“Yes.”
“A capper named Jorgé Murphy Esposito.” Dallas Trace said the last three words as if they tasted of pure bile.
“Who died this weekend,” said Syd.
“Yes,” said Dallas Trace. He smiled. “Would you like to hear my alibi for the time of the accident, Investigator?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Trace,” said Syd. “I know that you were at a charity auction in Beverly Hills on Sunday afternoon. You bought a Picasso drawing for sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty dollars.”
Trace’s smile eroded. “Jesus Christ, woman,” he said, “you actually do suspect me in all this petty shit?”
Syd shook her head. “I really am trying to gather information about one of the most profitable injury mills in Southern California,” she said. “Your son, who was involved in it, died under mysterious circumstances—”
“I disagree,” Trace said sharply. “My son died in an accident while skipping out on his rent with his friends, two petty thieves, one of whom could not drive a van worth shit. A senseless ending to a largely useless life.”
“Dr. Minor’s video reconstruction of the event—” began Syd.
The lawyer turned his gaze back to Dar, without a hint of a smile. “Dr. Minor, a few years ago I went to see this popular movie about a great big ship that sank almost ninety years ago…”
“Titanic,” Dar said.
“Yes, sir,” continued the lawyer, his West Texas accent becoming more pronounced. “And in that movie, I saw with my own two eyes that big ship sinking—standin’ on end, breakin’ in two—people fallin’ like frogs out of a bucket. But you know somethin’, Dr. Minor?”
Dar waited.
“None of it was true. It was special effects. It was digital.” Dallas Trace spat the words out.
Dar said nothing.
“If I had you on the witness stand, Doctor Minor, you on the stand and your precious video in the machine playin’ right in front of the jury, it would take me thirty seconds…shit, no, twenty seconds…to show them how in this digital-computer-special-effects age we live in, we can trust nothing on tape anymore.”
“Esposito is dead,” interrupted Syd. “Donald Borden and Gennie Smiley—actually the former Gennie Esposito, as I’m sure your PI informed you—are missing. And you still don’t find that suspicious?”
He swiveled his raptor gaze toward her. “I find everything suspicious about it, Ms. Olson. I was suspicious of everything Richard did…every friend he had…every mess he wanted me to bail him out of. Well, finally he got into a mess that no one could bail him out of. I’m convinced it was an accident, Ms. Olson…but I’m also convinced it just doesn’t matter a good goddamn. If he hadn’t died that night on Marlboro Avenue, he’d probably be in jail now. My son was a poor, confused, weak, and manipulative little shit bird, Ms. Olson, and it doesn’t surprise me one steer turd of an iota that he ended up with bottom-dweller losers like Jorgé Esposito and Donald Borden and Gennie former-Mrs. Esposito Smiley.”
“And their disappearance?” said Syd.
Dallas Trace laughed, and for the first time it sounded sincere. “These people perfect turning their whole lives into a disappearing act, Ms. Olson. You know that. It’s what they do. It’s what my son did. And now he’s gone for good and nothing I can do, or you can find out, will bring him back.”
Dallas Trace jumped to his feet—he moved very fast for a man in his sixties, Dar noticed again—pulled the tape from the machine, gave it to Syd, and opened the office door.
“And now, if there’s nothing else I can help you both with today….”
Dar and Syd got to their feet and moved to the door.
“There is one other thing I was curious about,” said Syd. “Your contribution to the Helpers of the Helpless.”
The dark eyebrows became almost vertical exclamation points. “What? If you don’t mind my bluntness, Ms. Olson, what in the sacred halls of fuckdom does that have to do with anything?”
“You contributed a large amount to that charity last year,” said Syd. “How much was it?”
“I have no idea,” said Trace. “You’d have to ask my accountant.”
“A quarter of a million dollars, I believe,” said Syd.
“Then I’m sure you’re correct,” said Trace, opening the door wider. “You’re a good investigator, Ms. Olson. But if you have that figure, you must also know that Mrs. Trace and I are active in—and contribute to—more than two dozen charities. The…what do they call themselves again?”
