“We should talk to her,” said the widow, tugging on Raja’s arm. “I have a few choice words for her.”
“Easy, Clarice. We aren’t going to do anything. And especially not here. I told you, I only brought you along so I could get into this shindig.” Raja took her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “Look. I understand your hostility, but you need to let me do my job.”
Tears welled in Clarice’s eyes. It was clear that, despite the age difference and her husband’s indiscretions, she had loved him and suffered greatly his loss.
“Do you like scotch?” Raja asked, mostly as a distraction.
“Cognac suits me better.”
“Waiter. A glass of your best cognac, please. And a scotch—single malt—neat.”
While they waited for their drinks, one of the governor’s aides came over to officially extend condolences to Clarice.
“Mrs. Hope, I am Stanley Bryce, senior aide to Governor Black. The governor was so sorry to hear about your husband’s unfortunate accident. We didn’t know if you would be up to coming tonight.”
Clarice wanted to scream at the man, but Raja squeezed her arm firmly. Instead, she nodded mutely.
“The governor would like to give you his condolences himself as soon as he gets freed up. You know how these parties go. Lots of hands to shake.” Bryce gestured as if to take Clarice’s hand but she pulled back instinctively.
“I’ll see that she stays at the party long enough to see the governor,” interjected Raja.
Bryce looked right at Raja with a veiled flash of hostility, but said nothing. “Again, you have my condolences, Mrs. Hope,” he said, dripping sympathy. “I’ll make sure the governor finds you.”
Once Bryce was out of earshot Raja spoke. “You did well, Clarice. I know that was tough. What an ass.” Raja already did not like Bryce but he said it mostly for Clarice. He needed her to keep it together. “Why don’t you go out on the balcony and get some air. You have helped me enough already.”
Clarice raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but took his suggestion nonetheless. Happy to put some distance between herself and the people she thought responsible for her husband’s death, she headed outside.
“Vinny?” asked Raja, as soon as she left.
“Right here, boss. Stanley Bryce. I’m already on it.”
Raja could hear the rapid-fire clicks as Vinny’s fingers danced on the computer keyboard.
“Bryce is a career political operative who has worked on several campaigns. He latched onto the governor when he first ran for congress in California and has been with him ever since. He does PR, mostly black PR against any of the governor’s enemies, and he’s good at it. If the governor is involved in something shady, Bryce knows where and when and how much.”
“Could he—,” started Raja.
“Kill? I don’t know,” finished Vinny. Raja loved the way Vinny tracked with him. Their connection made investigations so much easier.
“All right, let’s check his communication lines and see what shakes out.”
“Okay. How’s your date?”
“Clarice? She is having a rough time, but she’s a trooper. I don’t think she is involved in her husband’s death.”
“I concur,” said Vinny. “I checked her out going back two years, and found no sign of a covert money trail going to or from Clarice. But, boy, that woman can spend money.”
“That is what it’s for.”
“Easy for you to say. You have money.”
“Having money is an attitude, not a number.”
“So says the millionaire. You can’t win this argument, Raj,” said Vinny, “so you better get back to work and get me more pictures. And try not to get too distracted by your groupies.”
Raja scanned the room and sure enough, a group of young women on the far side were eyeballing him. One of them waved when he looked in their direction. He ignored her, snapped a picture and turned the other way. A pair of middle-aged women who were watching him looked even more dangerous than the young ones. Raja headed to the bar. “Didn’t you say you couldn’t hack the security system?” asked Raja.
“That’s right,” said Vinny.
“Then how did you know?”
“Raj, you are in a room full of rich old suits and the ladies, young and old, pursuing them. Could it be any other way?”
