The Boardwalk Trust (Beach Lawyer Series Book 2)

by Avery Duff

  “Sure, bottles on the refrigerator door are communal.”

  “Want anything? Beer? Cocktail?” Erik asked her.

  Before she could answer, Robert said, “My head of sales. He has a hard time turning it off.”

  After Erik left, she turned to Robert and said, “Who are you two? No fooling.”

  He looked her over. Just a woman trying to do her job. “I need information about Vegas Rail. They ran off with some people’s money, and I’m trying to get it back.”

  “Should’ve just said so.”

  “Would that’ve helped?”

  “No, but it would’ve saved me the trip over here. I’m not allowed to talk about tenants, all right? So grab that Norski Tony Robbins of yours and hit the road.”

  Outside, Lauren squealed away, and Robert waited for Erik by the car. When he came out and started to get in the Bronco, Robert said, “Fault Line?”

  “Playing the clown, I got the run of the place. Kitchen’s always a gossip gold mine,” he said. “All those bored assistants hanging out, and I hit the mother lode—that receptionist. She remembered the Vegas Rail guys from upstairs. They had accents, like they were from Russia, Poland, one of those countries. She said they talked like Frankenstein.”

  “She mean, like Dracula?” Robert asked.

  “Yeah, like all those guys over there sound. To her, it didn’t look like anybody did anything. Two guys, they’d show up once, twice, a week and wore cool suits like they thought suits were a big deal. I got the sense at least one of the assistants boned Boris.”

  “Boris, that’s . . . ?”

  “Name one of the guys gave himself.”

  “And you think she boned him because . . . ?”

  “Asked if I had his number. The sign-in book. The receptionist let me go through it, but the two guys never printed their names like they’re supposed to. Scribbled their signatures, so you can’t read ’em anyway.”

  As they got back in the car, Erik said, “You’re benefiting from my storied years on the force and my God-given talent as an investigator.”

  He had to admit, Erik’s style was impressive.

  “Angling for a raise?”

  Erik shrugged. “God-given.”

  “Keep dazzling me, dude.”

  Instead of getting onto the 101, Robert drove around back to that loading dock and parked.

  “Stay here, you look like a retired cop. And a Norski.”

  Robert got out of the car, walked over to three guys sitting on the loading dock, drinking Monster Energy drinks and eating snacks.

  “Hey, guys, sorry to bother you during break.”

  They nodded, their mouths filled with assorted junk food.

  Robert said, “Remember those two pendajos worked on the second floor? You’re repainting their offices now.”

  One of them said. “Los rusos.” The Russians.

  “Know anything about ’em?”

  Another one of them said, “Left the place a mess whenever they showed up. Food and liquor and trash, condoms in the wastebasket.”

  “Cocky dudes, noses in the air,” the first one said. “Never spoke to me in the hall.”

  “Me, either, not once. Party boys.”

  Robert said, “They’re not good guys, and they took some stuff that belongs to mi conchita. Know anything about ’em? Names, maybe, where they live? Anything you can think of?”

  Nobody did, till the one tugging on a tough piece of jerky jumped up, said, “Hold on,” and ran inside. When he came back, he tossed Robert a half-empty bottle of liqueur.

  “Left this behind. They drank it all the time. It’s not from America.”

  “Not bad-tasting,” the third one said.

  All three guys agreed, and when Robert left a $100 bill with them, they all agreed with that, too.

  Back in the car, Robert handed the bottle to Erik. “Rakia,” Robert said, from the label.

  Erik dipped his finger, tasted it.

  “Not bad.”

  “That’s the consensus.”

  While Robert drove back to LA on the 101, Erik Googled rakia and found out multiple variations of it were popular all through Eastern Europe.

  “It’s plum brandy, popular in Balkan countries and, I quote, ‘often served chilled.’ Alcohol content, forty percent and up—damn,” Erik said. Then he rattled off ten Eastern European countries where it was popular.

  Sampling the bottle again: “Tasty.”

