Unless there were forty-two silent aye voters amid the negative vocal majority, it looked like AB-1987 was nearing the end of its run.
I watched Dalton as he listened. For a while he sat still, resting on his elbow, his big frame draped over his desk. Then he sat back, slid down in his seat a little, and crossed his arms. Maybe bored. Maybe disgusted.
The vote went along party lines—twenty Republicans in favor and sixty-two Democrats against—not quite the end of the story. It was now Dalton’s option to seek reconsideration and another vote.
He stood again, took a deep breath, and gave a rambling recap. Talked about the vets sleeping on the sidewalks in our cities, hungry and cold and hopeless. Said how fast even the lucky ones could spiral down. Talked about how easy it was to just give up, especially when you looked around and saw not one person who knew what you’d been through and what it was like to come home to nothing. Said if anything, the bill wasn’t big enough. Money, money, money, he said. That’s what it’s all about.
There was a long silence in the chamber when Dalton was finished. Seemed like the assembly members didn’t want to move. But the vote was the same, sixty-two against and twenty in favor of AB-1987, six months authored and steered through committee by Dalton Strait, now burning in lopsided flames on the assembly floor.
* * *
Dalton and I sat deep in the Butcher’s Block, far from the windows and the May sunshine. A late lunch on the way, bottles of Drake’s 1500 Pale Ale and one-ounce pours of WhistlePig twelve-year-old rye whiskey on the table before us. Shortly after sitting down, we had gotten onto sports, the usual for us San Diego guys: odds of the Chargers coming back to town, Padres, Phil Mickelson, Aztec basketball.
Now he tapped his half-empty whiskey glass on the table and caught the waitress’s eye.
“I knew they’d shoot it down,” he said. “It’s pro forma at this point. But I like watching them stumble over their own feet, trying to find ways to make sense. Now you watch, the Dems’ version of the same thing will come along, watered down and budget minded, and it will stand a good chance.”
“Riding your wake,” I said.
He shrugged, opening his hands in helplessness. “Off with their heads.”
“Now, Dalton,” said the waitress, setting forth fresh whiskeys. “You be nice and play fair.”
“And what will that get me in this town?”
“A smile from your server.”
“Oh, Betsy, I shall be nice and play fair.”
“Happy hour menus?”
“But of course!”
Time flies when you’re in good company, have drinks courtesy of your state assemblyman, and he has invited you to dinner at his favorite Capitol-close restaurant. Hailing the cab with a hearty wave, Dalton didn’t look like a man who was in debt more money than he made in a year. And would have been much deeper had he and his wife not apparently been spending campaign dollars given to him by the People.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he looked like.
TWELVE
Two pharma lobbyists—McKenzie and Augusta—joined us for dinner at Frank Fat’s. Dalton ordered Leopold’s Navy Strength martinis all around. I sipped mine as Dalton performed highlights from his reading of AB-1987, mostly impressions of the bill’s detractors. One round of martinis became two, then we ordered and braced ourselves for a Chinese feast.
McKenzie Doyle was an elegant Newport Beach blonde, bare shouldered and athletic. She’d played tennis at UCLA until tearing an ACL in a tournament final. Went on to an economics degree and an internship with the pharmaceutical company that made the painkillers that got her through the knee blowout. Augusta Bennett was actually from Augusta, a curvy brunette in a business suit, and a smile that could set off a fire alarm. She was a scuba diver and a recreational pilot like myself, and we quickly got into all that. I noted no engagement or wedding rings, and an easy banter between them that suggested friendship.
Their tone with Dalton was both earnest and light; they refused to let him denigrate himself for the futility of trying to ram AB-1987 past an assembly packed with foes. Their own company certainly had a stake in funding hikes for veterans’ medical care, but they never referred to anything of the kind. I knew that Asclepia Pharmaceutical of Irvine, California, had taken one of their recent cancer treatments off the market and suffered a drubbing on Wall Street. And had just come to market with a third-generation opioid painkiller. I also knew that Asclepia was lobbying lawmakers to defeat a “pay for delay” bill, which would prevent pharmaceutical giants from paying competitors not to make cheaper generics, thus keeping their prices higher.
