Darwin's Blade

12 “L is for Long Shot”

Tuesday was a big day for guns, culminating in a high-velocity 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?”

“No,” said Dar.

Nothing more was said.

The first accident site was halfway to San Jose. Lawrence parked the Trooper in the crowded parking lot of a low-rent condo complex and they walked over to the inevitable yellow-taped-crime-scene rectangle around a 1994 red Honda Prelude. The accident had occurred in the middle of the night, but there were still two uniformed officers there as well as a few gawkers—mostly gang-banger-aged kids in droopy shorts and three-hundred-dollar athletic shoes. Lawrence identified both himself and Dar to the nearest police officer, politely asked permission for Dar to take pictures, and then got a statement from the officer.

As Dar shot images, the young patrolman tried to explain, pointing happily to the various pieces of evidence—the broken windows on the car, the cracked windshield, dents in the hood of the Prelude, slimy gray matter on and around the front of the car, as well as blood on the shattered windshield, the hood, the fenders, the front bumper, and pooled in a wide, dark stain on the asphalt. Obviously it had not rained very hard here during the night or morning.

“Well, this guy, Barry, he’s mad at his girlfriend—Sheila something—she lives upstairs in 2306, she’s down at the station now making out a statement,” said the cop. “Anyway, Barry’s a biker, big fucker with a beard, and Sheila gets tired of him and starts seeing other guys. Well, at least one other guy. Barry, he doesn’t like that. So he comes by here, we figure about two-thirty A.M., the reports of a disturbance come in about two forty-eight, and the first report of shots fired came in to 911 at three-oh-two A.M. At first Barry is just, you know, screaming up at Sheila’s window, shouting obscenities at her, her shouting obscenities back, you know. The main entrance, it’s got an automatic lock so you gotta buzz to get in and go up, only Sheila doesn’t buzz him in.

“This really pisses Barry off. So he goes back to his truck—that’s it, the Ford van parked over there—and comes back with a loaded shotgun, double barrel. He starts using the butt of the shotgun to bash in the side windows of Sheila’s Prelude there. Sheila starts shitting bricks and screaming louder. The neighbors call the police, but before a black-and-white can answer, Barry gets it in his mind to get up on the hood—he must’ve weighed about two sixty, you see how he dented the shit out of it just standing on it—and he begins bashing in the windshield with the butt of the shotgun. We figure, to get a better grip or something, he somehow got a finger inside the trigger guard…”

“And shot himself in the belly?” said Lawrence.

“Both barrels. Blew his guts all over the hood, headlights, front bumper—”

“He was still alive in intensive care when I got the call this morning,” interrupted Lawrence. “Do you have an update?”

The cop shrugged. “When the detectives came to take the girl downtown, word was that the medics had pulled the plug on Barry. Sheila’s comment was ‘Good riddance.’”

“Love,” said Lawrence.

“It’s a many-splendored thing,” agreed the uniformed officer.

They stopped for three obvious slip-and-fall scams—two at supermarkets and one at a Holiday Inn where the claimant was famous for slip-and-falls near ice machines that leaked—and a slow-motion parking-lot swoop-and-squat where five family members were all claiming whiplash. The last accident scene was in San Jose itself. On the way, Lawrence and Dar stopped for lunch. Actually, they just went through a Burger Biggy drive-through and ate their Biggies and slurped their Biggy milk shakes while Lawrence drove.

“So how did Barry’s shotgun sepaku relate to any of your insurance carriers?” Dar asked between sips.

“First thing Sheila did this morning was file a claim on the Prelude,” said the big insurance adjuster. “She says that it’s totaled—that State Farm owes her a brand-new car.”

“I didn’t see that much damage,” said Dar. “Some broken glass. The dents in the hood. Nothing else that a car wash won’t take care of.”

Lawrence shook his head. “She claims that she would be too traumatized to ever drive the Prelude again. She wants full payment…enough to buy a brand-new SUV. She’s had her eye on a Navigator.”

