot of subtext. So what was the real message?

  If he was elected governor, did he want her to go with him to Sacramento? If so, as Diane Keaton had famously asked Warren Beatty in Reds, “As what?” Justine remembered that Bobby had taken a lot of heat from the police commissioner when he’d hired Private to work the Schoolgirl case. She hadn’t questioned his motive for a second. If anything, she thought Bobby had brought in Private because the case was so important to her.

  But now it seemed like maybe he was intensely involved in this case because it was important to him.

  Bobby braked at a light and said, “You’re quiet, Justine.”

  “I’m thinking about you as Governor Petino. You’d be good. That’s all it is.”

  Bobby reached for her and kissed her. “You’re wonderful, you know that? You’re a wonderful woman, and I’m a lucky guy.”

  “I can’t argue with any of that,” said Justine.

  Chapter 29

  We were working late, Colleen and I, sorting though Andy Cushman’s files and financial statements, many of them red-flagged for further investigation.

  Colleen was wearing a blue silk cardigan over a lacy camisole and man-tailored pants. Her black hair swung around her face when she bent to put another stack of papers on the coffee table.

  “Why don’t you go home?” I said. “It’s almost nine. I can do this.”

  “Let’s get it done, Jack. It’ll just be worse tomorrow.”

  “Sit down,” I said, patting the cushion next to me on the couch.

  She dropped onto the couch, threw herself against the back of it, and yawned. “Another hour should do it,” she said.

  I put my arm around her and drew her close to me.

  “Don’t be messing about, Jack. There’ll be caps on the green and no one to fetch them.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Trouble.”

  She was telling me “hands off,” but without much conviction. Finally, she rested her head on my chest. She smelled like rosewater, her favorite. I put my hand in her hair, and she lifted her face.

  I kissed her and she kissed me back. “Okay, Jack. Have your way with me. Please.”

  “Hang on,” I said. I got up and locked my office door, turned off the overhead lights, went back to the sofa. I said, “Stand up, Molloy. Please.”

  “I can do that.”

  I unbuttoned her sweater, unzipped her pants, and when she was in her underwear, I returned her to the sofa and undressed myself.

  She watched me take off my clothes, then covered her face with her arm as I touched her and made her moan. Colleen cried out as I made love to her… but then she cried tears when we were done.

  I wrapped her in my arms, held her between my body and the back of the couch so that she wouldn’t get chilled. “What is it, sweetie? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m twenty-five,” she said in a whisper.

  “You don’t mean-today?”

  She nodded, sang, “Happy birthday to me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?”

  “I did,” she said.

  “No. I forgot.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, really. I’m not a birthday person.”

  “It does,” I said. I tilted up her chin. “It does. I’ll make it up to you.”

  She shrugged, then pushed me aside, swung her bare legs over the side of the couch, and picked her clothes up off the floor.

  “I shouldn’t say this, Jack, so I won’t.”

  I already knew. No birthday present, no flowers, no dinner. Sex on the couch. I said, “Go ahead and say it. You deserve better than this.”

  “Anyone would,” said Colleen.

  Chapter 30

  Not one, but two celebrity couples were waiting for me in reception as I came through on the way to my office that morning. Their money manager had called ahead for them.

  The most visually arresting of the four was Jane Hawke, the rock idol who was pierced, tattooed, and dressed in five shades of purple. Her husband, action movie star Ethan Tau, sat to her right. He was wearing cowboy garb down to his Lucchese boots.

  Sitting across from them were tennis stars Jeanette Colton and Lars Lundstrom: fair-haired, tanned and toned, Euro-LA all the way.

  When I got settled, Colleen showed the couples into my office, asked if they’d like coffee or tea. Then she gave me a tepid smile and said, “Is there anything else, Jack?”

  “We’re good,” I said. But were we?

  She closed the door behind her. It made an almost imperceptible click.

  “How can I help you?” I said. Then I sat back to listen.

  Jeanette Colton spoke first. “It’s a little difficult to talk about,” she said. Her stolid-looking husband, the Swedish tennis champ, folded his hands in his lap.

  Jane Hawke sugared her coffee and said, “Go ahead, Jeanette. Of all of us, you’re the one who’ll get the story straight the first time out.”

  A look of pain flashed across Jeanette Colton’s face. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what she was going to say. What were the four of them doing at Private?

  “Ethan and I are in love,” she said of Jane Hawke’s husband.

  I looked at the rock star, who was sipping her coffee with a steady hand. I tried to avoid divorce cases. There were plenty of private investigators who liked them and were much better at snooping than I was.