  A wreck on the 101 put them onto the scenic route over the Santa Monica Mountains, headed toward the Pacific Ocean. After the twin tunnels where Kanan Road became Kanan Dume Road, they cruised down a five-mile decline, the Pacific Ocean spreading out below them, a dark-blue curve kissing a light-blue horizon.

  Erik told him about a secluded beach across PCH, not far from where Kanan Dume Road teed at Pacific Coast Highway.

  “Great surf, but you need a gate key to get in.”

  “A private beach in LA?” Robert asked.

  “The public can climb down nasty cliffs over at Point Dume or walk in from Paradise Cove at low tide. So yeah, as private as you’re gonna get in LA.”

  At PCH, they hung a left and headed for Playa Vista. As they passed Malibu Colony and Pepperdine University, Robert briefed Erik about SoccMom.

  “It was a technology play on youth soccer in the United States. Its platform would aggregate all youth-soccer teams in the United States by sucking up player and team information entered in its database. The company would also sell a small patch to monitor a kid’s vitals on the field, and that data would go into the parents’ phone or device.”

  “The patches wear out, right?”

  “Last for one season—one patch per game. Cash keeps coming in, and the numbers get real big, real fast.”

  “They’d sell ads on the website?”

  “That’s what the database is for—so the company can talk to sporting-goods companies about SoccMom’s targeted demographic.”

  Erik nodded. “Why their site’s great for selling jerseys, shoes, balls.”

  Robert nodded. “Investor money was supposed to go for R and D, paying tech guys to build out the platform, create that database, and make it all work wireless. Supposedly, they’d done something similar before in India—only they did it with veterinarians and animals.”

  “After dealing with monkeys, kids should be a snap.”

  Robert wondered whether monkeys were indigenous to India but stayed on point.

  “Up front in the circular, you get all those rosy projections about what happens once the product is up and running. Letters from moms and dads about how they really need something like this, and that the league needs it, too. But then you get to the Risks section—the technology doesn’t exist, and once it does, maybe it won’t work.”

  “Feeling smarter already for not investing. Carlos coulda used a beatdown from Mr. Wonderful on the Tank.”

  The mean guy on Shark Tank. Robert had caught the show a few times.

  “Any people-people behind SoccMom?”

  “No warm bodies in the public record. They used a filing service for their organization papers in California, and no signed tax returns are due for another month or two—as if that mattered to these guys.”

  Robert told him about the string of e-mails Carlos had sent Evelyn. Carlos gloating about how payments had been coming in, telling her she worried too much.

  “How’d the company plan to start paying him interest so quick?” Erik asked.

  “They claimed they had royalties coming in from that veterinary technology. They’d use that money till the soccer technology was up and running.”

  “Why not just rip Carlos off and split?”

  “I keep wondering the same thing; they already had his money.” Then: “Beats me.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Bronco rolled over a wide concrete culvert under Lincoln Boulevard. A trickle of water flowed west across the Ballona Wetlands toward the Pacific Ocean, a marsh mile away.

  “
The mighty LA River,” Erik said, eyeing the culvert.

  Robert wondered if any other river had a tributary called Arroyo Seco, meaning “dry ditch.”

  Ahead on Culver Boulevard, a twenty-block mixed-use development massed on their right. Four-story apartment buildings, residential and business condos, all serviced by Whole Foods, CVS, Starbucks, and, he believed, another Starbucks. Built since 2005, after protracted environmental challenges, Playa Vista was part of Silicon Beach, given that Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and scores of start-ups had a presence here.

  Robert parked on Runway Road near SoccMom’s office address, not far from the cliffs where Loyola Marymount University and Summa Corp. coexisted, side by side.

  Erik asked, “This time, we go in as some kind of tech outfit?”

  “Does it matter what I tell you?”

  “Some,” Erik said. “What’s our company called?”

  “Here’s what it’s not called: Virus. Hacker. Downtime. Crashed. Obsolete.”

  “Seriously, they’re taken? Don’t sweat it, I got a good one.”

  “Please don’t . . .”

  “Hey, man, I know you’re worried about Teo and Delfina, and I care about ’em, too, but relax, go with the flow. I’ve seen you do it lotsa times, so . . . you know . . .”

