The Vig

by John Lescroart

  “Ray, open the door.” Glitsky often surprised Hardy, but never more than with his patience. “We’re just here to talk.” He put a light hand on Hardy’s arm and nodded, reassuring.

  In twenty seconds they heard another rustling inside, and then a chain being released.

  The door opened, and Ray was walking away from them, across the smoke-filled room, to his couch. Hardy and Glitsky followed, stepping over pictures, fallen leaves, of Maxine.

  Ray huddled sideways at one end of the couch, legs hugged to his chest. Glitsky motioned for Hardy to sit in one of the director’s chairs and sat himself on the couch two feet from Ray, hands folded in front of him, feet flat on the ground.

  One of the lamps was knocked over on the floor. This wasn’t vu zjahday, but the other one. The scattered pictures, the broken lamps. Did somebody break lamps for a living around here?

  “She took it all.”

  Ray had finally raised his head. Hardy had seen more life in store-window mannequins. His eyes, Jesus!

  “Took what, Ray?” Abe, unfazed, gentle.

  Ray put his head back down into his knees. Hardy saw the hands tighten around the legs he held close to him. Trying to get collected. Back up. Over to Hardy. There was no look of surprise—he recognized him but couldn’t say from where.

  “Took what, Ray?” Glitsky prompted.

  “Everything,” he said. “She took it all.”

  “The insurance money?” Hardy asked.

  Ray shook his head, all inside himself. “I mean, we were splitting that. That was always understood. That was our deal. We’d still be friends.”

  Hardy and Glitsky exchanged glances.

  Abe leaned back into the couch. “What happened to the money, Ray?”

  “She cashed it.” His eyes went to the wall of pictures, half torn down. “She split it with Ingraham. They just took it.”

  “Which brings us—” Hardy began, but Glitsky held up his palm again.

  “Where did they take it, Ray?” The repetitious first name, like a mantra keeping them close.

  “It must have been to Ingraham’s.” Ray met Abe’s eyes. “You guys didn’t find it at her apartment.”

  “At the barge, you mean?”

  Ray nodded.

  “So was it there, Ray?”

  No answer.

  “How ‘bout it, Ray? Were you there?”

  “No. I didn’t, I don’t even know where it is.”

  “Maybe they put it in the bank.”

  Ray turned to Hardy. “No, I went to the bank. They took it in cash.”

  Glitsky’s eyes told Hardy to shut up. “You didn’t go to Ingraham’s last week at all? The night Maxine was killed?”

  “No, I told you. No. I’ve never been there.”

  “But your gun was there. Your gun killed Maxine.”

  “I told you that, too. I gave it to her before. I told you.”

  Glitsky leaned over, patted Ray’s knee. “I know, Ray. I know what you told me. The problem is, you also told me you were here by yourself that night, and we’ve run across somebody who says you weren’t.”

  “Your friend Warren,” Hardy said.

  Recognition dawned and Ray glared at Hardy. “You weren’t a cop last time. You were with Court the other night.”

  Glitsky came back in. “That doesn’t matter, Ray. What matters is what you were doing that night. If you weren’t here.”

  “I was here.”

  “Maybe we should all go visit Warren, huh?”

  “No, we can’t do that!”

  “Why not, Ray? Is he lying?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t think.” He put his head back down on his knees.

  “You have to think, Ray.” Glitsky closing in. “Is Warren lying? We’ll get everybody in one room under oath if you want.”

  His eyes were wild now, skitting from Hardy to Glitsky, across the room, as though he were giving some thought to running.

  “Come on, Ray. Just tell us. You were here or Warren was here. Which one was it?”

  “You can’t tell him.”

  “Tell who what, Ray?”

  “Warren.” He shook his head. “No. I promised I wouldn’t tell. We can’t.”

  Suddenly the light went on for Hardy. “You were both here,” he said. “You were in bed with Courtenay. You couldn’t answer the door for Warren because then he’d find that out.”

