Mission Canyon (17 page)

‘‘What do you think? It was a threat. And it implies that Kenny is involved in Brand’s criminal activities.’’

‘‘That’s a reckless accusation.’’

‘‘Brand’s words, not mine.’’

‘‘Of course it was a threat. To smear my son and ruin this company.’’ He started walking again, shoulders tight. ‘‘How can you be so gullible?’’

‘‘Excuse me?’’

‘‘Taking at face value the words of a murderer.’’

‘‘The police didn’t consider me gullible when I told them.’’

‘‘What are you doing?’’ He stopped again. ‘‘Are you planning to write an exposé? Do you want to tar Mako with the same brush as Diamond Mindworks, make high-tech sound like a bunch of thieves? I won’t let you.’’

‘‘That’s not it, George.’’

He spread his arms. ‘‘Look around. What do you see, wherever you look?’’ He gestured at the surrounding business parks. ‘‘Electronics. Aerospace. Defense engineering. ’’ Pointing toward the university in the distance. ‘‘Molecular biophysics. Computer networking. Do you have any idea how instrumental people here have been in developing the wired world?’’

‘‘You don’t need to lecture me.’’

‘‘I was in the computer science department when cyberspace came into existence. This campus was the third node on the Internet. We took this planet online.’’

His craggy face took on a hard metallic sheen.

‘‘Next week I’m flying to Washington to meet with the secretary of Homeland Security. I’m testifying before the House Armed Services Committee about cyberwarfare. These things, young woman, are matters of import. And I refuse to let you help a bitter SOB like Franklin Brand shoot down my business.’’

He turned back toward Mako’s office, stopped, and pointed at me.

‘‘How dare you accuse Kenny of complicity in Brand’s schemes? How dare you help a criminal try to destroy my son?’’

‘‘To protect the man I love.’’

The finger hung in the air a moment longer, but the electricity left his eyes. He started walking again.

I said, ‘‘George, I’m not trying to ambush you. But we’re talking about a cop killer who has a connection to Mako.’’

‘‘I’ll see you to your car,’’ he said.

‘‘I still want to talk to Kenny.’’

‘‘No. You are not going to snoop around my company. ’’

Was he in denial, or was he covering up? He didn’t want to hear it. Not about Brand, not about Mako, and especially not about his son.

I said, ‘‘Tell Kenny what Brand said. Tell him I want to speak to him.’’

But I was talking to his back as he walked away.

The rest of the morning I worked at the law library, hunching over treatises, chewing through my pencil. When I came out the cloud cover had gone. The breeze was warm, the sky dazzling. Sunlight flashed off cars in traffic, and people walking along the street looked confetti-colorful. I walked down to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

I was waiting to pay when Jakarta Rivera put coins on the counter.

She said, ‘‘My treat. Consider it a down payment on chapter one.’’

‘‘Thanks, but no need. I’ll give you the first line free.’’

Carrying the paper coffee cup outside, I started up the street. She followed.

I said, ‘‘ ‘There once was a girl from Nantucket, who told such big lies I said—’ ’’

‘‘You’re a hoot, you know?’’

‘‘My life’s a laugh riot. So I don’t need new jokers adding humor to it.’’

‘‘I was in the DO for nine years. Taipei, Bogotá, Berlin.’’

‘‘You were a CIA agent.’’ The
yeah, right
was implied.

‘‘And you knew exactly what I meant. You’re confirming our judgment.’’

She slipped on a pair of Chanel sunglasses. Her silk sweater and animal-print skirt had a gaiety and stylishness, accentuating her dancer’s figure, that made me think of Paris. She was far beyond most Santa Barbarans in terms of refinement, and she did it with a dab hand that said:
I’m the finished article
.

‘‘DO—Directorate of Operations,’’ I said. ‘‘Every Tom Clancy fan is up on acronyms like that.’’

‘‘Not everybody’s brother flew Hornets, doing test and eval at China Lake.’’

Anger started tightening my spine.

‘‘Not everybody’s father had black clearance working on weapons projects for NAVAIR.’’

‘‘Whoa.’’ I put up a hand.

She walked with her shoulders thrown back, chin up, passing through the pedestrian crowd like light through a window.

‘‘Want to know more?’’ she said. ‘‘You go to Mass more often than you tell your boyfriend. You give blood. You believe in marriage, and the lone-gunman theory, and in the projection of American naval power in defense of democracy. You know which end of a shotgun does the business, and for a civilian you’re fairly cool under fire. You’re sleeping with a T-ten paraplegic, yet you regularly refill your prescription for birth control pills, which makes you an optimist. Your permanent record shows great academics, spotty deportment. And in case you’re wondering, you don’t have an FBI file.’’

