Several times coming up the Strip she had checked her makeup in the Bug’s rearview.
Nothing alarming there; subdued, almost hard to see any lipstick, if at all. No blush.
Matty looked her up and down and nodded.
“You’ll do,” he said, and sent her off to fill out the usual paperwork for new employees. “Find me when you’re done. We’ll work the first night or two within arm’s length and then we’ll branch out. And Kiki, I’m glad you’re working for us now. You were very good at counting, last time I watched. Who taught you?”
She smiled with amusement. Such flattery. “Self-taught.” She touched the side of her head and said, “Math major.”
“Got it. Okay, see you in an hour. You’ll have no trouble spotting me—I’ll be the one throwing out the cheats.”
She tossed her head with laughter and cut across the crowd to the elevators. She climbed aboard and punched 2.
Executive floor, she thought. Ain’t I something? Finally got a real job and, surprise, surprise, my brother is my boss! Things were definitely looking up.
She had met with PX twice since the shooting and they had laid their plans.
First, PX had confiscated the purse carrying Kiki’s gun when the fatal shot was fired.
She took the purse into custody immediately upon Kiki receiving her personal effects back from the jailer when she bonded out.
The purse had been missed by the detectives as a vital element in the shooting.
It had been missed because in their investigators hadn’t realized, from watching the video replays a dozen times, that Kiki hadn’t actually withdrawn the gun from the purse when it was fired. They were under the impression she had actually removed it from the purse and was holding it when she pulled the trigger.
The bullet’s exit hole in the end of the purse was simply overlooked.
Plus the fabric was pleated and bullet hole concealed.
Because she had refused to make a statement, they never did learn otherwise.
But PX hadn’t missed the significance of the purse.
Moreover, PX wanted the purse full of the same exact contents as when the gun went off. So she simply held out her hand the minute they stepped outside the jail, and waited, tapping her foot, until Kiki realized the purse was being confiscated by PX.
The second step PX had taken was when she had purchased the same exact handgun and sent both purse and gun off to an armorer for testing.
She was going to have the armorer attempt to replicate how the gun might have accidentally fired when Kiki reached inside. She had her money riding on the lipstick tube somehow becoming wedged inside the trigger guard and squeezing off the fatal round. But she would wait and see, she had told Kiki. They would wait and see whether the armorer reached the same conclusion. If he did, they were halfway home. They would have the case downsized to a negligent homicide case, nothing more. And Kiki would be eligible for probation on a plea of guilty to negligent homicide.
So Kiki was smiling when she stuck out her hand and greeted the woman from HR who would enroll her as an employee.
And the woman just took it as a friendly smile and thought Matty wise for hiring her.
24
The IT department at Nevada IRS, Las Vegas, had had to assign a group of dedicated sysops to its hack on the network at the Desert Riviera.
Their target: any and all computer activity undertaken by any user logging in with the credentials of Thaddeus Murfee.
So far the network traffic had been negligible and the sysops were all but asleep at the wheel.
Aldous Kroc called down to the chief of IT over lunchtime.
“How’s today shaping up so far on Golden Boy?” he asked.
The chief of IT, Las Vegas IRS, was a rotund, thickly bearded sprite of a man named Lamar. Lamar’s idea of a good time was the new issue of System Admin magazine and a Mountain Dew on a Friday night before catching the latest Wired news on the Facebook algorithm that delivered its perfect feed.
He hated what little he knew of Aldous Kroc, and found the insufferable Special Agent abhorrent. Still, he had to take his calls. His job depended on satisfying the Special Agents and their slogs into third party networks where they were trespassers.
Lamar checked the Golden Boy log.
“Uh, this morning he logged in just after eight, read Huff Post for four minutes, ESPN front page for seven, then went to his company website, where he spent all of forty-five seconds. The system logged him out as inactive twenty minutes later.”
“Why is it always twenty minutes later, Lamar? You’re always giving us twenty minutes.”
Lamar sighed. He resented these people who refused to learn anything about computer networks. “Because programmers set up systems to log out users after twenty minutes of inactivity online. It saves connections to the server for reuse by someone else without creating a meltdown.”
“Which means he left the computer and the system automatically closed own his session.”
“Exactly. See, almost painless, Agent Kroc.”
“Buzz me if there’s anything new. Don’t bother me with ESPN or CNN or crap like that. But if he performs any amount of legal research on any site, I need to be advised without delay. And the session needs to be logged so we can retrace his research steps.”
“We’re coded and ready to go on that. If he hits Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis, or The Law we’re ready to track him. Exactly like you ordered.”
“Over and out.”
“Right.”
Lamar sighed, looked around his cubicle, and cracked his knuckles.
It was an earthy, real, human sound.
Which, to a man whose life revolved around 1’s and 0’s, was almost distasteful.
He popped the tab on his second Mountain Dew of the day and browsed over to StockX, the latest rage in high-frequency equity trading.
Now to make a dollar.
25
There was something very suspicious going on in Orbit, Illinois, something Ragman had discovered on his second visit there.