  Chill the F out, Robert was thinking. “All right,” he said.

  It didn’t matter. The leasing agent waiting outside was already chill. Ana Short, her card said, and she loved their company’s name: Priya Software, after Erik explained it meant beloved in Sanskrit.

  “I’ve never heard of Priya Software,” Ana said.

  Robert stepped in. “It’s not trademarked yet,” he whispered. “So keep it on the down-low, Ana.”

  “Oh, I definitely will,” she whispered back to him, serious as hell in her pinstriped blazer and tailored slacks.

  Tenants gained entry to Building D’s offices in the lobby via a password on a digital keypad. For visitors, there was a guard and a guest register at the front door, but neither a receptionist nor a communal kitchen were part of the plan.

  Ana didn’t mind telling them that all leasing applications were handled online and remained confidential.

  “SoccMom has already cleared out of Suite 1108; it’s been leased out to a new tenant. Never met them, I’m so sorry.”

  After thanking her, Robert and Erik followed her directions over to the maintenance department.

  Erik asked Robert, “Has my wife been gone too long, or was she real cute?”

  “Too long? Priya hasn’t been gone one week.”

  “Figure of speech, dude. ‘So keep it on the down-low, Ana?’ That has all sorts of sexual connotations.”

  “Cute, okay. Let’s leave it at that.”

  A few fully developed blocks away, they entered the open bay of the maintenance building. After $200 changed hands with the jefe, the story on Suite 1108 emerged. These tenants—again, two guys in slick suits—weren’t winning popularity contests here, either: never spoke to workers, trashed the office, never tipped, and partied hard. Then jefe came up with a case of rakia they’d left behind, a different brand from the first bottle, and Robert gave him another $100.

  They headed back to Runway Road.

  Erik said, “I said these deals Carlos bit on were knuckleheaded, but compared to what I’d see at LAPD? With the formal offering circulars backing them up, these two look like blue chips.”

  “What kind of LAPD deals?”

  “Like, ‘My dentist buys a ton of gold for fillings and knows gold is going through the roof.’”

  “Buy gold off that?” Robert asked.

  “No, sell gold—the dentist is always wrong. Not everyone has a good lawyer looking out for them.”

  Erik was thanking him—again—for keeping him on the straight and narrow with Natural Gas. Not letting him borrow money from friends in return for stock; keeping 100 percent ownership, less Robert’s 10 percent equity for free legal services. All that sound advice plus: do not buy a hot new car for at least one year after selling the company.

  “No hot car for a year. For any reason,” Erik had promised.

  Back in the Bronco, they compared the two rakia bottles. Both brands had been distributed from Sofia, Bulgaria. Robert Googled rakia this time; again, it was described as “a popular plum-wine drink enjoyed throughout many Balkan countries.”

  Balkan countries included Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, and parts of Turkey. Robert laid out for Erik what he’d learned.

  “A quarter-million square miles with a population of sixty million—twice that if you include Turkey, where it’s the national drink. Bulgaria—capital, Sofia—has only six million people. That’s six million Bulgarian rakia drinkers out of one hundred twenty million Balkan people.”

  Then he added: “Twenty to one, we have two party-boy a-holes in suits who drink Bulgarian rakia from Sofia, because they’re Bulgarian.”

  Then Erik asked Robert, “Let’s go with the same two suits at both places . . .”

  “Same two Bulgarian suits,” Robert said.

  “Marijuana,” Erik said from out of the blue, typing on his phone.

  “What’re you Googling?”

  “Might’ve remembered something,” Erik said, and called out the search words as he typed. “Marijuana . . . Arrest . . . Bulgarians . . . Northern California.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Driving over to Gia’s with Erik, Robert called Evelyn so he could pick her brain. He told her about his day with a retired cop, his investigator, and that Erik was in the car. She didn’t mind being on speaker as Robert finished bringing her up to speed on the investments.

  “Bulgarians? Rakia?” Evelyn asked after hearing him out. “Seems a bit far-fetched.”

