by DL Barbur
I realized two things, in roughly this order: first, that Alex was about half in the bag, her breath smelled of too much wine and her speech was slurred; second that there were two other people in the room. An older Latino man and a young woman, both dressed in the same kind of threads as the doorman, were staring at us, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
"I was about to scream, in there listening to Gina and her friends talk about counting carbs and getting the fat sucked out of their asses, so I wandered back here. It turns out Manuel is from Guatemala and is saving money to bring his brother and sister into the country. Regan is taking a semester off from Lewis and Clark to study transactional analysis among immigrant populations. Isn't that cool? I thought it was much more interesting than fad diets and liposuction. I tried to tell one of those shriveled up little bitches out there what a bad idea liposuction is but she blew me off. I mean hey, it's not like I'm a doctor or anything, right?"
Alex downed the last of her wine in one gulp.
Manuel was standing there with an appetizer tray in his hands. His eyes kept darting towards the door. Regan kept picking a tray up, then setting it back down again.
I opened my mouth to speak, not quite sure what I was going to say when I was interrupted.
"THERE you are! Get those trays out in the living room! My guests are starving."
I turned to find Gina Pace, famous around Portland for, well, being Gina. Daughter of a famous developer, she had cut a wide swath through the city’s social scene for years, remaining perpetually unmarried but constantly linked to one famous figure after another. She'd gone through a rock musician phase, then a local politician phase, before finally settling into a string of relationships with local cops, which some wags had called the "Badge Bunny" years. She'd somehow wound up married to Al in a surprise ceremony on top of Mt. Helens, which had left many a head scratched and many tongues wagging, not least of which was Alex's. She'd been horrified to find out that her "stepmother" was only about five years older than she was.
Gina was short, about thirty-five, and had glossy black hair. Like Alex, she wore a strapless black dress. But where Alex looked wonderful, in that girl next door sort of way, Gina just looked underdressed, not quite trashy, but almost.
"Hello… Dent." I saw Gina searching for my name for a second, her eyes darted up and to the left, a neuro-linguistic sign of searching her memory. Then her eyes flicked over me from head to toe, taking in my clothes the same way her doorman had. "Are you here to see Al?"
"Yeah, we have some business. Didn't mean to crash your party. I'll just run up…"
"Oh! But you have to meet everyone!" For the second time in a couple of minutes, I found myself being pulled along by my wrist. Gina dragged me into the living room. All eyes swiveled towards us as we entered. I felt like a particularly toothsome piece of road kill being sized up by a bunch of vultures wearing Prada. Gina unleashed a flurry of introductions, barraging me with each woman's name, the name of her husband (if she had one), name of ex-husband(s) (if she had any of those), occupation and etc. It was dizzying.
They were all lean, with that pinched face underfed look that spoke of too much Pilates and not enough cheeseburgers.
Most of them had tans that were too perfect to be anything other than artificial. Apparently, they had all mutually agreed to dye their hair the same shade of not quite blonde. 21st Century Stepford Wives.
"Dent used to work with Al, catching murderers and rapists. His most famous case was when he shot that whacko who was shooting up the mall."
A titter went through the crowd. Half of them grimaced in distaste, no doubt perfectly happy to sleep at night knowing people like me were out there to do their killing for them but non-plussed at actually having to talk to me. The other half bothered me more, they all moved in half a step, their eyes shining with anticipation at latching on to a real-life bad man, a real killer. I must have made corporate raiders and hostile takeover specialists seem lame by comparison.
"What did you feel when you shot that man?" A voice from the back asked.
The word "recoil" was on my lips when I was interrupted.
"I don't think Dent wants to talk about that right now."
I turned and there was Al, all five-foot-six of him, dressed in a natty black sweater and gray slacks, an unlit cigar in one hand and a half-empty glass of scotch in the other. His ugly little troll head looked a little balder and the hair growing out of his ears seemed a little longer than the last time I saw him, but it was still good old Al.
