No Accident (18 page)

“This is good stuff,” the tattooed attendant said encouragingly. “I had a little on my way up.”

The FBI agents politely declined. One of them explained that they couldn’t accept gifts.

“It’s not a gift, it’s lunch,” Jim said.

“The rules,” one of them said. “We have to pay market price.”

Jim asked the female attendant, “What does this plate cost in the cafeteria?” She replied, and in unison the agents dug their wallets from their pockets. One of them offered a bill to the tattooed attendant, but he recoiled and eyed it disdainfully.

“Sorry, man, I don’t have change. I just push the cart, y’know?”

The agent turned to the row of Arabs seated next to him. “Have any of you gentlemen got change for a twenty?”

Sheila’s lead was a bust. His name was Raymond, but he introduced himself as Ray-bear, and over a year had passed since he quit Liberty Industries
—quit or been fired, he never quite said—which he explained repeatedly was “on account of my medical situation.” Since leaving, Ray-bear had let his hair grow out.

“Those insurance policies
—man, I dunno what
those
were about.”

He said that three separate times. His gaze kept drifting toward the view onto the street through the dirty living room window of his apartment.

Raymond didn’t have anything of value to say about the insurance policies. He did have plenty to say about Sheila, all of it negative except praise for her figure, which he thought was especially fine “for a woman her age.” He said that a couple of times, too. Alex guessed Ray-bear was not much younger than Sheila, but he looked older.

Alex dropped the courteous tone with which he had begun the conversation. “Let me ask you something
—is it really possible to be a pot-head and get a cushy job in finance? ’Cause if it is, I’ve been busting my ass for nothing.”

Ray-bear thought about the question, or at least paused before replying. “No, not really. That’s sort of why I had to leave.” He gestured to a small bag of marijuana on the coffee table in front of him that he hadn’t bothered to hide. “It’s on account of my
—”

Alex finished his sentence for him and said a quick goodbye.

There was a breeze outside. Alex inhaled deeply. After the atmosphere of warm rot inside Ray-bear’s apartment, he felt grateful for the cold day outside. Public pressure had forced Rampart insurance to restore Roberta Cummings’ liability policy, but this case was still personal for Alex. He was certain that someone had murdered those people, and whoever would do something like that had to think that they were smarter than everyone.
No, you’re not
, Alex thought. Luke sure thought he was smart. Alex was smart, too. But he was running out of time before he had to get a job.

So, forward, then
—and so much for Sheila and her dead end with Ray-bear. Alex decided to go back to Liberty to look for Beto, and this time he wouldn’t do it by telephone. He thought back a couple of weeks and recalled how he telephoned Liberty pretending to be Beto’s parole officer. Alex decided it was time for another check-in by Beto’s parole officer. This time, Alex would show up in person.

Alex went to his closet to choose the right clothes. The suit Alex had worn to his father’s funeral, dark and now unfashionable, was perfect. And it was actually helpful that Alex’s only white dress shirt needed to be pressed.

Alex tried to imagine his father’s reaction if he could see Alex now. Probably vague disappointment, or maybe just confusion. His father had assumed that Alex and Del would both end up as respectable white collar professionals—businessmen, doctors, something like that. Alex had tried being a businessman in a way, with his housing investments, but obviously that wasn’t a good fit. Dad had seemed like a nice guy, when he was around. Most nights or weekends he was travelling or at the office. It was Mom who raised them and, in some things, Alex and Del who had raised each other.

Alex’s costume still lacked something
—glasses. Alex didn’t wear them, so on his way to Liberty he stopped at a drugstore and bought the ugliest pair with the mildest prescription he could find. Alex wanted whoever he met to remember his glasses, not his face.

At Liberty, they put him in a room and told him to wait. Then a pot-bellied supervisor entered, looking worn but surly. They shared an apathetic handshake, and Alex got right to the point.

“I got this guy—I’m from the county—his name’s . . .” Alex flipped open a file folder he had brought in order to refresh his memory.

“.
 . . Rigoberto Capablanca,” Alex said, trailing off at the end of the first name as though he wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. The last name he said clearly, in old white-guy fashion, saying the first syllable like the word “cap.”

The supervisor said it the same way. “Capablanca’s one of ours, that’s right.”

“I know, I called a while back on him. Anyways, they want me to show up on these guys, so I’m showing up. My sister lives out here and I need to see her for something, so . . . anyways, can I see him?”

“Nope,” the supervisor said. “Out on worker’s comp.”

Alex tugged at his dark tie. The knot was so tight it looked like a plumbing joint.

“Workers’ comp
 . . . He didn’t tell me that. Oh, maybe he did.” Alex made a show of shuffling through the papers in his folder as if looking for the answer, knowing he wouldn’t find it there because the papers were a random grab from his glove compartment. He shuffled a little too hard, though, and the papers slipped out and to the floor, tumbling over one another like boisterous schoolchildren fleeing the classroom.