  “Tell me about it. Any idea where Carlos might’ve run into them?” he asked.

  “At this point, you know more than I do,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “Erik remembered hearing about a marijuana bust, up north. A few years back, some Bulgarians got popped for distribution, and Carlos loved good weed, right?” he asked.

  “Not good. His had to be the very best,” Evelyn said.

  “Think there’s a connection?” Robert asked her.

  “Could be, but it’s so simple to buy now, right?”

  “But for a weed snob like Carlos?” Erik said.

  They dead-ended on weed at that point.

  Robert told Evelyn, “There was nothing in the file about how Carlos found the investments. The deals seemed to drop into his lap from out of the blue.”

  “I asked him about it; he wouldn’t tell me. Don’t laugh, but when he was holding all that cash from selling the properties, I suggested Laundromats—recession proof as long as you find the right deal going in.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He thought it was beneath him. How would it look to his dates, emptying dollar-bill changers for a trip to Vegas?”

  Robert saw her point. Playboy Laundromat operator had a bad ring to it.

  “Glad you called,” Evelyn said. “I was checking the mailbox at Carlos’ house . . .”

  “Any client money come in?”

  “Afraid not; I slipped what did under his door for you.” Then Evelyn said, “I can’t come inside Gia’s, but I wanted to give Delfina a few books. Are you headed there?”

  “Just pulling up,” he said. “That’s nice of you.”

  “Feeling guilty doesn’t make me nice,” she said.

  “Yes, it does,” he said, hanging up before she could disagree.

  Later, Robert and Erik sat outside on the back patio, rehashing the case. Robert checked his notes. Gia sat with them and listened in while she studied; Delfina was inside, watching Frozen again.

  Robert started out, saying, “Let’s try this, okay? These two company offices were staffed by two Bulgarians. For about three months, one deal paid the trust like they’d agreed, an
d both of them gave the trust first dibs on their assets. But now, both companies have vacated their offices.”

  “How about suing them?” Erik asked.

  “If you could find them, sure. But after suing them—correct me if I’m wrong, Gia—I’d wait thirty days for their answer to the complaint. They won’t file one, so I’d wait another thirty to move for a default judgment. Once I get that, the trust could seize whatever they have.”

  Gia said, “If you filed a statement of damages with the complaint, you’d save thirty days after taking a default judgment. But if they made an appearance, just their lawyers, they can delay you for months, maybe years, for almost no reason.”

  Erik asked, “They teach all that in first-year law?”

  Robert knew how she came by that know-how—her relationship with Jack Pierce. Before Gia could answer, he told Erik, “She’s taking advanced courses because she’s so damn smart.”

  Leaning over, she whispered, “Where’d you come from, handsome man?”

  “What’d she say, dude?” Erik asked.

  “My turn to do the dishes,” Robert said.

  “Hey, I know do the dishes. That didn’t look to me like do the dishes.”

  “She’s half-Chinese,” Robert explained.

  Moving on, Erik asked, “You ever watch American Greed?”

  “A few times.”

  Robert knew the TV show about real-life sociopaths ripping off decent folks, especially decent folks who trusted them.

  Erik said, “No episode ever ended with the bad guy saying, ‘Oh, well, you found me. Here’s all your money, my bad.’ I mean, maybe he’s got a busted Jet Ski and a mortgaged-up mansion, but no money.”

  Gia looked up from her computer.

  “Who’s this bad girl Carlos met?” she asked.

  “No one knows,” Robert said. “A bottle blonde, maybe. Evelyn got a look at her inside Carlos’ leased Mercedes, then Carlos flipped Evelyn a casino chip and took off.”

  Gia said, “Try this. Shy guy falls for a beautiful woman, spends all his money on her. Then the money stops coming in, and she bails.”

  “Something like that,” Robert said. “After that, Carlos runs down the street to cry on Evelyn’s shoulder about losing the love of his life. Or, how about this? Maybe Carlos doesn’t know the Bulgarians at first. Let’s say the mystery girl introduces him to the Bulgarians, then they separate him from his money.”