  Lars Lundstrom spoke next. “That’s only part of the story, Mr. Morgan. Here’s where it gets interesting. Jane and I want to be together as well.” His accent was strong, but I was pretty sure I’d gotten it right.

  Jane Hawke’s eyes sparkled under purple shadow. “We’ve been neighbors for years. Now we want to switch.”

  Ethan Tau hadn’t spoken yet. He smiled broadly, then said, “You don’t shock easily, Mr. Morgan. I like that.”

  “Not often, anyway.”

  Tau continued. “We’re all on board with changing partners,�
�� he said. “Jane will go live with Lars, and Jeanette will come live with me. But we’re not as stupid as this might sound to you. We want you to investigate all four of us. We want everything out in the open. No surprises. Kids are involved.”

  “I see,” I said. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but our caseload is so full we wouldn’t be able to help you for weeks, if then. I’m sorry.”

  I was sorry. I would’ve loved to take on a plum job like this: no blood, no guts, no gunfire, just background checks and surveillance. A lot of surveillance. Could keep four operatives busy and on the meter 24/7.

  I gave the interesting foursome Haywood Prentiss’s phone number and told them that I’d not only worked for Prentiss, he’d taught me everything I knew. Then I showed them out.

  I had another appointment, and I didn’t want to be late.

  Chapter 31

  I walked six blocks to an address in downtown LA that Uncle Fred had given me. The building was three stories high, pink paint flaking off the stucco and a sun-bleached green awning over the front door.

  To the left was a bike shop and to the right was a bodega. There was a locked metal gate barring the stairs to the second floor.

  I spoke into an intercom, said my name, a code number, and that Fred Kreutzer had sent me. A voice told me to hang on, he’d be right down.

  A minute later, a wiry man with dark skin and a face shaped like a weasel’s opened the gate and said, “Barney Sapok. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan.”

  I followed Sapok up the stairs to the third floor, where he opened a freshly painted door and showed me into a space filled with cubicles, about twenty of them, each occupied by a man or woman with a telephone headset, a scratch pad, and a computer.

  They were taking bets.

  The place looked like a police command center or a telemarketing office, but in fact it was a bookmaking operation that brought in tens of millions a year. Just this branch.

  Sports wagering is illegal in every state but Nevada. As a result, it’s become a cash cow for organized crime. Barney Sapok was either a family associate or he was forking over a substantial amount of money to the Mob for collection and enforcement and writing it off as a cost of doing business.

  Sapok’s office was in a corner, overlooking the street. He said, “Mr. Kreutzer told me to trust you. He told me to show you some things. But nothing can leave this office.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  He opened a drawer, removed a spreadsheet from a file, and put it on his desk.

  “I pulled this data off the encrypted network. Bettors have code names and numbers, so I spent last night decoding it for you.”

  “I’m sure that will help, Barney. Thank you.”

  I dragged a chair up to the desk and began to scan the list. Familiar names jumped out at me immediately, players on a dozen teams in both leagues.

  “These are their bets over the past year,” Sapok said, running his finger down the columns under the names. “Notice something?” he asked.

  “I see some fifty-grand bets on a single game.”

  “Anything else?”

  “None of the players are betting on their games.”

  Sapok nodded. “If the players are putting in a fix, I don’t know about it.” He dropped the spreadsheet into a bucket of water he kept next to his desk.

  The spreadsheet and all other documents in the bookie’s office were printed on rice paper. I watched the pages and the ink that was printed on them dissolve in the water.

  Sapok asked, “Mr. Kreutzer is your uncle? Is that right?”

  I nodded. “More like a father, actually.”

  “There’s something else he thought you should see. We’ve got a certain client who’s into us for over six hundred thousand dollars. He’s in big trouble. Could have a fatal outcome.”

  “A football player?” I asked.

  Sapok wrote block letters on a pad of paper, turned the pad so I could read it, then ripped off the top page, which followed the spreadsheet into the bucket of water.

  The rice paper dissolved, but the afterimage of those block letters hung in front of my eyes.

  Sapok had written down my brother’s name.

  Tom Morgan Jr.

  Tommy owed over $600,000 to the Mob.

  Chapter 32

  I thanked Barney Sapok and left his place of business in a fury. I wasn’t mad at Sapok. That guy was trying to help by telling me about Tommy’s $600,000 debt. Clearly, Uncle Fred wanted me to know that Tommy was in trouble, and that he couldn’t help Tommy himself.

  Fred and Tommy hadn’t spoken in a dozen years. I’d never known what their fight was about, but Tommy held grudges and he had a big one against Uncle Fred. I guessed that Fred had tried to stop Tom from getting into a jam like the one he was in now, and of course my brother had resented it.

