“Does this mean you’re dumping me as a client?”
“What do you think, Ms. Gates?”
In the elevator on the way down, he thought, I really should’ve dangled the bitch off her balcony.
CRAIG MORLAND
He waited in the booth of the dimly lighted bar on Peach Alley, not far from the Civic Center.
He felt as if he were meeting Deep Throat, but at least this wasn’t a parking garage, so he could get a drink.
The Deep Throat analogy was valid, though: in 1973 and -74 Mark Felt, then assistant director of the FBI, had leaked details of the Watergate break-in to a
The bar was quiet, even now at the tail end of happy hour; politicos didn’t hang out there because there was nobody important to see them and no deals to be made. During Craig’s tenure with the Bureau in DC he’d spent a lot of time in lively look-atme establishments-sometimes on duty, sometimes to impress a date-and he hadn’t realized how much he hated them till he’d thrown it all away and moved to San Francisco to be with Adah.
Adah: poster woman for the SFPD, assigned as liaison to the same special FBI task force as he was. Goal: to apprehend a man who’d been bombing foreign consulates. Unused to playing hard-ball like the Bureau’s men, Adah had gone into an emotional meltdown, and Craig had helped her through it. Later, after she’d fully healed, he himself became broken and disillusioned by the work that had steadily eroded all his idealistic dreams, and during coast-to-coast phone conversations whose cost had rivaled the national debt, she’d supported him in his decision to leave the Bureau. Now Adah had given up her similarly disillusioning career with the SFPD, and only Shar’s need for an executive assistant had saved them from a move to Denver, where she’d been offered an administrative position at the DPD. Good thing, too: he hated snow.
Thoughts of Adah and the agency immediately turned into thoughts of McCone. It was fucking unbelievable that she was in a coma. That a random-or maybe not-so-random-encounter after hours at the pier could have reduced such a vital woman to a vegetative state… Neither he nor Adah had been sleeping much since it happened, and some nights she’d slipped out of bed and he’d heard sounds of crying coming from the bathroom. He didn’t cry, but a couple of nights he’d taken out his anger on the refrigerator, pounding its door till his fist was bruised-which, for him, amounted to the same as tears.
Craig looked up as his informant came through the door, swept the room with wary eyes. Spotted Craig and moved toward him, looking stupid in a hat and trench coat. Did he really think no one would notice him?
Harvey Davis was the former campaign manager for Amanda Teller, president of the city’s board of supervisors, and one of her most trusted aides. Independently wealthy, handsome, sophisticated-in spite of tonight’s silly disguise-he had recently been voted one of the city’s most eligible bachelors by a national magazine. He’d contacted Craig three weeks ago, claiming something was very wrong at city hall.
“What’ll you have?” Craig asked as the man sat down.
“Scotch, neat. Single malt.”
“Done.” He went to the bar and ordered. When he returned to the booth and set the drink down, he asked, “What’ve you got for me? You haven’t given me much so far.”
“She’s meeting with Janssen on Saturday.”
She: Amanda Teller. He: Paul Janssen, a state representative for this district.
“Where?”
“Down the coast. A rundown lodge near Big Sur.”
“Why Big Sur?”
“Good halfway point: Amanda’s giving a talk at UC-Santa Barbara Friday evening. Besides, the lodge is isolated and no one’s likely to recognize them there.”
“So what’s this-about sex, power, money?”
“Not sex, I don’t think; they reserved separate rooms-under false names, of course. Power and money? For sure. What else? Who knows?”
“You’re not giving me a lot to go on.”
“It’s all I have. How’s your boss doing?”
“Still in a coma.”
“Too bad. McCone’s a good woman.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Craig’s informant tossed back what was left of his drink, stood up, and slid a piece of paper across the table. “Here’s the information on Teller and Janssen’s meeting.”
“Thanks.”
“I also want to give you a key and the security code to my condo.”
“Why?”
“Evidence there. Videos. If something happens to me…”
“What, you mean-?”
“Just take the key.” He placed it on the table. “The security code’s 1773. I’ll be in touch.”
Craig pocketed the key, watched him go, and after half a minute, followed him.
The street was deserted, dusky, fog-damp. Davis’s footsteps echoed off the pavement down the block. Craig went the other way toward his SUV, fumbling for his keys. They caught inside his jacket pocket and he had to pause to extricate them.
Behind him Davis’s footsteps stopped. Craig glanced back, saw him unlocking the door of a white Mercedes sedan. Davis looked at him, gave him a thumbs-up sign, and got into the car.
Finally the keys came free. Craig again started walking toward his SUV. Davis still hadn’t started the Mercedes; he was a methodical man and was probably making minor adjustments to the seat and mirrors-as if they would’ve moved in the brief time he’d been in the bar.
Craig was halfway around to his driver’s-side door when a vehicle started up, its engine burbling as if something was wrong with the exhaust manifold; it pulled out from the curb across from him, nearly grazing his front quarter panel. Black pickup with a white camper shell. The driver had forgotten to put on his lights-
Craig whirled, shouting after the truck, but it kept going toward the end of the block where Harvey Davis’s headlights were flashing on.
A gunshot echoed loudly in the narrow street.
Instinctively Craig dropped to the pavement, his hands protecting his head.
Two more shots, staccato bursts. Semiautomatic weapon, he thought. The pickup’s tires squealed as it sped around the corner onto Golden Gate. Harvey Davis’s car stayed in place, its engine purring in the sudden quiet.
Knowing what he would find, Craig pushed to his feet and ran toward it.
JULIA RAFAEL
She looked across her desk at Haven Dietz and said, “I’m sorry I asked you to come in so late in the day, but there’re some things about your case I need to check out.”
A jagged scar extended from below Dietz’s right eye to her chin, another across her brow. Although you couldn’t tell it unless she moved, her right arm was useless because tendons and muscles had been severed during the knife attack last year. Before that, according to Julia’s file, Dietz had been pretty and confident, a junior executive with a top financial management firm. Now her blonde hair hung lank and unwashed; she wore no makeup; she seemed shrunken inside her baggy sweater and jeans, as if protecting herself against further attack. She had other scars that you couldn’t see, but they were psychological and emotional.