“She told the insurance people all this this morning before going to the cops to give her statement?”

“Sort of,” said Lawrence. “She called her insurance agent at four A.M.”

The last accident site was also in a run-down condo complex, this one right in San Jose. There were uniformed officers on the stairway and an obviously bored plainclothes detective on the third floor. There was also the smell of death.

“Jesus,” said Lawrence, pulling a clean, red bandana out of his hip pocket and holding it over his nose and mouth. “How long has this guy been dead?”

“Just since last night,” said Lieutenant Rich of the San Jose PD. “Everyone heard the gunshot about midnight, but no one reported it. The apartment’s not air-conditioned, so things have been getting ripe since about ten A.M.”

“You mean the body’s still in there?” Lawrence asked incredulously.

Lieutenant Rich shrugged. “The ME was here this morning when the body was discovered. The cause of death has been established. We’ve been waiting for the meat wagon all day, but the county coroner has jurisdiction on this and his vehicle’s been busy all day. Real mess on the freeways this morning.”

“Shit,” said Lawrence. He gave Dar a look and then turned back to the lieutenant. “Well, we have to go in and take photos. I have to do a scene sketch.”

“Why?” said the detective. “What the hell has the insurance got to do with it at this point?”

“There’s already threatened litigation by the deceased’s sister,” said Lawrence.

“Against who?” said Officer Rich. “Do you know how this guy died?”

“Suicide, isn’t it?” said Lawrence. “The lawsuit is against the deceased’s—Mr. Hatton’s—psychiatrist. His sister says that Mr. Hatton was depressed and paranoid and that the psychiatrist didn’t do enough to prevent this tragedy.”

The detective chuckled. “I don’t think that’s gonna fly. I’d have to testify in court that the psychiatrist did everything she could to keep this poor nut happy. Come on in, I’ll show you. You can take your photos, but I don’t think you’ll want to hang around long enough to do too careful a scene diagram.”

Dar followed the plainclothes officer and Lawrence into the small, overheated apartment. Someone had opened the only window that would open, but that was in the kitchen and the body was in the bedroom.

“Jesus Christ,” said Lawrence, standing next to the blood-soaked bed and pillows, looking at the crimson spatters on the headboard and wall. “The. 38’s still in the poor bastard’s hand. The ME says that this isn’t suicide?”

Lieutenant Rich, who was trying to hold his nose and look dignified at the same time, nodded. “We have testimony from the shrink that Mr. Hatton was definitely depressed and paranoid, also schizophrenic. The psychiatrist was aware that the late Mr. H. always slept with the. 38 Smith and Wesson on his nightstand next to his bed. He was afraid the UN was planning an invasion of the United States…you know, black helicopters, bar codes on road signs to show the African troops where to go to get the gun owners…the usual shit. Anyway, the shrink—she’s a woman, by the way, and quite a looker—says that the short-term goal of her therapy was to have Mr. Hatton bring in the pistol for safekeeping.”

“Guess that goal won’t be reached,” said Lawrence through his bandana.

“The shrink says that Hatton was extremely paranoid, but in no way suicidal,” said the detective. “She’s willing to testify to that. But the poor schmuck was on about five types of meds, including Doxepin and Flurezapam to sleep. Knocks him right out. According to the doctor, Hatton always tried to get to sleep by ten-thirty P.M.”

“So what happened?” said Lawrence as Dar shot some regular thirty-five-millimeter stills with high-speed film.

“Hatton’s sister called him at three minutes before midnight,” said Lieutenant Rich. “She says that she usually doesn’t call him that late, but that she’d had a terrible dream…a premonition of his death.”

“So?” said Lawrence.

“Hatton didn’t answer the phone. His sister knew that he was taking sleeping pills, so she waited until nine this morning to start calling again. Eventually she called the cops.”

“I don’t get it,” said Lawrence.