The supervisor dropped gracelessly to one knee to help collect the papers. If the supervisor got a close look at the papers, he would discover Alex’s deceit, so Alex moved faster. He hunched his body over the mess, rejecting the supervisor’s courteous gesture, and pulled in the pages like they were twenty-dollar bills. The drugstore glasses made everything a little blurry.

When Alex was finished, they both stood up and pretended it hadn’t happened.

“Great,” Alex said. “Can I see his boss? Maybe that’s you.”

“That’s me. And I’m his only boss now that we don’t have a head of H.R. no more. Capablanca don’t get along with me like he did with her—but then I ain’t as pretty as she was.”

Alex smiled at the joke. The supervisor was right
—he wasn’t as pretty as Sheila. “All right,” Alex said. “Does he have a locker or something I can look at? They tell me if a guy’s not there I gotta find ‘objective corroboration he regularly attends the workplace.’” Alex tapped his folder definitively. “That’s what it says.”

“Sure,” the supervisor said. “Hell if I care.”

* * *

Five minutes later, Alex was back in his truck and driving fast.

So Beto and the former head of H.R. had got along . . . So Sheila
did
know Beto. The supervisor said so. Sheila had lied to him. After Alex had given her the benefit of the doubt, after he’d wasted time thinking she was different than other women—different than Pamela. After all that, she’d just been another liar.

His cell phone rang. “What?”

“Dude, why do you sound so pissed?” It was Del.

“Sorry. What is it?”

“Don’t get angry, OK?”

“I already am angry, Del. So how much worse are you going to make my day?”

“Your truck got stolen,” Del said.

So there was the other shoe dropping. He’d hoped Del might surprise him for once. Alex felt very sad and angry and didn’t say anything.

“Alex?” Del said.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lying to Mom is one thing, OK? I’m actually impressed you waited this long. I expected you to do it earlier.”

“Do what?”

“Come on, Del. Sell the truck to pay down your debt and then call it in as stolen.”

Alex knew his accusation was on the money when Del didn’t respond immediately. Alex could almost hear the creaky gears turning in Del’s head as his brother shifted his approach from lying to strategic honesty.

“On the bright side,” Del said, “now you’ll get a little sugar from the insurance money.”

“No, Del. Now the insurance company will pay me the car’s market value. But guess what? The truck is worth less than what I owe the bank on it. So now I owe the difference. That means the bill collectors will be coming back for me. So don’t do me any more favors.”

“Alex?”

Alex didn’t respond. From the tone of Del’s voice, he knew there was a third shoe about to drop.

“Alex? I need to ask a favor.”

Of course
, Alex thought. “What?”

“I need a place to stay tonight.”

Of course Alex said yes. He even drove across town to pick Del up. He felt lousy the whole way there. Del had proposed staying in Alex’s vacant house. Alex told him again that wouldn’t work—Alex needed it empty while he tried to rent it and, besides, it had no furniture. Del would stay with Alex instead and sleep on the couch.

On the way home, Del said, “I can help find a renter for the vacant house while you look for a job. While you’re out, I’ll update the internet ad, I’ll take calls.”

“No internet poker,” Alex said.

“No problemo, I only play strip poker now,” Del said. When Alex frowned, Del said, “Kidding.”

Del asked Alex what he’d been doing all these days if he hadn’t been looking for a job, and Alex told Del basics of the accident and his investigation. And about Sheila, and her lie.

“Everything seemed so straightforward,” Alex said. “I proposed to help her, and she agreed to help me do that. I don’t understand why she’d lie to me.”

“Well, start at the top. Why does she want to help to you in the first place?”

“Money.”

“Whoa, don’t say it like it’s bad.”

“She wants dirt on her husband to use in her divorce. She just doesn’t want it bad enough to tell me the truth.”

“What was the lie?”

“It was such a basic thing
—I told her I was looking for this employee of Liberty, and she looked me in the eye and told me she’d never heard of anyone named Rigoberto Capablanca.”

“Beto?” Del said. “I know that fool.”

And he did. Del explained that they’d fallen into a casual camaraderie over the years as two generally unsuccessful gamblers. Del even had Beto’s cell phone number. At Alex’s request, Del called it.

“Beto! It’s Del.” There was a pause. “Del. Del Taco. Right, it’s me, dude.” Del glanced at Alex and shrugged. “Look,” Del said, “I hea
r you’re in some trouble . . . right, for a change. Listen, can we get together? I want you to meet someone who can help you . . . Actually, you already know him—Alex Fogarty. He’s my brother.”

Beto’s exclamations were loud enough that Alex could hear them clearly. Beto included a few Spanish curses that Alex hadn’t heard before. Alex grabbed the phone from Del.

