The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1)

by Thompson, Jack

  “I might have to, as a reminder of what it takes to do my job.”

  Chapter Forty-four: The Fat Lady Sings

  Whenever a case was wrapped, Raja liked to celebrate by tasting the local culture of the city. Sometimes he would find a venue unique to that city, sometimes it would be a museum, a ballet, or even a sporting event to attend. Tonight he felt like opera. Le Damnation de Faust was playing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and after this case, the story of a man who sold himself to the devil seemed apropos. He always invited Vinny, she always declined, and Raja would take the opportunity to cleanse himself with an aesthetic bath, as he called the experience.

  When the performance ended, Raja was unsatisfied. Although the orchestration was tight, the costumes colorful and the singing technically superb, Raja did not get the emotional release he had hoped for. Once outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he strolled along the quiet city street. It was late and everything was closed, but he always did his best thinking outside and at night. Something about this case still tugged on his attention. He walked idly on, hoping the issue would come into focus. When it finally did, he called Vinny.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  Raja looked up at the sign on the corner. “I’m on Fourth Street near Broadway. Where are you?” he fired back, mostly because of the dull headache throbbing in his temples. Raja had expected it to be gone with the resolution to the case, but here it was nonetheless.

  “I’m in the loft playing with the toys you got me,” said Vinny, cheerfully. Actually, she had been sitting in on an MIT computer science class that was being broadcast online. The internet was Vinny’s playground.

  The pressure in Raja’s head increased. He looked warily up and down the street and saw nothing but an old woman who was pushing a shopping cart and having an animated conversation with an invisible man. She hadn’t even noticed Raja.

  “You know, Vinny, something has been bothering me. How did Stanley Bryce know about the government computer fraud that Sue uncovered? And how did he do all the fancy computer stuff? He didn’t strike me as a computer nerd. No offense to you.” Raja could hear the tap of Vinny’s fingers on her keyboard.

  “None taken,” said Vinny. Raja was right. Bryce didn’t have the skills. Her fingers flew over the keys. She highlighted a line of code from one of the case files and searched all the documents she had on their case. There it was again. “I may have found something. Let me call you back,” she said, and ended the call. It was more of the code that she recognized from Bryce’s computer. Most of what was on Bryce’s computer showed none of the sophistication necessary nor the hacker skills needed to track everyone connected to this case. There had to be someone else. Moreover, something Sue Storm said had been bothering Vinny. There it was again. Vinny had seen this code somewhere before. More typing.

  Vinny’s eyes popped open wide when she found what she was looking for. She called Raja—it rang, but no answer. He had his ringer off as usual. The call went to voice mail.

  “Damn it, Raj,” said Vinny, out loud. More typing, and then she stood up, manipulating the computer screen in front of her. Out of habit, she plugged into the surveillance cameras near the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to locate Raja. She saw the crazy cart lady waving at nothing, and then found Raja walking alone, unaware she was trying to reach him. She saw something else. “Damn it, Raja,” she said again. Vinny had programmed Raja’s phone to always keep the text notification active. She typed quickly and hit send.

  Raja had stopped walking and was now rubbing his temples, desperate to relieve the pain. His phone made the cheerful melodic trill it always did whenever he received a text, which was almost never and was always Vinny. He looked at his phone and read one word in all caps: DUCK!!! Raja instinctively dropped to the pavement and heard two muted popping sounds in rapid succession. Bullets zipped over his head and through the plate glass window in the storefront behind him. He was out in the open on the concrete sidewalk, an easy target for whoever was firing. Raja scanned for cover that wasn’t there and felt the adrenaline that flooded his body urging him to act.

  One loud report from a gun echoed back and forth between the buildings.

  Raja looked up in time to see a man crumple forward from the shadow of a doorway directly across the street from him. Raja whirled to his right and saw someone with arm extended pointing a handgun and striding rapidly toward the wounded man who was now writhing on the sidewalk.

