“But…” Dar said, and realized he did not know what else to say.
“Wait for W.D.D.’s associate,” said Trudy. “Go home and take a hot shower. Lawrence just called in and I let him know what’s going on. We’ll give you a call tonight and then you’ll get a good night’s sleep. It looks like we’ll all need it for tomorrow.”
W.D.D. Du Bois, pronounced “du-boyz,” was short, black, and brilliant, with a Martin Luther King mustache and a Danny De Vito personality. Lawrence had once said that in the courtroom W.D.D. could suggest more with his mustache than most people could with their eyebrows.
Du Bois was not the attorney’s real name. Or, rather, it had not been at birth. Christened Willard Darren Dirks in Greenville, Alabama, W.D.D. had been born in the early 1940s with everything working against him—his race, his family’s rural poverty, the state he was born in, the IQ and attitude of most of the state’s white inhabitants, his parents’ illiteracy, the lousy segregated schools he attended—everything except his IQ, which was higher than most professional bowlers’ average score. When he was nine, young Willie Dirks discovered the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois (pronounced “du-boyz”) and had his own name legally changed by the time he was twenty. By that time he had gotten himself out of Alabama and through the University of Southern California and into UCLA’s law school. He was only the third Negro to graduate from that esteemed institution and he was the first to run a major law firm in Los Angeles consisting only of other black lawyers, associates, and staff.
The fact that this coincided perfectly with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a blizzard of new government-backed civil rights legislation, and Lyndon Johnson’s legislative steps toward a Great Society that required no-holds-barred legal battles on all fronts, helped W.D.D.’s practice but did not define it. His firm handled mostly civil cases, but W.D.D.’s first love was criminal law, and these were the few cases he still argued personally in court—the stranger the case, the more the appeal to Attorney Du Bois. It was well known—at least in legal circles—that Attorney Robert Shapiro had tried to bring Du Bois into the O. J. Simpson case before Johnny Cochran got involved, but that W.D.D.’s only comment to Shapiro had been, “Are you kidding? That brother’s guilty as Abel’s brother Cain. I only represent innocent killers.” Stewart Investigations had offered him some deliciously weird cases over the years, and Du Bois showed his appreciation for that by representing Trudy’s company when things got complicated. This appeared to be just such a moment.
The deputy district attorney entered and took the chair at the head of the table. The politically ambitious Richard Allen Weid was sensitive about his last name, which was pronounced “weed.” His father had been a famous judge, so Richard could not just change his name, but he told people not to call him “Dick” even more frequently than Lawrence objected to “Larry.” Which guaranteed that—at least out of earshot—everyone in the DA’s office, in the downtown San Diego Justice Center, and in Southern California called him “Dick,” and more commonly, “Dickweed.”
“Sid” was a bigger surprise to Dar. The woman was attractive, in her late thirties, a little overweight in a nice way, professionally groomed but with an expression that seemed to suggest high intelligence filtered through restrained amusement at life. She reminded Dar of some character actress he really liked, but he could not for the life of him recall the actress’s name. Dar guessed this woman spelled her name “Sydney” with two y’s, and since she took the only other “power seat” at the table—the empty chair at the opposite end of the table from Dick Weid’s—she was obviously someone with serious clout.
Deputy DA Weid brought the meeting to order. “You all know why we’re here today. For those of you who may have been on duty and missed the news yesterday or this morning, a copy of Mr. Darwin Minor’s statement should be in front of you…and we’ve got this tape.”
Shit, thought Dar as the assistant’s assistant pulled the standard media cart with a half-inch VHS VCR and old monitor out of the corner and moved it to a place of pride next to the deputy DA’s chair. The assistant popped in the tape and Dick Weid wielded the remote.
