Private Vegas (6 page)

She said, “I can name a dozen people who want to see you dead, Jack, and that’s not counting your brother.”

“Don’t count Tommy out,” I told her. “I wouldn’t count out Ziegler and Tandy either.”

Justine said, “What does your gut tell you?”

“From now on, park inside the gates.”

She laughed, shook her head, put on a pot of coffee.

The intercom buzzed. I went to the surveillance monitor. Del Rio stuck out his tongue. I’d phoned him as soon as the cops left, told him what had happened to my car.

“I’ll be there soon,” he’d said.

I pressed the button and a moment later, my friend, former copilot, and current chief investigator came inside. He handed me the keys to a fleet car we kept at the office in case I needed wheels.

I smiled at him. “Coffee?”

“Sure. Okay, no eyebrows. Nice look,” he said to me. Then: “How ya doing, Justine?”

“I love waking up to a fiery explosion. Doesn’t everyone?” she said, handing him a mug.

“I do! The bigger the better,” Del Rio said.

I knew Del Rio better than I knew anyone, and he had full knowledge of a part of my life I didn’t know at all.

What I remember about that night was that I had set Danny Young’s bleeding body down and then it was as though the ground had erupted. I felt a shocking blow to my chest and that was the end.

I died.
I went through the tunnel and for all I know, I was coming out the other side.

I just remember swimming up to the light. My eyes flashed open and there was Del Rio in my face, his hands pressing down on my chest. He laughed and at the same time tears ran down his sooty cheeks. He said, “Jack, you son-of-a-bitch,
you’re back
.”

He told me later that a chunk of shrapnel had struck my chest. My flak jacket prevented it from penetrating my body, but the concussion stopped my heart. Then the helicopter right behind us blew up and was consumed in flames.

I wasn’t dead, but so many of my friends died that day. I swear to God, I would have traded my life for any of them.

I watched Del Rio now, joking with Justine. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a brown canvas jacket, and had a two-day-old beard. Rick was a homely guy, not the type that got cast as a hero in movies. He was a hero anyway.

But the
People v. R. Del Rio
didn’t care about that.

He said to me, “Want to know what I think, Jack? Whether that car was firebombed because it was available or because it was personal, the price tag on it
makes
it personal. You live in a glass house, you know? Stay at Justine’s until this thing is closed.”

I looked at Justine.

She said, “Of course. Stay with me.”

But she didn’t really want that. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a pretty good idea that she’d started seeing someone else. Maybe he was a man who could go the distance, the whole length of the aisle.

“I’ll be fine at home,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Well, then, my work here is done.” Del Rio put his mug in the sink, headed to the door.

I called after him, “Rick. Make sure you shave.”

“Yes, sir.” He gave me a salute and a grin. But his eyes weren’t smiling. He was worried.

I was worried too.

I said, “This time next week, this whole thing is going to be behind us.”

“I always come out on top, right, Jack? When it counts.”

“Yes, you do. See you in court.”

BY THE TIME Justine dropped me off at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, I was caffeinated to the core and worried about Rick’s day in court.

“He’ll do okay,” Justine assured me. “He’s got Eric.”

I nodded, kissed her good-bye, and watched as she took off down West Temple Street. Then I lowered my shades to hide my missing eyebrows and headed for the entrance to the blocky nineteen-story high-rise commonly known as the Criminal Courthouse.

There was a swarm of tabloid reporters and trial-junkie bloggers at the foot of the stairs. These “journalists” are what I call raccoons, carnivores who sift through garbage cans, and they’ll do grave mischief if you don’t lock the door behind you and bolt it shut.

The Criminal Courthouse was like a raccoon feeding station. Some of the most famous defendants in the country had been tried here: O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, Conrad Murray, and other criminal superstars.

Rick Del Rio even at his worst was never in that league, but because he worked at Private Investigations and was charged with a felony, his trial made for a sexy story that could be sold to celebrity magazines and supermarket tabs for big wads of cash.

I worried about Rick and I worried about Private’s reputation. Private wasn’t “private” when it was top of the news.

I waved to big and small raccoons I’d known for years, shouted out, “No comment, thanks a lot,” smiled like I meant it, and kept going, passing between the thick concrete pillars, through the tall glass doors, and into the granite-tiled lobby.

From there, I took an elevator up to the seventh floor and exited into the wide corridor lit with overhead fluorescents and banked with rust-colored benches. I quickly found courtroom 7B, Judge Pat Johnson presiding.

I didn’t know Judge Johnson, but she had a reputation for making quality decisions based on quirky logic. Rick was a quirky guy, and I wasn’t sure if the judge’s style would help Rick or hurt him.

The sheriff opened the door for me and I entered the courtroom. It was paneled and appointed in blond wood, with six rows of twelve chairs in the gallery behind the bar. All of the chairs were occupied, and there was standing-room only in the rear.

