Power Blind
Page 35
“My concern is that the defendant’s behavior in the early stages of his previous case was somewhat bizarre. I don’t want to see this proceeding turn into a spectacle.”
“I don’t believe that will happen,” Kennedy said.
Havstad turned her gaze toward the defendant.
“For the record, Mr. Porzolkiewski, is it your intention to proceed without counsel?”
Porzolkiewski nodded.
“You have to answer aloud so the stenographer can take it down.”
Porzolkiewski reddened. “Yes, Your Honor. I want to represent myself.”
“Have you read the Faretta case?”
“Yes, I have. The district attorney gave me a copy.”
“So you understand that if you act as your own lawyer, you can’t turn around later and appeal your conviction by claiming incompetence of counsel?”
Tension-cracking laughter broke out and rattled among the spectators. Havstad slammed down her gavel, and then aimed it at the bailiff.
“If anyone makes another sound during the remainder of this proceeding I want them hauled out of here and brought back tomorrow in handcuffs. Understood?”
Havstad looked again at Porzolkiewski.
“Did you hear my question, Mr. Porzolkiewski?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And the answer?”
“Yes. I understood Faretta.”
“And is it your intention to plead guilty to count one of the indictment, assault with a deadly weapon?”
A murmur rolled through the courtroom. Havstad raised her gavel and glared at the audience.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Before you do that I need to advise you of certain of your rights and of the consequences of such a plea . . .”
Gage sat by the window in Spike’s office watching television reporters opining about Brandon Meyer’s appearance before the federal grand jury investigating corporate tax fraud and campaign money laundering through Pegasus. He switched the TV off when Spike opened the door.
Spike hung his sports jacket on the corner coatrack, then dropped into his chair.
“Tough guy that Porzolkiewski,” Spike said. “He didn’t weasel. Didn’t make any excuses. Just got up and told the story.”
“You’re okay with assault with a deadly weapon as the disposition, instead of attempted murder?”
“I believed him,” Spike said. “He wanted to hurt Charlie, make him suffer, not kill him.”
“What do you think Havstad is going to do?”
“Hard to say. It’s two, three, or four years on the assault plus a consecutive three, four, or ten for using the handgun.”
Gage rose and looked down through the window. News crews were gathered in semidarkness on the front steps, cameras were pointed at the bronze exit doors.
“I don’t think she would’ve released him without bail,” Gage said, “if she intended to max him out.”
“Will he show up for sentencing next month?” Spike asked.
“He’ll show.”
Spike smiled. “You want to put some cash on it?”
Gage glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t smile back. “Don’t talk to me about money.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be talking about it for a helluva long time to come.”
Gage shook his head. “Not so long. I talked to Jack Burch a few minutes ago. TIMCO has agreed to settle with the families of the workers. And the parents of the kids who beat up Moki will each put a half million into a trust fund.”
“What about Tansy?”
“She didn’t want anything for herself. She just wants to have confidence in the care Moki gets and to go back into nursing.” Gage paused, imagining Tansy’s empty chair, anticipating the heartache of her absence. “It’s going to be hard to walk past her desk and not see her there.”
“Who’s going to clean up Anston’s mess? The press is reporting there’s about a billion dollars to be accounted for.”
“That’s up to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. And Jack rounded up some lawyers who’ve volunteered to reopen all the old TIMCO- and Moki-type cases.”
Gage felt a surge of both weariness and relief.
“I’m out of it.”
Epilogue
Gage brought Chinese take-out dinner to Faith and Socorro sitting at Viz’s bedside at SF Medical, then drove back to his building. The sounds of urgent voices and ringing phones and churning printers faded as he climbed the stairs toward his third floor office. After the fire door closed behind him, only his soft footfalls accompanied him down the long dark hallway toward his door—
And a recurring thought. Joe Casey was wrong. Nothing could ever be returned to the way it had been. And whatever justice was, it surely wasn’t that.