Dar had not seen the news video the night before. Now he watched the Channel Five live coverage of the chase from the interstate exit, up the winding road above Lake Elsinore, ending in amazing footage as the news chopper—hovering a hundred feet out from The Lookout Restaurant’s patio—was almost hit by the Mercedes E 340 as it came barreling out into midair as if trying to leap to safety onto the skids of the helicopter. Mercifully, Deputy DA Weid kept the reporters’ wild narration muted. Unmercifully, the Steadicam zoomed in on the faces of the two men—both their heads and shoulders protruding now from the driver’s-side window as if they were trying to climb out to safety—and Dar could clearly see the shooter’s lips moving in a shout, although he could not make out the words.
When the Mercedes fell out of the camera’s view, the Channel Five pilot immediately put the chopper into a spiraling dive so that the gyro-stabilized camera could unblinkingly and unmercifully stay on the plummeting vehicle all the way down until the E 340 struck the hillside, upside down, at least five hundred feet below The Lookout’s patio. The wreckage bounced through trees and shrubs for another hundred feet, the body of the Mercedes staying amazingly intact but with wheels, bumpers, mirrors, axles, muffler, hubcaps, windshield, suspension, catalytic converter, and the humans inside flying amazingly apart, until finally the wreck disappeared into its own cloud of dust, rubble, and smashed trees in a steep ravine on the cliffside.
Deputy DA Weid used the reverse control on the remote to run the wreckage backward. The pieces of car leaped together and the car levitated back into the air, and then Weid stopped on a freeze-frame of the two men’s faces, one of them in the act of shouting at the helicopter in what appeared to be a cry of supplication. Dar saw every head in the room swivel toward him—even Lawrence’s and Trudy’s—and he felt the weight of every gaze. He considered asking, Didn’t their air bags save them? but decided to keep his mouth shut. Besides, three of the four front-seat air bags had deployed and deflated by the time the vehicle was airborne, making the front of the passenger compartment all the more pitiful in the video, as if it were draped inside with huge, empty condoms.
Two men were dead and he had caused it. Dar felt the vertigo of the video leave him and a heaviness descend again on his spirit, but it was not regret. He clearly remembered the sound of the Mac-10’s slugs shattering his driver’s-side window and whizzing by his head. He remembered the anger from yesterday as a distant thing, but he remembered it clearly enough to know that if those two bastards had survived the fall, he would have happily climbed down the mountain and beaten them to death with a stick. He kept his mouth shut and his face neutral, and eventually the others at the table turned their gazes away from him.
“Before we go any further,” said Deputy DA Weid into the thick silence, “I should say that we’ve had expert lip-readers from the San Diego School for the Deaf analyze this gentleman’s last cry”—he pointed the remote at the freeze-frame where the mustached shooter was still frozen in time, mouth wide open in the act of shouting his final words—“but as close as our lip-reading experts can determine, the man was saying…ah…‘gave nooky.’”
Everyone stared except for Sydney, who laughed out loud. “Gavnuki,” she said, still chuckling to herself and pronouncing it quite differently than Dick Weid had. “It’s Russian for ‘shitheads.’ I think the guy was stating his opinion of Channel Five.”
“All right,” the deputy DA said, and clicked off the TV image.
“That would confirm the Bureau’s identification of the two men,” said the handsome man in the FBI haircut. “The Mercedes was stolen in Las Vegas two days ago. We have identified the two deceased occupants of the stolen vehicle as Russian nationals. The driver, Vasily Plavinksy, has been in the country for three months on a temporary visa. The other man—”
“The one who tried to kill my client with an au
tomatic weapon,” interjected Attorney Du Bois smoothly.
The FBI man frowned. “The other man, also Russian, entered the country through New York just five days ago. His name is Kliment Ritko.”
“That might be an alias,” said Dar.
“Why do you say that?” asked the FBI special agent, his voice tinged with condescension. “In your deposition, you claimed you had never seen these two men before. Are you now saying that you have some personal knowledge of the identity of these two…ah…victims?”
“Would-be murderers,” said W.D.D. Du Bois instantly. “Hired killers.”
Dar said, “I just suggest it might be an alias because there was an infamous Russian painter named Kliment Ritko. His 1924 painting Uprising foretold Stalin’s reign of terror. He even painted Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, and the rest of the Bolshevik leaders against a blood-red background, surrounded by troops shooting defenseless people in the street.”