  Ray nodded. “He might not have finished the movie. He would have thought we’d both betrayed him.”

  “Which you did,” Hardy said.

  “No! It wasn’t like that! Court came by to see how I was doing. She was worried about me being so bummed out about Maxine. Then we had a glass of wine and got a little stoned, and you know …” He looked from Glitsky to Hardy. “You’re not going to tell Warren, are you?”

  “Let’s go, Diz.” Glitsky was on his feet, Mr. Nice Guy gone with the warm breeze. He was already halfway to the door. Hardy was up behind him.

  “I promised Courtenay,” Ray whined. “You won’t tell Warren, will you?”

  Glitsky turned at the door. “Not unless it comes up,” he said.

  “If he’d done it, forget all the Warren-Courtenay bullshit, he’d have tossed the barge for the money. And there wasn’t any sign of that. I believe Ray doesn’t have the money.”

  “So do I.” Glitsky didn’t take his eyes off the road. They were heading back downtown on Geary.

  “So where do you suppose it is, the money?”

  “That question has crossed my mind,” Abe said. “The money is a new angle.”

  “People get killed for money all the time, don’t they?”

  Glitsky stopped at a light. “So I’ve heard.” They sat. The light changed.

  “Green means go,” Hardy said.

  The car moved forward. Hardy told Abe he thought they ought to go talk to Louis in the hospital. Something about a car, but Glitsky’s mind was still on the money.

  “Baker doesn’t have the money,” he said. “He never had any money.”

  “But he might be able to tell us what kind of car Rusty Ingraham was driving.”

  Abe didn’t reply.

  “But he might be able to tell us what kind of car—”

  “I heard you,” Abe said. He hit another light. “Here’s the thing, Diz. I’m following the thread of who was there. Baker, okay. But he’s on the shelf, for the time being, anyway. For a while there we thought it might have been Ray, but I believe Ray. Rusty was schtupping Maxine. You believe that?”

  Hardy nodded.

  “Okay. So now we’ve got Hector Medina and Johnny LaGuardia.”

  “Hector was on the barge?”

  “He says not. He worked a double. But hey, since it seems to be our day to be thorough, and we’re going right by there anyway …”

  The Sir Francis Drake hadn’t changed much in the week since Hardy had last been there. A plaque read “Security” on a door on the third floor at the end of a long hall of doors.

  Hector was sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper.

  He didn’t have any outer office, much less a secretary. Glitsky and Hardy pulled up a couple of wooden chairs.

  “I don’t know if you’d heard,” Abe said. “Treadwell’s in the can, or was as of this morning.”

  Hector’s hands were crossed over the newspaper. “Yeah, Clarence called with the good news.” He looked at Hardy. “I thought you weren’t on the force.”

  “Just spending the day with my buddy Abe.”

  “The funny thing is,” Abe said, ignoring the exchange, “in the course of clearing Clarence and Mario you’ll never guess what came up.”

  Hector looked at his hands.

  “He’s not guessing,” Hardy said.

  “You’re not here for that? The dog thing.” He turned his hands up. “C’mon, you guys. I put a little fear of God in him. And it worked, right? What’s the deal?”

  “I guess the deal,” Abe said, “is that my friend Hardy here and I were talking
about Rusty Ingraham and it came up how you treat people you don’t like. You didn’t like Rusty much, am I right?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying it doesn’t seem to go with your personality, with how you do things, that you would call up Rusty and just get cold feet and hang up. It seems more like, if you had a message for him, you’d go see him.”

  Medina pushed back a ways from his desk. “I never really had a message for him. Not like I did with Treadwell. I realized that when I called him.”

  “You still say you never saw him?”

  “Not in a lot of years. Not to say if I would’ve I wouldn’t have kicked his ass.” He got further out from his desk and put his feet up, crossed. It was a good casual posture, maybe even rehearsed. His hands were crossed on his stomach. “If this is about Rusty getting it, I told you I worked a double that night. You can look at the log.”

  “No, thanks, I’m sure it says that in the log.”