Raja laughed at the picture Vinny painted. It wasn’t far off. Raja Williams considered himself a Caribbean Creole. It was a vague, broad category, and like many from the Caribbean islands, his racial ethnicity had been lost in the crossroads of culture that the West Indies had been for many centuries. His ancestors had fought successfully to throw off the shackles of the colonial Spanish caste system that had discriminated against many groups. Although he could trace his ancestry to native Taino Amerindians, French, Spanish and West African sources, what percentage of each he had no clue. Raja was almond-skinned with steel-blue eyes, high cheekbones, moderately fine features and heavily-waved chestnut hair. It was an exotic look that was catnip for the ladies.
Raja sipped a decent scotch near the bar while taking pictures of all the guests who passed by. A few foreign nationals stood out in the crowd, but most of the guests were ordinary-looking American men who would have been obscure without the bejeweled women and heavily muscled men that followed them around the room. Realizing he hadn’t seen Clarice for some time, Raja made his way to the patio outside to check on her. He found her sitting alone with three empty shot glasses on the table in front of her, not a good sign.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked gently, sitting down beside her.
“You don’t want to buy these thoughts. That bastard.”
“Who?”
“I had a visit from the governor. Told me how fond he was of Randy ... blah, blah, blah. I had to pinch myself to keep from screaming.” She showed Raja the blood on her palm where she had dug her fingernails.
“You know, Clarice, we don’t yet know if the governor was involved.”
“I know what I know. I don’t trust that bastard.” Clarice was drunk. Raja knew better than to argue.
“It is time to get you a ride home.”
“I drove here, damn it.”
“Yes, you did. But you’re not driving home.” Raja waved for a waiter and arranged for a ride. “I have more to do. Go with … ” He paused and looked at the waiter.
“Max.”
“Go with Max. He’ll take care of you. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Not too early,” said Clarice, taking the waiter’s hand. The waiter led her to the coatroom to get her wrap.
Raja returned his attention to the other guests. “Am I going to run out of film in these cameras?” he asked into his headset.
“They are digital, and they automatically upload to my computer and then clear for more pictures. You can’t run out,” said Vinny.
“How about the batteries?”
“Are you looking for an excuse to leave, Raj?”
“You got one?”
“Have you taken a shot of everyone at the party?”
“Everyone but the caterers and the valets.”
“Sounds good, but what about your little girlfriends?”
Raja noticed the two twenty-somethings who were shadowing him around the party. “Perfect. I knew you’d come up with a reason for me to leave. I’m out of here.” Raja headed to the oversized double front door that stood open. Clarice was gone, already on her way home in a limousine. Once outside, Raja handed his ticket to the valet and waited, taking in the view. The clear moonlit night over Los Angeles showcased thousands of glistening lights that covered the city like Christmas decorations. The vista had an almost fairy-tale quality. LA was a wicked temptress who could steal your soul and make you forget who you were. It was one reason Raja never stayed there too long.
Chapter Four: Leonardo
The smooth rev of a familiar engine brought him back to where he stood. The valet braked hard in front of Raja, enjoying the oppor
tunity to drive the classic car. Raja smiled. He drove many hot cars, but the customized 1966 Alpha Romeo Duetto was one of his favorites.
“Nice car, sir,” said the valet.
“Thanks,” said Raja, never taking his eyes off the car. The red Duetto glistened in the spotlights, purring like a cat. Raja climbed behind the wheel.