Dar crouched by the body, studied the angle of the arm and the turn of the wrist that rigor mortis had sculpted in place, studied the wound high on the dead man’s temple, and then moved around the bed to sniff at the pillow on the empty side. “I do,” said Dar.

Lawrence looked at Dar, at the body, back at Lieutenant Rich, and then at the body again. “Aw, no. You’re shitting me.”

“That’s the ME’s analysis,” said the detective.

Lawrence shook his head. “You mean—he was all doped up with sleeping pills, his sister calls because she has a dream that he’s died, and this guy thinks he’s answering the phone but actually picks up the .38 on the nightstand and blows his brains out? There’s no way anyone could prove that.”

“There was a witness,” said Lieutenant Rich.

Lawrence looked at the empty but mussed side of the bed. “Oh,” he said, getting the picture…or at least part of it.

“Georgio of Beverly Hills,” said Dar.

Lawrence turned slowly to look at his friend. “Are you telling me that you can look at the imprint on the other side of the bed and sniff around—amidst all this stench—and tell me the name of the guy from Beverly Hills that Mr. Hatton was sleeping with?”

The police detective laughed, then covered his mouth and nose again.

Dar shook his head. “The perfume. Georgio of Beverly Hills.” Dar turned to the plainclothes officer. “Let me take a wild guess. Whoever was in bed with Mr. Hatton at the time of the accident didn’t come forward last night—either because she’s married or the situation would be embarrassing in some other way—but she’s given you a statement since then. Whoever she was, you found her this morning…and probably not by checking all of the women in Southern California who wear Georgio.”

Detective Rich nodded. “Two minutes after the patrol car pulled up this morning, she broke down and started sobbing, told us all about it.”

“What are you two talking about?” said Lawrence.

“The psychiatrist,” said Dar.

Lawrence looked back at the body. “Mr. Hatton was boffing his shrink?”

“Not at the time of the accident,” said Lieutenant Rich. “They’d finished their boffing for the night, Mr. Hatton had taken his Flurezapam and Doxepin, and they were both asleep. The psychiatrist…I’ll keep her name out of it for right now, but my guess is that you’ll be hearing it on the eleven-o’clock news a lot in the days to come…she heard the phone ring at midnight, heard Hatton fumble around and say, ‘Hello?’—just as the gun went off.”

“She obviously decided that discretion was the better part of valor on her part,” said Dar.

“Yeah,” said the detective. “She got her ass out of here before the blood quit sprayin’. Unfortunately—for the shrink—the snoopy live-in manager saw her drive off in her Porsche about five minutes after midnight.”

“Does Mrs. Hatton’s sister know about this yet?” asked Lawrence.

“Not yet,” said the detective.

Dar exchanged glances with Lawrence. “That should make the lawsuit even more interesting.”

The detective led the way back out into the hallway. Lawrence and Dar followed readily enough. They stood on the balcony to let the breeze blow some of the smell off their clothes.

“It’s like the old story of how Helen Keller burned her ear,” said Lieutenant Rich.

“How’s that?” said Lawrence, making notes and fast sketches in his notebook.

“By answering the iron,” Lieutenant Rich said, and began laughing almost hysterically.

Lawrence and Dar did not speak for some time after leaving San Jose. Finally Lawrence muttered, “To protect and serve. Ha!”

At the end of the drive back to San Diego, Dar suddenly said, “Larry, remember when Princess Diana was killed a few years ago?”

“Lawrence,” said Lawrence. “Sure I remember.”

“What did we talk about…more or less?”

The burly insurance adjuster sighed. “Let’s see…the first reports were that the Mercedes that Princess Di and her boyfriend were in had been going a hundred and twenty miles per hour. We knew that was incorrect right from the beginning. We used the TV’s freeze-frame to get some stills of the news report, remember? Then we videotaped the later scene reports and studied the stills from them.”

“And we talked about how the impact incursion wasn’t consistent,” said Dar.