He turned to Gina. "Sorry honey, I need to hijack my guest back from you."
Now Al grabbed me by the arm. This was getting old. He led me back through the house to the stairwell. Behind us, the conversation picked right back up without missing a beat. We passed Alex in the hallway. She had refilled her wine glass from somewhere.
"Careful, Dent. They'll eat you alive." She seemed even tipsier than before. I opened my mouth to reply, but she giggled and headed for the bathroom.
As I followed Al up the stairs, he shook his head. "You know, Dent, for years I kept a dozen alcoholic detectives on task and solving homicides, but I'll be damned if I can make my wife and my daughter tolerate each other."
I didn't have a reply to that one, so I just followed him. Al's study was impressive, all wood and brass. He favored a nautical motif, but as far as I knew, the only time Al had spent on a boat was the time he and I both fell out of a skiff trying to haul a dead body out of one of the city's reservoirs in Washington Park. It sure looked masculine as hell though.
There was another man sitting in one of the stuffed leather chairs in front of Al's desk. Even though he was sitting down, I could tell he was tall and lean. He had short blond hair in an old fashioned butch cut and wore a suit that, to my untrained eye, looked expensive. I couldn't quite tell how old he was, at first I thought about fifty, from the fine lines around his eyes, but then he turned his head to face me and he looked much younger, maybe mid-thirties.
"Dent, this is Sebastian Bolle from the FBI." As Al spoke, the man stood. Good grief, he was taller than me. Had to be at least 6'6", maybe even 6'7". When he stuck his hand out to shake, his cuff slid back, revealing a wristwatch that looked heavy and expensive. Interesting, a Fed with money.
"Nice to meet you," I said. He had one of those neutral handshakes, not a limp wrist but not one of those guys that try to turn every handshake into a dominance game either. On impulse, I said, "Your guy out front seems to be doing a good job of keeping watch."
That earned me a thin smile. "Edward is a professional."
Interesting. Edward was apparently not a Fed. They always called each other by "Agent So and So" with strangers. You had to be accepted into the club before they would use first names around you. I wondered what Bolle was doing with a thug for a driver.
We sat. Al offered me a cigar, which I declined, and a tumbler full of single malt, which I accepted.
"You've been a busy boy. How are your ribs?" Al said as I let my first sip of the single malt roll around in my mouth. I tried to imagine what adjectives they would use in one of those magazines. Peaty? Iodine? Fruity finish? Hell with it. It tasted great. I swallowed it.
"News travels fast," I said. "I'd hoped to keep that little fiasco quiet."
Al shrugged. "You know how word gets around in the Bureau." He unlocked a desk drawer in front of him and pulled out a couple of file folders. "Do you have any idea who you just arrested?"
"Gibson Marshall? Punk-ass kid with a taste for porn and an attitude problem. He seems to have a talent for getting out of things but I don't think he's getting out of this one."
Al slid the first folder over to me. I opened it and scanned quickly. It was all about Gibson Marshall, most of it stuff that Mandy had already uncovered. Nothing new here.
"And?" I asked.
Al slid the second folder over. The first thing inside was a color 8x10" glossy of a fit-looking man in his late fifties, maybe early sixties posing in fro
nt of an American flag. I turned past the photo of and found myself looking at a dossier on one Henderson Marshall, owner of Cascade Aviation, a small private air force that contracted almost solely with the United States government and was rumored to be a CIA front company. He was also co-owner of Transnational Resolutions, a large private security firm that worked almost solely for the US government. They employed hundreds of former Special Operations guys, Green Berets, SEALS, Delta Force, guys like that and set them up with bodyguard and "protective detail" work all over the world. Essentially, Marshall had his own private army.
I flipped through the rest of the dossier. Gibson had ties to dozens of other companies, real estate, import-export, shipping, you name it. There was also a detailed list of political contributions. According to the list, Marshall the Elder had never met a politician too conservative for a donation.
"He must be so proud of his son," I said.
