No Accident (5 page)

Brad sputtered something about his car being in the shop again. She cut him off when he started bemoaning the general unreliability of British cars.

“Will it be in the shop on Thursday?”

“Yes,” he said.

She opened her purse and pushed a hand forcefully into it. “Let it not be said that I omit the customary gestures of goodwill.” She spoke more to the purse than to Brad. Finally she pulled out a car key, which she placed in his hand.

“Your, um . . . retainer . . . is parked in the filthy lot across the street. It’s the black 7 series. You’ll see it, there’s only one.”

She interrupted his expressions of gratitude. “Don’t thank me. Thank my husband. He paid for it. And with your help he’ll be paying for a lot more.”

Brad closed his fingers around the key and felt better than he had in weeks.

A couple of days after Alex’s visit to Detective Lutz, Zeke called Alex at work with some questions about the accident that he and Alex had gotten into together.

“So these guys we ran into,” Zeke said, “you’re saying they actually wanted to get hit?”

“That’s the basic idea,” Alex said. “They call it ‘swoop and squat.’ The crooks swoop in front of your car, then they squat and wait for you to hit them.”

“When I cut somebody off, I want to make them mad. I don’t want a broken neck.”

“Neither do they. What they want is a minor fender bender
—pull over to the side of the freeway, then everybody gets out and pretends to have whiplash. And usually a fender bender is what they get. Then, with the help of some crooked doctors and lawyers, they sue and try to score a quick settlement.”

“So why don’t you insurance people shut them down?”

Alex rolled his eyes. Zeke might as well have asked why Alex hadn’t found a cure for cancer. “Man, we’d like to,” Alex said. “And when we catch them cold we don’t pay. Truth is, it’s usually cheaper to settle than to defend a suit, even a bogus one.”

“Doesn’t that piss you off?”

“You have no idea.”

“So it must be lucrative for the guys who do this,” Zeke said.

Alex shook his head, though he knew Zeke couldn’t see him. “It can be for those at the top, the ones who organize it. The poor schmucks we met—the ones who ride around in cars and pretend to get hurt—probably make less per accident than you spend each week on cigarettes.”

“That doesn’t sound like a great deal.”

“No health insurance, either,” Alex said dryly. “People get really hurt pulling these scams. Some die, even.”

“I had no idea this sort of thing went on.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s a whole little industry.”

Zeke was silent for a few moments. Alex’s attention drifted back to the paperwork on his desk. When Zeke spoke again, it startled him.

“That accident over Christmas—the one you’re investigating—you think it could have been one of these swoop and squat deals gone bad?”

Alex immediately became cautious. Sometimes Zeke wanted a story so bad, he would mistake his own conjectures for sourced facts. Alex didn’t want Zeke to start printing his fantasies in the paper
—especially if it came to light that Alex was his main source. And especially since Zeke’s latest fantasy wasn’t too different from Alex’s evolving suspicion about the case—Alex still suspected that one of the employees who died in the van, Jorge Ramirez, might be an insurance scam artist that Alex once encountered. But until Alex could confirm his suspicion, he had to discourage Zeke from pursuing the fraud angle and mucking up Alex’s own efforts. “No way,” Alex said. “I’ve read the police report. The facts in the Christmas accident are much different.”

“How’s that? You had people loaded in a van, the van was at the front of the collision, just like the car full of guys in our accident. The difference from our accident is that people died.”

Alex had to admit that he had noticed the same similarities after finding Jorge Ramirez among the names of the victims. But he wouldn’t tell Zeke that. He would use this conversation to test his own speculation, as well as to throw Zeke off the scent.

“Zeke, you’re letting your imagination run away from you. First of all, the van belonged to Liberty Industries, a big oil company
—and the people who do these scams don’t use company cars to do it, they buy or steal the cheapest piece of junk they can find.”

“OK then, how about the other cars in the accident? Wasn’t one of them a beat-up old pickup truck?”

“Sure,” Alex said, “driven by some gardeners who had some equipment in the back—if they planned to fake an accident, why would they risk destroying their tools?” This was good, Alex thought. Talking through the fraud hypothesis made Alex see just how many problems it had, which was disappointing in a way, but definitely productive.

“Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing,” Zeke said. “Maybe they saw the sports car racing around and decided to try to make a quick buck.”

“Trust me, Zeke. I do this for a living.”

“I’m not telling you how to do your job. I’m just saying there’s a lot at stake here. What is it, eight people dead?”

“That’s right.” Alex knew what was at stake. He thought about Mrs. Cummings and the lawsuit she was facing from the families of the others who died.

“And the police report said the driver of the sports car was at fault,” Zeke said.
Right again
, Alex thought. Remembering Detective Lutz’s stubborn incuriosity made Alex angry. Zeke continued. “So this accident is a big liability for Rampart Insurance. But . . . if the accident was really caused by the van or the gardening truck, Rampart wouldn’t have to pay, right?”

“Sure
 . . .” Alex said cautiously.
Damn straight
, he thought.

“So maybe the accident deserves a closer look.”

Alex sighed. This is what Zeke always did—push and push until you got tired and gave in. But the facts—the police report, Howard Cummings’ speeding—were against Mrs. Cummings. The fraud hypothesis was intriguing, but Alex was due back on Planet Earth. “Look, if I assumed that every single accident was fraud, my backlog of cases would be even longer than it already is. Speaking of which . . .”

Zeke took the hint and said a gruff goodbye, but Alex, despite his full inbox, kept thinking about their conversation. In a perfect world, Alex wouldn’t need to prove fraud in order to help Mrs. Cummings and prove that Howard wasn’t at fault in the accident. After all, the evidence from the accident scene photos contradicted the police report. But Rampart Insurance would have to go to court in order to prove that, and Alex’s boss didn’t have an appetite for the legal fees or uncertainty that would require. Add evidence of fraud, though, and even lazy Chip Odom would have to greenlight a legal fight.

Alex thought again about the name Jorge Ramirez. Alex had tried to forget about the coincidence, mostly because Alex had convinced himself he was a fool for imagining—for hoping—that the accident had ulterior causes. But that hope had been revived by Alex’s conversation with Zeke.

Alex knew he was obsessing. He needed to stop. Jorge Ramirez was a common name. Alex needed to get back to the harder work of figuring out how to prove
—to Chip Odom and then to a court—that Howard’s Dodge Viper didn’t cause the accident. Yet Alex knew he wouldn’t be able to let go until he had proved that it was just a coincidence, and he knew a quick way to do so—a phone call to Liberty Industries and a little play acting.

Alex recalled that the Jorge Ramirez he knew was tight friends with another guy; they had staged accidents together, perjured themselves together and gone to prison together. They were an inseparable team
—Jorge provided muscle, while the friend was small but wily. Neither had the talent to succeed on his own, and Alex knew they would likely stick together after prison. The Jorge Ramirez who died in the crash was an employee of Liberty Industries. If it was the same Jorge that Alex had known, then Jorge’s friend probably worked at Liberty, too. Alex would put the coincidence to rest by calling Liberty. Liberty would confirm that the friend wasn’t an employee, and that would be that.

Alex phoned the company and asked for the human resources department. He didn’t expect H.R. to just tell him whether Jorge’s friend worked there. Alex needed a cover story. While the receptionist connected his call, Alex conjured an image in his mind of his whiny, overweight ninth-grade science teacher and channeled the man’s voice, a nasal drone that was at once grating and pathetic.

“Mm, good morning, my name is Don Pringle,” Alex said to the woman who answered in H.R. “I’m a parole officer with the county and I’m calling to confirm your employment of one of my parolees.”

“What’s the name, sir?” The woman on the other end spoke too loudly, and Alex pulled the telephone back from his ear.

“Rigoberto Capablanca.”

After a short interval in which Alex heard the woman humming to herself, she said flatly, “We have no employees by that name, sir.”

Just as Alex expected. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed, though. One little follow-up question couldn’t hurt. “You got anyone at all by the name of Capablanca?”

Alex heard the tapping of keys on the other end of the phone. Then the woman said, “All we have is a Beto Capablanca.”

Rigoberto had often gone by “Beto.” Alex’s heart leapt. “Um . . . yeah, that’ll be him. And what was his job title?”

“Motor pool technician.”