The round headlights swept left and right as the low-slung red sports car wound along Mulholland Drive high over the city. With the top down, the wind blew the driver’s wavy hair straight back, and the pale moon highlighted his high cheekbones and strong jaw. The narrow mountain road was as dark as it was treacherous, with sudden hairpin turns and steep embankments that dropped off into thin air. Raja loved it. The Alpha Romeo hugged the asphalt like a slot car as it slalomed along the winding road. Halfway down the mountain Raja tried to brake going into a sharp turn and felt the brake pedal sink uselessly to the floor of the tiny sports car. Only his cat-like reflexes and a quick downshift kept the car from sliding over the edge as it careened painfully around the curve in the road. The emergency brake proved just as useless as the car hurtled downward faster and faster. Twice he scraped the car into the left side embankment slowing it down enough to screech around another hairpin curve. The next turn would be the worst, where the narrow edge dropped one hundred feet below the road at the spot the locals called Deadman’s Bluff. Raja knew he would never make the turn at sixty miles per hour. He steered into the turn and then spun the leather wheel the other way, turning the car sideways to its forward momentum. For a brief millisecond the car paused as the tires dug into the road. In that instant Raja opened the driver’s door and threw his body out. Then the tires bit hard and the car flipped sideways, tumbling and bouncing several times before disappearing over the edge. Raja slid along the dirt and came to a stop just as a loud explosion echoed off the canyon walls below. Dusting himself off, he walked to the edge and stared down at the burning wreckage. Someone was threatened by his presence in LA. Whoever it was they were desperate enough to try to kill him, and stupid enough to piss him off by destroying his beloved 1966 Duetto Spider.
Raja brushed his hair back and pulled out his cell phone. First he called Clarice Hope to make sure she was okay but got no answer. Next, he punched the number two on his speed dial. After the calliope of rapid beeps, the phone rang once and he heard Vinny’s familiar voice on the other end.
“You missed me, didn’t you?”
“You might say that. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I should be worried about you. I was sure you were going to leave with those two young heat-seeking missiles.”
“You know me better than that.”
“True dat. Let me guess. Right now you are sipping expensive scotch in a too-cool West Hollywood bar.”
“Wish I were. I’m standing up on Mulholland Drive. And Leonardo is gone.”
“What do you mean? Stolen?”
“No, gone—as in gone up in flames.”
“O-M-G.”
“Your data was right. We are on to something—something big. Someone just tried to kill me. Must have cut the brake lines.”
“Hot damn! That’s great!”
“Great? It’s a good thing you are still in Florida.”
“You know what I mean. By the way, are you all right?”
“Thanks for asking. Yeah. Nothing a couple fingers of The Macallan won’t fix. But I’m going to need your help here, Vinny. Seems I poked a particularly nasty hornets’ nest.”
“Your wish is my command. When do you want me there?”
Raja could always count on Vinny in the clutch. “Next flight you can get. Call me when you are an hour from landing.” He closed his cell phone and watched as the fire below began to die out. The sirens of the fire trucks were already getting louder. He decided to be gone before they arrived. There was no point wasting time with questions he already knew the answers to, and being assumed dead would buy him time to regroup. He looked for a spot where he could work his way down on foot, and disappeared into the darkness.
Raja had gotten into the party on the widow’s invite and only done observation on the scene. Granted, as an independent private investigator he had some celebrity of his own due to a number of high profile cases he had previously handled, but the fact that someone was on to him fast enough to rig his car at the party meant the stakes were high. It also meant that the widow was being closely monitored. As he made his way down the hill, he called Clarice again to check on her. No answer—straight to voice mail. Damn. Raja called a cab to pick him up when he reached the road below. By the time he stepped out of the bushes onto Wrightwood Drive near the bottom of the Santa Monica Mountains, a yellow cab was there waiting a hundred yards ahead. Raja waved and the backup lights flashed on.
The cab eased back to where Raja stood and the driver peered cautiously out a partially open window. “I don’t get too many calls like this,” said the cabby, noticing Raja’s dusty and torn tux. “You said you had a breakdown. Where’s your car?”
Raja pointed behind him into the thick brush of the canyon. A faint orange glow flickered from the spot where the car had crashed.
“Some breakdown. You’re lucky you’re still breathing.”
“No kidding.”
“You want to go to the hospital?” asked the cabby, unlocking his doors.
“Nope. Sunset Boulevard will do,” said Raja as he climbed into the back seat.
