Greasing the Piñata (14 page)

Chapter Thirty-seven

Sloth lived across from Golden Gate Park, with a view of eucalyptus trees and cherry blossoms that he never enjoyed.

He spent all his waking moments surrounded by four plasma screens networked to a server as big as a refrigerator. Plagued with a rare neurological disorder that made physical movement painful and slow, Sloth lived through his computers, and the freedom they provided was more precious than any glimpse of nature, tantalizingly close though it might be.

Linda answered the door when Cape arrived. Over the years Linda had become Sloth’s voice-box, an avatar for the things he couldn’t do himself and interpreter for the things he saw in cyberspace that no one else could understand.

By way of greeting, Cape handed her the page of letters and numbers Beau had given him.

“Present from the SFPD. Crack the code and win a prize.”

“Where did it come from?” Linda scanned the sheet before placing it next to Sloth, whose head tilted fractionally to the side, his eyes straining behind his glasses.

“It was taped to the crotch of a dead man.”

Linda’s hair shivered at the thought. “Sit down.”

Cape took the empty chair next to Sloth, squeezing his friend on the shoulder in greeting. The plasma screens flashed as black words appeared in twenty-point type.

Cape nodded. “Tell me about it.”

“He wasn’t
my
Senator. How do you know?”

Linda cut in. “Show him, Sloth.”

Sloth’s right hand twitched, a movement so subtle it seemed involuntary. Beneath each hand was a pressure-sensitive scratch pad calibrated to his range of motion. The screens filled with colored bars and squares—blue, green, red—in a complex pattern that kept shifting as Sloth’s thumb shifted back and forth.

Linda kept her distance from the screens but jabbed a finger at the nearest one. “The horizontal axis is chronological, dating back to the Senator’s days in the local assembly. The boxes are his voting record on different bills, resolutions, referendums, and such.”

“Got it.”

“Now watch this.”

Sloth must have moved because the screens morphed, blues and reds fusing into purple, green splitting apart into yellow and blue. Linda’s hair jiggled with excitement.

“Sloth created a program to predict the Senator’s voting record.”

Cape frowned. “Based on what?”

“Party affiliation, educational background and alma mater, state of birth, ethnicity, and about ten other demographics, all cross-referenced against two hundred other politicians in our database.”

“Geez.”

“Exactly. So this program not only shows how the Senator voted on any given issue, it shows how he
should
have voted based on the model. So the areas in here—” Linda waved her right hand in a broad circle, her index finger pointing toward the purple rectangles. “—are anomalies.”

“Times when he crossed party lines.”

“Or just broke the mold,” said Linda. “By themselves these votes wouldn’t mean anything. Could be a personal issue for him, or a change of heart. Politicians break ranks all the time.”

“So why should I care?”

Cape looked at Sloth, who was still blinking at the screen. The corner of his mouth spasmed slightly, the closest he ever came to laughing. Sloth loved patterns as much as Cape loved pancakes.

The screen changed again, rows and rows of colored squares multiplying, folding, and scrolling across the screen. Cape felt himself getting dizzy and had to look away. He turned to Linda.

“In English, please.”

“Sloth ran the program for every city councilman, senator and local assembly member we had records for, then looked for patterns. We focused the search on bills or referendums involving big money—taxpayer money—construction projects like renovating the Bay Bridge. Tax breaks for local businesses. Pension plans for city employees.”

“And?”

“We found at least eight, maybe ten other politicians moving in sequence with Senator Dobbins. Sometimes with him, sometimes voting against, but always following a distinct pattern. Which got us thinking—”

Cape looked back at the screen. “If you bribe one politician, you only get one vote.”

Linda nodded. “And after a while, someone’s going to notice the politician in your pocket, because he always votes for your pet projects.”

“But if you bribe a dozen politicians, you can play them off against each other from one vote to the next. Al Capone used to do the same thing with juries—he’d intimidate as many jurors as he could, just to get the swing vote.”

“So your Senator could seem tough on crime with one vote, then soften on the next one, but as long as another congressman flip-flopped at the same time, the end result would be the same.” Linda spread her hands and moved her fingers up and down in a parody of a puppeteer. “Now we need to determine who benefits the most from these votes—find out where the money went.”

Cape nodded. “Beau thinks all roads lead back to Frank Alessi.” He squinted at the dates running along the bottom of the screen. “But I’d love to know some of the legitimate businesses that benefited from these votes. When the tax increase went through for the Bay Bridge, which construction company was awarded the job? For the tax breaks to local business, get me a list of companies. Can you do that?”