  I was enraged at Tommy and I was disgusted with him. And I didn’t know what to do next.

  Through Tommy, I’d become familiar with the cycle of the sickness. Gamblers gamble for the rush. It goes from compulsion to addiction. They win and place another bet. They lose, which is far more likely, and the elation turns to deflation, and they bet again to cover the loss. Either way, they keep betting.

  Small losses go onto their tab with their bookie. If the debt isn’t paid, the Mob’s loan sharks sometimes move in. The interest on the loan, the vigorish, is obscenely high and it’s due weekly. Too often, the bettor can’t gather enough money to pay back the principal, and when he falls behind on the vig, the threats start, and then the beatings. The next thing he knows, a Mob guy owns his business.

  Tommy had a business. He was doing okay. But a weekly interest charge of 20 percent on a $600,000 loan? That was $12,000 a week before he ever put a dent in the principal.

  Had Tommy borrowed against his house? His business? Was he hanging over the abyss by his fingertips, or was he already falling into a bottomless hole? Sapok had said the outcome could be fatal.

  I ran up the winding stairway to my office and told Colleen that I couldn’t be interrupted.

  I spent a couple of hours making calls. And then I phoned Tommy at his office.

  I told his assistant, “Don’t give me any bull, Katherine. Put him on.”

  Tommy’s voice came over the line. He sounded reluctant and irritated, but he agreed to have lunch with me at one o’clock.

  Chapter 33

  Tommy, who had always been a control freak, picked the restaurant where we would meet. Crustacean is a popular Euro-Vietnamese place on Santa Monica, a few doors down from his office.

  I told him I’d be there in twenty minutes, and twenty minutes later on the nose, I walked through the front door.

  I gave my name to the hostess, who walked me across the glass-covered stream of live koi and settled me with a menu in “Mr. Tommy’s booth” near the fountain.

  I studied the menu, and when I looked up again, my brother was zigzagging across the floor, shaking hands along the way as if he were campaigning for office.

  If anything was important in Beverly Hills, it was appearances, and Tommy was doing a fine job of keeping up his.

  “Bro,” he said, arriving at the table. I stood. We hugged warily. He clapped me on the back.

  “How’s it going?” I said.

  “Fantastic,” Tommy said, sliding into the booth. “I can’t stay long. I’ll order.”

  The waitress came over, cocked her hip, noted that we were identical twins, and flirted with Tommy. She took our lunch order from the “secret kitchen.” Throughout it all, I was pacing in my mind, trying to figure out how best to approach Tommy with what I knew.

  He said, “I hear your friend Cushman is looking good for killing his wife.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “How much you want to bet?” he said.

  Tommy’s business, Private Security, was an agency that placed bodyguards with celebrities and businesspeople who were looking for protection or status or both. Tommy had benefited from
Dad’s contacts a lot more than I had. Tommy looked around the room, said, “As big a shit as Dad was, it would have taken us much longer to make it without him.”

  “So, you’re really doing okay, Tommy? That’s good to hear.”

  “Sure. Half the people in here are on my books, for Christ’s sake.”

  Tommy leaned back from the table and glared at me suspiciously as the waitress set down dishes of cracked crab and garlic noodles, and asked if we needed anything else.

  “We’re good, sugar,” he said to the waitress. To me, he said, “So what’s this about?”

  “I hear you’re still wagering,” I said to my brother.

  “Who told you that? Annie, that little-”

  “I didn’t talk to her.”

  “-bitch,” he said of his too patient, too forgiving wife and the mother of his son. “Why’d you call her, Jack?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Annie since Christmas.”

  “She should be grateful for the life I’ve given her,” Tommy said, breaking a crab in half with his hands. “Clothes. Cars. Everywhere she goes, people treat her like royalty. I’m going to have to explain to her again about flapping her mouth.”

  “Does she know you’re into the Mob for six hundred thousand bucks, Tommy? Because I’ll bet you didn’t tell her that part.”

  “It’s none of her business, big shot. And it’s none of yours either. Whatever I’m into, I can get out of. Trust me on that.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “Go to hell. Don’t call me anymore, okay? A Christmas card will do fine. No Christmas card would be even better.”

  Tommy threw his napkin on the table and bolted for the front door.

  Chapter 34

  I dropped two hundred bucks on the table and followed Tommy out to Little Santa Monica Boulevard, a teeming thoroughfare that cuts through a canyon of office buildings and collateral businesses: a drugstore, an AT and T phone store, an assortment of trendy cafes and upscale banks.