After dinner we walked down to Pelleriti’s, an assembly hangout for decades. Brick, black leather, and tasseled lampshades, the old West meets Chicago speakeasy. A dining room up front and a softly lit bar in back. Surprisingly busy for a Monday night. Dalton weaved to one table with his awkward gait, high-fived one of the Republican assemblymen I recognized from the reading and another Republican I recognized as the minority leader. Passed a table of apparent Democrats, then suddenly spun and gave them a cross of his index fingers, as if they were vampires.
I opted out of a round of Jagermeisters, sensing practical limits and more alcohol to come. The women seemed light and unaffected, but Dalton’s slur was back and his eyelids had gained a little weight. But the distilled spirits had lifted his animal spirits, and he told us war stories with frank, self-deprecating minimalism. He presented them considerately for the noncombatants, too, with just enough suggested brutality to keep them uncomfortable. By now I’d noted that there was something extra between Dalton and McKenzie, a subtle tuning to each other. And that I had a small majority of Augusta’s attention.
The conversation naturally arrived at the moment’s biggest political story: the two mail bombs directed to two Southern California elected officials in less than a week. With more and more powerful bombs promised soon.
“The Chaos Committee is the most dangerous terrorist organization in the United States,” said Dalton.
“Unless the committee is one crazy loner like the guy in Florida,” said McKenzie.
“Either way,” said Augusta, “innocent people are being maimed, and the fear is growing. What do you think, Roland?”
“A loner will be harder to catch but a group can do damage faster,” I said.
“Do you think Sacramento may be next?” asked Augusta. “It follows.”
“I don’t think he’s done down south,” I said. “It’s a gut feeling, nothing else.”
“Well hunched,” said Dalton. “And I could use another drink.”
Thus, Delord Bas Armagnac 25 Year from France and decaf. Followed by sherry for the women and for Dalton a pint of Guinness Stout and a double Glenfarclas 21 Year Old single malt. And another whopping bill for Asclepia Pharmaceutical.
Of course, a pit stop before departure. I joined Dalton at the sinks and mirrors, saw him tapping a small brown bottle into his hand. Palmed a couple of white round pills and slurped them down with faucet water. A slight sway as he recapped the bottle and put it in a coat pocket, and a not fully focused stare at me in the mirror.
“Stump still aches like a motherfucker.”
“I’ll bet.”
“My pecker took a hit, too. Still functional but blemished. I’m a tad shy about that sometimes.”
I nodded.
“This political shit is a lot less fun than it looks, Roland.”
“I couldn’t do it.”
His not-quite-right eyes lingered on me from the mirror. “You’d be good at it. You know when to say no. Me? I feel like I’m falling down a black tunnel. I think of Natalie being abducted and the spiral starts up and tries to suck me down. So I kill all pain and make it worse.”
We taxied to the Capitol building and the three of us walked Dalton to his office.
He swung open the
door and turned on a light and we crowded in. It was small, nicely furnished, with a large desk overcrowded with a computer and peripherals and another, more elaborate, noisy fan-cooled computer and a twinkling red LED keyboard I recognized as a gamer’s machine. Counter, sink, microwave. A washcloth folded neatly over the bend of the faucet and two face towels over the counter edge. A foldout couch had sheets, an unzipped sleeping bag, and two pillows on it.
We said our good nights to Dalton, who hugged each of us a little clumsily, and I watched for a telltale moment between him and McKenzie but saw none. He had already gone to his gaming station when I closed the door. Back outside we found Augusta’s car waiting.
“I’m going to walk the city,” I said. “You’re both invited.”
McKenzie demurred and got into the car; Augusta handed me a business card. “In case you’d like to investigate me sometime,” she said.
“I’d like that very much.”
I watched the car roll away toward Governor’s Drive, then went back inside the building behind a political-looking man who eyed me hard, planting my face in memory.