"I don't know about proud," Al said. "But he sure has spent a bundle getting the kid out of trouble. On some of the minor arrests, once it became obvious that the old man was willing to spend a bottomless amount of money to defend and appeal, the charges were just dropped. No DA or city attorney in their right mind will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in their budget to get a misdemeanor conviction, particularly if the case isn't airtight. You and I both know most cases aren't airtight."
"The best defense money can buy. I thought justice was blind," I said.
"It is blind," Bolle said. "Justice doesn't see most of the crimes the rich commit.”
That was strange to hear from a Fed, even stranger coming out of the mouth of someone like Bolle, who just exuded a certain aura that I'd come to associate with the upper crust. The accent was eastern. Boston, maybe?
It put me in mind of the Kennedys, touch football on Martha's Vineyard, that sort of thing.
"The old man made the misdemeanor charges go away by throwing money at it,” Al said. “We all hate that but we know it happens. It gets worse. The State Trooper who arrested the younger Marshall for the gun and road rage incident isn't a State Trooper anymore."
I felt a sinking feeling starting in the pit of my stomach. "Do tell."
"A week after the trooper arrested Marshall, a sixteen-year-old police explorer claimed the Trooper had molested her in his squad car on numerous occasions. He was investigated and fired.”
"Was it true?" I asked.
Al shrugged. "All I can tell you is that the girl is being raised by a single mother, who worked as a waitress. Mom quit her job. They are both driving brand new cars and an educational trust fund has been set up in the girl's name. They haven't even had time to sue the State Police yet, so you tell me where the money came from."
I felt like a giant rug was being pulled out from underneath me.
"What I'm saying," Al said, "is that you need to be careful. At the very best, every aspect of this case is going to get scrutinized. If you forgot to put a period at the end of a sentence, this guy’s lawyers are going to try to spin it into a conspiracy to frame him. Everything you've ever done will be examined, reexamined and cast in a way to make you look like you aren't credible."
I felt cold all over. "Jesus, Al. This is horrible timing. This wouldn't bother me so much if you were still the boss at Major Crimes, but Lubbock, man."
Al nodded. "Yeah, I know."
Bolle shifted in his seat. I'd all but forgotten the man as Al's words kept sinking in deeper. I turned to the Fed.
"So what's your angle on all this?"
Bolle cleared his throat. "I work for a specialized unit in the Bureau. We focus on crimes of national, or even international importance. We've long suspected Mr. Marshall of using his businesses, and his contacts at CIA to engage in various illegal activities. His companies support operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, all over the world. There have been reports of stolen money being taken out of those countries, looted artworks, weapons dealings, perhaps even narcotics smuggling.”
Bolle took a sip of his scotch before he continued.
“We had an informant inside Cascade Air, a disgruntled employee who told us he had evidence. The night he was supposed to meet with me, he was called in to work a last minute flight to Pakistan. I wasn't too worried. This isn't an unusual event. Cascade Air's operation tempo is incredible. They frequently are short-handed and call crews in at the last minute. My guy got on the plane in Albany, but he never got off in Pakistan."
"Jesus." There was a lot of space between Oregon and Pakistan, much of it the Pacific Ocean.
"We've been working this thing together for almost nine months now, Dent," Al said. "This informant was the closest we've ever gotten to anything solid and bam! He's gone."
"You figure the son's working with dad?" I frowned. That didn't seem to fit.
"Actually, no," Bolle said. "Henderson all but disowned his son. He appears to have lost all hope of Gibson inheriting the business, has even cut off all contact with him other than to provide him with lawyers."
"So Junior decided to go into the internet porn business. I guess entrepreneurship runs in the family."
"Indeed. Gibson doesn’t have contact with his father, but he still has contacts with some of his father's employees. He’s been photographed on several occasions driving his van to the Cascade Aviation facility here in Oregon. We’ve intercepted phone calls from him making references to ‘making a delivery’ but we haven’t had the resources to follow up on it.”
