She said, “Mr. Olsen—”
“Lester, please.”
“Lester. You’d still have to be pretty lucky to meet your future husband in the produce aisle. And, actually, wouldn’t a wealthy man be more inclined to date someone who was introduced to him by a friend?”
“Well, that’s right, Valerie,” Olsen said. “And I was just about to make this very point. When you volunteer at a sports match or a political event, you should make friends with women who travel in those circles, women who may know a lonely millionaire looking for love. Seek out the rich old ladies. Flatter them. Befriend them. They love to make matches,” he said with a wink. “Even with their married men friends.”
He told stories of a former pupil who got a sales job at a Mercedes dealership, and another who met her mega-millionaire at his wife’s funeral.
Val took notes, and after homework had been assigned and the other women were leaving, Val said she had some questions, if Lester had a moment to spare.
“You bet,” Olsen said. “In fact, Valerie, I was just thinking that you might be interested in a private service I offer to very few students. Hey. Want to talk about this over dinner?”
Chapter 88
ALIZÉ WAS ON the fifty-sixth floor of the Palms Casino Resort, and their table was right up by the wall of steeply slanted windows. It was like being in the control tower of an airport—or, no, like being in the cockpit of an airliner, looking out onto untold miles of neon lights stretching out to the horizon.
Val had to admit to herself it was the most romantic restaurant she’d ever seen or imagined. Was it possible to get drunk on a glorious view? Delicious food? Amusing company?
Yes. Although she’d also had a good deal of wine.
Lester Olsen was looking at her with a sweet expression, and if she hadn’t suspected him of professional predation and exceptional scam artistry, she might have felt attracted to him. How could she not? He had said, “Do you know how beautiful you are? How smart? What poise you have, Valerie? And yet, your vulnerability and your willingness to trust is very appealing. You are a prize. A treasure. I see a tremendous future for you.”
She was getting high on his attention alone.
She thanked him, finished all but the last bite of the phyllo-wrapped pear and Roquefort appetizer, and allowed her wineglass to be refilled. Lester put down his wineglass and got to the heart of his pitch.
“Valerie, you were right when you said today that searching for wealthy men by yourself is hit or miss. What would you say if I told you I could make the kind of introduction that would lead you to the altar with a man who will give you the life you deserve? And this promise is guaranteed.”
The guaranteed life you deserve. Exactly what Mo-bot had highlighted in the ad she’d uncovered.
“How do you guarantee love for life?” Val asked.
“Money back for the life of the customer,” Olsen said, smiling. “That’s the only kind of guarantee that’s worth anything.”
“So true,” said Val. This was it. The pitch she’d been hoping for. She wondered if her pounding heart would overwhelm her microphone, smother the transmission to the recorder. She touched the mic through her clothes, tapped it with her middle finger.
“So, this isn’t a free service, right, Lester?”
Lester laughed from his gut, a real warm, hearty laugh. “You’re good, Val. Yes, there’s money involved, but to begin with, let’s go window-shopping for a man worthy of you. And that won’t cost you a dime.”
Val sat back as the waiter deftly placed her pan-seared breast of duck and cauliflower puree in front of her. Another waiter filled her wineglass yet again.
She smiled across the candlelit table at Lester Olsen.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to shop,” she said.
Chapter 89
I WAS IN my office on a conference call with Jorge Suarez and Andrew Boone, operations heads of Private’s Lisbon and London offices, respectively, when the GPS tracking device I’d stuck under Tommy’s car alerted my phone. I checked his car’s route on my screen and saw that Tommy’s car had stopped in Inglewood, a very rough part of town and far from my brother’s usual haunts.
When I signed off from the meeting, Tom’s car was still in Inglewood and I had no plans for the evening.
Emilio Cruz was in the underground lot unlocking his car when I got there.
I said to him, “Tom’s up to something, ’Milio. He’s been parked on West Boulevard near Fifty-Eighth for an hour and that’s not his beat, you know? You busy? Want to take a ride?”