  “So give me a break. What do you want?”

  “You know Johnny LaGuardia, Hector?”

  “Sure. Everybody knows Johnny. What’s he got to do with this?”

  Hardy leaned forward. Abe stood up, cracked his back and asked Hector if he could have a cup of coffee from the pot going by the window. Pouring, he turned to Hardy. “How’s this sound, Diz? Hector calls Rusty to set up some meeting so he can kick his ass. Rusty’s on a roll, having just collected some big money on insurance. He rubs that in Hector’s face.”

  “What are you talking about? What big money?” Hector’s feet were on the floor now.

  Abe kept it up. “So Hector calls his good friend Johnny LaGuardia—”

  “I didn’t say he was my good friend, I just know the guy—”

  “—and tells him there’s a wad of cash in it for him if he goes over and does Rusty. How’s that sound?”

  “I like it,” Hardy said. “My girlfriend can dance to it. I give it a nine.”

  Glitsky turned to Medina. “How ‘bout you, Hector? That about how it went down?”

  Medina had pulled back up to his desk, his hands again crossed over the newspaper. “You got a warrant, Sergeant?”

  Abe looked at Hardy. “You got a warrant? I don’t have a warrant.”

  “Tell you what,” Medina said. “You come back when you got a warrant. I’ll show you the log that says I worked here the whole night. I haven’t seen or talked to Johnny LaGuardia in like six months and I didn’t send him nowhere.” He nodded. “Go find yourselves another patsy. Nice talking to you both.”

  “I don’t think he was sincere,” Hardy said.

  “About what?”

  “About how it was nice talking to us.”

  Glitsky slammed his car door and put the key in the ignition. “Some guys don’t have a sense of humor.”

  “So where to?”

  The late-afternoon traffic was not moving well. They waited, windows rolled down, for a break when the light changed up at the corner behind them.

  “You know Johnny LaGuardia?” Abe asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, he works for Angelo Tortoni …”

  “I don’t know Angelo either.”

  Abe pulled out, tires squealing. “LaGuardia might be the man, even if he wouldn’t have shot anybody with a twenty-two under normal conditions. Could be Ray Weir’s gun was there, he figured what the hell, it would throw somebody like me off the track.”

  “Somebody like you?”

  “You know, a trained investigator with years of experience.”

  “Oh, that you.”

  Glitsky drove.

  “So where are we going? LaGuardia have an office he works out of?”

  “No, but Tortoni does. Though he’s probably gone home by now. I think I’ll see him tomorrow. No point in going by his home, not without a warrant.”

  “Everybody wants a warrant.”

  “We live in a picky world.”

  They were crossing Market now, going south. Hardy caught a whiff of Chinese food, a glimpse of some rappers putting it out to passersby. The sun was low but still hot, casting long shadows.

  “You realize,” Abe said, “we’re back to the vig.”

  Hardy squinted at the sun, came back to Glitsky. “Seems like. You think Rusty got caught in the squeeze?”

  A nod. “How’s this? Rusty had been light on his vig for a while, and maybe Johnny covered for him a few weeks, floated him on his own, knowing this big insurance payment was coming, maybe setting up his own client base. But Johnny gets there and something goes wrong—Maxine doesn’t go along, Rusty’s already blown it at the track, whatever.”

  “Or,” Hardy said, “Johnny sees the money and an easy way to walk with all of it.”

  Abe’s scar tightened across his mouth. “Okay, and this is better. Johnny goes, collects his regular vig, and Rusty’s bragging about how he’s able to pay, he’s fat city now. From what you heard about him, that’s the way he was, right?”

  “Yeah. When he was flying he flaunted it.”

  “And he was flying. So he tells Johnny all about it. Pays him with cash, of course, and maybe Johnny sees the roll, or figures there’s more on board. He goes outside, waits around, figuring he’ll toss the place next time Rusty goes out. But instead, Maxine shows up. He gives them a half hour, sees the bedroom lights go on and off and on, maybe looks in and sees them counting money, breaks in the door, blam, blam, grabs the stash, adios.”

