I noticed she’d dropped her handkerchief. I picked it up and inspected it. Embroidered initials were at the top right corner of the handkerchief: J.L. “Hmmm, interesting.” I shoved the handkerchief inside my shirt pocket and recalled how her demeanor had a certain edge to it, demonstrating more disoriented and culpable player than a heartbroken widow. Since my impulses were never wrong when it came to a woman’s devious regard, I decided to give chase.
She turned right onto the highway, heading south and not north to where she would catch a flight out of John Wayne.
As I started my car, I lamented about its body damage and its once sterling silver paint job. My 120k coupe had been devalued to that of a Korean mid-size sedan. What the hell, it was going to end up on an auction block anyway.
I pulled out onto the highway and followed in the dusky sunlight the red streams of Ms J.L.’s taillights. I stayed a close but unnoticeable distance behind her.
Her car turned left and traveled along a narrow road that traversed through the hills. She came to a canyon where a large complex of town homes stood nestled within a grove of live oak trees. She pulled her car into the parking lot and parked.
I stopped along the road in a discreet spot outside the complex. She got out of her car and quick stepped toward the building then climbed a flight of stairs, inserted the door key, and stepped inside: Mission accomplished.
With my Porsche’s engine purring in the quiet canyon, I pulled out my Blackberry phone and logged onto a particular web site that I knew would give me the needed information about the town home. The property belonged to a Jessica Lee, not Jessica Howard as she had introduced herself. That would explain the embroidered initials, J.L., on her fallen hanky.
A car drove up alongside me, a lemon-yellow Volkswagen Beetle. A woman with red hair sat in the driver’s seat. She turned and faced me, revealing both her red freckles and oversize eyeglasses that telescoped a pair of surprised chestnut-colored eyes at me. I killed the engine and got out. She did the same, fumbling with her briefcase until we met on the side of the road.
“Out for a drive this evening, Ms Quinn?” I said.
“It seems we crossed into a parallel universe, Mr. Kidd.”
“Timing is everything. Were you following me, Ms Quinn?”
“Just your scandalous state of affairs, sir.” She handed me a folio. I shuffled through the documents. The twilight made it hard to see, so she snapped on a small flashlight. A document lay on top, indicating the owner of the townhouse.
“So it is Jessica Lee,” I said. “I’m afraid I beat you to it.” I held up my phone, demonstrating the web page. She countered with a photo of Supervisor Conrad Turner paired up with Ms J.L.
“Does she look familiar?” she asked.
“It seems she dates a lot.”
“It seems she likes married men, too.” She pointed at Turner in the photograph. “Been dating this one for a long time. Ms Jessica Lee, aka supervisor Turner’s mistress. In fact, that’s why I’m here.”
“Covertly, I hope.”
“As per your patronizing, Mr. Kidd. I took the photo at the Bay Club the other night in an exclusive back room. It’s from my cell phone—a hip shot. Nothing like a trusty press pass.”
I recoiled a bit as she glared at me proudly. Ms Quinn had her hair down today with a touch of mascara embellishing her eyes along with a hint of flirtation. She had also lost the cheesy pantsuit she wore the other day and was now donning a pair of jeans and complementary blouse. I was beginning to like this girl. “So My hunch was right,” I said. “Ms Lee was just a stooge. So much for the glycerin tears and the dead, rich husband from Arizona routine.” I chuckled. “That idiot Turner sent his bimbo to meet me in her own car and not a rental for cover.”
“A county supervisor does not a clever sleuth make,” Ms Quinn said.”
“You ought to see how he dresses.”
“I have. A little too retro for my taste.” Ms Quinn creased a smile, which was a pleasant shift of character for her. “How was your drive down here, Mr. Kidd?”
“Exciting, actually, a blend of extreme sport and Grand Prix racing.”
“You were supposed to cross that line, sir, the one without the guardrail.”
“And how is it that you know about a missing guardrail?”
