The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1)

by Thompson, Jack

  “Clarice, come in, come in,” said a well-groomed middle-aged woman who looked the part of an upscale professional. “I’m wrapping up a booking, and then we can go for coffee. Or something stronger, if you prefer. I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Take your time, Sandy. I’m in no hurry.” Clarice didn’t bother to hide the gloom in her voice.

  “Oh, hell. I can do this later.” Sandy closed her laptop and stood up. “Let’s get out of here. No calls,” she said to her receptionist as she walked Clarice out of the office.

  “Coffee or Cognac?” Sandy knew what Clarice liked to drink.

  “Coffee sounds good,” said Clarice. The two strolled arm in arm toward the Starbucks that was half a block down on the opposite corner of the street. As they crossed to the coffee shop, neither woman noticed the blond-haired man on the other side of the street standing by a sidewalk magazine rack and pretending to read. He watched intently until the women went inside and then walked toward the Starbucks.

  Once inside, the two women chatted trivial social talk about Santa Barbara until Sandy finally asked pointedly, “How are you holding up?”

  Clarice stared at her coffee cup. “I know I used to kid about my relationship with Randy, but I really loved that man.”

  Sandy gently took her hand. “I know you did, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

  The floodgates opened and Clarice had the cry she had needed since first learning of her husband’s death.

  Once the tears slowed down, Sandy said, “Coffee isn’t going to cut it. Let’s go.” The two walked down State Street to O’Malley’s, a small old-fashioned corner tavern. Neither noticed the blond-haired man who followed behind, maintaining a cushion of separation between them. When the women stopped briefly to window shop, he crouched down to tie his shoe. His jacket flared open momentarily revealing the holstered weapon underneath. When the two women finally meandered into the tavern, the man picked a discreet spot outside and waited.

  Clarice and Sandy drank and reminisced until Clarice had come out of her funk. When the two women left the bar at eight o’clock and strolled slowly up State Street, the blond man was gone. Clarice and Sandy stopped and hugged in front of the door to the travel agency office.

  “Thanks, Sandy.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie. You sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “I feel a lot better now than when I came. I’ll be fine.”

  Sandy went into her office and Clarice walked down the narrow red brick alley next to the travel agency toward the rear parking lot. It was dusk, and the sun had dropped behind the buildings, casting dark shadows in the alleyway. The blond-haired man appeared suddenly on the other side of State Street and loped across like an animal tracking its prey. When he was even with the alley entrance, he reached inside his jacket.

  Clarice was thirty feet ahead in the alley, unaware of her pursuer. Suddenly a side door slammed open onto the alley just behind Clarice. Sandy stepped out holding a red leather handbag. “Clarice. You left your clutch in my office.” She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and looked back toward State Street, but no one was there.

  Chapter Sixteen: Back to La-La Land

  The trip from San Francisco back to LA was a quiet one for Raja and Vinny. They set out in the morning after the rush hour crush, working their way onto Highway One. Once on the open road, the coast presented a beautiful vista. Vinny never noticed, keeping herself occupied by running algorithms to search for more information on the various interested parties they had so far encountered. Spider programs trolled the internet and collected massive bits of data. Sort programs culled out junk data, while others analyzed what remained for relevance to the case they were on. If any major hacking was required, Vinny did that hands-on live. A girl has to have her fun.

  Raja, on the other hand, was doing a bit of uncharacteristic sulking. Deaths never sat well with him, especially if he had personally taken on the task of solving a case. Like the surgeon who analytically knows he cannot save all of his patients, the death of one still hits home. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells himself it’s just part of the job. A death is a death, and a loss is a loss.

  For Raja, it was always personal. He had a connection that spanned out across the planet. It wasn’t some vague airy-fairy kind of one-with-the-universe idea either. What he felt was intimate, and as real as a hearty handshake with a friend.

  So far the body count was unacceptable. Four dead, and they were no closer to a resolution. There had to be something he had overlooked. Something that would get him to the truth on this case. He thought back to the beginning. The whole thing had started with Randall and Clarice Hope.

  “Have we got anything else on Randall Hope?” he asked Vinny.

  “I’ve researched everything from his college days forward. Other than a DUI and a disorderly conduct at a frat party, the guy is clean. He hit the jackpot when he married Clarice, and then nothing until he takes up with Ramona Griggsby. You know the rest. Shortly afterward, he ends up dead.”

  Raja wasn’t satisfied.

  Vinny pulled up her file on Randall Hope and began to read out loud. This was one of their rituals on a case.

  Raja listened intently while he drove.

  Vinny went through the circumstances of Randy’s death, the autopsy results and the interviews with Ramona Griggsby, but nothing jumped out at him.

  “There has to be something missing.”

  “I’ve input everything I found and everything you told me from your conversations,” insisted Vinny.

  Raja knew that was true. Vinny had awesome powers of duplication. He had never seen her miss anything. It must have been something he had missed himself. Something that he overlooked.

  “I am not questioning your competence, Vinny. I am just frustrated.”

  They drove silently the rest of the way, arriving back in Southern California by late afternoon. When the Ferrari pulled into the garage in Studio City, the long shadows were beginning to blend into dusk. Once inside the loft, Vinny went to work.

  Raja watched her for an hour, then said, “How does your charting look? Any sort of probabilities coming up that I can use?”

  Vinny had a diagram positioning all the players based on the weighted quantity of relevant data connecting them to the case they were trying to solve. Randall Hope still sat alone in the center.

  “Four dead bodies gives me too many variables,” she said. “I need less, which won’t happen, or more.”

  “Let’s not go there, if you please,” said Raja rubbing his head. The last thing he wanted was more dead bodies.

  “I do have more unevaluated data on the judge, and a lot of loose ends.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Well, so far he has a connection to Randall Hope through his wife, although you ruled out any personal motive for wanting Randy dead. He also knew the governor. Then there was his thing for boys, which made him vulnerable as a federal judge. I have a pile of cases he has ruled on, but it’s total Niah.”

  “Niah?”

  “N-I-A-H—Needle in a haystack. Without a better focus, I don’t know what to look for. The judge has reviewed forty-two cases, not one of which is connected to Hope.”

  A call came in from Detective Rafferty.

  “We ID’d one Fernando Hierra Lopez as the killer of Ramona Griggsby,” said Rafferty.

  “Any chance you can locate him?” asked Raja, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Not likely. He’s an illegal. We only got lucky matching his fingerprint from the police files shared by the Mexican border police. By now he has disappeared into the four million plus Latino population of LA county, almost a million of which are illegal. If he doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find him anytime soon.”

  “Niah,” said Raja idly.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I heard you helped the SFPD bust the local Triad. Not bad for a civilian. Any luck on finding the judge?”

 
; “We found him, but too late. He was dead from a heroin overdose. I’m sure it was staged.”

  “Don’t think I’m gonna cry over that news, from what you told me about his habits.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you will. But another dead body isn’t helping our case any.”

  “Nasty business, for sure. Any idea who did it?” asked Rafferty.

  “Whoever he is, he’s a ghost. And whoever he works for is thorough. He is not leaving anything to chance.”

  “Any idea what this mess is all about?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “I know, I know. I’ll be the first one you call.”

  “Gotta go, Tommy. Thanks for the data.”

  After a steak and a couple glasses of red wine, both Raja and Vinny relaxed on the couch. They both needed a break from the case.

  When Vinny got up to dutifully return to work at her computer, Raja said, “Dancing.”

  “Say what?”

  “Dancing. Let’s go dancing,” he said. Raja knew how much Vinny loved to dance.

  “I didn’t think you even liked dancing.”

  “Oh, I like it. I just don’t do it as well as you. You could dance. I could watch. Or get drunk.”

  “Or get laid.”

  “I’m not discounting the possibility, but where I’m proposing we go, that might be less likely.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “West Hollywood. I hear the dance clubs there are the best.”

  “True dat. There’s no better place for a girl to dance than a gay club in West LA.”

  “Well, let’s get cleaned up and go,” said Raja. He looked around.

  Vinny was already halfway to her room, having already stripped off her top.

  Fifteen minutes later Vinny emerged decked out in a sequin top and a short hot-pink skirt. Her eye makeup and lipstick were glitter, and her long legs made her red flats look good, while the shoes facilitated dancing. Raja didn’t often see her dressed for a night on the town, and it was easy to forget how gorgeous she was. He looked her over, trying not to gape.

  “Not bad for a geek, eh?” said Vinny, striking a pose and flashing a smile.

  “You’ll do,” said Raja, suppressing a wow. “What am I supposed to wear to go with that outfit?”

  “Oxford conservative suits you fine. Besides, I doubt you packed much for the club scene.”

  Vinny was right. The button down shirt and loafers were pretty much a uniform for Raja, a holdover from his days at university in England.

  After a slalom run along Laurel Canyon Boulevard that Raja thoroughly enjoyed, the Ferrari cruised into West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard. West Hollywood is a colorful and festive place that comes to life at night. The two of them drove to the Factory, a premier dance club that featured DJs and live acts playing a variety of danceable music. It was a loud and rhythmic scene with a decidedly gay flavor. You couldn’t find better dancing anywhere in LA. Vinny dragged Raja inside and onto the dance floor in a section where the DJ had the music cranked up to a mind-numbing pulse.

  They danced conservatively together for two numbers until Vinny had warmed up. She was already attracting potential dance partners when a couple of the club regulars dressed in Caribbean native costume moved closer. When a Jamaican disco beat started up, Raja made a graceful exit, leaving Vinny to boogie with the two pros. And boogie she did, keeping up with the two gay men all night.

  Raja tried a drink but it was watered-down junk. He watched Vinny from one of the stand-up tables along the edges of the dance floor.

  All night Vinny drank Cuban mojitos that she sweated out on the dance floor. Raja never got tired of watching her dance. She had a natural grace that money can’t buy. By the time they finally got home it was three in the morning. Within half an hour Raja was sound asleep and even Vinny crashed for a rare night of sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen: Bloodhounds

  The next morning, a good breakfast put both Raja and Vinny in a working frame of mind. One thing was for sure, the judge had been eliminated for a good reason. Killing a federal judge brings a lot of heat. Vinny went to work sorting information on the judge. Raja took the project of figuring out what the judge’s key opened.

  After an hour, Raja said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “You should have warned me.”

  “Very funny. As I was saying, I’ve been thinking. The whole man-boy scene had to be more trouble for Judge Griggsby than his wife’s cavalier attitude led me to believe. What did she really know? Besides, she’s dead too.”

  “Seems like a good place to start.”

  “The man-boy community is an underground part of the LGBT movement—a black sheep, crazy sister you keep in the basement part—but part of it, nonetheless. If you listen to the GLAAD spokespeople, it is an unsanctioned part, although advocating for alternative lifestyles while excluding one is a narrow fence to walk.”

  “Tracking down the man-boy scene and its connections won’t be easy,” said Vinny. “I found several remote blogs on the area, with mention of what’s referred to as the Lavender Mafia, a powerful group of gays primarily in the entertainment industry. That led to blogs on legislation about LGBT marriage in California, and the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.”

  “Aren’t there Prop 8 court cases still pending?”

  “Yes, in federal court.” Vinny had found a connection with Judge Griggsby and his position as a federal review judge in California. She was excited. “I found several editorial blogs talking against the use of threats to out prominent people as a form of political pressure. One even called it blackmail.”

