Greasing the Piñata (15 page)
“That’s quite a view you’ve got, Bernie.”
Priest paced languidly in front of the window that ran the length of the office. It was almost midnight. Very little traffic on The Embarcadero, barely a whisper through the glass.
Bernie sat at his desk watching his visitor warily, saying nothing. He noticed the moon was huge tonight, a malevolent eye looking over the Bay Bridge.
Priest stood close enough for his nose to touch the glass. “How high up are we?”
“Twenty-fifth floor.”
Priest smiled. “But only twenty-four floors.”
“What?”
“There isn’t a thirteenth floor, Bernie. Look in the elevator, it skips from twelve to fourteen.”
“You sure?”
“It’s an old tradition in tall buildings—people are superstitious.”
“I never noticed.”
“Attention to detail. Wouldn’t you say that’s important in your line of work?”
“What are you implying?” Bernie swiveled in his chair.
“I think we might have made a mistake.” Priest spoke without rancor but Bernie tasted bile.
“
We?
”
“All right.” Priest turned from the window and leaned back, his open palms against the glass. “I might have made a mistake, Bernie. How’s that?”
“Better.” Bernie rested his hands on his gut as he tilted his chair back. “But it doesn’t solve my problem.”
“
Our
problem.”
“OK, our problem. The cops are trying to get a warrant.”
“You said they would.”
“True.” Bernie patted his belly. “The cops I can handle, I guess. That’s what you pay me for, right?”
Priest ran a tongue across his teeth. “Among other things.”
“But now a private investigator is trying to schedule an appointment.”
“So?” Priest glanced out the window, tracking a passing car no bigger than a matchbox. “Just refuse to see him—you’re a busy man.”
“Genius. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Watch your tone, Bernie.”
“Blow me, your holiness. The PI is a fucking problem.”
“You know him?”
Bernie shook his head. “I hire PI’s all the time—every lawyer does—they do all the shit I’m not supposed to do, unless I want to get kicked off the bar. I guarantee this dick will be picking through my garbage before the week is out, maybe even following me.”
“So?”
“So!” Bernie almost came out of the chair. “Taking pictures, invading my privacy.”
“You have something to hide?” Priest stepped across the carpeted floor and sat on the desk, his legs brushing against Bernie’s.
Bernie rolled his eyes. “Save the Dracula routine for somebody missing his gonads. You know damn well what I have to hide.”
Priest nodded. “Perhaps I’m not being clear. That’s why I came to see you in person, Bernie, to…” He pursed his lips, clearly not liking the taste of the words that were about to come out. “To…to
apologize
for any inconvenience I might have caused you by dispatching poor Joey in your building. It seemed—”
“—like a good idea at the time?”
“Precisely. Tying up loose ends after the Senator’s unfortunate demise.”
Bernie exhaled slowly. “You said you had some questions—what do you want to know?”
“Are we exposed?”
“No.”
“You’re positive.”
“Absolutely. I’ve been doing this a long time. I cover my tracks.”
“
Our
tracks.”
“Yeah, them too.” Bernie spun his chair slightly, to force a few inches of separation from his guest. “Every trail the Feds could follow is a dead-end. They can have all the suspicions they want—they have for years—but they won’t find any facts.”
“Very good.” Priest nodded. “I was worried my rash decision had made us vulnerable somehow.”
Bernie looked him up and down. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Priest raised his eyebrows and waited.
“You always wear that getup?”
Priest smiled ruefully.
“My father worked in the local rectory. He would do various chores, repairs, errands—that sort of thing. He was a hard worker and…” Priest paused, a faraway look in his eyes. “And a drunkard.”
Bernie slid his chair back another foot.
“At night, he would take my brother and me to the basement. Mother had left years ago—run away—but always the basement, never anywhere else in the house. My brother was older, so he went first. Father would push him to his knees as he undid his belt.”
Bernie felt sweat break out across his upper lip.
Dumb question
, he thought.
Remember not to ask about the wardrobe next time.
“Father said we had to know sin in order to defeat it.” Priest slid off the desk and kneeled in front of Bernie. “Watching my brother was almost worse, knowing my turn was next.”
Priest reached forward and took Bernie’s left hand in his with a grip that was surprisingly gentle but remarkably cold, as if he’d just come in from outside.
“Afterward, all of us crying and ashamed, he’d beat the sin from our bodies. I had so many concussions I can barely remember a day of grade school.”
Bernie breathed through his nose and tried not to blink.
