by Steven Gore
One thing Senator Landon Meyer knew with certainty, and without regret, was that he’d been the first six-year-old in human history who believed in the death penalty.
Five minutes later, after a brief prayer, Landon took in a long breath and said:
“Let’s go get some money.”
Chapter 37
Boots is gone.”
Viz was standing at Gage’s office door.
“When?”
“Day before yesterday. I’ve been going by his hotel like you wanted. I talked up one of the maids after I hadn’t spotted his van for twelve hours. She told me.” Viz grinned. “She turned red and got all fidgety when I described him and pointed out his room. I think she was doing more than cleaning.”
“You get her name?”
“Her tag said Rosa M. Full name, Rosa Montijo.”
Gage walked to the kitchen after Viz left and poured himself a cup of coffee. He collected an empty banker’s box from the supply room, then walked down the flight of stairs to the basement. He punched in the code numbers that had nearly cost Shakir his life, then went inside.
Boxes containing fifteen years of case files he and Viz had collected from Charlie Palmer’s storage locker were stacked along the wall.
Gage lined them up along the floor, year by year, and then lifted up the first in line and set it on the worktable.
He examined his hands, already grimy with dust, then searched around the room for a rag or paper towels. There weren’t any. He wiped them on his Levi’s, figuring it was the least damaging kind of dirt he was about to paw through.
He flipped open the box and sat down.
Seven hours later Gage noticed the time, surprised to find it was four o’clock, now broken free from his immersion in Charlie Palmer’s life, or at least those parts leaving a paper trail.
Reflecting back on his moods as he’d examined the files, Gage found he hadn’t felt anger so much as indecision, struggling to focus, wondering what he was trying to do and who his client really was.
Socorro?
Tansy?
Maybe even Porzolkiewski?
Every person who didn’t get justice because Charlie played God and took their lives in his hands?
He knew that Faith would say: You can only do what you can do.
He decided to start with the easiest one.
Or perhaps, the hardest.
Gage walked upstairs. Tansy wasn’t at her desk.
Gage hated the song. Hated it the first time he heard it. It sometimes played in his mind as he drove Highway 101 toward the bedroom communities south of San Francisco and looked up at the rows of little houses strung together like pieces of hard candy, striping the hillsides. He thought of the lyrics describing little boxes and ticky-tacky houses all looking the same. Lots of people knew it. Hardly anybody knew who’d first sung it. Gage did. Pete Seeger had been his father’s favorite folksinger. He could still recall the album it was on, recorded during the 1963 We Shall Overcome concert at Carnegie Hall.
Gage remembered his father humming it one day as they’d walked to the plaster-covered adobe building housing his one-person medical practice in Nogales. Gage had just passed his thirteenth birthday. On Saturdays he raked the front yard, watered the cactus, and collected the tumbleweeds desert winds had rolled onto the property.
Gage recalled stopping on the sidewalk and telling his father, “Maybe that’s all they can afford.”
His father had turned toward him and said, “You’re right, son.” His father gazed for a moment at the distant mesquite and saguaro-covered foothills, then said, “I think there may be a lesson in this. Sometimes even the most decent among us don’t listen to what they’re really saying.”
His father never hummed the song again and Gage never heard it again, except when his mind played it for him.
The song had faded by the time Gage had walked up the front steps of Tansy’s tiny Daly City bungalow and rang the doorbell.
Tansy peeked out of the front window and then opened the door.
“How’s Moki doing?” Gage asked, after she invited him.
“Okay. Some muscle spasms. It scared the aide so she called.”
Gage spotted Moki sitting at the dining table coloring with crayons. Twenty-four years old with the mind of a child. Maybe not even a child. Children can recognize their mothers, if only just by instinct.
Tansy directed Gage toward the couch, then sat next to him and looked down at the file in his hand, Moki’s name printed on the yellowed tab.
“It was Brandon Meyer’s old law firm that hired Charlie to work on the side of the punks who jumped Moki,” Gage said.
She shook her head. “They didn’t represent anyone. You can look. I’ve got a copy of the whole court file in the closet.”
“They didn’t represent anyone, they represented everyone. They were the invisible hand behind the case that got rid of the witness.”
Tansy’s eyes went wide. “Got rid of . . .”
“Not that. Just out of town, way, way out of town. Charlie set him up in a condo one of the kids’ parents owned in Cabo San Lucas. Until today, I had suspected Charlie of threatening the witness into fleeing. The truth is Charlie just paid him off.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead. Had a stroke a year later. He might’ve survived if he’d stayed in the States and was living close to a first-rate emergency room. He died of pneumonia a month afterward. I found his death certificate in Charlie’s file.”
Tansy bit her lip. “Poor man.”
“What?” Gage threw up his hands. “Poor man? He was a disgusting human being.”
“But pneumonia is a horrible, horrible way to die.”
Gage started to answer, then caught himself. He examined Tansy’s soft, round face and sympathetic eyes. She would’ve made a magnificent nurse.
