The 19th Christmas Read online

  He said, “Conklin, you get anything on Dietz from the prostitute?”

  “TMI,” said my partner. “Dietz was twisted, but all he told her about Loman was that he’d hired him to do a job on Christmas.”

  “Fantastic,” Brady said glumly. “Another lucky day. I guess I’ll go out and get a lottery ticket. Buncha them.”

  I said, “Conklin and I are going out to the museum to go over procedures with the head of security. Jacobi is on his way to San Quentin.”

  “Because?” Brady asked.

  “He wants to talk to Ted Swanson.”

  “Okay. That’s smart.”

  He told me to keep him posted.

  I smiled at him and said, “Yes, boss.”

  He went back into his office.

  Conklin and I suited up and headed out to Golden Gate Park. My mood had shifted again. I was getting a paycheck. I was on the Job.

  If possible, Conklin and I were going to make sure that that stunning, treasure-filled museum was bulletproof.

  Chapter 31

  Former chief Warren Jacobi drove the twelve miles north from the Golden Gate to San Quentin, the oldest prison in California. Beautifully situated on 432 acres on San Francisco Bay, it was home to a rotating roster of over thirty-five hundred prisoners.

  The Q was also the only men’s prison in California with a death row. But Ted Swanson had lucked out—the governor had imposed a moratorium on the death penalty. If he hadn’t, Swanson would certainly have been executed by now.

  It was a perfect day, but Jacobi hardly noticed. He was inside his head, thinking about Swanson, the dirtiest of dirty cops. He owned that title. Who in the future could match him?

  Swanson had done something Jacobi had never seen or heard of before. He had recruited two crews from the Robbery Division he commanded at the SFPD’s Southern Station; one of these crews, wearing SFPD Windbreakers and pig masks, had hit Western Union outlets and payday-loan stores, gunning down moms, pops, and whoever else stood between them and the money, and the second crew had executed the more sophisticated and more dangerous robberies, taking down the distribution point of a drug lord known as Kingfisher. Swanson’s cops–turned–armed robbers had stolen millions of dollars in cash and a huge amount of drugs during the fifteen-minute heist, killing four people in the process.

  There had been payback for that. Kingfisher had obliterated all of Swanson’s forces, although not Swanson himself.

  If Ted Swanson’s gang hadn’t been killed, they might still be robbing drug dealers and check-cashing joints, leaving dead bodies behind and enriching their corrupt and dirty selves to the tune of millions of dollars that they’d tuck away in their fat retirement accounts.

  Until the massacre, nobody had guessed that Swanson was behind the robberies. There had been no leaks, no one stepping forward from the ranks. But as chief of police, Jacobi couldn’t duck the responsibility and hadn’t tried. It had happened on his watch. But while he’d refused to let Swanson’s corruption dishonor him, it had tarnished his career.

  He couldn’t change that. But maybe he could stop what was coming.

  In Jacobi’s mind, there was one worthwhile thing that had come from the Swanson catastrophe. Swanson knew robbery from both sides. He might have usable information. And if he did, Jacobi might be able to extract it. But that would depend on who Swanson was now. Would he be cooperative? Unrepentant? Brain-damaged?

  Soon Jacobi would know. He parked in the official lot, entered the main building, and walked into the reception area, which was packed with families, young children, and babies. Families making Christmas visits to inmates.

  He waited in line, then spoke to one of the guards at the desk. He told her his name and affiliation, why he was there, and whom he was visiting, and he cited prior approval from Warden Jason Blau.

  As directed, SFPD’s former chief of police emptied his pockets, deposited his wallet, badge, gun, phone, and pen in a tray, and raised his arms for the electronic security pat-down. A guard scribbled a receipt and handed it to Jacobi, saying that he could collect his belongings when he left the prison.

  Jacobi was escorted through electronically operated doorways, down corridors loud with shouting of prisoners and clanking of metal gates, and into a cage of an interview room.

  The gate closed behind him.

