The Kings of Cool

by Don Winslow

  “Nothing,” Crowe says.

  “Don’t jerk me,” Chad says. “I need to know.”

  Yeah—Duane knows who needs to know.

  It’s been the deal forever. You get busted with serious weight, you’re allowed to play certain cards—you can give up locations of stashes, safe houses. You just tell the lawyer, who tells the boys so they can move the stuff.

  What you can’t use to trade your way out are people. You do that, it’s a—

  problem.

  “I gave them shit,” Duane says.

  “Go ahead and give them something,” Chad says.

  Duane shakes his head. “They don’t want it. They just want the guys.”

  “And you didn’t do that.”

  “How many times you need to hear it?”

  “Okay, we’re good,” Chad says.

  “No, you’re good,” Duane says. “I’m fucked. This was a setup. The fucking fed is in bed with Leonard. Leonard set us up.”

  “If you knew that, why did you do the deal?”

  “I fucked up,” Duane says. “I thought he was, you know, cowed. And thirty-five cents on the dollar . . . shit.”

  “Okay, okay,” Chad says. “What about Hennessy? Will he hold up?”

  Duane shrugs.

  “We have another lawyer coming for him,” Chad says. “He’ll get Hennessy out on bail.”

  “Fuck him,” Crowe says. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

  “I’m going to do my best, cowboy.”

  “I’m not a cowboy,” Duane says irritably. “You see boots and a dumbass hat?”

  Cowboy . . .

  Fuck.

  221

  “Your Honor, given the potential severity of the likely sentence,” Assistant DA Kelsey Ryan says, “the defendant is most definitely a flight risk. We ask that bail not be set.”

  The DA is a looker.

  Pretty, blonde, blue-eyed.

  And a killer.

  Verrrry ambitious.

  Dennis would like some of that.

  Chad Meldrun stands up.

  Very interesting that Chad showed up, Dennis thinks. Either Duane’s bosses are backing him up big-time, or they want him out of lockup where they can kill him.

  “Your Honor,” Chad says, smiling like he’s about to say that night tends to be darker than day, “Mr. Crowe has no prior drug arrests, never mind convictions, he has ties to the community, and he owns a business. You and I both know that this case doesn’t even belong in federal court—this is the government throwing its weight around—and, in fact, I’m preparing a motion to have the case removed to the jurisdiction of the State of California, where it belongs. As we both know, that motion has an excellent chance of success. I’m going to request that you do grant bail, and set it at a reasonable amount, so that my client can continue to make a living and also fully participate in his own defense.”

  “And he’s going to do that from where, Costa Rica?” Ryan snaps.

  “That will be enough of that,” Judge Giannini says.

  “He’s a flight risk, Your Honor,” Ryan repeats. “And may I remind the court that these charges include possession of a firearm while in the commission of a drug felony. Mr. Crowe is a danger to the public.”

  “The gun was not in Mr. Crowe’s possession,” Chad argues. “It was found in the vicinity of Mr. Crowe’s vehicle.”

  “And had Mr. Hennessy’s fingerprints on it.”

  “Mr. Hennessy is not Mr. Crowe,” Meldrun says.

  Ryan says, “May I also remind the court—”

  “The court does not have Alzheimer’s,” Giannini snaps.

  She’s in a pissy mood, Dennis thinks.

  Good.

  Ryan keeps pressing. “This is not only a marijuana charge. Heroin—a Schedule Two narcotic—is involved, and in the vicinity of a school.”

  “At one in the morning,” Chad says, throwing his arms in the air. “No jury is going to believe that Mr. Crowe was attempting to sell to schoolchildren.”

  “The law does not specify intent,” Ryan answers. “Proximity is sufficient.”

  Chad turns and looks directly at Dennis. “We have seen these shenanigans from Agent Cain before. This is an old dog doing old tricks. It’s an outrageous abuse of authority.”

  Dennis smiles at him.

  “Your Honor,” Ryan says, “Agent Cain is not on trial here.”

  “He should be,” Chad snaps. “This whole case is a setup from jump street, Your Honor, and I will argue entrapment. The government has used a so-far-unidentified CI to lure an otherwise innocent—”

  “We’ll produce the witness at trial,” Ryan says.

  Giannini says, “Let’s get back to the point here. I tend to agree that the weapons allegation will probably not survive judicial scrutiny as to Mr. Crowe. I also tend to agree that while the severity of possible penalties is an inducement toward flight, Mr. Crowe’s standing in the community and the fact that he owns a business are mitigating factors. Therefore I’m inclined to grant bail. Would the government like to suggest a figure, Ms. Ryan?”

  “Ten million dollars.”

  “Look at my face,” Giannini says. “Do I look like I’m in the mood for jokes, Ms. Ryan?”

  “May I suggest OR?” Chad asks.

  “Same answer, Chad, but nice try,” Giannini says. “I’m certainly not inclined to release Mr. Crowe on his own recognizance, but I do see a need for a serious deterrent toward flight. You want to come down on your bid, Ms. Ryan?”

  “One million.”