He watched her drift off in thought during the quiet moments that followed.
“I didn’t realize until now,” Tansy finally said, “that despite what I told you, I hadn’t really made peace with never knowing exactly what happened. I just stopped laboring over it in my mind.” She glanced at the file. “How much money did Charlie make for doing it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“As far as I can tell. His accounting records don’t show any entries under that case number. Maybe he—”
Pegasus. Maybe the money was wired to Pegasus.
Gage wished he had known the name in India so he could’ve prompted Wilbert Hawkins’s memory of the account that had wired the million dollars funding his escape.
In any case, Gage knew he needed to think it all through before he told Tansy.
“Maybe the payment was combined with something else he was working on,” Gage said. Tansy’s eyes flickered. He knew that she knew he was thinking something different than what he was saying. “Or something like that.”
Chapter 38
Got it, boss.”
Alex Z could barely dribble a basketball, but the enthusiasm blasting through the phone told Gage he’d just performed a slam dunk.
Gage was driving up the Embarcadero Freeway from Daly City back to his office, just about to the off-ramp toward China Basin and AT&T Park.
“There’s no way anyone could have found it, no matter how much time they spent searching his computer.”
“Except you,” Gage said.
Alex Z laughed. “Of course.”
“How did you do it?”
“Charlie named the file Med-USA and stored it among his medical records.” Alex Z paused. Expectancy seemed to vibrate through the telephone line. “Get it?”
“Get what?”
“Med-USA.”
“No. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Remember the day I started searching Charlie’s computer?”
“Sure. I walked into your office, tossed a paper airplane over your head . . .”
“My earrings.”
“Earrings? Greek mythology
?” Gage tried out versions in his mind. Med USA. Med-USA. MedUSA. “Medusa?”
“Bingo. Pegasus was the winged horse that emerged when Perseus cut off Medusa’s head.”
“Snakes.”
“Snakes and money. Lots of snakes and money. Millions and millions and millions of dollars over fifteen years.”
“What about the first spreadsheets you found? The ones with the coded columns?”
“I think they’re bogus. Decoys for whoever might come snooping.”
“Then why are you certain Medusa is real?”
“Because there’s a million-dollar transfer from Pegasus to Andhra Bank in Hyderabad the same week Wilbert Hawkins disappeared.”
Gage thought back on his conversation with Jack Burch.
“Where’s the Pegasus bank account?” Gage asked.
“Cayman Exchange Bank.”
Gage didn’t like hearing the name. The bank had turned up in too many offshore financial scams over the years. Never convicted, but like most banks on the Caymans, often suspected.
“Can you tell where the money came from?”
“No. I think that’s on another spreadsheet. I haven’t been able to decode it yet.”
“But you’ll figure it out?”
“I’m not walking away from this computer until I do.”
Chapter 39
Bethel Island in the Sacramento River Delta.
Gage had gotten stonewalled the last time he drove out to confront the retired OSHA inspector, Ray Karopian. But that was then, when he had only vague questions about Karopian’s investigation of the TIMCO explosion—
And this was now.
Viz followed Gage from San Francisco over the Bay Bridge then north, almost to where the Sacramento River flowed into San Pablo Bay. What had once been rolling hills grazed by cattle was now a commercial corridor of malls, fast-food restaurants, townhouses, and apartments.
Gage and Viz headed east on Highway 4 past the just-within-commuting-distance bedroom communities, condo complexes, and meth labs.
Hot, dusty, and windy.
They could see the TIMCO refinery spread out between the freeway and shoreline, its forest of two-hundred-foot fractionating towers operating around the clock, distilling crude oil into usable fuels and company profits.
Gage continued north after Viz pulled into a service station at the main Bethel Island intersection. He cast a glance toward False River, then hung a left along the waterfront to Karopian’s three-story, clapboard-sided home. The house was set back from a wide street paralleling the shore. A third of an acre. Mature trees. Gage was still surprised at how little a million and a half dollars had bought before the economic collapse, even in Middle of Nowhere California.
He spotted Karopian working on the thirty-five-foot Bayliner tied to his private dock extending from the grass-covered levee, and remembered thinking last time it was an awfully big boat for such a slim stretch of water.
Karopian didn’t turn until Gage’s dress shoes thunked against the metal surface of the dock. Thin, balding, a rich, end-of-season tan. A walking JCPenney window display: Izod shirt, Dockers pants, and Sperry Topsiders.
“This is private property,” Karopian said. “You need an invitation.”
“I have one, you told me to come back if I had more questions.” Gage smiled. “I guess you didn’t mean it.”
Karopian dropped his rag into the bucket at his feet, then stepped onto the transom platform and to the dock.
“On reflection,” Karopian said, “I decided I wasn’t thrilled with your attitude.”
“I apologize. A kid in my office had just been beaten up.”
Karopian’s wincing face displayed fear, like that of a man who’d just made a wrong turn into oncoming traffic.