  Jacobi pulled out one of two facing chairs and sat down heavily. He hadn’t seen Ted Swanson since his conviction a year ago. Now he needed him to open the vault inside his head and give him something on Loman.

  He figured Swanson more than owed him.

  Chapter 32

  Ted Swanson shuffled into the interview room, his leg chains rattling and scraping against the floor.

  Jacobi hardly recognized him.

  Before the massacre, Swanson had looked like a typical guy next door: sandy hair, average build, blue-gray eyes; a very convincing career cop with a future. Then he misjudged a drug lord, was ambushed in a firefight, underwent innumerable surgeries, endured six months of rehab, and suffered through a scorching murder trial. Last time Jacobi saw Swanson, he was being helped into a prison van, looking scrawny, beaten up and beaten down.

  But a year at San Quentin in the seclusion of administrative segregation with few visitors, fewer privileges, and no hope of freedom had apparently been good for him. Swanson had bulked up and his face looked sculpted. He appeared fit, healthy, even respectable, for whatever that was worth.

  Swanson grinned broadly and said, “My God, Chief Jacobi. So glad to see you, man.”

  He held out his cuffed wrists so a guard could chain them to a hook in the table.

  Jacobi said, “How you doing, Swanson? Accommodations agree with you?”

  “Not bad, not bad. First time in my life I’ve had time to think. Of course, I don’t get a lot of visitors, so this meet with you makes my month. What brings you here, Chief?”

  “I’m officially retired. Brady hired me to help with a case.”

  “You’re retired? How’s that going?”

  “As you said—first time in my life I have time to think.”

  Swanson nodded appreciatively while Jacobi fought back the urge to punch him in the face. Again. And again. And again.

  “So how can I help?” Swanson asked.

  “It’s like this, Swanson. We’ve got some information about a job going down, but our informant had limited info and our next-best lead is dead.”

  “You want me to help you?”

  Jacobi nodded. “If you’re still connected.”

  “And what do I get in return?” Swanson asked.

  The bastard wanted a deal.

  “How’d you like a conjugal visit?”

  “Ha. Love it,” said Swanson. “But you’re gonna have to do a little more than twist my ex-wife’s arm. Oh, I see. You didn’t know Nancy divorced me.”

  “So what do you want?” Jacobi asked. “A hooker? A generous deposit to your commissary account?”

  “Here’s what. A ‘conjugal visit’ with a pen-pal girlfriend of mine. And I’ll take that deposit to the commissary. A hundred a month for a year sound okay?”

  Jacobi nodded slowly, said, “I can do that.”

  Swanson reached his hands out the length of his chain as if to shake on it.

  Jacobi didn’t go for it. “Let’s see if you still have your chops. Ever heard of a guy named Loman?”

  “He’s the one who’s doing this?”

  “His name came up in the investigation,” said Jacobi.

  “Look, I don’t know him, but I know a little about him. He supposedly knocked off an armored car and a bank, two-for-one heist in LA about five years ago.

  “There were about five or six fatalities, if I remember correctly. LAPD got his name from one of his crew who was breathing his last. Then there was a casino job in Vegas a couple of years later that looked like Loman. Close to a nine-million-dollar haul.”

  Jacobi said, “Black Diamond Casino, right?”

  “Yeah, that’
s it,” said Swanson. “Bodies were littering the pit. The robbery crew got out with their mega-score but then fate intervened. They were incinerated in a collision with a gas truck.”

  Jacobi said, “What about Loman himself? Is that his name or an alias? Where does he live? Known associates?”

  “What I heard is that he hires guys for a job or two. They’re dispensable. My guess, that’s how Loman stays invisible. And I’ll tell you something else. A hunch, really.”

  “Go on.”

  Swanson grinned. “He doesn’t make mistakes. Given the bodies he’s left behind, that’s almost impossible. Yet it’s apparently true.”

  “Okay, Swanson. You’ve given me nothing I didn’t know.”

  Jacobi got up, banged on the door, and called for the guard. Swanson swiveled in his seat and said, “What about our deal, Jacobi?”