“Beto, it’s Alex. Listen. No, listen to me. I’m going to nail whoever set up the accident and got Jorge killed, and I don’t think it was you. But either you put me on the right track, or I’ll keep hounding you.” Beto told Alex to put Del back on the line. Alex did, and Beto agreed to meet the two of them at his lawyer’s office the next day to talk.

The lawyer’s name was Stanley DeLay. His offices were in a small professional complex that housed doctors and other lawyers. He had a personal injury practice, and Alex cynically assumed that Beto knew the lawyer from running swoop-and-squat insurance scams back in the day. Scams like that required more than an old car and a willingness to risk serious injury. You also needed a crooked doctor and a crooked lawyer
—it was a real team effort.

Alex and Del found DeLay waiting for them in the reception area. DeLay was middle-aged, with a pockmarked face and a comb-over.

“So you’re Beto’s lawyer,” Alex said loudly.

At the mention of the name Beto, DeLay glanced nervously at the couple of clients sitting in the reception area. “I’m not the man’s lawyer at this time,” he said. “I’m merely acting as his agent in this meeting.”

Alex found the nomenclature amusing. “I didn’t know Beto had an agent,” he said. “Have you booked him on Letterman yet?”

DeLay escorted Alex and Del to a small conference room where the blinds were shut. Beto was waiting there, pacing and looking nervous. The lawyer then excused himself. Beto continued to pace.

“Sit down, Beto,” Alex said. Alex sat down himself. So did Del. “I’m not here to capture you this time.”

Beto ignored Alex and wandered to the window, where he spread apart two slats in the blinds and peeked outside. “Can you protect me?”

Beto was pitiful, but Alex withheld a chuckle because he could see the man was scared. “That depends,” Alex said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, and then let’s see if we can help each other. Tell me about how Jorge died.”

Beto turned to Del with a fierce look. “I can’t believe you’re related to this
pendejo
.”

“Me neither,” said Del with a roll of his eyes. “Believe me.”

Little brothers
. Alex let Del’s casual insult slide. Beto turned to Alex, with his eyes now starting to tear up. “I’m scared of Crash,” he said.

“You’re scared of a crash? I would be too if my friend died like that.”

“No, man.
Crash
, the man.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Crash is the
enforcer
, man. You don’t wanna mess with him.”

“Whose enforcer?”

“Luke Hubbard’s. Crash does all the dirty work. He’ll slit your throat as easy as he shaves in the morning. He’s
loco
. He killed Lenny.”

“Who’s Lenny
?”

“My bookie.”

Alex’s head was spinning. He needed a list of characters to keep up. He shot a glance at Del, but Del’s look said that he’d never heard of these people either. “Why did Crash kill Lenny?”

“Lenny
was trying to blackmail Luke.”

“For what?”

“For the crash.”

“The crash at Christmas or Crash, the man?”

“The one at Christmas, man, the one at Christmas.” Beto pulled a chair from the table and fell into it, exhausted. “You just gotta help me, man.”

“And now you think Crash is looking for you.”

“I don’t think, I know. He’s out there
right now
.” Beto motioned toward the window, and Alex rose to see for himself.

“No, don’t look!” Beto said.

Alex sat down again. “Why don’t you go to the police?”

Beto spit out a puff of air and flipped his hands toward the ceiling. “They wouldn’t help me, they would just arrest me for something. They always want the bigger fish, you know?”

“I never thought you were a big fish, Beto.”

“Thanks,” Beto said glumly. Then he thought about that a little more, and said, “You’re a bastard, Alex, but at least you’re honest.”

“What does Lenny’s blackmail scheme have to do with you?”

“I gave
Lenny the evidence, and we were going to share whatever he got. I owed him money.”

“I see
 . . . but Lenny couldn’t pull the scheme off and got himself killed, and now this Crash person figured out you were involved and is coming to kill you. Is that about it?”

“Exactly, man.”

“Why would Crash think you were involved?”

“Because I knew Jorge, and Jorge was
in on the scam. Or maybe Lenny told Crash before he died. I don’t know.”

Alex wished somebody would just tell him what the hell had happened. “Exactly what was the scam?”

“For a smart guy, you ask some really stupid questions,” Beto said. “It’s the same scam as always—you load some poor losers in a car and go get yourself rear-ended.”

Now we’re getting somewhere
, Alex thought. Maybe Zeke’s crazy theory was right—but the details didn’t quite add up. “I thought you and Jorge had moved up in the world. Why would he pull a stunt like that, and with a company van, no less? Did he miss prison?”

“Because they asked Jorge to do it.”

“Who asked him to? Why?”

“It was some workers’ comp thing. Jorge wasn’t real clear about it.”

Alex pretended to scoff. “He kept you in the dark? Some friend.”