The woman, this Ilene Crayton, he had been watching her closely. And she had a boyfriend.
Ragman dug a little deeper and learned the guy’s name was Albert something, and that he was the law partner of one Thaddeus Murfee.
It seemed Albert worked the Chicago office while Murfee was out in Vegas, and every weekend Albert headed off to Orbit, where he was hitting that gal pretty regularly. In fact, they were spending weekends together, which complicated any Illinois kidnapping.
All in all, Ragman didn’t like the setup.
Town was too small, located too remotely from interstate highways and hiding places, and he had no doubt he would stand out like a sore thumb if he hung out there any longer, as he was already drawing looks from the small towners who had no idea who he was and who wouldn’t hesitate to stop and gawk at him. Too much heat, so he crossed the little boy Andromeda off his list and headed back out west.
26
For his own criminal defense, Thaddeus added the Reno cowboy lawyer Gerald Browne to Tubby Watsonn’s team.
Gerald—Gerry, as he preferred—was forty-five, tall, and large-boned, with a strong Western cragginess to his profile that caused his purplish-blue eyes to shine in their wide-spaced sockets.
To those who had gone up against him he was known as the Great One.
He was also known for leather coats, cowboy boots with under-slung heels, snap-front Western shirts with bolo ties clasped by huge turquoise chunks, topped off by black Stetson hats, flat-brimmed, looking exactly like the image of the Old West gunfighter he meant to portray.
But, like the cowboys put it, he wasn’t all hat and no cows. Gerry owned 2,500 head of prime Herefords on his 10,000-acre spread twenty miles outside Reno.
He was known for suing large corporations and hacking away giant pieces of their assets for his Everyman clients, and he was known for winning criminal trials that all the trial luminaries deemed unwinnable.
&nbs
p; Legend had it he had defended an out-of-office sheriff who shot his replacement between the eyes from the backseat of a prowl car because, as the shootist put it, “He looked like he was about to draw down on me.” Expert testimony had been presented in that case that yes, gunfighters can tell from the look in the eyes of an adversary whether they are about to draw and fire. The ex-cop walked, Gerry made the cover of Time, and soon the calls were jangling his phones 24/7.
Thaddeus knew about the lawyer and called him the day he made bail and left the jail behind forever—he hoped.
He flew up to Reno on a Wednesday morning, arriving just before lunch. The cabbie deposited him just outside the trial hound’s office, where he paid his fare and found his way inside.
Five minutes later he was shown inside the Great One’s law office.
It was neat and functional, nothing ambitious and Western-themed like Thaddeus had imagined.
Gerry Browne in full Western regalia stood fully upright behind the clean desk and extended a massive hand. Thaddeus, himself 6-2, was all but overwhelmed with the man’s size. He went 6-6 and weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds. With the boot heels he was probably even taller, Thaddeus guessed.
“C’mon in,” Gerry smiled with his huge, famous, jury-melting smile. “I’d offer you some coffee or water but I figure if you wanted any you’d have stopped before you got here. Am I right?”
“You are exactly right,” said Thaddeus. “I’m good.”
“So what brings you up our way, Mister Murfee? Or should I call you Thaddeus?”
“Thad is fine. Well, I’ve been charged with Filing False Tax Returns. And I’m innocent.”
“We’re all innocent, Thad, especially in the eyes of the Good Lord. Now, proving your innocence, that’s my job. The Good Lord just ain’t into that. Which is just between me and the jury we’re gonna pick for you, when it all shakes out. Now tell me what they got on you.”
The Great One sat back and perched readers on his nose. His enormous hands settled like two crows on a small keyboard, probably a tablet, Thaddeus guessed. He drew a deep breath and launched into his story.
“I won a casino in a lawsuit two years ago.”
“Saw that. American Lawyer magazine had a cover story on you. And nobody’s shot you over it yet?”
Thaddeus smiled. “Not yet. But I’m still very careful.”
“Bodyguards—all that crap?”
“Exactly. All that crap.”
“Got your own jet? You know the mob’s bombing private jets now. Seems they’ve moved from car bombs to airplane bombs.”
“No, I didn’t know that. But I’ll make a note.”
The Great One leaned back and squinted at the ceiling. “Let me ask you something right out of the gate. And you tell me the truth when I ask you. Understand that I’m not here to judge you—I’m not some overpaid ethicist, and I’m not here to hear your confession—that’s for Father So-and-so down at the church. But what I am here for is to sever any claims on you the American Justice System thinks it might have. And for that, I require your complete and total honesty. So here it is: Are you guilty?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re too young for evil machinations. Evil doesn’t settle in on men until they get in their late thirties, early forties, when they first get an inkling that life’s maybe not gonna go their way after all. That’s when men seem to first take the law in their own hands and begin twisting things around to fit what they believe they deserve. You’re too damn young for that. Unless you’re a savant. Are you a savant, Thaddeus?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
“Oh, you’d know if you were. But here’s what thing I can see about you. You’re a hell of a smart young guy, anyone who decides to sue the mob and take away some of their toys. You left even me in the dust on that one. Never saw it coming, did they?”