“You were with Strait tonight,” he said.
“He represents me.”
He nodded knowingly but I wasn’t sure what he thought he knew.
Past Dalton’s office I found a good hallway corner where I could skulk and view the comings and goings. I wasn’t expecting Dalton to answer the bell and come bouncing out for round ten, but maybe. I wasn’t expecting McKenzie to come back but I thought it certainly possible. Less so Augusta, whose card I idly fingered in the pocket of my suit coat. Life is waiting.
Ten minutes later came Dalton’s sister, Tola, hogging the middle of the hallway, red hair dangling under a Zorro hat, and a calf-length chartreuse satin duster swaying. Swiped herself into her brother’s office with a key card and let the door slam shut.
I did a cost/benefit analysis of waiting. Decided on an hour. If she left soon, that was one thing. If she stayed inside with him much longer, or all night, well, maybe that was another.
Twenty minutes later they came out, Dalton snugging down his necktie, his hair damp and freshly brushed, talking energetically about something, limping hurriedly, his sister half a step ahead of him heading back toward the exit.
I tailed them through the unfamiliar old building as best I could, navigating mostly by the sounds of their steps and voices, hoping not to run into them in some quirky roundabout or dead-end elevator bank. They took the stairs, easy pickings for me. I followed them outside undetected and used a stately sycamore tree for cover as I watched them hail a taxi. I did, too, and all three of us landed at the Shady Lady, R Street at Fourteenth, at roughly the same time.
I dawdled with my cash, counting it three times but mainly watching the Strait siblings as they went inside. Finally paid up, got out and took up a position across R. Got my Canon out of my coat pocket just in case, and fired it up. The G9, my miniature friend, about the size of a pack of smokes, with a 28-84mm lens.
An hour later, just before two a.m., Dalton, Tola, and two older gentlemen came out and headed north on Fourteenth toward the Capitol. I gave them a lead before crossing R. Fourteenth is a classic tree-lined Sacramento street; the night was breezeless and still. Even at this distance I could see that the foursome’s mood was subdued, their voices soft and their words lost. Tola’s dramatic hat hung on its strap over her back. They stopped under a streetlamp and one of the older men lit up a cigar. I took cover behind a grand old elm tree and shot away.
Through the zoom lens I got better looks at the Straits’ after-hours company. I didn’t recognize Cigar Man. He looked to be mid-sixties, with a shaven head and enough of a belly to hold in. I knew the other by his craggy face and silver crown of hair and his accidental interruption of Lark and me in the FBI conference room. Tola hung an arm over his shoulder in a gesture of easy affection.
An hour later in my hotel room I tapped into the IvarDuggans facial recognition feature, using Cigar Man’s nicely captured mug from my Canon. The program can be used on one image at a time, for a small fortune, payable up front. It’s less than reliable but more than a long shot. So I paid up.
I doubt that the program would have identified a common criminal or innocent citizen, but it had no trouble with this guy: “Heath Overdale, 68, chief operating officer for Kimmel, Overdale & Schmitz, a consulting firm specializing in freight and direct-delivery companies.” They listed two big national accounts and a roster of smaller shippers and start-ups as clients. Kimmel, Overdale & Schmitz specialized in “targeted” public relations, and “result-directed lobbying” at the federal, state, and all local levels.
I sat for a while looking out at the dark, uneasy with the facts as I knew them in the disappearance of Natalie Strait, wife and mom and car seller and reelection campaign manager. Gambler, shopper, and a sufferer of bipolar disorder.
But it wasn’t Natalie who was making me uneasy. It was Dalton. The way all roads were leading me to him. The way her life seemed to be less a storm of her own making than a portion of Dalton’s. No wonder she wanted to move the family to Virgil Strait’s compound near Jacumba. It seemed like a matter of moments until their finances caught up with them. Not just the gambling debt and credit card charges. How about the $280,514 in campaign donations they had apparently conspired to use against gaming debts? These are felonies, Your Honor, and easy to document. I supposed Dalton’s real goal was to get himself reelected first, then deal with all that later.