  “Bail is set at five hundred thousand dollars,” Giannini says, “with Mr. Crowe’s residence and business as security. Can you post the ten percent today, Mr. Crowe?”

  “He can, Your Honor,” Chad says.

  I’ll bet he can, Dennis thinks.

  The boys want him out, no question.

  Question is

  Who are the boys?

  222

  “You cut them loose?” Ben asks.

  They’re sitting in Dennis’s car in the parking lot of Albertsons in Laguna.

  “We can’t hold them on the murder,” Dennis explains. “Unless one flips on the other, we have nothing.”

  “I’ll go in,” Ben says. “If that’s the problem, I’ll—”

  “It won’t do any good,” Dennis says. “You can’t put them on the scene, and they have alibis.”

  “If I go in and swear out a complaint against Crowe for extortion—”

  “The most you have on him is making a threat,” Dennis answers. “You can’t even tie him to the beating Boland gave you, never mind the murders.”

  “So now what?”

  “Run.”

  “What?”

  “Run, Ben.”

  Because these guys are out, and they’re going to kill you.

  223

  Because, as Chon points out, the justice system is more about the system than the justice.

  Maybe Crowe and Hennessy jump bail, maybe they roll the dice with a trial on the drug charges, maybe they take a chance on each other’s holding firm, but the point is—

  They have problems of their own now.

  And so do the higher-ups.

  Someone paid a lot of money to spring Crowe and Hennessy for fear they might flip in the interview room. But Duane and Brian still have good reason—double-digit prison sentences—to trade up, so the question is—

  “Did they get them out to get them out,” Chon asks Ben, “or to get them out of the way?”

  The latter of which leaves two options—

  Crowe and Hennessy jump bail and disappear, or—

  Someone disappears them.

  In either case, the plan worked—drop Crowe into the shit and see who throws a line.

  But how do we track the line back?

  One of Ben and Chon’s favorite movies is All the President’s Men. They can practically quote it. Well, not “practically.” Actually. Driving back from Ben’s meet with Dennis, they go into the routine:
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  Hunt’s come in from the cold. Supposedly he’s got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag.

  The prices have gone up, Bob.

  Follow the money.

  “Follow the lawyer who brought the money,” Ben says. “Somebody sent Chad to bail Crowe out. He’s going to report back to that somebody. And he isn’t going to do it over the phone.”

  “Can you do it, bro?” Chon asks. “Follow him without getting seen?”

  Without getting killed?

  “I think so,” Ben says.

  “I’ll take the other line.”

  Crowe and Hennessy have to be freaking. They know they’re on thin ice. They’re going to reach out.

  And up.

  It’s a good situation, Chon thinks. If Crowe and Hennessy had flipped on each other, Ben would have gotten his “justice,” but it would still have left the higher-ups out there, and they would have him killed.

  Better this way.

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep your head down.”

  “You, too.”

  “Always.”

  Recent evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

  224

  Duane Crowe goes home long enough to pack a few things.

  Because this could go either way.

  He folds his Old Guys Rule shirt into the duffel bag and thinks about the phone conversation that was less than reassuring.

  Yeah, we have judges, but this is federal, Duane. That makes it tough. Say you get twelve—you serve twelve. You can do twelve. I’ve done it. You’re still a young man when you get out.

  I’m not a young man now, Duane thinks. He grabs a couple of pairs of jeans out of a dresser drawer and throws them in the bag. I have a daughter going to college. I have tuition to pay. I can’t do one year, never mind the cost of the trial, the defense.

  And that’s just the drug charge.

  The other thing . . .

  . . . is a problem. If the other guy gets weak in the knees . . . You fucked up. You know, with the girl. It’s a problem.

  Yeah, thanks a fucking heap. Tell me something I don’t know. Just like the Powers That Be, you work your ass off for them, make them money, and then when there’s a “problem” they leave you on an island.

  But Duane gets the message.

  The Powers That Be will take a chance on the drug charge, but the homicides?

  If I don’t do something about Brian, they’re going to do something about me. They’re going to clean house—Brian, Leonard, me.

  If they’re not on their way already.

  He puts the revolver in his pocket and heads out.

  225

  Ben sits in his car and calls Chad Meldrun.

  The bored, too-cool-for-school receptionist puts him on hold. Comes back on a few seconds later and says, “Chad said to say he can’t represent you anymore.”

  “Did he say why not?”

  “Conflicted.”

  “You or him?”

  She hangs up.

  But Ben knows what he wanted to know—Chad is in the office.

  Which works out, because Ben is in the parking structure.

  All the President’s Men.

  226

  O is conflicted as to what to wear.

  She walks into her closet, surveys the hangers full of clothes, and tries to decide how to go, sartorially speaking.

  I mean, what does the style-conscious South Orange County Princess wear to meet her father for the first time?

  Dress it up, or caj it down?

  Go older, or younger?

  She thinks about a polka-dot dress and pigtails, but decides it’s waaaay too creepy because maybe Paul Patterson doesn’t have a sense of satire or irony.

  She looks at your basic “little black dress”—like, look at what a lovely lady the daughter you threw away turned out to be—but worries about crossing the paper-thin line between sophisticated and sexy.