  Claus. Raja had forgotten he was there. Claus kicked away the silenced weapon the man had dropped when a bullet blew a hole through his shoulder. Claus pinned the man roughly to the pavement with his foot, keeping his Israeli-made Barak pistol aimed at the man’s head.

  Raja got up and walked back to the picture window, inspecting the two holes that had been meant for him. He tapped his knuckle idly on the glass, and heard crackling as a spiderweb of cracks spread over the window.

  Chapter Forty-five: Montezuma’s Revenge

  After the loud pop of a champagne cork, the waiter filled four glasses with the golden fizzing liquid. It was three days after the attempt on Raja’s life, and he, Vinny, Dr. Becker and Detective Rafferty were having dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant to celebrate closing the case. Rafferty had agreed to come only after Raja had insisted, and only after Raja made it clear he would be picking up the tab. It wasn’t long before they dove into discussing the case.

  “Who was the guy shooting at Raja?” asked Sharon.

  “You mean the guy we found hogtied and bleeding on the city pavement?” said Detective Rafferty. He looked squarely at Raja.

  Raja held his gaze without reacting.

  “He’s a professional hit man,” continued Rafferty, “out of Detroit. He had been working for Michael Bates for a while. We tied him to the killings of Judge Griggsby and Jennifer Gowan. He also claims his partner was the one who bombed the Starbucks; but, of course, we can’t ask that guy since he was killed at Clarice Hope’s ranch.” Again Rafferty glared at Raja. “Anyway, the shooter has already taken a deal and rolled over on Bates as the one who hired him for the deaths I mentioned, and for two unrelated and previously unsolved murders.”

  “So Bryce wasn’t the mastermind after all,” said Vinny, feeling partly vindicated.

  “All right, all right, I may have jumped the gun on that one,” said Rafferty.

  “Oh, no, Tommy, you were right,” said Raja. “Bryce had his fingers deep in the pie. He raised millions for the governor’s campaign from the Hollywood gay community by promising a favorable stance on pro-gay legislation and used some of the money to directly bribe judges. He also had Vinny kidnapped. That was all Stanley Bryce. In an odd way, you might say his were crimes of passion. While Stanley Bryce only thought that he was protecting the governor, he was actually covering for Bates and his scheme. Michael Bates was using Bryce to forward his own agenda.”

  “Who is Michael Bates and what exactly was his agenda?” asked Sharon.

  “Michael Bates, CEO and owner of SunGod Systems, was a brilliant computer programmer who invented and patented a programmable chip that was vital in the solar energy industry,” said Raja. “With the patent due to expire, he had to move up the timetable. He had a plan to bring U.S. government funding, Chinese investment, and his company together in a perfect storm that would net him billions of dollars from the patented devise he owned.

  “Bates sent Bryce the governor’s sex video, knowing it would compel him to act.”

  “How did Bates get the video?” asked Sharon.

  “Bates hired the men who recovered the video from the judge’s locker at the Hillcrest Country Club.”

  “Then it never was about the sex video,” said Sharon.

  “We had assumed Bryce was desperate to protect the governor when he kidnapped Vinny. He was, but there was a hidden agenda. Bates had been the one manipulating the technical specs to get government funds for several energy companies linked to his own. Through Bryce, he got the governor to help grea
se the wheels at the federal level. Bates was so leveraged that he needed the government grant money and the money the Chinese had promised to guarantee the long-term contracts for his chip. Without that, he and his company were going to be buried.

  “It was the incriminating files on the fraud that Bates had to stop at any cost. That’s what got Sue Storm’s source killed. Any hint of impropriety would kill off the government funding and the investors, especially the Chinese, who are very cautious in the U.S. marketplace.”

  “You said the governor was helping to get the funding Bates wanted,” said Sharon. “Then why would Bates use the sex video? He must have known you can’t put that kind of scandal back in the bottle once it’s out.”

  “On the contrary, Bates was counting on it ruining the governor’s political career. He needed to end the governor’s term, fast and in an ugly way. Ironically, the governor’s stringent environmental protection agenda that paved the way for green energy, now was a major roadblock to the use of toxic compounds needed in certain green energy products. Simply put, those green energy companies were not yet green enough to pass their own muster. Bates needed the laissez-faire republicans back in power. Throwing Governor Black under the bus was the fastest way to get there. Bates’ insane but ingenious plan would kill two birds with one stone, protect his investments and take out the governor.”

  “Then, when the investigation got too close, Bryce made the perfect scapegoat,” said Sharon.

  “It almost worked, too,” said Raja. “He just didn’t count on Vinny.”

  “I still say green energy is vital to protecting the environment,” said Vinny.

  “And you would be right,” said Raja. “Even Bates, in his own way, was trying to make green energy happen. I would only argue that, in this case, the ends don’t justify the means.”

  “His means being fraud and killing whoever threatened his plan,” said Rafferty.

  “Precisely,” said Raja.

  “So once it was clear that Vinny still had the documents and that the cat was out of the bag, why kill Raja?” asked Sharon. “Bates was already ruined financially. What good would it do?”

  Detective Rafferty offered a theory. “I think Bates knew it was over, and just wanted to exact his pound of flesh. He saw Raja as the one person responsible for destroying him.”

  “Montezuma’s revenge,” said Vinny.

  “What? I thought that was a bad case of the runs,” said Rafferty.

  “I’m talking about the real Montezuma—king of the Aztecs. When the Spanish conquistadors came to Mexico, they slaughtered Montezuma and most of his people. Although utterly defeated, the king did have his revenge. The Spaniards all got dysentery from drinking the local water, and most of them died.”

  “So Raja ruined Bates, and Bates wanted a final measure of revenge,” said Sharon.

  “Revenge, maybe,” said Raja. “On the other hand, sometimes crazy is just crazy.”

  “True dat,” added Vinny.

  “No kidding,” agreed Sharon. “Bates might have gotten off scot-free, if only he had let it go.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Raja. “I’m confident Vinny would have found him.”

  “Bam shizzaam,” said Vinny.

  “You did uncover most of the evidence,” said Sharon. “Without you, we never would have found out about Michael Bates.”

  “And Raja would be dead,” said Rafferty. “You really should be buying Vinny something nice, don’t you think, Raja?”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Vinny, rubbing her chin and teasing Raja.

  “Vinny already has carte blanche for anything she wants from me,” said Raja.

  “So, Bates used Bryce to keep himself at arm’s length from the whole mess,” said Sharon. “And the two men were not really working together.”

  “Right. They were two men, joined by mutual crime and ambition, yet destined to destroy each other. And in the end they were both insane.”

  “I see that now,” said Sharon. “What I still don’t understand is how did Vinny know to tell you to duck?”

  “You want to answer that, Vinny?” asked Raja.

  Vinny’s face lit up. “That night I was stuck on something Sue Storm had said. I remembered she was surprised on hearing about the sex video of the governor. We thought she had sent it to us, so I got to thinking.”

  “I told you how dangerous that is,” said Raja.

  “Shut it, Raj. When I took a second look at the video file I saw that my hunch was right. Someone had doctored it to look like it came from Sue Storm. I traced the code to the video file of the governor on Bryce’s computer, only that time it was doctored to look like it came from me. I traced both files to Michael Bates. When I couldn’t reach Raja, I hacked the security cameras on the street. A good camera is a lot more sensitive than the human eye and with proper adjustment I picked up the shooter hiding in the shadows across the street from Raja. I was just lucky on the timing.”

  “I am pretty sure I am the lucky one,” said Raja.

  “True dat,” Vinny added.

  “You’re lucky to have someone like Vinny looking over your shoulder,” said Sharon.

  “Raja does have some skills of his own,” said Vinny.

  “Like his way of pissing people off,” said Rafferty.

  “Speaking of that, who did shoot the man who tried to kill you, Raja?” asked Sharon.

  “I can answer that in part,” said Rafferty. “Ballistics have already matched the bullets to the same ghost who stopped the killer at Clarice Hope’s ranch. Whoever he is.” Rafferty leveled his gaze at Raja.

  “All I can say is it pays to have an angel on one shoulder and a ghost on the other,” said Raja.

  “See what I mean?” said Rafferty. “You may have forgotten, Raja, but technically you are still in my personal custody.”

  “Yes, what happened to those assault charges against you for attacking the governor?” asked Sharon.

  “The governor dropped them like a hot potato after Bryce killed himself,” said Rafferty.

  “What’s going to happen to Clarice Hope?” asked Vinny.

  “Are you kidding? A woman like that always lands on her feet. Like a cat,” said Raja.

  “Don’t you mean a cougar?” asked Rafferty.

  “I stand corrected. However, she’s not as bad as you think. I do hope she finds someone who makes her happy.”

  “If I were a betting man, I would say she is married again within the year,” said Rafferty.

  No one took the bet.

  Raja held up his glass to make a toast. “To the wheels of justice—they may turn slowly but, thankfully, they always do turn.”

  Rafferty quickly added, “To a case closed. Finally.”

  Everyone said in unison, “Here, here,” and they all drank.

  The four friends chatted for a while over dessert. When they were done, they walked outside on Olympic Boulevard. Vinny held on to Detective Rafferty’s arm and asked him about his career in the LAPD. He certainly didn’t mind having such a pretty girl’s ear. The pair walked ahead, leaving Raja and Sharon alone.

  As they strolled slowly, arm in arm, Raja leaned in close. “You know, Sharon, I don’t need to go back to Florida right away. Maybe you could get some time off.”

  “I appreciate the suggestion, but you and Vinny probably have lots of details to take care of.”

  “You do know that Vinny and I are just business partners, right?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “Really, it’s true,” he protested. “Admittedly, we do have a close relationship. Like family. We are partners and good friends, but that is all.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Sharon, unconvinced. “Look, I’m not here to argue. You live a long way from LA, so unless a case brings you here.”

  “I could think of other reasons to come to LA. And I have my own plane.”

  “You’re sweet to say so, but let’s leave it at this. I’ll look forward to seeing you the next time a case bring
s you back to town. Deal?”

  Raja couldn’t argue with her logic, and he was too much a gentleman to push her on it. “Deal.”

  Epilogue

  When it was time to go back to Clearwater, a phone call to Mickey found him enjoying some down time on the Columbian coast with two of the Bucs cheerleaders. He was in California the next day to pick up Raja and Vinny. Once the jet was in the air and heading home, Vinny and Raja settled into the soft leather seats of the private jet that was taking them back to Florida. Both were exhausted, but happy with the outcome of the case. The plane climbed to cruising altitude and leveled off.

  “You two might want to see this.” It was Raja’s pilot, Mickey, who had the jet on auto pilot and was watching the satellite feed on a small screen in the cockpit. “Turn on Channel 30.”

  Raja punched a button in the arm of his chair. A large flat-screen TV slid down from the ceiling into view. It was the reporter Sue Storm. “Michael Bates, the CEO of SunGod Systems, a Silicon Valley company was taken into custody outside his Corporate Headquarters in Mountain View, California. Bates was arrested and charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to commit murder, bribing of a government official and fraud. Sources close to the case allege that these events are connected to the recent suicide of the governor’s top aide, Stanley Bryce. The continuing investigation into misappropriation of federal funds may involve the governor and even officials in the White House.”

  “Did you tell her that?” asked Vinny.

  “She deserved a great story. This one has legs. I think we’ll see the governor resigning before it’s over.”

  “You know there is no evidence directly linking to the White House. They may not have been involved.”

  “True. But if you believe that, I’ve got some land in the Everglades I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Their recent adventures had finally caught up to them. They both sank back into the seats while Mickey poured champagne. Vinny snorted softly while sipping hers.