  “But, I thought the judge was retiring,” said Raja. “And, if he was being blackmailed to vote to overturn Prop 8, who had the motive to kill him?”

  “Maybe he had a change of heart,” said Vinny.

  “You saw what I saw in San Francisco. Not the setting for a spiritual revival. In any event, how about you follow up on the Lavender Mafia line? You know that’s not my deal.”

  “I can do that,” said Vinny.

  “Another thing I’ve been meaning to ask, did you ever find out who owned the estate where the governor had his party?”

  “Yes. It was a Chinese investment bank working through an offshore holding company.”

  “Aren’t those—”

  “State owned,” finished Vinny. “Most definitely.”

  “Why would they sponsor the governor’s party?”

  “No idea. The Chinese have been quietly buying up real estate and businesses. As long as they stay under fifty percent ownership, they can run under the radar. Any support to an American politician would be taking a big chance of raising red flags.”

  “So, what’s the connection?”

  “It must be big. Sounds like you have a line to follow up,” said Vinny.

  “I think you are right. But before I do, I have an idea on the key we found.”

  “What you mean we, white man? You stole that key.”

  “And now it might pay off. Come on, let’s go for a ride.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  On Raja’s hunch, they drove to the Hillcrest Country Club.

  “Why here?” asked Vinny.

  “The judge was in the middle of some nasty business. He must have kept something to protect himself. He wouldn’t keep it at his office or house. Where better than the private club?”

  “Not that it did him any good.”

  “It can’t hurt to look.”

  The host was very accommodating due to the VIP status Vinny had created for Raja. “How may I service you today, sir?” asked an attractive young woman of perhaps twenty-five.

  Raja raised a finger in Vinny’s direction knowing she was about to spit out one of her snappy answers. It stopped her with her mouth already open.

  “I am interested in any private storage you might provide here at the club,” asked Raja. “Besides the public lockers.”

  “We do have individually numbered securit
y lockers in the back of the VIP lounge. Those are issued only on special request. Would you like one, Mr. Williams?”

  “Could you show us first?”

  “Follow me.” The host led them through a lounge with an over-abundance of mahogany wood, red leather and crystal glass. In the rear was a coat closet and a bank of boxes in the wall that looked like the larger safety deposit boxes at a bank. The host opened one with a key she carried. “They are double-walled titanium alloy for extra security. Suitable for jewelry or any valuable, really.”

  “Do you have the form to apply for one?” asked Raja.

  “I can get one at the front desk if you’d like.”

  “Would you?”

  “Certainly.” The girl hurried off.

  Raja pulled out the key he had removed from the judge’s keyring. The number matched a box on the second row.

  “Should we do this?” asked Vinny, glancing over her shoulder.

  “We have a key, don’t we?”

  “One you took from a dead man.”

  “He certainly can’t object, now can he?”

  “True dat, bro. Hurry up.”

  Raja opened the box and stared inside. Empty. Someone had gotten there first. He closed the box and turned as the girl returned from the front with a form ready for Raja to sign.

  “Just out of curiosity, has anyone been here to ask about these boxes recently?” asked Raja.

  “Why, yes, how did you know?” she asked.

  “Who was it?”

  “Two government agents asked us to open a locker and confiscated the contents. One of our patrons recently died. I guess it was part of their investigation.”

  “Who died?” asked Raja, already knowing the answer.

  “Judge Griggsby. I heard it was a nasty drug overdose. You never really know about people, do you?”

  “Did you get their names?”

  “Who?”

  “The agents.”

  “No, but I think they were FBI.” The girl gazed blankly for a few seconds. “They had badges, but I didn’t get a close look at them.”

  It was amazing what flashing a badge could do to a civilian. You could shove a Mickey Mouse club badge in front of most people and they would nod and do whatever you said. It was nearly hypnotism. Raja didn’t say so, but he was sure the federal agents were anything but. There was no point in mentioning it now. Whatever had been in that locker was long gone.