“The Helpers of the Helpless,” said Syd.
“The Helpers of the Helpless serve the Hispanic community,” said Trace. “It may also surprise you to know that I do quite a bit of pro bono work for the Hispanic community in this state…especially the poor immigrants who are constantly being persecuted…and not infrequently persecuted by the state’s attorney’s office.”
“I am aware of the wide range of charities which you and Mrs. Trace support,” said Syd. “You’re a generous man, Counselor Trace. And you have been more than generous with your time. Thank you.” She held out her hand.
Trace hesitated in surprise, and then shook both Dar’s hand and hers.
Once in the basement parking garage, Dar said, “Interesting. Now where?”
“One more stop,” said Syd.
It had been a long while since Dar had been to L.A.’s County Medical Center. It was the largest hospital in Los Angeles County and still growing—at least two new additions were being noisily built as Syd found them a parking space on the sixth upper level.
The hospital smelled like all hospitals smell, had the same miserable lighting—that fluorescent glow, like decaying vegetation, that seems to illuminate all the blood under the skin—and the same background noises of coughs, weak voices, laughing nurses, phones ringing, doctors being paged, and rubber soles on linoleum. Dar hated hospitals.
Syd led them through the halls as if giving him a tour, using her chief investigator ID to gain access to the emergency room, the intensive care center, the birthing ward, the patient rooms, and even the scrub room outside of surgery.
Dar figured it out quickly enough. In addition to the doctors, nurses, interns, orderlies, candy stripers, custodians, administrators, patients, and visitors, there was one other conspicuous presence—men and women wearing white jackets adorned with colorful patches. The patches included a red cross, the medical caduceus in gold on a royal blue background, a round shoulder patch showing an eagle with an olive branch—the patch looking like something one of the NASA Apollo astronauts might have worn—and an American flag. But most prominent—on the left breast of each jacket—was a blue square with a large, red capital H centered in it. Inside the upper bars of the H was a smaller gold cross. To Dar, it looked as if someone had kicked a crucifix for a perfect field goal.
They were in one of the waiting areas for the emergency room when Dar made the connection. They had seen personnel with these H jackets pushing carts loaded with magazines, fruit juice, and teddy bears; they had seen two H-jacketed women holding, hugging, and reassuring a wildly weeping Hispanic woman in one of the hospital chapels; there had been H people in intensive care, whispering—in Spanish, Dar remembered—to some of the most serious cases, and here in the emergency room waiting area, a young Hispanic woman in an H jacket was reassuring an entire family. Dar overheard enough to understand that the family was Mexican, immigrants without green cards. Their daughter, who looked to be about eight, had broken her arm. The arm had been set, but the mother was hysterical, the father was literally wringing his hands, the baby was crying, and the girl’s younger brother was on the verge of tears. Dar overheard enough to understand that their fear was that they would be deported now that they had been forced to come to the hospital, but the woman in the H jacket was assuring them in perfect, rapid-fire Spanish that no such thing would happen—that it was against the law, that there would be no report, that they could go home without fear—and that in the morning th
ey could call the Helpers’ Hotline and receive further instructions and help that would keep them healthy and happy and in the country.
“Helpers of the Helpless,” said Dar quietly as they headed out to the parking garage.
“Yes,” said Syd. “I counted thirty-six in our little tour.”
“So?”
“So there are thousands…thousands…of volunteers for Helpers of the Helpless working in L.A. County. They’re in every hospital. It’s even chic for movie stars and Rodeo Drive shopper-matrons to volunteer their time, if their Spanish is good enough. They’ve even begun expanding to serve Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, you name it.”
“So?”
“So it started as a small Catholic charity,” said Syd, “and now it’s grown into a huge, nonprofit machine. The Church found a small-time Hispanic lawyer to head it all up, and now it really has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. You’ll find Helpers in all the San Diego hospitals and medical centers, in Sacramento, all over the Bay Area, and—in the last year or so—in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Portland, Eugene, Seattle—even as far away as Billings, Montana. In another year it will be nationwide.”