  Jacobi scoffed. “When you have something I can use, get in touch.”

  Guards opened the door for Jacobi.

  “Have a heart, Chief. Costs you nothing. Come on. Be a person.”

  Jacobi’s mind filled with furious retorts concerning Swanson’s legendary crime spree, but he stifled them. He needed to get out of this prison and away from Swanson, the sick son of a bitch.

  When he got outside, he called Boxer and then drove to the de Young Museum.

  Chapter 33

  William Lomachenko was washing his car in the driveway when his wife, Imogene, came to the front door and called out to him.

  “Willy. Phone.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Dick. Should I tell him you’ll call him back?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Lomachenko hosed the soap off the car, moved the bucket out of the way, dried his hands on his pants, and trotted up the steps to his brick two-story house on Avila Street.

  Imogene handed him the phone, said, “Give me those.”

  She took his eyeglasses to the kitchen and cleaned them with Windex. When she returned to her husband, he said, “Dick wants to meet for lunch. I’m going to change.”

  “Bring back a package of egg noodles. You know the kind. And a cabbage.”

  Dick Russell was waiting for Loman at a back booth in Danny G.’s, on Van Ness, not far from his house. He lifted his hand in greeting, and Loman walked through the dark bar and luncheonette to the table. He hung up his jacket and cap on a hook and slid into the seat.

  “We’ve got a problem?” Loman asked his number two.

  “None that I can see. We’re at T minus forty-eight hours. I want to review.”

  Loman and Dick Russell had known each other for twenty years. They had done half a dozen major jobs together and had never been caught or even brought in for questioning.

  Russell was a gambler with a deep knowledge of mathematics and physics and a PhD in engineering from MIT. He was a numbers nerd, could figure out timing and angles and do scientific calculations that were incomprehensible to Loman.

  But Russell was also a player—the markets, the ponies, questionable women. He relied on Loman for the planning, then designed the execution from there.

  Loman was nothing like Russell.

  He saw the big picture and had leadership skills. His cover was selling a line of gold chains to jewelry stores. He kept his head down and put his earnings in gold bullion that was stored in vaults overseas. This he could convert to any one of eight currencies with a couple of keystrokes. And any or all of it could be put on a debit card. Hell of an escape plan.

  The two men gave their orders to the waitress. Loman asked for a heart-healthy salad; Russell went with the fried chicken basket, extra fries. Always the gambler. The waitress stood next to Russell, cocked a hip, played with her hair. When she’d gone, Russell opened his tablet and started at the top.

  He listed the first distraction: Lambert’s grab-and-dash, leading the cops to Dietz.

  The second distraction was Dietz’s suicide-by-cop, a good deal all around.

  Distraction three was the clue Dietz had left for the cops on his phone, and distraction four was putting out the idea that Mayor Caputo could be hit.

  Along with that rumor were the innumerable random tips about a big heist that they had paid bums, snitches, and ex-cons to leak to cops.

  Russell said, “The next head fake is set for tonight, Willy. The cops are frustrated and working overtime. This will throw them over the edge.”

  Loman said, “Oh, no. Let me get out my tiny violin.”

  Russell laughed and Loman joined him.

  Loman pulled his new burner phone out of his pocket and dialed, said into the phone, “Yeah, it’s Loman. Go ahead and drop the next bread crumb.” He listened, then said, “Right. That’s all you have to say. I’ll be in touch.”

  He clicked off, smiled at Russell. He was enjoying his little shell game. “Distraction number five is in play.”

  Russell smiled back and said, “We are good.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  They clinked water glasses. Lunch arrived and the two men dug into their meals.

  Were they friends? Not really. But they enjoyed the benefits of good partnership based on history and results. Loman had made Russell rich. And Russell allowed him his little slaughters.

  Loman stabbed a tomato wedge, thinking how in two days they would be so loaded, neither would have to work again.

  Loman had designed the smoke screen of chaos and terror that would settle an old debt and allow him to pull off a job that could net him a billion dollars, easy. It would be the job of his life.