The cab stopped in front of a cheap Hollywood motel where Raja checked in under a different name. Then he walked to a bar on Sunset Boulevard where he sat in the shadows nursing a glass of cheap scotch and reviewed the case. He had crashed an exclusive party held for the California governor. The affair had been held at some unknown muckity-muck contributor’s house, undoubtedly as payback for millions donated overtly to the governor’s election fund, or covertly to a slush fund the governor controlled. Ain’t politics grand. Raja had come at the request of a recently widowed heiress who claimed that her husband, a man twenty years her junior, had been murdered, not for sleeping around, which she admitted he did, but for something more serious he had supposedly stumbled upon.
Raja was never shy about crashing directly into a case. More often than not, his “bull in the china shop” approach would shake enough information loose for him to resolve cases quickly. Sometimes that approach created dangerous blow back, but that came with the job.
However, Raja also knew when he needed to collect more data before proceeding. This was one of those cases. He called them icebergs—lots more there than was easily seen. You better do your homework or you could end up like the Titanic.
Back at the governor’s party in the hills, a man whispered something into Stanley Bryce’s ear that brought a sly smile to his face.
Chapter Five: Vinny
Raja was killing time in his drab green motel room when he got the call that Vinny would soon touch down. He grabbed a taxi to LAX. Forty minutes later he was standing on the arrival level carpet scanning the people coming off the planes. Most were worried-looking businessmen in a hurry for morning meetings. A few grandmothers were being swarmed by fawning family members. When a gangly young man with a Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap pulled tight over his head and an oversized denim jacket walked down the ramp, Raja could not help but smile. Vinny liked to travel incognito. The young man stopped in front of Raja and pulled off his cap. A large wave of long blond hair spilled out.
Vinny was Livinia Moore, a twenty-seven-year-old computer geek who could have been a runway model if she wasn’t so brilliant at hacking computers. Vinny tossed her hair back and flashed her gorgeous smile. Then she threw her arms around Raja’s neck and hugged him like the enthusiastic little sister she thought she was.
Raja pulled her off, only slightly annoyed. He had first crossed paths with Vinny on a smuggling case in the Bahamas. She had been tracking money for the U.S. authorities, and stumbled across the smugglers, who were less than appreciative. After Raja saved her life,
they became inseparable. There was something to be said for the old Chinese proverb about being responsible for anyone whose life you save, although since that time, Vinny had saved Raja’s ass more than enough times to pay him back with interest. Now they were a fifty-fifty partnership based on mutual admiration, trust and purpose. Vinny was also Raja’s closest friend.
“Raj, I’m glad you are all right. And, I’m so sorry about Leonardo.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Raja, wistfully. “I loved that little car. This case has already gotten way too personal.” Raja’s love for classic sports cars had started with a young boy riding the hills behind Kingston, Jamaica, in his father’s black 1958 Jaguar XK150S convertible. He kept that original car in his garage on Clearwater Beach. Collecting sports cars was one of his passions, and he never met a classic two-seater he could resist. He owned dozens, and kept them maintained and garaged in various cities just so he could drive them whenever he was in town. In LA he kept a 1966 Alpha Romeo Duetto named Leonardo in a private garage east of the city. With upgraded brakes and tuned suspension, it was a dream to drive. Leonardo had been one of his favorites.
Although it was an expensive, extravagant hobby, Raja could certainly afford it. He was loaded. One rumor held that Raja’s great-grandfather had found a pirate treasure worth millions on a small Caribbean island, making him instantly rich, a la the Count of Monte Cristo. Another story was that his great-grandfather had been a pirate himself, raiding ships off the Spanish Main that were loaded with loot. The truth was less exotic. Raja’s ancestors had worked the sugar cane fields dawn to dusk until they had saved the money to seed a small Cuban molasses label called Raja’s Molasses, meaning the king’s molasses. After building a substantial business, his grandfather had wisely cashed out to a sugar conglomerate before Cuba fell to Castro. Smart investments in coffee futures did the rest. Raja was named for that original company. When his parents’ plane went missing in the Bermuda triangle, Raja had inherited everything, leaving him with more money than he could count.
The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) Page 3