“Right. The Mercedes hit that pillar pretty much dead on, so we know that the front-end incursion wasn’t significant enough to show that the car had been going anywhere near a hundred and twenty miles per hour. Also, the TV networks kept reporting that the car had obviously rolled over, but when we looked at the raw video we knew that wasn’t so.”

“You and Trudy identified the missing roof as the emergency workers’ efforts to cut the victims free, right?” said Dar.

“Sure. So did you. And the dents visible in the roof didn’t come from a rollover. They came from the rear passengers’ heads hitting the inside of the roof after the initial impact.”

“And what did we judge the real speed of impact to be, according to the video, the passengers’ injuries, and the other scene reports?”

“I said…let’s see…I said sixty-three miles per hour. Trudy said sixty-seven. I think you had the low number, sixty-two.”

“And when the final report came out, you were right,” mused Dar.

Lawrence went on. “None of the reporters seemed to want to mention it, but we all knew that Princess Diana would have almost certainly survived the crash if she’d been wearing her seat belt and shoulder harness. And they’d all be alive if the accident had happened in the United States…”

“Because?” said Dar.

“Because it’s both federal and state regulations that pillars in an underpass have to be protected by guardrails,” said Lawrence. “You know that; you mentioned it the night of the accident. You even worked out the kinetic-impact-velocity-diminution equations on our computer—showing that if it had been a guardrail rather than a concrete pillar, the Mercedes would have gone ricocheting back and forth through that tunnel, wall to guardrail and back again, dissipating energy as it went. If the occupants other than the bodyguard had been buckled in…”

“But they weren’t,” said Dar quietly.

“Uh-uh. Trudy calls that the taxi-limousine syndrome,” said Lawrence. “People who would never drive or ride in their own automobiles without a seat belt don’t even think about buckling up in a limo or taxi. For some reason, you feel invulnerable when a hired driver is behind the wheel.”

“Trudy even remembered video of Princess Diana buckling up when driving her own car,” said Dar. “What else did we discuss?”

Lawrence scratched his chin. “I’m assuming you’ll get to your point here sometime. Let’s see. We all agreed that the paparazzi didn’t have anything to do with the accident. First, the Mercedes could have easily outrun those little paparazzi motorcycles. Secondly, it could have driven over them without feeling a bump. But we all suspected that a second vehicle was involved…a second automobile, that is. That the driver swerved down into the tunnel and then lost control trying to miss another car.”

“Which turned out to be the case,” said Dar.

“Yeah. And we were sure they’d discover that the driver had been legally drunk.”

Dar nodded. “Why did we assume that?”

“He was French,” said Lawrence. Lawrence did not travel to parts of the world where all the people did not speak English. He also did not like the French just on general principles.

“Why else?” said Dar.

“Oh, I think it was Trudy who made the point that the swerve to the left after entering the tunnel—the swerve that sent them directly into the pillar—almost certainly had to be an evasive maneuver and that any competent driver—or sober driver—could have made it at sixty-five miles per hour without losing control of that make of Mercedes. After all, the car was trying to help the driver keep control.”

“So the three of us were right about all of the particulars of the accident, even down to the hypothetical extra car involved,” said Dar. “But do you remember any other reaction on our part?”

“Oh, I remember keeping a watch on the Net and the professional journals for a while,” said Lawrence. “The facts came trickling in that way—through comments by other insurance investigators—long before the networks or news services figured it out.”

“Do you remember us crying?” said Dar.

Lawrence took his eyes off the traffic and looked at Dar for what seemed like a long time. Then he looked back at the road. “Are you shitting me?”

“No, I’m trying to remember our emotional reaction.”

“Everybody else in the world went apeshit,” said Lawrence in obvious disgust. “Remember the TV views of the long lines of sobbing people—grown-ups—outside the British consulate in L.A.? There were church services up the wazoo and more blubbering on television idiot-on-the-street interviews than I’ve seen since Kennedy was shot. More than Kennedy. It was like everyone’s favorite aunt, wife, mother, sister, and girlfriend had died. It was crazy. It was absolutely nuts.”