“I’m on top of this.”
I half grinned at her earnest demeanor.
“You don’t seem too upset considering someone tried to kill you today, Mr. Kidd.”
“It’s not the first time. Five days ago as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, I read. I’m glad it turned out all right for you.”
“All right would be a relative term. Have you picked up any buzz regarding this Gertrude Hamner, or, aka Iron Maiden?”
“Nothing. I don’t think she was hired by these players in question, though.”
Why not?”
“This den of thieves seems to be a close-knit group. They’re all based in California, and so it doesn’t make sense for them to hire an international hit when they already have the expertise of a few local rogue cops.”
I nodded and went on to explain, “I’ve pissed off a few sugar daddies in the past. It’s finally catching up with me, I suppose.”
She stared at me for a moment. “So the rumors are true. You are a gigolo. You really don’t fit the type, Mr. Kidd.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I’ve read about men like you, mostly tabloid pieces.” A girly laugh bristled from her. “Truth is stranger than fiction. God, what I would give to pick your brain and document the ins and outs of what it is you do—Jesus—I didn’t mean it that way. Material for a novel is what I meant.”
“May we proceed?”
“You must really see things around here, Mr. Kidd, all the dirty deeds, the secrets that get swept under rugs.”
“Trust me; you don’t want to know what’s under the rugs.”
“I do, actually. I really do—”
“Can we get on with this, Ms Quinn?” My voice rose to an injurious tone. “I don’t have all night.”
Her eyes retreated behind her large spectacles. It seemed I’d just shot down a bird loosed from its cage. But she needed to be picked off on this one, to be steered away from the dirty deeds beneath Newport Beach’s luxurious tapestries.
Ms Quinn said, somewhat meekly, “A week ago I called a friend of mine who works for the Newport Beach Police Department, Internal Affairs.” She paused, trying to regain her composure.
My demeanor changed from bully to mentor as I coached her back, “Go on, Ms Quinn.”
She continued, “We shared the same dorm at college, and we both had law majors until she decided to study police science. Anyway, we feed each other, you know, iron sharpening iron. I told her I was working a serious connection regarding a big land grab here in the county. She was interested because Internal Affairs was also investigating certain detectives and officers in the department regarding the same motive.” She held her thought for a moment, then asked, “Did you notice a helicopter above you on the highway earlier?”
“I did. It was blacked out in the sun, though.”
“It was a police chopper.”
“Go on.”
“It was all staged. Jessica Lee was the bait for your faux tryst—a certain coastal resort with no other way for you to get there but by a southbound direction on PCH. The oncoming truck was there to herd you off the road at the right time with the convenience of no guardrail. Those in the chopper were there to direct the melee.”
“There were two other trucks involved,” I said, rehashing the scene in my head. “One panel truck, meant to keep me from veering out of my lane and another one on my ass to prevent an unintentional head on with an innocent motorist.”
“Was it close?”
“Let’s just say the devil swooped in and gave me a timely reprieve.”
“The devil?”
“Never mind. If you knew all this, why didn’t you warn me?”<
br />
“I didn’t put it together until this afternoon. I did try calling you once I figured it out, but you didn’t answer.”
I looked down at the log of missed calls on my phone. “It must have been when I was on the ride.”
“And I’m afraid there’s more to this ride, Mr. Kidd. An unsuspecting rogue in the police department is being targeted by Internal Affairs.”
Ms Quinn was making progress, and with each new revelation my appreciation for her grew. I asked, “And is this rogue talking to your old college friend, by any chance?”
“She’s been sleeping with him, actually.”
“This rogue you’re referring to is nothing but a fat toad, Ms Quinn. His name is Detective Balosky.”
“The same detective in the photos from the yacht club?”
“Bingo.”
“How do you know?”
“I have a direct connection to the local mole network. I’m sure it wasn’t hard for your friend to seduce the rogue detective. He hasn’t been laid in months, if not years.”