“Way ahead of you,” said Linda. “But we’re not there yet.”

“OK.” Cape gestured at the sheet of paper he’d brought. “Maybe that’ll help.”

“One more thing.” Linda gave him a mischievous smile. “We figured you’d want to field test our theory.”

Cape felt his pulse quicken. “These other politicians are
local
?”

“But not all current,” said Linda. “Some of this data is historical. But there’s one local assemblyman—still in office—whose voting patterns move in perfect sync with Dobbins.”

“Got a name?”

“And an address.”

A house number and street appeared on the screens in huge glowing letters.

“It’s in Pacific Heights,” said Linda.

Cape took a deep breath. He still had no clue where he was headed, but at least he had an address.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Rebecca sat on the bed as she opened the shoebox.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and willed them open again. Tears sprang spontaneously from her eyes before she touched the first picture.

Danny when he was fifteen, football helmet under his arm. Danny again, maybe twenty-one, a concert t-shirt and hair longer than a summer day.

Rebecca gasped.

She and Danny together. She remembered that shirt, her Mom had turned it into a pillow when she got older. She couldn’t have been more than six, big cheeks pressed against her older brother’s chest.

She held the pictures at arms length, let her tears fall onto the bedspread.

The whole family. Mom, Danny, Rebecca and Dad, bathing suits in the backyard, a sprinkler and a slip-‘n-slide in the background.

Who had taken the picture?

A single tear landed right on the photograph, obscuring the smile of the little girl she barely recognized as herself. How old had she been—ten, eleven?

There she was again—aged three, sitting in her father’s lap, a book open in front of them, her eyes glued to the book, his locked on her.

Rebecca tried to control her breathing, gave up and sobbed until she was dried out. It took a long time. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, stepped into the living room and sat down on the couch.

She had lived by herself almost her whole life but had never felt so alone. Every hour she spent at her Father’s house she wanted to flee. Run away to the desert, a friend’s apartment, anywhere but here.

But she could control that feeling—she had before and she would now.

She couldn’t confront her past in the desert. Her friends couldn’t help her. This was something she had to do by herself.

This room felt more like an office than a living room, the walnut desk dominating the wall facing the bay window. Rebecca stood and walked over to the desk, sat in the red leather chair. Ran her hands over the blotter. Took pens from the coffee mug, put them back. After several minutes of touching, lifting, holding, and procrastinating, she started opening the drawers.

Forty-five minute later she had a stack of bills, old checkbooks, and receipts on one side of the desk. A small pile in the center that included a pocketknife, gold ball, rubber bands, and coins from other countries. She would go through the bills later, maybe after she found the strength to look at the rest of the photographs. She pushed the chair back and leaned forward to open the last drawer, the lower right file drawer.

It was locked.

She scanned the pile of stuff on the desk. Scooting off the chair, she ducked under the desk to check the bottom of the main drawer, but no key was taped there. She thought about going back to the bedroom and checking the end table, but first she pulled on the drawer again. It was a simple latch, turned vertically to slide into the bottom of the drawer directly above it.

Rebecca selected a thin letter opener from the coffee mug and jammed it between the drawers. It stuck when she tried to push it down, so she got on her hands and knees again and slid it straight between the drawers. Holding it steady with her right hand, she brought her left across her body and knocked the letter opener sideways.

The latch gave way and the drawer popped open.

Rebecca didn’t know what she was expecting. After all, she didn’t really know her father. Maybe a bottle of scotch. Perhaps a gun. Thousands of dollars in unmarked bills. But she found none of those things.

What she did find was something that she never would have predicted, not in a million years.

Sitting at the bottom of the drawer was a padded envelope, and written in the unmistakable scrawl of her father’s handwriting—writing she remembered from her childhood—was a single name in red ink.

Rebecca.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Cape knew from the Pacific Heights address that Assemblyman Henry Kelley was living well. It was only when he reached the house that he realized how well.

The two-story home occupied half the block, a rust-colored stone exterior with plenty of windows under a Spanish tiled roof. The property sat at the crest of the street, and from where he parked in the circular driveway, Cape could see a backyard sloping away down the hill. The back of the house must have an unobstructed view of the Bay.

In this town, in this neighborhood, ten million would be the starting bid. Cape tried to remember how much he paid in taxes as he walked across the gravel drive to the front door.

A young Mexican woman in a white blouse and gray skirt answered the door.

“
Sí
, Señor Weathers—Mister Kelley is expecting you.” She turned on her heel and walked across the marble foyer down a short hallway to a large living room.