“Yes,” said Dar, “but how did the three of us react?”

Lawrence shrugged again. “I guess Trudy and I were sorry the lady was dead. It’s sad when any young person dies. But Christ, Dar, it wasn’t personal. I mean, we didn’t know the woman. Besides, there was a certain irritation at their carelessness—hers and the boyfriend, Dodi—at letting a drunk drive, at playing games driving that fast just to get rid of a few fucking photographers, and for thinking that they were so above the laws of physics that they didn’t need their belts on.”

“Yes,” Dar said, and was quiet a moment. “Do you remember when the conspiracy theories began about her death?”

Lawrence laughed. “Yeah…about ten minutes after the first news reports were aired. I remember after you did the kinetic equations, we went onto the Internet to find some more facts and already people were yapping about how the CIA killed them or the British secret service or the Israelis. Morons.”

“Yes,” said Dar. “But our reaction was just one of…what?”

Lawrence frowned at Dar again. “Professional interest,” he said. “Is there a problem with that? It was an interesting accident and the media got the details all wrong, as they usually do. It was fun figuring out what really happened. We were right…right down to the phantom car, the alcohol, and the speed of impact. We didn’t get involved with the orgy of mourning going on everywhere because that was media-hype celebrity-cult bullshit. If I want to weep for the dead, I’ll visit the graveyard in Illinois where my parents are buried. Is there a problem with any of that, Dar? Did we react wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”

Dar shook his head. “No,” he said. And a moment later, he said it again. “No, we didn’t react wrong at all.”

Back at his condo loft that evening, Dar could not concentrate. None of the accidents he and Lawrence had investigated that day would take much reconstruction. The gunshot accidents had been a little out of the ordinary, but not that much. Three weeks earlier, Dar and Lawrence had investigated a claim in which an inner-city teenager had shoved a loaded revolver into his waistband and blown off most of his genitals. The family was suing the school district, even though the ninth-grader had skipped school that day. The mother and live-in boyfriend were arguing in the $2 million claim that the school was responsible for making sure the sixteen-year-old was in school.

Dar had twenty other projects he could work on, but he found himself wandering the apartment, pulling books off the shelves and putting them back, checking his e-mail and updating his chess games. Of the twenty-three games he had going, only two required any real concentration. A mathematics student in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and a mathematician/financial planner in Moscow—financial planner in Moscow!—were giving him real problems. His Moscow friend, Dmitry, had beaten him twice and played him to a stalemate once. Dar looked at the e-mail, went to the physical chess board he kept set up for that game, moved Dmitry’s white knight, and frowned at the result. This would take some thought.

Dar was surprised when Sydney called.

“Hey, I was hoping to catch you home. Would you mind some company?”

Dar hesitated only a fraction of a second. “No…I mean, sure. Where are you?”

“In the hall outside your apartment,” said Syd. “Your police protection didn’t even notice us when we came in the back way…carrying a suspicious package.”

“Us?” said Dar.

“I brought a friend,” said Syd. “Shall I knock?”

“Why don’t I just open the door,” said Dar.

Syd was indeed carrying a suspicious package. Dar guessed that it was a rifle or shotgun wrapped in canvas. Her friend was a strikingly handsome Latino a few years younger than Syd or Dar. The man was only of medium height, but he had the muscular presence of a long-ball hitter. His wavy black hair was brushed straight back, he looked lean and comfortable in khaki pants, a khaki windbreaker, and a gray polo shirt, and although he wore cowboy boots, the effect was natural—as if he belonged in them—exactly the opposite of the costume effect that Dallas Trace’s boots had created. He introduced himself as Tom Santana and his handshake was also the opposite of Dallas Trace’s: where Trace had attempted to impress with his bonecrushing intensity, Santana was obviously a very powerful man with the restraint of a gentleman.