"One thing doesn't make sense," I said. "You said the son was talking about taking something to the guys at Cascade Aviation?"
Al and Bolle both nodded.
"What could it be? These guys are flying to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, places like that? Those places have all the dope and guns and money in the world. We grow a bunch of pot here but taking that over there would be like selling snow to the Eskimos. What the hell is worth smuggling in to those countries?"
"That's what we would very much like to know," Bolle said.
I sat there for a minute, thinking, trying to put all the angles together. "Jesus. This thing just gets deeper."
Al nodded. "I called you over here tonight for two reasons. One was to warn you. I think you are in for a hell of a ride. The other was to offer you a job. Would you like to be a Fed?"
That took a second to sink in. "Start over again as an agent? No offense," I said, looking sidelong at Bolle. "It's just that I'm a little old to be a rookie again."
"Actually," Bolle said. "You'd be brought in as a special consultant. You'd be given a Federal commission, Special Agent status, able to carry a firearm, but you'd only work some of the more sensitive cases. We've no intention of making you go to the Academy at Quantico and run obstacle courses and all that."
"Huh." Not exactly the most articulate response, but the offer had come out of nowhere. I found the prospect of going back to work for Al intriguing.
Al looked me in the eye. "I don't expect an answer right now, but I need you to think about it, Dent. Somehow the bad guys discovered our informant and threw him out of an airplane. It had to be a leak. You're a man I can trust and there aren't too many of those around right now."
I felt a flush starting to creep up my neck. I was saved from having to respond by a commotion from downstairs. I heard two female voices yelling at each other. I couldn't quite make out the words other than one, which was certainly "bitch."
There was the tinkle of glass breaking.
It was Al's turn to blush. He stood straight up and with an "excuse me" went out the door. Bolle and I sat there in embarrassed silence, trying to pretend we couldn't hear Al speaking loudly downstairs. After a few minutes, he came huffing back up the stairs and appeared in the doorway, chomping on his cigar furiously.
"Dent, could I get your help with something downstairs?" I popped out of my seat like a jack in the box, almost tipping it over. I remembered to turn and shake hands with Bolle. His face was a perfectly polished impenetrable mask. I envied people who
were able to do that.
"Please think about our offer, Detective Miller," he said.
I promised I would and followed Al back downstairs. Out of the corner, of my eye I saw Gina standing in the center of the living room, using a napkin to dab at a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. She seemed to be spreading it around on her face more than she seemed to be wiping it off.
She was surrounded by her friends, all of them talking in low voices.
Al bypassed all of that and led me straight into the kitchen, where Alex sat on a stool holding a bag of ice over the knuckles of her right hand.
"Hi, Dent. I just punched my stepmother," she slurred. "But she deserved it."
Al closed his eyes. I could see him counting to three. He opened his eyes and handed me Alex's handbag, a little black thing only a little bigger than my palm.
"Dent. Would you do me a favor and take my daughter home, she's had way too much to drink."
"Ummm. Ok." There was no way in hell I was going to say no. It was Al. I would do anything for Al. Alex’s drinking had been a problem before. Two years ago she’d been arrested for driving under the influence. It had caused a big stink but ultimately hadn’t cost her job. If she tried to drive right now, there was a pretty good chance she’d wind up in a ditch, not just the back of a police car.
"Cool!" Alex said. She got to her feet, not as shakily as I would have expected and interlaced her arm in mine. She all but skipped to the foyer, dragging me along as we went.
Alex skidded to a stop outside the living room, almost sending us to the marble floor in a tangle. She pointed at Gina.
"If I feel sorry for slugging you in the morning, I'll call and apologize."
She frowned. "But I don't think I will."
"Just leave," Gina said. From her tone of voice, I expected her eyes to turn red and her head to start spinning around on her shoulders.
Alex waved expansively. "Good night, ladies. It's been fun. Arianna, try not to fall when you're playing tennis. Those cheap implants you got in Mexico might break and your boobs and ass will deflate."