Alex ended the call and paced down the hallway with excitement. This could not be a coincidence. As anyone who had met the man would agree, there was only one Beto Capablanca.

*
* *

Beto Capablanca rattled the dice between his palms in a quick, steady beat and threw them with a shout. The dice bounced off the soft wall of the craps table and tumbled to a stop with seven dots on top. Beto shouted in delight, and the gamblers around the table echoed his shout with cries of their own. Beto smiled at the congratulations they offered and took up the dice again.

His heart always beat faster in a new gambling club. It was more than just the money at stake. Would he get cheated? Robbed? Beat up? Would he win big? Beto never smoked marijuana when he went to a new club.

He liked this club. Everyone was classy and well dressed. It was a plush room in a basement under a Russian restaurant on a side street in West Hollywood. From the outside, you never would have guessed it was there, which was the point. He’d had some language difficulties with the big Russian who answered the door, and had wondered if he’d come to the right place.

He’d come to the right place. After some ups and downs, he was up. He was up big, and that was changing people’s attitudes. The snooty Russian girl with the big boyfriend, the pretty one with the boob job at the other end of the long oval table—now she was smiling at him. He put an arm around the girl he had brought, Juanita was her name, and kissed her on the mouth. He told her to get him a drink.

His usual clubs were too crowded
—too many people he knew. His bookie, his ex-girlfriend—they didn’t know about his recent windfall from Jorge, and Beto aimed to keep it that way. But he couldn’t just stay home, not when luck was running his way. His good luck had started when he got drunk and overslept, and missed the job that Jorge had set up for them. If he had been more responsible and arrived on time that day, he would have been blown to bits with Jorge and the others in that accident. That’s how Beto’s luck ran. He was lucky when others weren’t. Jorge and the other guys had been paid in advance—what a rookie operation—and, being dead, hadn’t objected when Beto removed their fees from their lockers at work.

Now, with his winnings, Beto was sitting on a pile of chips worth thousands, and most of the gamblers were betting with him rather than against him. They put more money on the table as he kept hitting his numbers. It was a random crowd. Mostly Russians, a few Latinos and others. But they were all friends now. They were all winning with Papa Beto. He flashed a smile of straight white teeth at the pretty girl and rolled another seven. Beto pictured the girl without her tight dress on, with her long black hair draped over her shoulders. She looked beautiful.

It was his third winning seven in a row, and now the table was electric. Action at the other tables had slowed down as people stopped to watch. Two of the bulky gangsters who ran the place approached and peered sullenly over the shoulder of the croupier, a skinny young guy with bad teeth who was sweating at the temples. Beto smiled at the gangsters and winked at the pretty girl. The chatter around the table picked up as people debated strategy and directed the croupier to place their wagers. The girl’s oafish boyfriend ostentatiously placed a large bet against Beto on the Don’t Pass Line. Beto leaned over the table and wagged his finger like his mother used to do. “Don’t do that,” he said in Spanish. A couple of the Latinos laughed. The girl looked up at the boyfriend, but he stood in grim silence, ignoring her, glaring at Beto. Beto shook the dice and flamboyantly tossed them directly toward where the girl and her boyfriend stood at the other end of the table.

The dice bounced off the wall and came up showing four. The gamblers gasped. To keep the dice, and his winnings, Beto would have to roll a four again before he rolled a seven. He’d drunk too much whiskey to do the math, but he knew the odds were against him. Some gamblers placed hedging bets, and the dice were returned to Beto. His mind raced with the possibilities, and the stress knotted his stomach. He wished he had smoked some marijuana. He felt Juanita’s hand at his elbow and he shook it away.

The next roll was a six. He was still alive. He pressed his hand against his shirt until he felt his medal of San Martín beneath it. Beto needed his help now. Beto cast the dice with gusto and with a shout.

A three and a four. The gamblers who had wagered for Beto to win cried out as if in pain. Beto didn’t say anything, but his shoulders slumped.

The big guy at the other end of the table didn’t say anything either. He didn’t even smile. He took his chips, grabbed the girl by the arm and filed out of the club with a couple of his big friends. At the door, he looked back at Beto with undisguised hatred. When the man to Beto’s left took the dice and cast them, it was a much quieter table that cheered him on.