Man in the Middle (42 page)

The agent got out and leaned through his partially open door. “When do I hear the rest of this brilliant plan of yours?” he asked.

“Maybe never. I’ll be in touch.”

As Peter sped off, Dawson stepped back, slamming the door shut. In his rear view mirror, Peter saw Dawson step off the curb and stare, the agent’s head shaking in disbelief.

A left turn later, Peter pressed his right foot down on the accelerator and felt his car surge.

 
“I
WANT TO SPEAK TO THE DIRECTOR
. Now.” Dawson enjoyed giving orders to Freeman Ranson. He hoped one day to order the slime-ball to eat shit and die. “You’re not even employed here any more, Dawson. You should be arrested for impersonating an agent.”

This conversational direction and tone did not surprise Dawson. “You mean,” he said, “to tell me you refuse to pass on to Director Ackerman that I’m close to a deal? Or that I’ve got someone high up, on the inside, interested in negotiating?”

“You have no authority to negotiate on behalf of the SEC . . . or anyone else for that matter,” Ranson said. Dawson didn’t think it sounded convincing. “Not that I believe you, but who is it you think wants to make a deal?” Ranson tried to make this last question seem like an afterthought, but Dawson didn’t bite. He knew the scumbag was apoplectic. And the realization gave him a warm tingle.

“I promised not to say until the deal is signed,” Dawson said. “It involves immunity and turning a blind eye to certain future activities. But it’ll be well worth the sacrifice if it happens.”

“You talking about Peter Neil? We’ve been down that dead end before.”

“Not Neil. First off, I can’t find the guy. Secondly, he’s turned me down more than once. Finally, he’s got much bigger problems with this murder rap.” Dawson silently congratulated himself. The lies sounded convincing.

“Not Neil? I repeat:
who
?”

This time Dawson read a Grand Canyon of concern in Ranson’s voice. Perfect, he thought. He’s buying in. “I can’t say.”

“Then I have to assume you’re full of it—”

Show outrage, Dawson told himself. The agent took a deep breath, and spit into the mouthpiece of the outdoor payphone. “You, Ranson, are a piece of incompetent filth.” Then he hung up.

“Okay, Mr. Peter Neil,” Dawson said in a low whisper. “That’s done. I sure wish I knew why you wanted to get Ranson’s bowels in such an uproar, but you surely have.”

The agent made one more call. This one was to Angela Newman. “Tell Director Ackerman what happened. Tell him this is part of a plan I’ve devised.”

“I thought you said this was Neil’s plan,” she said.

“It is, but don’t tell the director that. If he thinks I’m being jerked around by a guy suspected of rape, torture, and murder, he might not go along.”

“I wouldn’t blame him.”

“Me either, Sweetheart. Gotta go. Love ya.”

Dawson, like everyone else in Peter’s plan, could only wait.

Sunday night made for a lousy night’s sleep. When Peter woke on Monday, the thoroughness of Saturday’s cover-up still frightened him. That Stenman controlled so many people boggled the mind. And what of Howard Muller? The man disgusted him, but Peter hadn’t wanted to physically hurt him. “On vacation in Mexico”? Maybe on vacation from life, Peter guessed.

From a downtown Rancho Santa Fe gas station, Peter decided to call Stuart at work and get an update. He used Stuart’s private line.

“Peter? What the hell’s going on?”

“Got a few problems to iron out.”

“Where in God’s name are you?”

“I’d rather not say. I’ve been moving around.”

“You a . . . what’s that word you used to describe Muller that one time? Misan . . .”

“Misanthrope. No, not when it comes to you. I just don’t trust phones.”

“Whatever, dude, but this is a secure line.”

“I’m paranoid.”

“Can’t blame you for that. And for what it’s worth, dude, I know you didn’t kill that chick.”

“That makes two of us.” A car honked at a pedestrian next to the payphone. “You hear anything about Muller?”

“Heard he’s gone . . . hold on. I got another call I gotta take. Don’t hang up, got some other info for you.”

The phone went silent. Peter waited with his face tucked into his jacket.

“Hey. I’m back,” Stuart said a minute later. “First off, I found out that damn conference room is bugged.”

“Me too. Did you get in trouble?”

“You mean for telling you about backtrading? Making fun of Muller?”

“And your recreational chemicals.”

“Nobody cared about the coke thing, but I did get a lecture on my always yapping pie-hole. But since Muller ordered me to teach you the ropes, I guess I caught a break. Fortunately, Muller’s war room wasn’t tapped.”

“You’re still employed, so they must’ve forgiven you.”

“They wouldn’t if they knew I was talking to you. You won’t tell anyone, will you? That’s a joke, by the way.”

“I already guessed that.”

“You wanted to know about Muller,” Stuart said.