“I guess not. And I had a very friendly judge.”
“I know him. Tried cases before him, down in Hard Times.”
“Hard Times?”
“Vegas, Thad. It’s always hard times—unless you happen to own one of the money machines, like you do.”
“Which is another story for another day.”
“So tell me why the IRS is fixated on you. How’d you draw their fire?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “That’s just it. I’m clueless.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Tell me about the management in your place. Who prepares the company tax returns?”
“Staff.”
“Who prepares your personal returns?”
“Staff.”
“How do you know how much income to report on your personal return?”
“Tell the truth, I don’t know.”
“Staff again?”
“Afraid so.”
“Who counts the money?”
“Staff.”
“Who keeps the staff honest?”
“Other staff.”
“Any bells going off yet?”
“I’m trusting staff too much?”
Gerry Browne smiled and stretched. “What do you think?”
“I think you must be right,”
“Lemme ask it this way. Has that staff earned your trust? Or have you simply bestowed your trust on them?”
“Bestowed.”
“Bottom line, you don’t know any of these employees from Adam, do you?”
“Not really.”
“So they could be pulling numbers out of their ass and you wouldn’t know it, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And how do you know they aren’t?”
“I guess I don’t.”
The Great One put his boots up on the desk and shut his eyes for a moment. Then, “We have a lot of work to do with you.” He abruptly sat upright. “Did you bring your checkbook?”
“I brought a check.”
“What do you think so far? Do you want my help?”
Thaddeus answered without hesitation, “More than ever.”
“When you leave here, leave a check for one million dollars with Angelina, up front. She’s the nasty-looking Latino. Heart of gold but always wearing that nasty frown. I can’t make her smile. But your check—that will make her smile. Trust me.”
“Will do.”
“Now I want to take you for a ride in my pickup. We’re gonna go out and see some trees, see some water, look across at some mountains, watch some cows eat grass, and we’re gonna talk. By sundown I’m gonna know all about you. You’ll be my guest tonight. We’ll eat steaks and talk until the wee hours. Then we’ll hit the hay, get six hours, get up and run—do you run?”
“I do.”
“I’ve got everything you’ll need. We’ll come back, have a ranch-style breakfast, and you’ll go home with a long list in your hands.”
“List of what?”
“List of documents I’m gonna need to get you out of your jam.”
“Fair enough. When do we start?”
“Right now. I’ll have SusieQ call the airport and get rooms for your pilots and arrange transportation for them. They’ll stick around town tonight, have a few drinks, and call it a day. All right, let’s hit the road.”
“Fair enough.”
“And Thaddeus. Stop your worrying right now. You ain’t guilty and I’m going to dispose a jury to saying the same thing about you.”
“Okay.”
“There. You got your life back.”
He smiled, nodded toward the door, and Thaddeus followed him out.
27
Friday of his first week, Bat was competing like a madman to keep up with the table turnover in the Riviera Steak and Chop House.
There were six other busboys working the same shift, all Latino, all extremely hard workers, like Bat, and they were hitting it off just fine.
Except for the headwaiter, Bat had no complaints. The headwaiter hailed from the Dominican Republic, voted in all lo
cal, state, and national elections—he talked politics incessantly—and was trying to enlist his co-workers in a small drug network. He looked nothing like a drug dealer: mid-size, svelte, impeccable manners, perfect English, and the polished air of one who had served diners in the finest capitals of Europe, which he had. His name was Raoul and he was very friendly with Bat, until Bat flatly turned down his overture to become a seller of narcotics for him.
“This job is the perfect place to meet people. And believe me, our patrons make no effort to hide it from us. Many of them want drugs and they aren’t afraid to ask. The money is easy, the menu is exclusive enough that cops can’t afford to eat here, so it’s all very safe to push a dime bag or a little blow when you are asked.”
“I don’t sell drugs,” said Bat.
They were standing just off the kitchen, where the headwaiter kept a hawk eye on the wait staff and where Bat had no business lingering. His job called for constant movement by him, in and out of the kitchen, flying in with heavily loaded bus trays, flying back out with empty trays and going right back to it.
The restaurant tried to maintain a twenty-four-minute window per table, meaning that it expected to serve drinks, salads, entrees, and desserts, and have the diners out and on their way, all within twenty-four minutes. It was impossible, mostly, but that was the goal. The whole idea was turnover.
As Samuel Lidgard, the restaurant manager, said to the staff, “We can only charge a table once. So get them in, get them out, charge them, and move on to the next load. Fast, fast, fast. If you stand around, I’ll notice the grass growing under your feet and I’ll fire you without another word.”
Bat intended to be the best busboy he could be.
He craved good reports from the wait staff about how fast he was helping them keep the tables turning, and, for the most part, he got it.
Like the rest of the staff, he didn’t want to offend Raoul, so more and more it was becoming terribly difficult to keep fighting off the drug overtures while still maintaining a good rapport in hopes of good reports to the boss.
Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3) Page 13