  She thinks about not going at all.

  This is a girl who has stood in front of a vending machine—torn between F-3 (Peanut M&Ms) and D-7 (Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies)—for fifteen minutes and then walked away with nothing rather than make a choice.

  O knows she doesn’t have that luxury here. She has to wear something, she can’t just go naked as the day she was born, as symbolically appropriate as that might be.

  You might be able to walk naked in Laguna without raising alarm—or an eyebrow—but Newport Beach? They don’t get undressed to have sex. You could get arrested in Newport for wearing white after Labor Day.

  Okay, this is getting you nowhere, O thinks.

  But maybe that’s just where you should go.

  Maybe you should lie down, fire up a blunt, and forget it.

  227

  Chon pulls over near Crowe’s place up Laguna Canyon and looks at the driveway.

  Crowe’s car isn’t there.

  Chon gets out, slips his pistol into his waistband, and goes to the front door. It’s locked.

  The man has taken off.

  Chon doesn’t blame him, but it’s a problem.

  Not a big problem, but a problem.

  228

  Chad “No Worries” Meldrun comes into the parking structure like he has a problem.

  Worries.

  Has that “places to go, people to see” look on his face as he strides to his Benz, gets in, and peels out.

  Ben follows him.

  West on Jamboree.

  North on the PCH.

  All the way to the Newport Beach Yacht Club.

  Which figures, Ben thinks.

  Money is a pigeon.

  It always finds its way home.

  229

  This is, like, Republican Central. The party could hold its California convention right here, and Ben feels like he should have a visa to even get in.

  A twenty slipped into the doorman’s palm

  (“Are you a member, sir?”

  “No, but he is.”)

  is sufficient documentation, but Ben feels Out of Place and a little hostile as he makes his way through the lobby and watches Meldrun go out onto the patio, overlooking the harbor, overlooking the yachts, where on this late Friday afternoon the elite are there to have a drink and to see and be seen.

  Ben’s working hard at being Joe Detective, trying to blend into the crowd and still keep an eye on Meldrun without being seen when he hears—

  “Ben?”

  230

  It’s a woman’s voice.

  “Ben? Ophelia’s friend? Is that you?”

  Ben panics momentarily because

  (a) he doesn’t want to lose sight of Chad, and

  (b) he can’t think of her actual name, only “Paqu.”

  “Oh, hi. Mrs. . . .”

  He damn near says “Four.”

  “It’s Bennett, now,” she says in a tone that manages to combine self-deprecating charm with a warning not to push the subject. (Indeed, she’s here cruising for his replacement. Four is about to become Fourmer.)

  “Mrs. Bennett.”

  She’s statuesque, sexy, beautiful, with all the genuine human warmth of an ice sculpture.

  (Except, Ben remembers, O swears that she will not melt. O has watched The Wizard of Oz, like, twelve thousand times to get tips.)

  “What brings you here?” Paqu looks a little surprised, as if she either can’t understand why a friend of her daughter’s would be at the club, or forgot that they let Jews in now.

  Ben catches sight of Chad’s back. “Oh, you know—Friday . . . the patio.”

  Paqu glances at his left hand. “Yes, it can be quite the place to meet eligible young ladies.”

  Subtext: you’d better not be doing my daughter.

  “Is O with you?” Ben asks, aware that if she is, she’s in handcuffs and leg irons, because O would rather sip cat urine straight from the cat than iced tea with her mother on the patio.

  Paqu lets the “O” reference slide. “No, I believe sh
e’s out seeking employment.”

  And I believe, Ben thinks, that bin Laden is hitting open-mike night at the West Akron Holiday Inn.

  He watches Meldrun go up to someone—Ben can’t make out his face—along the railing bar.

  “What do you do?” Paqu asks.

  “Sorry?”

  “What do you do, Ben?” Paqu asks. “For a living?”

  “I’m an environmental consultant,” Ben says, still unable to get a good look at who Chad is talking to.

  “What does that mean?”

  It means I have to tell the IRS something, Ben thinks. “When a big building or a complex is going up, I advise the landscape architects what kinds of trees, plants, and grasses to put in.”

  “That sounds fascinating,” Paqu says. “Very ‘green.’ Is that the word?”

  “That’s one of them.”

  “What’s another?” she asks.

  That’s when Ben realizes she’s a little drunk.

  “Bullshit,” Ben tells her. “It’s all bullshit, Mrs. B.”

  She looks him straight in the eyes. “Ain’t that the goddamn truth, Ben.”

  Yeah it is.

  Because some people move out of the way and Ben sees who Meldrun is talking to.

  Stan.

  231

  O—wearing a blue knee-length dress—walks up to the distinguished older home on Balboa Island and rings the bell. When the man comes to the door, she says, “Hi. Would you be my sperm donor?”

  The man blinks and says, “Could I just take three boxes of Thin Mints, please?”

  232

  Brian Hennessy opens the door of his apartment to a nasty surprise.

  Chon.

  Who lays a shotgun stock into the base of Brian’s skull.

  233

  Places Ben Would Expect to See His Father Before He Would Expect to See Him on the Patio: