Vigilante

CHAPTER 32

That night at home, as I lay in bed with Alexa asleep beside me, I kept wrestling with the same gloomy feeling I’d had in the V-TV control room. It was a growing certainty that this case wasn’t going to end well for any of us. I felt like I was being led by the nose through a maze that had no back door.

I finally got up and, without waking Alexa, went out to sit in the den. I thought about Lester and Stephanie Madrid and, despite the theory Hitch and I had advanced in Jeb’s office, how improbable it was that the murders of Lita Mendez and Hannah Trumbull each touched one of the Madrids.

I kept looking at the problem and turning it over like a Rubik’s Cube, examining all sides, twisting facets. No matter how I tried to get all the same colors to line up, I couldn’t make it come out right.

A random thought struck me. We’d all assumed that Nix Nash picked Los Angeles as the city he wanted to feature in the show’s third season because this was where he had lost his law license. We’d assumed he hated the LAPD for putting the fraud case on him, which sent him to prison and got him disbarred. It made such perfect sense that he was here seeking revenge against us that we’d never looked at any alternate theories.

What if that wasn’t the reason he chose L.A.? What if the reason was because he’d lived here for years? He’d associated with cops and criminals. He had contacts. He had to already know about the Madrids because Stephanie was chief advocate even back then and she was fielding a lot of his lawsuits against cops. Taking it a step further, it would have been impossible for Nix to miss Lester with all the press coverage he got in the Times for dumping assholes in the street back when he was in SIS.

Maybe it was usable information, and not revenge, that had brought Nix back here for his third TV season.

I would discuss it with Hitch in the morning and see if he could think of a way to twist my cube further and make the colors line up closer.

I was just getting up to head back to bed when a text message signal sounded from my cell phone in the charging dock across the room. I walked over and read it.

YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN NIX NASH AND THE CAST OF V-TV ABOARD THE HMS BOUNTY FOR BRUNCH AND A CRUISE CELEBRATING THE PREMIERE OF OUR THIRD SEASON. WE’RE LEAVING FROM FISHERMAN’S VILLAGE, MARINA DEL REY, AT 10:00 A.M. TOMORROW. GROG AND HORS D’OEUVRES. DRESS CASUAL.

I stood in my den holding the cell phone, looking down at the improbable invitation. What the hell did this guy take me for?

Even though it was late, I dialed Hitch.

“What up, dawg?” he said as he came on the line, still fully awake.

“Listen to this,” I said, and read him the text message.

When I finished, he said, “I’d view it as an incredible opportunity. We decided to engage. Full contact, remember?”

“So you’d go.”

“Bet your ass.”

“I’d like it better if we were betting yours.”

“Listen, dawg. If it makes you feel better I could go as your date. We could wear matching sailor suits. But you’ll get more if you go alone; it will keep his guard down. This guy is arrogant. Arrogance is his weakness.”

We were both silent for a long minute.

“I’m tempted,” I said. “But my gut tells me it’s a trap.”

“Unless he pushes you overboard, which I doubt, you’ll get back safely, and then you and I will debrief. We can use whatever intel you get to find a way to net this tuna. While you’re on that cruise, you can also try and pump those other sellouts-Marcia Breen, Frank Palgrave, and J. J. Blunt. See what they have to contribute.”

“Okay,” I finally said. “I guess I’ll do it.”