  “And the brace?” Hardy hadn’t bought the explanation from the night at Weir’s.

  “Maybe they were celebrating. Maybe she puts it on one last time while they count the money it brought them.” He looked at Hardy. “I said maybe.”

  “Lots of times,” Hardy said.

  “Granted.”

  “And Hector?”

  Glitsky shook his head. “That was fishing. Hector’s right. Johnny gets around. Everybody does know him.”

  “And Louis?”

  They were pulling into the parking lot at County General. “Louis probably doesn’t know what he knows, but another big maybe seems to be he did it.” Abe pulled the parking brake, turned toward Hardy. “He was there, he had a motive, and there was a weapon. The trained detective tries to remember these things. Motive, means, opportunity. Detecting One-A.”

  In the parking lot there was a strong smell of hot tar.

  “So what’s all this other bullshit we’ve been doing all day?”

  Abe stopped. “This isn’t bullshit. This is covering the bases, which is what we do. We nail it down. We find out where everybody was and what they were doing. We eliminate reasonable doubt—”

  “So you still think Baker did it?”

  “I think he’s a real suspect. Would you let him go right now?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “But that’s because he was coming after me. It doesn’t mean he killed Rusty.”

  “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You want to get technical, Rusty being dead is still an open question.”

  Louis Baker wondered for a minute if he were dead. If he was, then this certainly be Hell.

  Half-open eyes seeing the Man and Hardy standing by the end of the bed, arms crossed, studying. A phlegmy cough rumbled up from somewhere inside him, half smothered, and seemed like to rip his lung—the one already got a bullet through it—seem to rip that lung further apart. His throat burned inside, and the slight movement of the cough made him feel the abrasion on his neck. He went to reach his hand up and found this time that he was strapped to the bed, hands to his sides.

  The Man say, “Louis, you hear me?”

  He tried to open his eyes further. There was a crust over them that made it seem too much effort.

  “I think he’s out.”

  “Louis,” the Man repeat. Same quiet voice. What they gonna do to him now ain’t been done? He tried his eyes again.

  They seemed to have moved closer, Hardy hanging ba
ck maybe a step, the Man—mean scar through his mean lips top to bottom, hovering over, the devil himself.

  “You want some water?”

  The Man held a glass to his lips and tipped it up. “Slow now.”

  Shit burned. Everything burned down there. Then another hit, getting a little better. He held the water in his mouth, letting it drip back down his throat. Swallowing was where the pain came in.

  “Can you talk?”

  Some kind of laugh started but it hurt before it got too far. He tried to shake his head.

  “But you hear me?”

  He opened and closed his eyes. Man want to talk all the time, and Louis don’t got nothin’ to say. Just want to get out, get back to home turf.

  Another sound, he look out again. Woman in white saying he’s under heavy sedation now, perhaps they’d like to come back tomorrow.

  Maybe she been here all along, other side the bed. He felt something cold on his forehead, good. White woman in white. She got good hands, some kind of towel.

  The Man stepping back. “What are his chances?”

  “Barring complications, he ought to be okay in a few weeks. Able to talk—much better than now—in a couple of days.”

  “I guess it’ll keep.”

  Another voice, then, Hardy. “Can he talk at all?” Seeing him over the woman’s shoulder, hovering. “I just need a word or two.”

  Now close up, like before. “Louis,” he saying, “you don’t like me and I don’t much like you either, but I don’t think you killed Rusty Ingraham, you hear me?”

  Yeah, he hear that. Where that shit come from now? Why he in here they think that? How long they been thinking it?

  He opened his eyes as far as he could and looked at the man. Least he don’t look like the devil, like the other one do.

  “Wha …,” he started to say. Croaking.

  “He wants water.” The nurse, watching out for him.

  But no, man, what he saying is asking “What?” But he takes the water.

  Hardy back at him. “You told me about Rusty driving you to his place, you remember that?”