“So?”
“They’re part of it, Dar. They’re part of this huge capping syndicate that’s creating injury mills. They recruit immigrants from everywhere—showing them how to make money on the slip-and-falls and the swoop-and-squats, on industrial accidents and fender benders.”
“So?” said Dar again as they got in the hot car, put the air-conditioner on, and headed for the freeway. “Nothing new about that. Ever since the big insurance companies grew up and litigation became a business, it’s the fastest way for immigrants to get rich in America. Before the Mexicans and Asians, it was the Irish and the Germans and the rest. Nothing new.”
“The scale is what’s new,” said Syd. “We’re not talking about fly-by-night clinics and a few dozen cows and bulls being run by a capper or two, Dar. We’re talking RICO here. We’re talking organized crime on the scale of the Colombian drug dealers and their American connections.” She nodded toward the medical center as they pulled out into traffic. “Doctors and surgeons—legitimate doctors and surgeons—are referring patients to the Helpers for…well, help. The goddamn Mexican consulate makes referrals.”
“So, it makes it easy to recruit more swoop-and-squatters,” said Dar, looking out at the jumble of closely cramped, oversized houses along the freeway. “Big deal.”
“A several-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year big deal,” said Sydney. “And I’m going to find out just who’s behind it. Who’s organizing this monstrosity.”
Dar looked at Syd and only then realized how angry he was. It had all been a lark up to now—letting her be his “bodyguard,” letting her stake him out like the goat in Jurassic Park, showing her his amusing little accidents and tagging along with her in turn, playing Watson to her Sherlock Holmes.
“You think Dallas Trace is behind this?” he said. “Probably the most famous lawyer in America? Mr. CNN answer man? That posturing, West Texas–from–Newark asshole with his silk work shirts and dork knob? You really think someone that famous is the Don Corleone of Southern Cal capping?”
Syd chewed her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Dar. Nothing connects. But all the loose strings seem to point in his direction somehow.”
“You think Dallas Trace ordered his own son to be killed?”
“No, but—”
“You think he killed Esposito, Donald Borden, and the girl, Gennie Smiley?”
“I don’t know. If—”
“You think he’s the head of the Five Families, Chief Investigator? Squeezing it in between his law practice, his book writing, his weekly CNN show, his public appearances, his stints on Nightline and Good Morning America, his charity work, and his nights with that beautiful new child-bride?”
“Don’t get angry,” Syd said.
“Why the hell not? You knew he’d seen my accident reconstruction video before.”
“Yes.”
“So you dragged me in there just so you could watch him and he could see me. On the off chance that he’s the Big Man, you had him take a good look at me, so he would know for sure who to send his hit men after next time.”
“It’s not like that, Dar…”
“Bullshit,” said Dar.
They drove in silence for some time.
“If this conspiracy is as big as I believe it is—” began Syd.
Dar cut her off. “I don’t believe in conspiracies.”
Syd glanced at him.
“I believe in evil institutions,” said Dar, trying to control his anger but unable to keep his words light. “I believe in La Cosa Nostra and shitty car makers and evil people like tobacco merchants and those shitheads who give away baby formula to Third World mothers so they’ll keep on buying their baby formula even while the babies die of diarrhea from the filthy water…” Dar stopped and took a breath. “But conspiracies…no. Plots are like churches or other multicelled organizations—the bigger they get, the dumber they are. The law of inverse IQ.”
“If there are no conspiracies, what do you believe in, Dar?”
“What does it matter?”
“I’m just curious.” Syd’s voice was flat and emotionless now as well.
“Well, let’s see,” said Dar, looking out at the traffic mess ahead of them, the solid wedge of automobiles and trucks moving at ten miles per hour. “I believe in entropy. I believe in the unbounded limits of human perversity and stupidity. I believe in the occasional combination of those three elements to create a Friday in Dallas, Texas, with some asshole named Lee Harvey Oswald who learned to shoot well in the Marines getting a clear field of fire for six seconds…”
Dar stopped speaking. What the hell am I talking about? Had it been Dallas Trace’s arrogance or the death stench of the hospital that had set him off? Maybe he was just going crazy.