“It was during those times, when I was on the verge of losing consciousness, that I came to know God.” Priest’s eyes welled with tears, then dried suddenly. Bernie wondered where the tears had gone. “When all seemed lost, I found faith. And I realized that God is vengeance, Bernie.”
Bernie didn’t say anything.
“Vengeance.
He
doesn’t reward the weak, he helps the faithful. And the very next day, He was there to help me.”
“How?”
“I came home to find father passed out on the couch. He was a drunk, but he never did that, not during the day. It was providence. My brother was playing with friends, so I was alone with the old man. Providence.”
Priest chuckled at some private joke.
“A garden trowel did the job nicely. I was sixteen, an age when most of my friends had no clue what to do with their lives, and suddenly my path was clear. I prayed as if I really believed, and a change came over me. I swore to God that I would become his Sword of Damocles and bring judgment and retribution back to the world.”
“You’re…you’re not a priest.” Bernie couldn’t help himself. “You must know that.”
Priest shook his head. “The seminarians didn’t see things the way I did—found me over-zealous, can you imagine?”
Bernie didn’t comment.
“And that, Bernie, is what brings me here, at your service.”
“Sorry, I must have missed something.” Bernie tried to retrieve his hand but Priest sat immobile, kneeling on the floor in some parody of supplication.
“I realized then that
all
men are sinners, Bernie. And since God helps those who help themselves, I sought out other men who had the will, the strength of character to exact judgment here on Earth. Men who made their own laws, like our mutual employers. Might does make right—that is God’s law—His
only
law.”
Priest sat back, his backside resting on his calves. He looked serene, satisfied with the flawless logic of his life’s work.
“Right,” said Bernie. “So, um…we done here?”
Priest released Bernie’s hand and stood, brushed off his slacks. “I have one small problem.”
Only one?
Bernie kept the thought to himself. “Shoot.”
“That paper you gave the bag man. The one with the list of numbers.”
“I told you, it’s not a problem. Nobody could decipher it.”
Priest pursed his lips. “But what if they could?”
“Who cares?” Bernie rolled closer to the desk. “It doesn’t prove a thing without corroborating testimony.”
“Legally speaking?”
“It’s inadmissible.”
“
Ahhh.
” Priest brought his fingertips together. “Someone would have to translate the ledger in court.”
“Exactly.”
“I see.” Priest took his seat on top of the desk and looked out the window. The moon had dropped in the sky, bisected by the suspension cables of the bridge. “I still don’t think you’re seeing the big picture, Bernie.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Priest’s eyes glittered with reflected light. “You could translate the ledger.”
Bernie lunged sideways off his chair and reached for the bottom-right desk drawer. Priest kicked him in the side of the head.
“
Fuck.
” Bernie clutched the side of his face. “
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
”
Priest calmly kneeled and opened the drawer. A Kimber .45 automatic lay next to a box of ammunition.
“
Tsk-tsk
…they teach you how to use one of these at Harvard Law?”
Bernie scrabbled backward until his head thumped into the window.
Priest took the gun in his right hand and walked calmly to the window, where he used the butt of the pistol to bang against the glass. A hollow
thunk
reverberated around the office.
“Safety glass.”
Priest squatted next to Bernie and stroked his cheek with the barrel of the gun. The
click
of the hammer seemed deafening.
“I abhor guns.”
Priest stood and took a step back, raised the pistol over Bernie’s prostrate form and pulled the trigger.
The window exploded in a spiderweb of cracks centered around a surprisingly small hole. Priest pulled the trigger again.
And again.
Bernie whimpered as Priest dropped the gun onto the carpet. Before he could react, Bernie felt Priest’s fingers in his hair, pulling hard. His right ankle was grabbed and he felt himself being lifted off the floor.
The window lunged at him with impossible speed. He felt the glass break apart as it lacerated his face, the sound like icicles falling. A sudden loss of gravity and then distance, an impossible distance between him and the ground.
Cars moved listlessly below, one in particular looking more and more like it might become a bull’s-eye. Bernie twisted in midair and saw stars blinking their warnings, a silent Morse code he wished he had noticed before. The moon was overhead, the bridge its constant companion.
Priest had been right. It really was quite a view.
“How’s the view from up there?”
Cape sat on the floor and watched Sally defy gravity. She was balancing on a black nylon rope six feet above the hardwood floor. Her shoes were split between the second and third toe, providing a narrow channel to guide the rope as she moved. She wore calf-length black tights, a long sleeved black sweatshirt, and a blindfold.