“From what I remember of this toad’s photograph, my friend went beyond the call of duty. Sex for secrets. Works like a charm every time.” Ms Quinn grinned again, this time a little more libertine. She said, “My friend and I made a pact in college, one great caper busted open, by us. And we’d do whatever it took to break a case.”
“I wish you had told me about Mick Balosky sooner, you could have saved me ten large.”
“Ten large?”
“Forget it. So what about Internal Affairs?”
Ms Quinn’s back straightened and her face lit. The real yeoman’s work of her investigation was about to be revealed. It was fun watching my green shoot sprout up. “It’s called Oasis, Mr. Kidd. A code name for the one-hundred-and-sixty acres you own, and it seems there are certain players, police officers included, involved in taking your property.”
“Taking out my ass is more like it. So much for law and order.”
“There’s too much at stake for law to matter. They know the cerebral power you have. After all, your land contains some of the most prime acreage in the state. There’s one vital question I have, though.”
“Ask away.”
“Your land must surely be deeded to your estate whether you’re dead or alive, and you certainly have beneficiaries, right?”
I was silent, trapped in the sheer negligence of half-ass estate planning. This young, fledgling muckraker with twilight shimmering against her oversize eye glasses watched me earnestly, waiting for the only rational answer that could suffice from a man who had so much at stake.
“I have no children, no heirs. I’ve left it to no one.”
Ms Quinn calmly replied, “That’s not exactly true, Mr. Kidd.”
“Come again?”
“What do you know about a man named Russell Kidd?”
“He was a cousin of mine on my father’s side. My uncle Robert’s son. Why?”
“You speak of him in the past tense.”
“For good reason, he died in Europe. Rusty, as we called him, was a black sheep of the family, a hardcore party animal. He had a hard-on for any drug that could get him the most high. Last I heard he was living on the streets in Amsterdam as a loser druggie until he died of an overdose.”
“He’s alive and well, as a matter of fact. Not well in a relative sense, but alive, nonetheless. The dead druggie that was believed to be your cousin was a case of mistaken identity. He still lives in Holland in various hostels and shelters and is still, unfortunately, a druggie.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve done my homework. These shady players after your land need an ace in the hole, and Rusty Kidd is the needed card.”
I sucked in a long, thin breath, all the while bending my mind around the sheer reality of a skeleton in my closet with flesh and blood and the extent to which a band of pirates will go to bag someone’s booty.
Ms Quinn kept pitching, “These bad guys know that if a next of kin doesn’t come forward to claim your land after you’ve been, well, liquidated, then the state would get the property through probate. According to California intestacy laws, the state must search for anyone related to you and if not successful, the property would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. That, however, could take months or years, all but nixing these bad guy’s chances of acquiring your land. Unless, of course, they can bring forward a living heir, vis à vis Russell Kidd.”
“And what if Rusty doesn’t comply? From what I remember of the guy he didn’t give a damn about anything except freeloading and getting his next fix.”
“If he’s hungry enough and needs fixed enough then he shouldn’t be too hard to bribe. And if they keep him drugged and brainwashed, then they’ll own him anyway. Either way, they’ve thought this all out very deviously.”
I was both astonished and half exhausted by Ms Quinn’s volleys of revelations. I needed a breather, so I checked my watch and began maneuvering myself from this twilight debriefing and toward the sideline until my favorite investigative journalist said, “There’s more, Mr. Kidd. You’re a sitting duck, a target that must be eliminated so that one Chinese recipient will be left holding the bag in all this.”
After a run of high-speed cars chases, not to mention a near miss with a three-ton truck, I’d thought I’d experienced enough today. But it seemed Ms Quinn now had a screwball to pitch. “Could you repeat that?”
“I’ve been studying certain clues, and I’ve put a theory together I think makes the most sense.” I could see the wheels turning in her head, and they turned far faster than the average IQ. “What do you know about secondary mortgage markets, sub-prime loans, and their related derivatives?” she asked.