After several minutes of silence, Syd said, “And you don’t believe in crusades, either.”
He looked at her. At that moment she was a total stranger to him—certainly not the woman whose company and repartee he had enjoyed so much over the past several days…
“Crusades always end up sacrificing innocents. Like the original Crusades to free the Holy Land,” said Dar harshly. “Sooner or later it’s a fucking Children’s Crusade, and kids are on the front line.”
Syd frowned. “What are you so angry about, Dar? Vietnam? Or your work with the NTSB? The Challenger? What are we—”
“Never mind,” said Dar. He was suddenly very tired. “The grunts in Vietnam had a saying for everything, you know.”
Syd watched the traffic.
“No matter what happened,” said Dar, “the infantrymen would learn to say, ‘Fuck it. It don’t matter. Move on.’”
The traffic stopped. The Taurus stopped. Syd looked at him and there was something more than anger in her eyes.
“You can’t base your philosophy on that. You can’t live like that.”
Dar returned her stare, and only when she looked away did he realize how angry his gaze must have been. “Wrong,” he said. “It’s the only philosophy that lets you live.”
They drove into San Diego in absolute silence. When they were near Syd’s hotel, she said, “I’ll take you up the hill to your condo.”
Dar shook his head. “I’ll walk to the Justice Center from here. They’re releasing my NSX from impoundment this afternoon and I’m meeting the body-shop guy there.”
Syd stopped the car and nodded. She watched him as he got out and stood on the curb. “You’re not going to help me any further with this investigation, are you?” she said at last.
“No,” said Dar.
Syd nodded.
“Thanks for…” began Dar. “Thanks for everything.”
He walked away and did not look back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“L IS FOR LONG SHOT”
TUESDAY WAS A big day for guns, culminating in a high-vel
ocity rifle bullet aimed directly at Darwin Minor’s heart.
The day started dismally with more heat, more rain clouds threatening—unusual for Southern California for this time of year, of course, but almost all of Southern California’s weather was unusual at almost any time of year. Dar started his own day in a foul mood. His anger from the previous day bothered him. The fact that he would not see Sydney Olson again bothered him. The fact that this bothered him, bothered him the most.
The repairs to the NSX were going to cost a fortune. When Harry Meadows, his body-shop friend—and one of the few people in the state who could do decent bodywork on the Acura’s aluminum skin—met him at the Justice Center on Monday evening, all he could do was shake his head. The final estimate on repairs had made Dar take a full step backward.
“Jesus,” Dar had said, “I could buy a new Subaru for that.”
Harry had nodded slowly and mournfully. “True, true,” he said. “But then you’d have a fucking Subaru rather than an NSX.”
Dar could not argue with the logic of that. Harry had taken the bullet-scarred NSX away on a trailer, swearing that he would take as good care of the car as he would of his own mother. Dar happened to know that Harry’s aged mother lived in poverty in an un-air-conditioned trailer sixty-five miles out in the desert where he visited her precisely twice a year.
On Tuesday morning Lawrence called. There were several new cases that needed photographing. Lawrence did not know which ones would require reconstruction work—it depended upon which went to litigation and jury trials—but he thought that he and Dar should visit each site.
“Sure,” said Dar. “Why the hell not? I’m only about a month behind in my paperwork as it is.”
As Lawrence drove, he must have sensed something was wrong with Dar. There is a certain bond between men that goes deeper than verbal communication. Men who have known each other for years and worked together—occasionally on dangerous projects—begin to gain a sixth sense about their friends’ thoughts and emotions. This allows them to communicate on a level deeper than women could ever understand. Lawrence and Dar had just picked up coffee and donuts at a Dunkin’ Donuts in north San Diego when Lawrence said, “Something wrong, Dar?”