  Chapter 34

  Conklin and I were still at the de Young Museum going over the blueprints and security systems with James Karp, head of security, when news alerts about a possible large-scale armed robbery hit my phone.

  The press now had the story.

  In minutes 911 and the tip lines would be flooded with unconfirmed reports, adding to the mass confusion surrounding the ID of Loman’s robbery target.

  Jacobi found us in Karp’s office, greeted his old friend with a hug, then filled us in about his meeting with Swanson.

  “I didn’t punch him,” Jacobi said. “I wanted to.”

  I nodded my understanding. Jacobi went on.

  “Swanson theorized that Loman’s jobs come with a high number of fatalities intentionally, because dead people don’t talk. This is why Loman is a cipher. A ghost. No record, which explains why we don’t know who the hell he is.”

  As Conklin, Jacobi, and I knew, Swanson’s own six-month-long robbery spree had left eighteen dead, so his opinion actually had weight. I touched my gun belt reflexively, hoping to hell I could finish my shift without firing a shot.

  Jacobi offered to stay with Karp and drill the security team that would be working in the museum overnight. Conklin and I left them to it.

  On the way out to the car, I asked Rich what he thought of the museum’s security.

  “Better than I expected.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “If a gang of robbers come to the door with cop badges and duct tape, they won’t get in. But…”

  “But what if Loman has a bigger idea?”

  “Explosives,” I said. “There’s so much glass.”

  “Helicopter,” Conklin said. He was exploring that idea out loud, how explosives could be dropped, men coming down ropes, when my phone buzzed.

  Brady said, “Boxer, two things. A wallet with Julian Lambert’s ID was found on China Beach near the Golden Gate.”

  “What? Just his wallet? No body?”

  “No body. Just the wallet with his driver license, some receipts, and a few business cards. Your card was in there. That’s how this piece of news got to us.”

  I thought about the lightweight thief in the red puffy coat who had led us on a chase that ended with the firefight at the Anthony Hotel.

  “Are people searching the area?”

  “He could have lost the wallet, Boxer, or it could have been stolen or thrown there to make us think that Lambert was
dead.”

  “Or he was murdered and his body is out there somewhere.”

  “I sent out a notification request,” Brady said. “If a body shows up that matches his photo, we’ll hear about it. We don’t have anyone to go on a body search right now.”

  “What’s thing two?” I asked.

  “An anonymous tip came in that a gallery in Nob Hill is the target,” the good lieutenant told me. He gave me the name and address.

  It was almost six. I wanted to go home. Into the yawning silence of my hesitation, Brady said, “I’d go, but I’m with the mayor. He wants personal protection. There’s no one else I can send.”

  “No problem,” I said. “We’ll check it out.”

  I clicked off and said to Conklin, “A wallet with Lambert’s ID was found on China Beach. No body.”

  Conklin said, “Lambert throwing down a fake clue?”

  “Could be,” I said. “I can think of a few other possibilities.”

  It isn’t scientific, but detectives solve cases with hunches. My hunch was that Lambert was dead.

  Chapter 35

  The banner in the long plate-glass window of the Soigne Gallery announced a special Christmas exhibition and sale of an anonymous collector’s rare musical instruments.

  I didn’t get it.

  Armored trucks, casinos, banks, and even museums made sense, but if this tip was for real, how would Loman turn musical instruments into big piles of cash?

  Conklin and I entered the gallery through the main door and walked into an event in progress. Servers with trays of champagne and canapés skirted around the displays and drifted between the well-dressed prospective customers. The air was perfumed, and the honeyed sounds of a string quartet playing classic carols came from the mezzanine, setting a soothing and spendy mood.

  My partner and I, wearing our SFPD Windbreakers over chinos, stood out like soccer players who’d blundered onto the stage at an opera. We ignored the hard stares of the patrons and took in the scene. The gallery was half a city block long with plate-glass windows fronting the street. I counted six exits, a camera over each, and small motion detectors beaming lasers onto the exhibits, set to chirp if someone got too close.