As Gage crossed the threshold, he saw his desk lamp cast a circle of light on a handwritten note lying against a slim square object wrapped in white cloth.
He walked over and picked it up.
Dear Graham,
These are the songs that brought joy to my little angel so long ago.
Thank you, you dear, dear man.
Tansy
Gage untied the ribbon. Lying before him was a CD. Ten-year-old fingerprint powder etched the last places Moki had touched before running up the hill for the last time to gaze at the horizon.
He sat down and slipped it into his computer, and then leaned back in his chair. The drive whirled and clicked as he stared out toward the invisible bay, its shoreline marked by glimmering city lights. There was a long pause, then the beat of drums, the rasp of sticks, the rattle of gourds and, finally, rising from the weeping earth, the harp, the violin, and the flute.
On top of the enchanted world,
far down you are flying
west, where the sun falls,
beautiful, sparkling, and forever,
you go with the wind.
Acknowledgments and Note to the Reader
As usual, friends gave generously of their time to help me figure out what I meant to say and get it on the page. They are: Denise Fleming, whose editorial knife is as precise as it is sharp; Carol Keslar, whose early insights went a long way; Dennis Barley, a great investigator and shrewd judge of the motivations of humans, both real and imaginary; Davie Sue Litov, who insists that it be on the page; Bruce Kaplan, the only writer I know who can start with the weather and get away with it; Seth Norman, meandering the meander; and Randy Schmidt, who helped with some of the weightier issues.
Thanks go to my cousin Bobbie Chinsky and Howard Somerville and my sister Diane Gore-Uecker and John Uecker, early adopters of Graham Gage and Harlan Donnally; Louisa Havstad, of such good character that I made her one; Glenn and Judy Pollock, who knew Gage back when and have the photographs to prove it; Trevor Patterson, a former investigator who was everything Charlie Palmer was not; Cassie Patterson, a proud great-grandmother.
Thanks also for their enthusiasm, support, and good times: Lincoln, Gayle, and Haley Litov, Pauline Kaplan, Erin Kaplan, Erik Woods, Scott Sugarman, Chris Cannon, Bob Waggener, Paul Wolf, and Carl and Kathy Polhemus.
As always, the editorial, production, and design staff at HarperCollins did a wonderful job of making my work presentable to the reader: Emily Krump, who not only took on Graham Gage, Harlan Donnally, and me all at once, but asked all the questions a writer needs to hear from an editor; my publicists, Andy Dodds and Katie Steinberg, who had all the right contacts, and Stefanie Rosenblum of Planned Television Arts, who took me coast to coast; and to the sales and marketing people who have done such a great job of getting the books in places readers can easily find them. Thanks again to copyeditor Eleanor Mikucki, whose attention to both story and detail much improved the manuscript.
My wife, Liz, as always, made the book good enough to risk showing to others.
Like the other novels, in both the Gage and Donnally series, this one benefited from help I received in the course of my investigative work. Among those helpers were: Karnat
i Rama Mohan Rao, a legendary, gravel-voiced, wild-haired criminal defense lawyer in Andhra Pradesh, India. P. A. Kamaleswari of Hyderabad, a fine lawyer and advocate for Indian women and villagers, for whom caste is, in word and in deed, no bar. Banker “X” in Lugano, Switzerland who explained the art and craft of offshore deniability. And Police Superintendent “Y” whose display of a wad of currency told me that money would once again defeat truth and justice in South Asia.
Readers interested in the irreconcilable perspectives inherent in the notion of representation reflected in Landon Meyer’s speech might want to look at The Concept of Representation (University of California Press, 1972) and Wittgenstein and Justice (University of California Press, 1972) by Hanna Pitkin. They suggest an approach to accepting seemingly contradictory claims not only about representation, but about what counts as having done justice.