The first impression was of light—the window facing the door was almost eight feet wide. As Cape surmised, it afforded a view over Marina green onto the endless expanse of the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge just visible on the left.

The backyard was modest but green with new grass. Three boys, all under ten, were laughing and chasing a small terrier that gripped a ball tightly between its teeth.

The room itself was quite dark, leather and oak. A long couch sat to Cape’s right, a duck-hunting decoy on the nearest end table. Facing the couch was a fireplace. Above the mantle a matching pair of shotguns were mounted next to a stuffed pheasant. Presumably the taxidermist intended for the bird to be frozen in flight, but its oblong body and the stunned look in its glass eye reminded Cape of an angry football tired of being thrown.

“Magnificent creatures, wouldn’t you agree?” Kelley had come through a side door.

“I understand they’re quite tasty.” Cape took Kelley’s extended hand and shook.

Kelley chuckled—a deep, melodic sound that made you feel warm all over. Cape smiled and reclaimed his hand, which took some effort. He had the impression the handshake would have lasted until the next election if he hadn’t allowed the assemblyman to win the man-grip contest.

Kelley was a handsome man, past middle age but striking. His gray-blue eyes were set wide, his white hair groomed into thick, rolling waves. Cape had the sudden urge to ask for his autograph. This guy was a natural.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice, Mister Kelley.”

“Are you a registered voter?” Kelley had a slight accent, not quite Southern but close. It was a style of speech he noticed in politicians before, whether they were from the south, north, west, or even Brooklyn. Rounded vowels and dropped consonants, just down-home enough for a man of the people yet too vague to be associated with any specific region. Part of the modern political landscape—ambiguity in speech to match a lifestyle of misdirection.

“Yes, I’m registered.”

“Well then, you can call me Hank.” Kelley gestured to a leather chair in front of the sofa. “Your message said you had news about my colleague, Senator Dobbins. I’m afraid I haven’t spoken to him in some time.”

“He’s dead.”

“My God.” The pupils in Kelley’s eyes contracted, then relaxed. “You get right down to it, don’t you?”

“Sorry. I don’t have a lot of time.”

“What happened?”

“I honestly don’t know, but he was found on a golf course in Mexico. I expect…my guess is it’ll hit the news sometime in the next few days, if not sooner.”

“That’s horrible.” Kelley looked out the window, tracking his sons as they chased the dog.

“You two were close?”

Kelley refocused on Cape. “We were on the same team—politically.”

“But you didn’t always vote the same.”

“No…no, we didn’t.” Kelley paused. “Even colleagues don’t always see eye-to-eye on every issue.”

“When’s the last time you talked to him?”

“I don’t know.” Kelley glanced toward the mantle. “Maybe a week before he retired. We talked about—”

Cape cut him off. “Frank Alessi?”

Kelley blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You think Frank had the Senator’s son Danny killed?”

Kelley’s mouth opened and closed like a carp but no sound came out.

“Or do you think Danny just got caught up in the whole mess?”

Kelley’s eyes darted around the room. Cape stared at him and waited.

“I don’t know…” He looked out the window. “I have a family.”

Cape nodded. “You took a chance seeing me, I guess that’s why. You’ve been scared shitless since Dobbins disappeared and couldn’t resist a chance to find out what happened to the poor bastard.”

“You don’t…I can’t just—”

Cape held up a hand. “You didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned Dobbins’ son was dead, too. You didn’t ask how Dobbins died. Whether Frank meant it as a warning or not, I figure you and everybody else on the payroll connected the dots when Dobbins disappeared.”

“
I have a family.
” Kelley’s voice was barely a whisper.

“How many on the payroll? Besides you and Dobbins.”

Kelley didn’t answer. His eyes had drifted out of focus.

Cape looked out the window. The oldest boy had retrieved the ball and was running around in circles, his two brothers tripping over each other and giggling as they chased him, the dog yapping at their heels.

Cape didn’t care about Kelley, but there were lines he wasn’t prepared to cross. The men he was chasing were harder than he was—they wouldn’t hesitate to go after Kelley’s family. That thought might help him sleep at night, but Cape suddenly realized that was why he could never beat them. No matter how far he pushed, it wouldn’t be far enough. They’d push him off a cliff, along with anyone who got in their way.

He was out of his league and over his head.

Cape took one of his cards from his pocket and laid it on the end table. “If you ever need help, call that number.”

Kelley looked at the card like it was a poisonous spider, then shifted his gaze back to the window.

Cape stood to leave. He took one last look at the stuffed pheasant, its glass eye reflecting its amazement that Cape was still alive and it was mounted on the wall instead of him.