There was a full thirty seconds of silence—an embarrassed silence—as if Dar’s display of pedantry had been equal to him jumping up and peeing on the table. Dar resolved to keep his mouth shut through the rest of the proceedings unless asked a direct question. He turned his head slightly and saw Sydney, whoever she was, give him a frank stare of appraisal.
“Let me introduce everyone at the table,” said the deputy DA quickly, trying to take control of the meeting again.
“Most of you know Special Agent James Warren, agent in charge of the San Diego branch of the Bureau. Captain Bill Reinhardt is LAPD, their liaison with Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep. Captain Frank Hernandez is from our own San Diego Police Department. Next to Captain Hernandez…and thanks for coming in today, Tom, on such short notice, I know you had a conference to attend in Vegas…is Captain Tom Sutton of the California Highway Patrol. Next to Tom is Sheriff Paul Fields from Riverside County, whose cooperation has been fantastic in this operation. Most of us know Sheriff Buzz McCall from right here in San Diego County. And at the end there…hi, Marlena…is Sheriff Marlena Schultz from Orange County.”
Deputy DA Weid took a breath and turned to his left.
“Some of you have met Robert… Bob, isn’t it?… Bob Gauss from the State Division of Insurance Fraud. Welcome, Bob. Next to Bob is Washington-based attorney Jeanette Poulsen from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. To Ms. Poulsen’s left is Bill Whitney from the California Department of Insurance. And beyond Bill is…ah…” Deputy DA Weid had to glance at his notes. It had been a flawless performance up to that point.
“Lester Greenspan,” said the rumpled, bureaucratic-looking man. “Chief attorney for the citizen’s group Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. Also out of Washington, officially liaising with your Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep.”
Dar winced. Liaising.
“Next to Mr. Greenspan is someone whom we all know and love,” said Deputy DA Weid, obviously intending to inject some energy and bonhomie into the sagging proceedings. “Our deservedly renowned and very lucky Los Angeles–based defense counselor W.D.D. Du Bois.”
“Thank you, Dickweed,” said Du Bois with a wide smile.
Weid blinked as if he had not heard correctly, and smiled back. “Ah…next to W.D.D…. most of you law enforcement people know these two…are Trudy and Larry Stewart of Stewart Investigations out of Escondido.”
“Lawrence,” said Lawrence.
“And beyond Larry there,” continued the Deputy DA, “is someone else whom a lot of us have met in the line of business, Mr. Darwin Minor, one of the best accident reconstruction specialists in the country and the driver of the black NSX we saw on the videotape. And at the end of the table—”
“Just a minute please, Dick,” said Riverside County’s Sheriff Fields. He was an older man with gunslinger eyes, and when he turned his gaze on Dar, the effect was obviously meant to be both freezing and wilting. “That was the most reprehensible and cold-blooded example of vehicular homicide that I have ever seen.”
“Thanks,” said Dar, returning the sheriff’s electric stare amp for amp. “Only they tried to kill me in cold blood. My blood was very, very warm when I drove them off the road—”
“Just a minute!” commanded Deputy DA Weid. “Let me finish. And at the end of the table, I’d like to introduce Ms. Sydney Olson, chief investigator for the state’s attorney’s office and currently the leader of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Task Force’s Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep. Syd…you have the floor.”
“Thank you, Richard,” the chief investigator said, and smiled again.
Stockard Channing, thought Dar.
“As most of you know,” said the chief investigator, “for the last three months, the state has been carrying out a major investigation—Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep—in an attempt to crack down on the startling rise in insurance fraud claims in this part of the state. We estimate that insurance fraud this year alone is costing Californians about seven point eight billion dollars—”
Several of the sheriffs whistled respectfully.
“—and is driving up insurance rates at least by twenty-five percent.”
“More like forty percent,” interjected Lester Greenspan from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.
Sydney Olson nodded. “I agree. I think the state’s estimates are far too conservative. Especially after the last six months or so.”