Readers interested in the two strains of conservatism Landon Meyer finds competing within him, and the issues involved in reconciling them, might want to look at the work of the great British conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, collected in Rationalism in Politics (available in various editions). It contains the famous and beautifully written essay “On Being Conservative,” which is also available online.
The Yoeme (Yaqui) language quotes from the traditional Yaqui Deer Songs that begin and end the book are drawn and modified from “Maiso Yoleme/Deer Person,” Felipe Molina, Yoem Pueblo, August 21, 1984, in Yaqui Deer Songs, Maso Bwikam: A Native American Poetry, Larry Evers and Felipe S. Molina (University of Arizona Press, 1987, pp. 71 and 106). The phrase “the weeping earth” is from “The Elders Truth,” a sermon by Miki Maaso at Yoem Pueblo on December 22, 1987 (transcribed by Felipe S. Molina and Larry Evers, Journal of the Southwest, volume 35, number 3, Autumn 1993). I put together my own version of the song that ends the book.
The lines said by Alex Z beginning: “All sorrows can be borne if you tell a story about it” are paraphrased from Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa, quoted in Hannah Arendt’s “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future (Penguin Classics, 1993). The concluding part of the line is: “At the end we’ll be privileged to view and review it—that’s what’s called judgment day.” A different version appears in Dinesen’s Last Tales.
I hope I didn’t offend any readers with Tansy’s comments about Carlos Castaneda and his fictional Yaqui shaman, but like her, while growing up along South Sixth Avenue in Tucson, Arizona, I never saw an Indian fly—even as we raced with dimes in our hands from the sandlot next to my house past Vic’s Trading Post to the legendary Le Caves Bakery on the corner.
About the Author
STEVEN GORE is a former private investigator whose thrillers draw on his investigations of murder, fraud, money laundering, organized crime, political corruption, and drug, sex, and arms trafficking, in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Gore has been featured on 60 Minutes for his work and has been honored for excellence in his field. He is trained in forensic science and has lectured to professional organizations on a wide range of legal and criminal subjects. To find out more, please visit www.stevengore.com.
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Praise for the previous Graham Gage novels by Steven Gore
FINAL TARGET
“An action packed debut thriller with a unique plot and vivid characters that gives readers a fascinating look into the world of international industrial espionage. I’m looking forward to [Gore’s] next.”
Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author of Supreme Justice
“Steven Gore bursts onto the international thriller scene with a captivating debut. . . . Lightning paced, deftly plotted, and compulsively readable. . . . We will be hearing much more from Steven Gore.”
Sheldon Siegel, New York Times bestselling author of Judgment Day
“With his command of storytelling and insider’s knowledge, Gore can go up against Nelson DeMille and Daniel Silva and come out a contender.”
Library Journal
“Gore has effectively introduced the reader to the world of the private investigator. . . . [He] has crafted a solid thriller.”
Salt Lake City Deseret News
“A smart, riveting, knock-your-socks-off debut thriller—James Bond for grownups.”
Cornelia Read, author of The Crazy School
ABSOLUTE RISK
“Absolute Risk continues Gore’s winning ways. . . . A truly thrilling thriller.”
San Jose Mercury News
“Masterful. . . . Sharp, smart writing and convincing economic detail put this in the front rank of genre fiction.”
Publishers Weekly (*Starred Review*)
“Steven Gore, himself an international private investigator before he turned to writing, brings a credibility to his high-octaned action.”
Washington Post (online)
“Gore stuffs a lot into his plot . . . but he manages it well, with a winning protagonist and a plausible premise.”
Booklist
“Brad Meltzer and Vince Flynn fans will love this.”
Library Journal
“A brisk pace and an intriguing plot make the pages turn themselves.”
Richard North Patterson, New York Times bestselling author of Silent Witness
By Steven Gore
Graham Gage Thrillers
Final Target
Absolute Risk
Power Blind
Harlan Donnally Novels
Act of Deceit
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
POWER BLIND. Copyright © 2012 by Steven Gore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062136442
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061782244
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