“I’ve heard of you, Dr. Minor,” said Tom. “Your reconstruction work is much admired. I’m surprised we haven’t met before.”

“Dar,” said Dar. “And I don’t get out much. But I do know the name Tom Santana…You started out with the CHP Staged Collison Unit and shifted over to the Fraud Division in ninety-two…working undercover. You were the one who blew open the Cambodian and Vietnamese capper gangs in ninety-five and put those two attorneys in jail.”

Santana grinned. He had the smile of a movie star but none of the self-consciousness. “And before that, the Hungarians who literally wrote the book on capping in California,” he said with a laugh. “As long as the Hungarians and the Vietnamese and the Cambodians stayed within their own ethnic group, we couldn’t get to them. But once they started recruiting Mexicans as el toros y la vacas—then I could go undercover.”

“But you’re not undercover anymore,” said Dar.

Tom shook his head. “Too well known for that now. Last couple of years I’ve been heading up FIST…The last year, I’ve been working on and off with Syd here.”

Dar knew that FIST was a Fraud Division acronymic cuteness standing for Fraud Intelligence Specialist Team. And the way this man and Syd acted around each other…just stood so easily together…sat so comfortably on his leather couch next to one another, not too close, not too far apart…Dar did not know what the hell it meant, but he was irritated at himself for feeling some pang about it. How long had he known Chief Investigator Olson anyway? Five days? Did he expect her not to have a life before that? Before what?

“Drink?” said Dar, walking to the antique dry sink he used as a bar.

Both shook their heads. “We’re still on duty,” said Tom.

Dar nodded and poured himself a bit of single-malt Scotch, then sat in the Eames chair across from them. The last of the evening sunlight came through the tall windows and fell across them in slowly moving trapezoids of gold light. Dar sipped his Scotch, looked at the canvas-wrapped package, and said, “Is that for me?”

“Yes,” said Syd. “And don’t say no until you hear us out.”

“No,” said Dar.

“Goddamn it,” Syd said. “You are one stubborn man, Dar Minor.”

Dar sipped Scotch and waited.

“Will you hear us out at least?” asked Syd.

“Sure.”

The chief investigator sighed and said, “I’m going to get a drink, on duty or not…No, don’t get up, Dar. I know where the Scotch is. Go ahead, Tom.”

Tom Santana used his hands for emphasis when he spoke. “Syd tells me that you feel like you were being used, Dr. Minor…”

“Dar.”

“Dar,” continued Tom, “and in a way, you were. We both apologize for that. But when the Russians made their move against you, it was the biggest break we’ve had in the Alliance case.”

Syd came back to the couch with her glass of Scotch and settled back into the cushions. “We’ve been watching about a dozen top lawyers around the country…I mean top lawyers, famous men…about half of them here in California, the rest in places like Phoenix, Miami, Boston, New York.”

“Including Dallas Trace,” said Dar.

“We think so,” said Tom.

Dar took a drink of single-malt again before speaking. The light made the amber whiskey glow in its glass. “Why would these lawyers—presumably if they’re at or near Trace’s level of success—take such a risk when they already make millions of dollars legitimately?”

Tom’s hands stabbed out like an infielder getting ready to handle a hot grounder. “At first we couldn’t believe it either. Some of it may be personal…like Esposito’s involvement in the death of Dallas Trace’s son, Richard…but most is just business. You know how many billions are hauled in every year through injury mills and fraudulent claims. This…Alliance…of big-time lawyers appears to be taking out the middlemen.”

“Literally taking them out?” said Dar. “As in murdering them?”

“Sometimes,” said Syd. She looked tired. The last of the evening light on her face showed wrinkles that Dar had not noticed before. “Gennie Smiley and Donald Borden, for instance…We haven’t found them in San Francisco or Oakland. We haven’t found them anywhere.”