Special Agent James Warren cleared his throat. “It should be noted that Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep is modeled after the Bureau’s very successful 1995 Operation Clean Sweep in which we made more than one thousand arrests.”
And probably four convictions, thought Dar.
“Thank you, Jim,” said Chief Investigator Olson. “You’re right, of course. We’re also basing our operation on Florida’s probe, Crash for Cash, where state officials arrested one hundred and seventy-four suspects, many of whom were found working in a single ring linked to fake accidents.”
“Mostly slip-and-falls?” asked Trudy Stewart. “Or heavier stuff?”
“A lot of the suspects were repeat offenders on slip-and-falls,” said Sydney. “But the big catch was a Miami attorney and his son who headed up an organized ring. They staged more than one hundred and fifty auto crashes, paying low-income individuals to collide with each other on the Florida highways and then filing spurious claims against the insurers through collaborating chiropractors or their own law firms.”
“Nothin’ new about that in Southern California,” said Riverside County’s Sheriff Fields in his gunslinger drawl. “Deal with that almost every damned day. ’Bout one out of every eight or ten of the accidents on I-15 through our county is staged. Not a damned thing new.”
Chief Investigator Sydney Olson nodded in agreement. “Except for the fact that in the last few months there’s been some sort of turf battle for control of organized insurance fraud.”
“Groups?” said Sheriff Fields, squinting suspiciously.
Deputy DA Weid spoke. “In Dade County, Florida, they discovered that it was largely the Colombians—the former drug runners—who were organizing the insurance fraud. We’re running into the same thing with some of the organized Mexican or Mexican-American gangs in East L.A. and elsewhere.”
“Figures,” grumbled Sheriff Fields.
Captain Sutton of the CHP shook his head. “The majority of staged crashes isn’t being headed up by our Latino gangs,” he said quietly. “They tried to get into the action and got their butts kicked. Quite a few top hommes in body bags.”
Sheriff Schultz from Orange County cleared her throat. “We’ve seen the same thing with organized Vietnamese crime. They want to dominate, but someone is muscling them out.”
Special Agent Warren said, “And whoever it is that’s been most successful in this turf war is bringing in Russian and Chechnyan mafia enforcers…all along the West Coast, but especially down here.”
All eyes turned back toward Dar and those seated near him.
Lawrence made a coughing noise that usually preceded a longer stat
ement from him. “Our company’s hired Dar… Mr. Minor… Dr. Minor…to reconstruct several accidents that were obviously staged. He’s been an expert witness in half a dozen cases and so have I.”
Trudy was shaking her head. “But we haven’t seen any sign of a highly organized ring in these fraudulent claims,” she said. “It’s just the usual assortment of losers and second-or third-generation insurance-claim parasites. They depend on it the way welfare addicts used to depend on their checks.”
Deputy DA Weid looked at Dar. “There’s no doubt that these two men in the Mercedes were not only Russian mafia imported as part of this turf battle, but that they were tasked to kill you, Mr. Minor.”
Dar winced slightly at the use of the noun task as a verb. Aloud he said, “Why would they want to kill me?”
Sydney Olson turned sideways in her chair and looked Dar in the eye. “That’s what we hoped you’d tell us. What happened yesterday represents the best lead we’ve had in several months of investigation.”
Dar could only shake his head. “I don’t even know how they could have found me. The whole day was crazy…” He quickly and concisely told of his 4:00 A.M. JATO-unit wakeup call, the meeting with Larry, and the interview with Henry at the Shady Rest Senior Mobile Home Park. “I mean…none of that day was planned. No one could have known that I’d be coming south on I-15 at that time of day.”
Captain Sutton of the CHP said, “We found a cell-phone frequency scanner in the wreck of their Mercedes. They must have monitored your calls.”
Dar shook his head again. “I didn’t make or receive any cell phone calls after my meeting with Larry.”
Trudy said, “Lawrence called in after he’d gotten the photographs of the stolen-car ring to say that you were covering the mobile home park interview.”