I squeezed into the crowd at the back and took in the whole room at a glance. Rick was sitting at the defense table, his back to me, his head lowered as if he was looking down at his hands. Rick had been in trouble before and had done four years at Chino, which he considered graduate work in underworld connections.

Rick’s lawyer, Eric Caine, was Harvard Law, and a former staffer with the CIA. I was lucky he liked Los Angeles and was playing for our team. He was a good friend, and also head of Private’s legal department.

Caine was standing before the judge’s bench along with the prosecutor, ADA Dexter Lewis, a kid of thirty to Caine’s forty-five. ADA Lewis had been schooled in Detroit, was ambitious, crafty, a member of three state bar associations, and a dynamic speaker. I knew he would go far.

But not soon enough.

Right now, Lewis was determined to put Rick Del Rio away for ten years, the maximum the law would allow. Shooting down a decorated war hero would help Lewis land a mid-six-figure job in a top criminal defense law firm.

That would be good for Dexter Lewis, but Rick would lose everything, including his investigator’s license and life as he knew it. It killed me to think about that.

I shifted my attention to the bench.

Judge Johnson wore a big diamond brooch at the neck of her robe, and her hennaed hair was held back with a gold headband. She was shaking her head emphatically.

She wasn’t buying whatever Eric Caine was selling.

I heard her say, “Good try, Mr. Caine, but I’m not dismissing the charges. Are you ready to begin? Well, even if you aren’t, I am. So let’s go.”

Attorneys Caine and Lewis turned, moved toward their respective tables.

Caine had dialed his expression down to neutral, but I knew he was pissed. Dexter flashed a beautiful set of teeth. I hoped Del Rio would turn around so I could give him a thumbs-up, but his head stayed lowered. He was trying to control his anger.

I hoped with all my heart that he could do it.

RICK DEL RIO sat at the defense table next to his lawyer, hardly aware of the muted activity around him: The bailiff talking to the court reporter. People coming into the row of seats behind him. Chitchatting. Giggling. He looked straight ahead, but inside, his mind was ranging around in the past.

Rick had grown up in Branson Point, New Jersey, an industrial wasteland so hard, even weeds didn’t grow in the cracks of the pavement. He had lived in a small, overcrowded brick house on a single residential block between two factories. And down the street from his house was a used-car lot, chain-link fence around it, topped with razor wire and patrolled at night by a pair of Dobermans: Bambino and Lassie.

Rick identified with Bambino.

Both he and the big male dog had hair triggers. The dog, though, was permitted to go bug-fuck. That was his job. But after Rick vented his anger, he usually regretted what he had said or done.

Along with his quick temper, Rick’s looks had shaped his personality. He knew he was ugly. His flat black eyes were set close together, his lower jaw was undershot, and he was a stocky kid, not very tall. But being stocky and having a first-class uppercut punch had made all the difference in the world.

Rick punched good.

And he’d been cut out for military service.

After he killed a few carloads of Afghanis, after he survived the helicopter crash and brought Jack back from the dead, after he got a medal and a handshake from the high command and had a government pension in the bag, he didn’t care what anyone said to him or thought about him anymore.

They had to watch out for
him
.

If he had a motto, it was Do Not Fuck with Me.

And now he was being fucked with.

Rick thought about how, three months ago, he had been home in his very sweet house on Sherman Canal, drinking a Coors and eating pork chops in front of the TV, his plate on his lap, his feet up on the hatch cover he’d made into a coffee table.

Godfather II
had been on his fifty-inch flat-screen, and just at the point when Fredo was going for his boat ride, Rick heard the footsteps on the deck followed by a loud shout: “Open up. LAPD.” And then the door was kicked in and about eleven guys stormed his place.

They threw him facedown on the floor, and one of those assholes put a knee into his back, almost crippling him. Another stepped on his hand with a boot, acting like the remote control was something dangerous. What? A grenade? A piece?

Or were they just fucking with him?

After the cops roughed him up and dragged him downtown, he got his phone call. Twenty minutes later, Jack was there with Eric Caine, who took pictures of the abrasions on Rick’s face and told him don’t say anything and don’t give the cops any reason to pile on extra charges.

Next day, Eric had appeared with him at his arraignment and put up bail, a half million bucks, which had allowed him to go to work and sleep at home.

After today, he might not sleep in his own bed ever again.

The bailiff called out, “All rise,” and Rick stood up.

How had this fucking happened?

He just didn’t fucking get it.

He sat down. There was a whoosh of the people in the crowd behind him taking seats, adjusting their clothing, whispering to one another. He felt Caine’s arm go around his shoulders.

Rick’s ears were burning, but, man, he was doing his best not to let Bambino off the leash. Last thing he needed was to start barking at the ADA and his twelve peers in the box who were going to decide what happened to him.