Dar nodded. “You might try the bay itself.” He glared at Syd without meaning to. “So when the Russians took their shots at me, you got me into this because you hoped I’d trip Dallas Trace’s hand somehow? Why? Because you knew that I’d made the videotape reconstructions?”

Syd leaned forward quickly, a look of concern or pain on her face. “No, Dar, I swear. I knew that Dallas Trace had seen evidence that his son had been killed—we interviewed Detectives Fairchild and Ventura because it was strange that the homicide unit had taken over the investigation from the accident unit—but I swear, I promise you that I didn’t know that you’d done that reconstruction tape until you showed it to me at the cabin.” Tom remained silent, looking from one to the other of them as if trying to understand the tension that suddenly filled the room.

“So why did you bring me along to face Dallas Trace?” asked Dar after a moment.

Syd set her Scotch down on the rough-planked coffee table. “Because the tape was so good,” she said. “No rational man could look at that and not believe that his son had been murdered. I was willing to give Dallas Trace the benefit of the doubt until yesterday. But once he looked at that reconstruction video and then threw us out, I knew he was into all this up to his neck.”

Dar sighed. “So what the hell do you want me to do?”

“Help us,” said Tom Santana. “Keep working with Syd. Use your reconstruction skills to get to the bottom of this Alliance conspiracy.”

Dar did not respond.

Syd turned to Tom Santana. “Dar doesn’t believe in conspiracies.”

“I didn’t say that,” snapped Dar. “I said I don’t believe in successful conspiracies. After a while, they collapse from their own weight of ignorance or because the people involved are too stupid to keep their mouths shut. That Helpers of the Helpless crap…”

“It’s not crap,” Tom said. “Things are changing. Things are getting deadly. Instead of swoop-and-squats on surface streets, you’re seeing these fatalities on the freeways…”

“And at the construction sites,” said Syd.

“People are getting recruited for the usual stuff—fender benders, whiplash claims,” said Tom. “But they’re dying instead, and guys like Esposito and Dallas Trace are making more money off of them than ever before.”

“Esposito’s not making any more money for anyone,” muttered Dar.

Syd leaned forward, her hands clasped. “Will you join us, Dar? Will you help us on this project?”

Dar looked at the two of them sitting there on his couch, so comfortable with one another. “No,” he said.

“But—” began Tom.

“If he says no, he means no,” interrupted Syd. She pulled a semiautomatic pistol from her belt under her loose vest. It looked like her own ninemillimeter pistol, but chambered for a heavier round. “Are you familiar with one of these, Dar?”

“A handgun?” said Dar. “I saw one in a dead man’s hand this afternoon.”

Syd ignored his sarcasm. “This kind of Sig Pro, I mean.”

Dar looked down at the small semiautomatic with obvious distaste.

“I know you’ve seen Sig-Sauers,” said Syd. “This is the new SIGARMS polymer design. Very small, very light.” She set the pistol on the table. “Go ahead…heft it, try it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Dar.

“Look, Dar,” Syd began, and stopped as if fighting to keep her voice under control. “We didn’t get you into this. When those LAPD detectives—and we think they’re both on the take—showed Trace the video reconstruction you’d given the accident unit, well…that’s when the Russians were sent after you.”

“We’re certain the Alliance has brought in some top Russian mafia figures to enforce their takeover of major fraud,” said Tom Santana softly, slowly. “We have evidence that Dallas Trace himself has hired an ex-KGB agent as his primary enforcer—a member of the Organizatsiya, Russia’s organized-crime syndicate. This enforcer is bringing in more Russian mafia as the need arises.”

“And you think this little polymer Sig Pro is going to make a difference?”