“He was a bastard. He didn’t want me to steal his deal
—like I gave a shit. He invited me to come along, but I was hung over that morning. I told him to cut me in, but he was only going to pay me the same measly share he paid those other losers in the van . . . Bastard . . .”

“And you’re sure it was Luke who asked him to do it?”

“Luke or Crash, one of those two. Jorge never told me which because he wanted to cut me out. But he boasted over and over that it went all the way to the top. He thought he was
so
important. Anyway, Luke, Crash—same difference.”

Alex looked skeptically at Beto. As much as Alex wanted to believe, now that he heard Beto’s story, he wasn’t sold yet. “And so the CEO of a Fortune 500 company asked Jorge to do a penny-ante car insurance scam for him?”

“No, it wasn’t car insurance, that was the beauty of it. It was workers’ comp. Jorge was supposed to go get hit by a car
without
insurance. That way someone like you”—Beto jabbed a bony finger at Alex—“wouldn’t come snooping around and asking questions afterward.”

That answered Alex’s lingering question about why the driver of the van chose to get rear-ended by a beat-up old gardening truck
—and if Howard Cummings’ sports car hadn’t hit them from behind, Alex would never have gotten involved and the scam would have actually worked. Maybe Beto wasn’t lying, after all. Alex nodded as he thought it over. “And Liberty was self-insured on the van, so there was no outside insurer on that end to deal with. Nice little plan. So the idea was Luke or Crash or whoever would split the workers’ comp payout with Jorge and the others?”

“Exactly, man.”

Beto still hadn’t answered the biggest question—why someone in Luke’s position would commit murder. “You realize, don’t you, that Luke is already rich? No offense, but why would he stick his neck out for a little scam like this?”

“That’s what I told Jorge, but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted to be a big shot with the bosses.”

“And it all would have worked out fine if it wasn’t for the explosion.”

Beto sighed. “As soon as I heard about that, I knew it was a setup.”

Alex’s ears perked up. “Why did you think that?”

“Because vans don’t just explode, man. They were
supposed
to die.”

That might or might not make sense, Alex thought. “Why would Luke want to kill them?”

“Just Jorge—the others were unlucky. Jorge knew too much.” Beto leaned in and whispered hoarsely, “Jorge used to get girls for Hubbard.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Beto. Luke Hubbard is rich and good looking, he can have any woman he wants.”

“No, he likes them young.”

Alex curled his lip in disgust.

“Not children,” Beto said. “He’s not some sort of . . . pervert. Just seventeen, eighteen years old. But a guy like him can’t just go cruise around the high school in his Mercedes, you know?”

“Big difference between seventeen and eighteen,” Alex said, even though he realized the remark was unproductive. He couldn’t help it.

They were silent until Alex spoke again.

“So, do you have any evidence that the accident was a setup, or did that all get blown up, too?”

* * *

When Beto’s black Camaro with the scratched fender pulled out of the lot at Stanley DeLay’s office, a silver SUV parked across the street pulled out after it.

Crash was a patient man, but he was tired of trailing Beto. Pool hall, bar, girlfriends’ houses—it was the same joyless cycle day after day. Crash had only contempt for Beto. Liberty had hired Beto, even though Beto was an ex-con. Beto should have been grateful, like Crash was grateful for all Luke and Liberty had done for him. Instead, Beto had helped Lenny blackmail Luke.

Sure
, Crash thought,
I betrayed Luke, too
. But only once. Years ago, even though he was reminded of it almost every day. He didn’t ask Petra to flash her ass in front of his face all the time. Anyway, Crash’s betrayal was ancient history; Luke didn’t know about it—and never would.

Crash kept a couple of cars between himself and the Camaro. He was pretty sure Beto had figured out he was being followed. It would be so easy for Crash just to make Beto go away. Crash wished he could. But he couldn’t, yet. Luke wanted to know whether anyone other t
han Beto was involved in Lenny’s blackmail scheme. So Crash was busy finding out.

The cars drove for a while down broad avenues that stretched for miles and intersected at right angles with other broad avenues. At the end of one of them, they drove deep into the hills on a narrow, winding street where Crash’s large SUV was even more conspicuous. On the other side of the hills they drove out into the San Fernando Valley. There the grid of asphalt resumed, as persistent as if the streets followed lines etched in the earth’s crust and the hills were just loose dirt piled on top. Beto had never come this way before, not as long as Crash had been following him. The Camaro stopped at a burger joint, and that made Crash happy. Beto was miles from his own neighborhood and so he wouldn’t have the advantage of knowing the streets around here. This was as good a place as any to confront Beto
—for information of course, with perhaps just a little physical persuasion.

Crash watched from his car as his quarry entered the restaurant and sat in a booth facing away from the parking lot. Crash walked in and, quickly but quietly, slipped into the booth across from his target. Crash found him grinning impishly.