What kind of man was I really dealing with?
In the grainy first light of morning I caught a taxi to the airport and got Hall Pass II ready for flight. Made arrangements by phone to fly into the Borrego Valley Airport, planning to drop in on Harris Broadman, innkeeper, and the man whom Dalton pulled from the burning Humvee in Fallujah, 2004.
THIRTEEN
Borrego Valley Airport is a small flat patch of ground surrounded by desert. A few low buildings, one of them a restaurant, one a fueling station, and some hangars for rent. I taxied off the rough asphalt runway, Hall Pass II’s engine grumbling as if disappointed to be back on earth again so soon after leaving Sacramento.
For a moment I stood in the shade of the restaurant. It was already 91 degrees, and not quite noon. The airport and the town of Borrego Springs are surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest in the state and one of California’s wildest places—mountain lions, bighorn sheep, abundant reptiles, birds, eye-popping wildflowers, and desert-dwelling arachnids, including scorpions. Virgil Strait probably spent his vacations here. From my shade I looked out at the wide horizon, pale mountains rising west and east, a green splash of distant palms against them, a wash of orange wildflowers on white sand.
My rental car was waiting and the Bighorn Motel was easy to find. It was old enough to qualify as old-fashioned but not quite old enough to be desirably retro. Which meant a three-sided horseshoe of separate bungalows built around a central swimming pool and the parking spots. The sun-faded sign was pocked by rust.
The hillside behind the motel was scarred by mounds of mine tailings and open pits blockaded by rusty chain link, and dotted with homes built into the boulders. Homes of rock and wood, recessed against the elements. If it wasn’t for the sun on the window glass I might not have known what I was looking at, so well did the buildings match the hills.
The hum of air conditioners greeted me when I got out of the car. It was near the end of the wildflower season, but the motel looked busy. Kids and young parents in the pool. Desert all around. Isolated homes in the shimmering distance.
The office was a squat stucco block with a canvas awning over a recessed entryway. There were blinds behind the glass front door and the windows, and an intercom built into the alcove wall. A small camera was recessed into the upper left corner of the entryway. The office door was locked.
A young man stood in the entryway, curtly talking
to the box. He was having trouble with his A/C and wanted some help, like now. A woman’s voice asked for his room number, and said that maintenance would be there soon.
“Great day for the A/C to fail,” he said on his way past me.
I pushed the Talk button, gave my name and asked to see Mr. Broadman.
“I’m sorry, he’s not available at this time.”
“May I come in?”
“Why?”
“I have something important to discuss with him.”
“He’s not available. At this time.”
“I was in the war with him. I’d like to leave him my name and numbers.”
“Just put a business card in the mail slot. It’s the way we do it.”
“No, it’s not the way I do it. I told you this was important. Please open the door.”
I held my PI license up toward the little camera. Legally, of course, it gives me no powers whatsoever, but not everybody knows this. It looks intimidating to some.
I heard another voice from inside, a man’s voice, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“I suppose that is okay,” she said.
The power dead bolt clanged open and I went in. The lobby was cool but poorly lit. Small, nowhere to sit, just a high counter on which a variety of desert-activities brochures stood tilted up in a box. A small calendar in a stand and a dish of plastic-wrapped mints. Behind the counter was a door, closed, and a large windowed cabinet featuring desert animals preserved by taxidermy and arranged with care: a tiny owl, a small fox, a bobcat, a covey of Gambel’s quail—mom, dad, young.
The desk clerk was a young woman in her mid-twenties, with tired brown eyes and thinning white hair. Her dress was tan, cut loosely like a smock. She wore a mini-mic clipped to one shoulder strap. Her name plate said Cassy. She looked like people I’d known who were undergoing chemotherapy. Pale, braced, and accepting. She said that Mr. Broadman wasn’t in, and there were no rooms available.
Then She Vanished Page 7