“Are you buying dinner too?”
I grinned at him. “Of course.”
Cruz had no love for Tommy and had come to hate him even more since Tom had begun dogging Rick’s trial for no good reason.
Cruz said, “I’m never too busy to watch your psycho brother, Jack. Give me the keys.”
We took a fleet car, a five-year-old Chevy Impala I’d picked up at a repo sale because it can blend in anywhere. Twenty minutes later, we were parked on West Boulevard, in front of a shabby row of one-story houses and across the street from a low-budget strip mall. A spaghetti war of tangled wires hung overhead.
Tommy’s red Ferrari was thirty yards up ahead, our side of the street. His ride was conspicuous by design, but in this scraping-the-bottom, have-not neighborhood, it was like waving a red freaking flag.
I didn’t get it.
A clump of hooded kids were standing around the Ferrari, not jacking it, which told me that Tommy had hired them to stand guard.
Cruz got out of the car without saying why. He’s an imposing guy. Muscular, and the bulge under his jacket made it clear that he was packing.
I wasn’t looking for trouble. Not this kind, and as Cruz headed toward the group of kids, I yelled, “Emilio. Come back.”
He waved to me as he kept going, signaling, Don’t worry. It’s okay.
By then, the kids had seen Cruz coming toward them, and they shouted catcalls and showed a lot of junior-punk attitude. Cruz yelled out something in Spanish, and the kids stopped shouting. But they stood their ground.
The situation looked like it could break bad in an instant.
I opened the car door and was ready to join the party, but by the time my foot touched pavement, the body language had changed and the tension had died. Cruz handed something over to the biggest kid, then came back to our car.
We both got in, closed the doors, and Cruz said, “Well, that was twenty bucks well spent. Tommy’s in there.”
He hooked a thumb behind us, indicating the Lutheran church down the block. It was an adobe-style building with sand-colored stucco walls, a red-brick roof, and security gates on the front doors.
“Tommy’s at church? That would be a first,” I said.
Cruz said, “They got a Gamblers Anonymous meeting on Sunday nights.”
I turned in my seat, saw that the church was emptying out, people leaving in ones and twos. I saw my brother walking with another man, and they were absorbed in intense conversation, maybe arguing.
Tommy’s companion seemed familiar to me, but he was out of context and I struggled to put a name to the face. The two of them walked under a streetlight, then into the shadows, then they crossed the street and moved farther away.
Soon, I was looking at the streetlight shining on the back of the guy’s balding head as he called good night to my brother and unlocked his car.
Who was he?
I couldn’t quite grab the guy’s name, but I knew that I had to do it, that something big was at stake. As his car door slammed and his engine caught, it came to me. I remembered him and had a good idea how he was linked to Tommy.
I had to make a move.
I had to do it right now.
Chapter 90
RICK HAD HIS butt in his hard seat behind the defense table, and Caine was sitting beside him in a chair on the aisle. Now there was a badass cop sitting right behind Rick, keeping his eyes on the back of his head, ready to
leap over the bar and throw him to the floor if he got out of his chair.
The cop was assigned because of the shots Rick took at Dexter Lewis. Lucky for him that Lewis, that prick, hadn’t revoked his bail, or he would’ve spent his weekend in the Men’s Central Jail, protecting his ass and trying not to get puked on by drunks.
Today, both sides were going to give their closing arguments, and then the jury would decide if Rick would be either (a) living in his house on the canal, working with Cruz and Jack, leading the good life, or (b) spending ten years in a cell, eating slop, being strip-searched, goaded, insulted. Having a murderous thug for a cellie—or worse.
And why was he in this jam?
Because that shit, Sutter Brown Truck, had put him at the scene of a crime he hadn’t committed. He wasn’t just innocent, he was as innocent as a little baby lamb. He was a retired officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, for God’s sake. He’d seen action. He was decorated.
This whole pile of crap about Vicky was a frame.