She glanced at me. ‘‘But Jesse does.’’

At that, I squeezed the coffee cup too hard and the top popped off. I flinched as it slopped out on my hand. Shook it off. When I looked back up, she was gone.

I headed straight to Sanchez Marks. I was stepping into the foyer, with the mahogany paneling and the ficus trees, when Lavonne came scurrying by. Her eyes were intense.

She waved. ‘‘Come with. I just received some information Jesse should hear, and you as well.’’

‘‘Strange, that’s what I was about to say.’’

She shot me a look. We headed to Jesse’s office. He was talking on the phone, taking notes, but ended the call when we came in.

Lavonne said, ‘‘I just spoke to Cal Diamond’s attorney. Diamond’s out of intensive care, and his law firm will accept service of the lawsuit.’’

Jesse tucked his pencil behind his ear. ‘‘That’s a surprise.’’

‘‘Here’s a bigger one. He claims Sanchez Marks has a conflict of interest. He wants you off the case.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘Diamond’s filing for divorce. He’s going to make a stink about his wife committing adultery. With Franklin Brand.’’

Jesse gaped at her, then at me, then back at her.

She said, ‘‘The divorce is neither here nor there, and the conflict-of-interest claim is monkeywrenching, a maneuver to wrong-foot us. But the news about Brand—’’

‘‘We have to tell the police.’’

She nodded, grim. ‘‘We may have found Brand’s companion from the night of the hit-and-run. The anonymous caller. Mari Diamond.’’

I said, ‘‘And if she’s still in touch with him . . .’’ Jesse reached for the telephone. ‘‘She may know where he is.’’

I raised a hand. ‘‘Wait. There’s something else.’’

I told them about Jax Rivera’s remark. He went quiet.

‘‘This relates to those FBI agents we saw heading into the police station,’’ he said.

Lavonne’s mouth pinched. ‘‘Leave me to do the talking to the police.’’

She scuttled away. Jesse stared out the window at red tile roofs and the green swell of the mountains.

‘‘Ev, this Jakarta Rivera character.’’

‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘Watch out. She has the stink of the real about her.’’

Kenny showed up at my house an hour later, lunchtime. I was out at the curb saying good-bye to the home-security salesman, telling him I wanted to buy the burglar alarm but how about throwing in booby traps and some artillery? Nothing big, maybe a twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon, the kind the Navy puts in its F/A-18s.

He pulled up in the Porsche. He had the engine revving. ‘‘Get in.’’

When we drove away, Helen Potts, standing at her mailbox, scowled at us.

‘‘You’re trying to jam me up,’’ he said.

I saw nerves and anger, his mouth sour beneath the sunglasses, his hand goosing the gearshift back and forth.

I said, ‘‘You told Brand I had the minidisk, didn’t you?’’

‘‘He’s a pathological liar.’’

‘‘Even if he is, it isn’t my place to protect you from his lies.’’

‘‘Little Miss Semtex. Blowing crap in all directions, not caring who gets hit.’’

He rumbled up the street. My hair batted in the wind.

‘‘You shouldn’t mess with me, and neither should Blackburn,’’ he said.

‘‘You’re angry that I told your dad.’’

He upshifted. ‘‘You have no idea the pressure I’m under.’’

‘‘Daddy’s little boy.’’

‘‘Gimpy’s little bitch.’’

I glanced at him, disbelieving my ears. He raced up Laguna Street.

‘‘The rose garden’s up ahead,’’ I said. ‘‘Pull over; we’ll take a walk.’’

‘‘No.’’ He downshifted. ‘‘You need to see something.’’

We headed around corners and onto Santa Barbara Street.

He said, ‘‘You’re messing in places you shouldn’t. Don’t ever speak to my father about me again.’’

‘‘I’ll do what I need to, Kenny.’’

‘‘He doesn’t believe in me. No matter what I do, I can never live up to what he thinks I should be,’’ he said. ‘‘And he’s looking for an excuse to hang onto power at Mako. You’re giving it to him.’’

‘‘Sorry, but that’s not my problem.’’

We passed First Presbyterian and turned onto State Street.