“Be . . . because of what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I don’t beat up people.” Karopian stretched out his skinny arms as evidence.
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Then why are you out here again?”
“I came to tell you what happened in TIMCO.”
Karopian’s face darkened beneath his tan.
“I know what happened in TIMCO.”
Gage nodded. “I believe you.”
“If you believe me, then answer my question.”
“I came back because what you know and what you wrote in your report were two different things.”
A female voice yelled from behind Gage.
“Is everything all right, dear?”
Gage didn’t turn around. Karopian waved to her, putting on a boyish smile. When it faded, Gage guessed she’d returned inside the house.
“I guess you two have been married a long time,” Gage said.
“Thirty-five years.”
“It shows. She can tell when you’re about to pee in your pants.”
Karopian’s face darkened another shade.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Gage said. “I’ll tell you what happened and you just nod if I’m right.” He paused. “Even better, try to look surprised.”
Gage held his hands out like he was holding the valve.
“What happened was that somebody welded over the pressure release device and the weld didn’t hold.”
Karopian didn’t look surprised.
“I examined every fragment we recovered,” Karopian said. “I didn’t find any fresh welds.”
Gage felt his heart thump. Gotcha.
“The valve exploded right at the pressure release device,” Karopian said. “So it had to have been what failed.”
“You find all the parts?”
“You’re not listening to me. That’s what blew apart.” Karopian’s hand shot out toward the west. “For all I know the pieces flew all the way to San Pablo Bay.”
Gage stared at him without answering. Karopian looked away.
“I think you need to try to reconstruct the thing in your mind,” Gage finally said. “Maybe you’ll come to a different conclusion.” He turned, and said over his shoulder, “You’ve got my card.”
Chapter 40
Gage called Viz as he again drove along False River.
“He’s panicking,” Gage said.
“Did you tell him you knew Charlie’s Pegasus company was the source of the money that went into his house?”
Viz was parked at the service station near the phone booth Karopian had used after Gage’s first visit.
“I decided there’s no reason to let the other side know we’ve gotten that far. Anyway I didn’t need it to push him over the edge. Are you set up?”
“About fifteen yards from the phone. Where you gonna be?”
“Meet me at the fruit stand outside of Oakley.”
A half hour later, Viz drove up to where Gage was sitting at a picnic table in the shade. Gage reached into a paper bag on the bench next to him and handed Viz a Coke when he sat down.
Viz slid over an iPod.
“How’d you get it?” Gage asked.
Viz smiled. “The parabolic microphone you bought me.” He pointed at the new roof-mounted light rack on his Yukon. Black protective covers were fitted over two of the headlight-sized fixtures. One concealed the mike. “I have a little remote control in the cab.” His smile widened. “You bought that, too.”
Gage slipped in the earbuds, then pressed play. The first sound he heard was the Delta wind swirling into the phone booth, then footsteps, then the rustling of clothing, then a metallic snap, then tapping. Then a voice: Karopian’s.
“It’s me.”
. . .
“Gage came back. He knows what really happened.”
. . .
“How should I know? Maybe he . . . Oh shit.”
Gage gave Viz a thumbs-up. Karopian must have just remembered he’d referred to “fresh” welds. Gage hadn’t used the word, never even hinted about when he believed the pressure release had been welded over. The use of the word was Karopian’s inadvertent admission that he’d
known that the corroded pressure release device had been welded over, and it had been done just before the explosion. He therefore had known it had been the new weld that had failed.
“Nothing . . . I just bumped my elbow.”
. . .
“Look Anston, I don’t know what else he knows. That’s where he left it.”
. . .
Another thumbs-up. Marc Anston, Brandon Meyer’s old law partner. The link Gage was looking for and the reason for his long drive out to the Delta.
“No. I didn’t tell him anything except the party line.”
. . .
“What’s the statute of limitations on this stuff?”
. . .
“Then there’s nothing he can do to us?”
. . .
“Slander. That’s right. It would be slander if he said something.”
. . .
“Yeah. I’ll let you know if he comes back.”
Gage removed the earbuds and handed the iPod back to Viz.
“Marc Anston is too smart a lawyer to think the statute of limitations has run on this,” Gage said. “Unless he’s forgotten he conspired to cover up a corporate murder.”
Chapter 41
Gage’s cell phone rang as he walked into Skeeter’s office to pick up his associates’ research on Brandon Meyer’s cases.
“I didn’t do it,” the caller said. “I’ll take a polygraph.”
Gage mouthed the name Porzolkiewski to Skeeter sitting at his conference table going over the reports.
“Didn’t do what?”
“Karopian.”
“Did what to Karopian?”
“I don’t know.” Porzolkiewski’s voice rose in exasperation and panic. “I told you I didn’t do it.”
“Back up.”
Gage heard Porzolkiewski take in a breath.
“The widow of one of the other men killed in the explosion called. She lives in out in the Delta. It was in the local paper. Karopian’s wife found him dead late last night. Lying on his dock.”
“Did the article say what happened?”