And that made Rick want to lunge across the aisle and punch Dexter Lewis’s face again. If he was found guilty, he just might do it.
There was a soft whoosh of robes as the judge came through the door behind the bench. The bailiff told everyone to rise, and they did, and then everyone sat down. In that moment, Rick turned his head, looked to see who had come to the show.
Jack was behind him, four rows back, and Cruz, his partner, was standing in the rear of the room, giving him a nod. Rick snapped his head to the front so that his friends wouldn’t see him get emotional, for God’s sake.
Caine put his hand on Rick’s arm, said, “You okay?”
“Dandy.”
“Something happened last night. I’m gonna take a shot.”
“At what? A shot at what?”
Before the bailiff could bring in the jury, Caine was on his feet. He said to the judge, “Your Honor, I want to put a witness on the stand.”
“Didn’t you rest your case on Friday?” said the judge.
“Something came up over the weekend Your Honor. The defense wants to call Bradley Sutter.”
Rick couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Brad Sutter, the UPS guy? That guy hated him, and now Brown was going to testify for him? That was crazy.
Lewis stood up, said, “Your Honor, we know nothing about this witness—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Lewis. Mr. Sutter was your witness. You know everything about him. Or you should.”
“I meant, I don’t know what this new testimony is about.”
“Well, that’s the nature of news breaking over the weekend, isn’t it, Mr. Lewis? I guess we’re all going to find out at the same time. Please sit down. Bailiff, please bring in the jury.”
Chapter 91
I WATCHED SUTTER come up the aisle. Last time he took the stand, I thought what a regular guy he was, how credible, what freaking bad luck for Del Rio that the UPS man with the disappearing hair and the sunburned nose was going to testify against him.
Now, Sutter looked like bad shit had happened.
Both of his eyes were blackened, his nose was swollen and bandaged, and his right arm was in a cast and a sling. He was sworn in, then he took his seat. He saw me and gave me a hard look.
I reflexively massaged the bruised knuckles of my right hand.
My brother sat in the row in front of me with his right leg crossed over his left knee. He was jiggling his foot nervously, and he wasn’t smirking. Not today.
Caine approached the witness.
“Mr. Sutter, on the night of June fourteenth, did you see Mr. Del Rio at Vicky Carmody’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Please describe the circumstances.”
“He was coming to see Vicky.”
“And you knew that Ms. Carmody was expecting him, is that right?”
“Yes. Vicky had told me that Del Rio was coming over to return her camera.”
“Did you mention this date to someone else?”
“Yes.”
“And whom did you tell?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that an attempt has been made on my life and if I say who hired me, I will be erased.”
“Okay, Mr. Sutter. We’ll get back to that question later. Did you see Mr. Del Rio go into Ms. Carmody’s house?”
“Yes, like I said the last time, I was across the street making a pickup. I saw Del Rio go in, and I saw Vicky close the door.”
Caine asked, “And did you see Mr. Del Rio leave Ms. Carmody’s house?”
“Yes. About fifteen or twenty minutes later.”
“Then what happened?”
“After Del Rio left, I rang Vicky’s doorbell and she opened the door. I told her I was just making sure she was okay, and she said she was fine. I pushed her in, went inside with her, and locked the door.”
Sutter looked into space, touched his nose. Seemed lost in thought.
Caine said, “You went inside the house with Ms. Carmody. What happened after that, Mr. Sutter?”
Sutter came back to the moment.
“I beat her until I thought she was dead.”
The crowd in the gallery gasped as if it had taken a collective gut punch. The gasp was loud. It echoed.
The jury, too, looked severely shocked.
Caine paused to let Sutter’s testimony sink in. He did a half turn, looked at the jury, then turned back to Sutter. He said, “Why did you brutally assault Ms. Carmody?”
Sutter said, “Look, I didn’t do it for fun. I did it because I was between a rock and another rock. I was in debt to some sharks who were threatening my family. There’s a guy I knew from rehab who has a hate-on for Del Rio.