‘‘You tell him I’m buddying with Brand? You tell him I’m a screwup yet again?’’ He adopted George’s brusque basso. ‘‘ ‘Kenny, get inside and entertain the guests. Kenny, get your finger out of your nose. Kenny, you can’t be a stunt man. You can’t race motocross; it’ll make the family look trashy. You can’t do anything.’ ’’

He ran a red light, looking at me. ‘‘How’d you like to grow up with that?’’

‘‘How’d you like to slow down?’’

We were weaving ever faster through the weekday traffic. I leaned back in the seat, holding on to the door. Kenny’s face, behind the even features and movie-star hair, was acidic.

‘‘But he forgets. My sainted father, Mr. Save the Nation, he forgets. I may have hired Frank, but Dad’s the one who promoted him to VP.’’ He screeched around the corner onto Hope. ‘‘Well, ha. After the hit-and-run, Dad had to face the fact that he backed the wrong horse.’’

We squealed into the driveway at Calvary Cemetery. Greenery arose along our left. The drive curved between silent lawns, trees shading the graves, the markers flat against the ground.

I said, ‘‘Anytime you want to tell me what we’re doing, I’m listening.’’

‘‘Here.’’

He pulled to the curb, killed the engine, and got out. Trying to regain my composure, I followed him up a rise. What had I been thinking, riding along with him? Anger and high-performance German engines were a bad combination.

He stopped near the top of the hill, under a spreading tree.

‘‘What do you think I have to do with Brand? Honestly. I want to know,’’ he said. ‘‘Give it to me right in the gut.’’

I tried to read his face.

‘‘Don’t try to figure out how to play it. Just tell me,’’ he said.

So I did. ‘‘I think you’re his majordomo,’’ I said. ‘‘I think you’re his errand boy. I think you’ve been in on the embezzlement scheme almost from the start.’’

‘‘Go on.’’

‘‘I think you’ve been trying to squelch Jesse from the moment he found out Brand was back. I think you’re the one who’s behind this computer harassment campaign against him.’’

"Is that all?"

‘‘I think you’re Franklin Brand’s toady.’’

He stared at me, his face pinched. ‘‘You read about Yvette. The girl who died.’’

‘‘Yes.’’

He pointed at the ground behind me. The gravestone had her name on it.

‘‘The driver was two times over the legal limit,’’ he said. ‘‘Yvette was thrown out and the car flipped over on her. Nearly cut her in half.’’

I read the name, putting it together. Yvette Vasquez.

‘‘She was Mari Diamond’s sister?’’

He nodded. ‘‘The driver ran, left her. She was seventeen. ’’

‘‘I’m sorry, Kenny.’’

He knelt next to the grave marker, rasping his fingers over the letters carved in the stone. ‘‘Brand deliberately ran over your lover. He smashed the Sandoval kid’s head like a melon. And he ran.’’ He looked up. ‘‘Do you think I would have anything more to do with a bastard like that?’’

I looked in his eyes, wondering if, in his crude way, he was talking truth.

He brushed off his hands and stood up. ‘‘You know I don’t hold any truck with your boyfriend. He turned the crash into his winning lotto ticket. But it doesn’t make what Frank did okay.’’

The wind brushed me. ‘‘You had me going there.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Until you started slagging Jesse off, you had me feeling sorry for you.’’

‘‘Wake up and smell the scam, sister. He uses his handicap as a stick to beat people with. He’s using you. You do everything for him, even argue.’’

I told myself not to mouth off, not with someone so angry and manipulative, but my own anger had reached boiling point. ‘‘It doesn’t bother you that Mari Diamond had an affair with Brand?’’

‘‘That’s sex. That’s different.’’

‘‘Pardon?’’

‘‘Did you ever get a good look at Cal Diamond? Banging Frank was probably the only thing that kept Mari sane.’’

I blinked. ‘‘My God, you’re low.’’

‘‘Mari’s head is screwed-up and has been since Yvette died. Marrying that geezer, that proved it. And she needs lots of sanity, constant infusions. She doesn’t need to apologize, and neither do her lovers.’’

‘‘You’re telling me that you—’’

‘‘Don’t say sloppy seconds. She’s too classy.’’

‘‘But you’re her lover, too?’’

‘‘Bull’s-eye for the crip fucker.’’

I slapped him in the face.

He flinched and drew a breath. ‘‘I’ve been waiting all week for you to do that.’’

‘‘You’re a pig, Kenny.’’

He smiled. ‘‘At last. Now at least I know you have some real emotion in there. You’re not just Blackburn’s lackey.’’