“Funny.” Sally reached the midpoint of the rope, arms extended, her head cocked to one side.
Cape told her about his visit with Assemblyman Kelley. When he had finished, Sally bent her knees and brushed the rope with her right hand, then straightened, the motion causing the rope to bounce slightly.
She adjusted the blindfold and continued moving forward. “Freddie Wang says he’s not involved.”
“Isn’t that what you’d expect him to say?”
Sally shook her head. “He wasn’t lying.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I caught him with his pants down.”
“OK, another dead-end.”
“Not entirely.” Sally sprang straight into the air and twisted, the rope vibrating like a piano wire. She landed in a crouch facing the opposite direction, arms out, the rope snapping into place between her toes.
“Nice,” said Cape.
“Freddie says that Frank Alessi has a new supplier.”
“Not Salinas?”
Sally shook her head, displacing the blindfold slightly. “Freddie thinks Salinas is still doing business with Frank, but there’s someone new.”
“Maybe Luis Cordon.”
“Freddie didn’t know, but he said volume is up, street prices are down.”
Cape nodded. “Frank drives demand while he plays one supplier against the other, controls his costs.”
“Sounds plausible.”
“Only Frank would know.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
Cape stood. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Because you missed me.” Sally took a long step and launched herself into space, spinning in a tight somersault before opening her arms and landing noiselessly on the hardwood floor. She stripped off the blindfold as Cape clapped lazily, the sound a hollow echo in the open space.
“Free tonight?”
Sally nodded. “Frank’s office in North Beach?”
“Not this time.” Cape shook his head. “I think Frank’s probably jumpy…someone might get hurt.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“You’re starting to sound like Beau.”
“You have a better idea.”
Cape smiled. “I know where Frank eats dinner.”
Inspector Garcia held the soccer tickets at arm’s length and clucked his tongue reprovingly.
“You surprise me, Ramirez. You are never late.”
“I’m not late,” snapped Ramirez. “I said tomorrow.”
“You said that yesterday.”
Ramirez pointed to the lab’s wall clock. “It’s a quarter to five. I still have fifteen minutes.” He pushed his glasses onto his bald head and rubbed his eyes.
“But you didn’t call.”
Ramirez blinked. “That’s because I knew you would come find me. Like you always do.”
Garcia frowned. “My wife says I am not a patient man.”
“I thought you were divorced.”
“Now you know why.”
“Fine.” Ramirez gestured to an empty chair adjacent to his desk.
Garcia eyed the chair. “Shouldn’t this be a short visit?
Yes, the gringo Senator is dead. So is his son.
”
“Yes, the
gringo
Senator is dead, Oscar—so is his son. There is a positive DNA match for both.”
“But?” Garcia studied his colleague’s expression. Reluctantly he slid the soccer tickets into his breast pocket and sat down.
“There is a third strand of DNA.” Ramirez swiveled in his chair and tapped his computer screen.
“The alligator,” said Garcia. “We already spoke of this.”
“No, a third person. That’s why the first two tests were tainted.”
“You’re sure.”
Ramirez nodded. “Three people died in that lake.”
“Who?” Garcia could tell there was more.
“That’s what I wanted to know, so I worked with the coroner to separate the various samples we had.”
“The arms from the legs—”
“—and the hands from the feet—”
“—and we found someone who happens to be in our database.”
“Which means he is a known criminal.”
“Or law enforcement.” Ramirez hit several keys until a face appeared on the computer screen. A name, dates, and numbers appeared next to a stern man in his thirties with close-cropped hair. “Does the name Gilberto Arronyo ring a bell?”
Garcia’s eyes popped. “Arronyo is definitely not law enforcement.”
Ramirez squinted at the screen. “The file says he works for—”
“—Luis Cordon.” Garcia exhaled loudly.
“So one of the men works for Cordon—but who killed them?”
“That’s not really the question, is it?”
Ramirez turned in his seat. “You think it was Salinas?”
“When a man who works for Luis Cordon gets killed, there is rarely another explanation.” Garcia shrugged. “But what was our Senator doing with one of Luis Cordon’s men in the first place?”
“
That
is not my problem.” Ramirez reached forward and snatched the soccer tickets from Garcia’s pocket. He turned off the computer and stood, removing his lab coat and draping it across his chair. “Thanks for the tickets.”
“You earned them.”
“I know.” Ramirez looked at the clock. “You coming?”
“You go ahead.” Garcia suddenly felt very tired. “I need to make some calls.”