“We talked about Del Rio sometimes. So, anyway, I told him Del Rio was back in Vicky’s life, and he made me an offer. He said it right out. He would pay off my debt if I killed Vicky and made it look like Del Rio did it.”
Caine said, “And you agreed.”
“I had to. I snorted a little coke to get me going. Then I beat the crap out of her. My debt went away.”
“And so I’ll ask you again, Mr. Sutter. Who paid you to kill Vicky Carmody?”
“Look. I’m testifying to show good faith. But, on the advice of counsel, I refuse to name the guy who hired me until my family is in witness protection and I’ve got a deal. In writing. And that’s all I’m going to say.”
Chapter 92
I WATCHED AS Caine turned the witness over to assistant district attorney Dexter Lewis, who sneered for the jury’s benefit. Then he walked over to the witness stand, kept one hand on his hip, his body language saying, This witness is full of crap.
Sutter cradled his bad arm. Looked to me like he was bracing himself for a grilling.
Lewis said, “That’s an interesting story, Mr. Sutter. So, if I understand you, you lied when you testified last week saying you didn’t see Mr. Del Rio leave Vicky’s house. Is that right?”
“Yeah, obviously. I lied.”
“And so now the court is supposed to believe you when you say Mr. Del Rio didn’t assault Ms. Carmody, that you did it. How do we know Mr. Del Rio didn’t pay you to say this?”
“Why would I confess to assaulting Vicky if I didn’t do it? She could die and I could get nailed for murder. No, I’m trying to get out from under this. My life is in danger. My wife’s life is in danger. My six-year-old girl is in danger too.
“All I’ve got going for the Sutter family is that I know who paid for a hit on Vicky. That’s worth something.”
Lewis shook his head, skeptical. He was flustered, expressing his disbelief not like an attorney but like a man on the street. He said to Sutter, “And so you—what? Went to the cops and turned yourself in?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, that’s what I did.”
Caine stood, said, “Your Honor, Mr. Sutter is already under arrest for the assault on Ms. Carmody. The defense moves that the charges against Mr. Del Rio be dismissed and that he be released immediately.”
“
Wait just a minute,” Lewis said. “The jury has heard the case. They get to decide if Mr. Del Rio committed the crime, despite Mr. Sutter’s highly suspicious, uncorroborated testimony.”
It was clear that Dexter Lewis was hanging on to whatever was still within his grasp. When he’d woken up this morning, he had a conviction in the bag. Lewis did not want Del Rio to walk, guilty or not.
Judge Johnson said, “As it happens, I’ve got some questions, Mr. Sutter. I want to be convinced you were really there. What was Ms. Carmody wearing when you came into her house?”
Sutter said, “Blue-striped shirt, short sleeves, khaki pants, flat shoes. She had a chicken in the oven, and a couple of empty beer bottles were on the kitchen table. All of that can be checked with the cops. Oh, and she was watching Dr. Phil.”
“And what did you say and do?”
“Okay. Like I said, I shoved her inside. She said, ‘Brad, what are you doing? What do you want?’ I punched her in the face. She staggered backward, got into the bedroom, tried to close the door. I pushed it in and I hit her again. I had no choice. It was either her or me and my family.”
No one stopped him, so Sutter went on.
“She kept calling out, ‘Don’t do this, Brad. Stop,’ and then she called, ‘Rick.’ Like she wanted him to save her. I picked a lamp up off the table, a blue one, about this big. And I hit her with it. She put up her arm, but I just kept beating her until she didn’t move anymore.”
Sutter was coughing and then crying. No one asked him if he needed a minute. No one offered him a tissue. In a while, he stopped sobbing and said, “You believe me now, Your Honor? I did it. And I want protection from the guy who put me up to it.”
The judge sighed, fixed her headband, clasped her hands in front of her. I thought she looked disgusted, like now, she’d heard everything.
She asked the jury’s indulgence and then had them return to their room. The courtroom buzzed, and the judge called for order, several times.