“Yeah. Did you hear anything?”

“There was a fire in his office, but he was away on a sudden vacation . . . hold on, got to take another call. I heard something I want to tell you about . . . give me a sec.”

Again, Peter waited. He guessed two minutes passed.

“Stuart! Hello!”

Shit.

Peter slammed the phone into the aluminum cradle. He had parked his car fifteen feet away. In seconds, he jumped into the Taurus and listened to the ignition grind, then kick in. With an arm across the passenger’s front seat and his head turned back, he floored the accelerator and backed up to the sounds of screeching rubber. Shifting to the brake pedal, he slammed hard and fishtailed. He spun his torso back around, then slid the automatic into drive. The wheels slipped on a patch of light oil before catching enough traction to move forward.

At the exit, a Cadillac cruised past, two blue-hairs talking, unaware that Peter had aimed his cocked auto in their direction. The Easter-green luxury car stopped and waited for a pickup truck to pull away from the curb. Peter went into reverse and spun the wheel hard right, stopped, then pointed his car in another direction.

Self-service pumps were full of obstacles. One car, done getting gas, rolled into his new path.

“Move, dammit,” he shouted. Nobody heard.

Peter’s car felt like an oven, broiling his brain. He honked, but everybody froze at the sounds of a siren, closing in. Then a second siren, dead ahead. A third came from the rear. A block away, the flashing lights of a black-and-white turned a corner. The cop car sped through a stop sign, the driver knowing exactly where to head. Peter fumbled with, but managed to open, his car door. He flung himself out and hit a full sprint in a single stride. Down the opposite street, another officer spotted Peter, trained his car at him, and accelerated.

Stuart? My friend
?

Peter tore down a sidewalk and cut into an alley behind a grocery store. He dodged cardboard boxes and a dumpster. He hurdled a vegetable crate and willed himself not to look back or slow down. More sirens. He mad-dashed to the corner just as two unmarked cars spun onto the walkway blocking his path. Peter did a 180. In mid-stride, he froze. Thirty feet away, using his vehicle as a shield, an officer pointed a shotgun directly at Peter’s heart. A voice shouted: “One more step and I fire.” The detective’s hand pumped the gun, reinforcing an already convincing argument. Peter fixated on the black hole. Would he be able to see a bullet leave the barrel? His spine locked.

“Hands behind your head.”

Peter laced them where asked.

“Down on your knees.”

Peter knelt.

A hand clamped his right wrist with a bone-scraping cuff, then jammed that arm behind his back. The same vicious twisting motion wrenched the left hand, locking it to the right.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .”

Kate arrived at the County Jail on Front Street an hour after the arrest. She visited Peter, then requested a meeting with the DA. Told “no,” she met with a flunky instead.

Assistant DA Francine D’Agostina was a heavy, sour-faced woman of fifty with deep creases webbing along the corners of her eyes and spreading across her face. She had the leathery skin and smell of a heavy smoker. Her office was stark, appointed with metal file cabinets, cheap library bookends, and cold, dirty windows. Even her desk had a metal frame. Frigid, Kate thought. A Woodstock photo, with a skinny Francine as a flower-child, soaking in mud, sat atop a side-table. It seemed ridiculous to Kate that the Assistant DA had ever been thin, or that she had attended a love-in at Yasgur’s farm in 1969. And the woman sounded nothing like laid-back when she said, “What the hell do you want?”

“I want my client protected,” Kate answered. “I believe he’s in danger.”

“You do, do you?” D’Agostina tilted back and folded her arms across fat breasts, stuffed inside a blue blazer that fit like a snakeskin in need of shedding. “Ask me if I care. Who do you think you are, promising to have your client turn himself in? The DA isn’t going to give you any special treatment after that.”

“My client’s innocent. If something happens—”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a regular Clarence Darrow. If I were you, I’d go spend some time with my client. He’s fish chum.” An ugly simper crept across D’Agostina’s face. “Check his hands for stigmata. With what we’ve got, he’s already been nailed.”

“What do you mean? I have a right to know.”

“You have a right to know when I decide you have a right to know. But since I can’t wait to see your reaction, I’ll go ahead and share a tidbit. The DNA tests? On the semen?”

“You have the PCR?”

“A match.”

“Bullshit. Peter wasn’t there.”

“His little swimmers were.”

“PCR isn’t definitive.”

“It is to one in ten thousand. And we’ll get more. We’ve started RFLP. You know as well as I do that RFLP’s gonna create the same match. And the chance for error is only one in five-billion. OJ Simpson aside, I’d say reasonable doubt’s not going to be an issue.”

Ten minutes later, Kate stared at Peter through a glass partition. They spoke and listened on the jailhouse phone. When Kate said, “The DNA matches,” Peter wagged his head.