“It could make all the difference,” said Syd, her voice angry now. “You saw how easily Tom and I got into your condo building. There’s a single San Diego PD unmarked car parked across the street, but those guys are on overtime and they’re probably both half asleep by now.” She dropped the magazine out of the pistol and set it aside, racking the semiautomatic to show that there was no bullet in the chamber. “This is my personal weapon, Dar. This type of Sig Pro fires .40-caliber Smith and Wesson ammo and it’s about the most accurate semiauto on the market. The U.S. Secret Service likes these weapons…the Sig Pro comes up well on target and puts the rounds right where they’re pointed.”

“At another human being,” said Dar.

Syd ignored him. She took the canvas off the long package. “The pistol would be for personal protection when you’re out alone,” she went on. “I’ve got a permit in the works for you, but you won’t be arrested for carrying it no matter what. And for the apartment and the cabin…”

“A shotgun,” said Dar.

“I know you were in the Marines,” said Syd. “I know you were trained in the use of weapons…”

“More than a quarter of a century ago,” said Dar.

“It’s like riding a bike,” said Tom Santana, no sarcasm in his words.

“You had a .410 Savage over-and-under at some point,” said Syd. “You probably recognize this shotgun. It’s a classic.”

“A Remington Model 870 pump-action twelve-gauge,” said Dar flatly. “Yeah, I’ve seen them.”

Syd reached into her big bag and then set two boxes of cartridges on the coffee table. Dar could see that one box held Smith & Wesson .40-caliber bullets, the other a yellow box of 00 buckshot shells.

The chief investigator nodded toward Dar’s front door.

“Somebody you don’t like comes through that door, Dar, a single pull on this trigger releases nine .33-caliber lead pellets at muzzle velocities ranging from eleven hundred to thirteen hundred feet per second. That means as much lead in the air as eight rounds from a ninemillimeter semiautomatic.”

“Close-range firepower,” said Tom Santana, “with quick-velocity drop-off and less risk of overpenetration than most firearms. It’s why police prefer them for close-in situations. And under…say, twenty-five yards…it’s almost impossible to miss.”

Dar said nothing. The three sat in silence for several minutes. The sunlight had gone.

“Dar,” said Syd at last, leaning over the table to touch his knee, “if you’re not going to work with us, or let me be around you, then you need some extra protection.”

Dar shook his head. “No on the pistol. That’s final. I’ll keep the shotgun under the bed.”

Chief Investigator Olson and Inspector Santana looked at one another. Then Syd took the Sig Pro and its ammunition and put them away in her bag. “Thank you for keeping the shotgun at least, Dar. The magazine holds five shells, and the pump-action—”

“I’ve fired a Remington 870 before,” interrupted Dar. “It’s like riding a bike.” He stood. “Anything else?”

Both Syd and Tom shook his hand at the door, but neither said anything until Tom handed Dar his card. “I can be reached at the last number at any time, day or night,” said the FIST investigator.

Dar slid the card in his jeans pocket, but said, “I’ve already got Syd’s card somewhere.”

For an hour after they left, Dar just paced the apartment, not even turning on the lights. He slid the shotgun and the shells under his bed and came back out into the main living area, restless. He poured another glass of Scotch and stared out at the lights of the city below and at the slow movement of boats in the bay. Aircraft landed and took off from Lindbergh Field, suggesting a purposefulness and energy that Dar did not share.

Finishing his drink, he went into his bedroom cubicle again. In the bathroom he turned on the shower and stood under the hot spray for several minutes, letting the water pound some of the whiskey fuzziness out of his head.

He came out into the dark bedroom carrying the towel and drying his short hair. He turned on a light. The bedroom was merely an enclosure created by built-in bookcases, but his closet was fully enclosed and its door had come with a full-length mirror that he had meant to take down. Now he blinked at his own reflection.

Is there anything sadder-looking than a naked middle-aged man? thought Dar. He started toward the closet door, as much to get the mirror out of view by opening the door as to find his pajamas, when the first shot was fired. The mirror shattered. Broken glass cut Dar’s face and chest. He stumbled backward, knocking the lamp off the low dresser.

The second shot was fired into darkness.