I sort of had an idea where she was going on this, but sonofabitch was this girl ahead of the curve. “Enough to know that these loans are more gimmick than anything, and that they’re pushing this housing market to the moon. Why?”
“My research indicates the dynamics of this housing bubble and its obvious outcome is soberly evident. Frankly, it’s all a house of cards ready to collapse. When you combine cheap money, pent-up demand, and creative lending schemes, not to mention the proverbial factor of greed, then you have one hell of a perfect storm brewing.”
Twilight was giving way to the night by the minute. I wanted to get out of this dark chaparral before the mosquitoes made their nightly call and began sucking blood. I also needed to get back to Newport Beach and settle some scores. “And it won’t be the first time in history, Ms Quinn, but what the hell does this have to do with what I’m up against?”
“These players are savvy investors. They know people who manipulate the system and how big-money operates in the lobbies of Washington and on Wall Street—who’s trading on the inside.”
Keep on, young lady, keep on.
“This investment consortium is taking advantage of this grand ponzi scheme. What they really have planned for your land is not development, but a quick sale to a Chinese interest.”
“It’s not the first time a Chinaman’s knocked on my door for a portfolio of fruit trees. Why them now?”
“To the disadvantage of the Chinese, they’re all relatively new to the world of Western finance. They’re flush with cash, too eager, and thus, naïve. There are plenty of Chinese billionaires with too much hard currency and nowhere to park their money safely, except America. The Chinese, like most everyone else, aren’t privy to this sub-prime derivative market and how it’s only a ruse made by Wall Street banks to pull in big money exponentially, cash out, and then be shorted.”
She took a deep breath, and so did I. I then inserted the only question I could muster from my limited knowledge of high finance. “Shorted by whom? I can see how these players would be covered by investment banks, but what about the investment banks themselves and their underwriters? When this house of cards collapses, who covers the short?”
“Who else, the taxpayer.” The feds will never let these all-encompassing fina
ncial institutions fail. You know they’ll bail them out. Too many top Treasury people know too many Wall Street people.”
Ms Quinn and I became silent for a moment.
“And the rich keep getting richer, Mr. Kidd.”
Summa cud laude, hell, this girl was a profit from on high. I was suddenly envious of her father.
She said, “If you think about it, this all fits with the zoning variance grandfathered to your land. If you’re out of the way, then the State’s mandated 91 freeway widening goes into effect, pretty much cutting a swath through your groves with a very lucrative residential and commercial zone left in its wake.”
I added, “And in possession of one Rusty Kidd, who no doubt could be coerced into bequeathing it to a band of pirates.”
Ms Quinn’s head bobbed in affirmation. “These people after your land, sir, can’t wait out an intestacy procedure, thus their reason for exhuming Rusty. They’ve given themselves a year to acquire your land before flipping it to the highest bidder.”
“So where does this leave Terra Firma Enterprises? The whole point of this acquisition was for them to break ground for all the infrastructure projects. If the land is sold to the Chinese, then they may be underbid.”
“With the county board of supervisors stacked on Terra Firma’s side, they may mandate an exclusive contract deal. Not sure about legalities of that angle yet, but it makes sense.”
“It does, indeed.”
The day had been fully engulfed by the evening, and all I could see was Ms Quinn’s large eyeglasses giving off a ghostly glow. I also heard the first chorus of crickets sounding off as well as the buzz of mosquitoes scouting for soft skin and warm blood.
I asked, “Do you have facts to back your theories, Ms Quinn?”
“I will have, but I believe that what I’m telling you are reasonable presumptions.”
I said, “May I have your flashlight?” She handed me the light. I directed the beam of light toward her briefcase and pulled out a sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen. I wrote the two names, Roger Singh and Mick Balosky on it. “These are the two men who were in that photo you showed me the other day. At least one is, for sure. Call me if their names show up on your radar.”
The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd Page 24