investigation. Your choice-the Marshal can make a phone call, and a federal judge can explain why, in writing. Your attorneys can call their contacts at the office of the attorney general, and we're off to the cock fights. Or we can just get to work. Together. It's timing, really-a matter of wising up before someone else gets turned into folk art on your porch.'
'You make a convincing case, Counselor. Change that to a reluctant yes.' Dean's unflappable grin remained. 'It's a red herring, but you'll get the list. Now, it's been a long night, and this is clearly a topic requiring our alert attention. Why don't you come by the office tomorrow. Noon. I'll have the boys there. The list. And whatever you'll need from Percy's files.' He gestured to the door, a man used to directing human traffic. 'Anything else?'
'Just that guest list.' Tim handed a Service card to Dolan, since he was closest, and said, 'Call if anything else goes bump in the night.'
An actual butler, who'd been waiting fussily in the wings helplessly regarding the legion of trespassers, saw them out. He closed the door behind them without a farewell, seemingly glad to be sealed back within his domain. Tim and Bear paused at the edge of the porch, surveying the scene. Most of the deputies had cleared out, and the media crowd at the cordon had thinned considerably, leaving the diehards and the paparazzi.
It took four criminalists to lift Ted Sands into the CSI van. Though they'd made some headway with the chisels, Ted still remained in the block, a frozen tobogganer.
The blotch on the flagstones looked like an oil stain.
'Helluva statement,' Bear said.
'This isn't a statement,' Tim said. 'It's an introduction.'
They threaded through the remaining cops at the cordon and climbed into Tim's Explorer.
'Of course the old man's gonna be cooperative,' Tim said once both doors had shut. 'And every button on every phone in that house is lit up right now.'
Bear hummed two notes of agreement. 'Dispatching flunkies to purge the files at Vector.'
'By noon tomorrow they'll have already cleaned house. We can't wait.'
'Right. So call Tannino. Get him to wake up some judge.'
'I'm driving, you call him.'
Bear, looking righteous but increasingly uneasy, got Tannino on the phone and asked for clearance for the subpoena request.
From the driver's seat, Tim could hear the Marshal's voice. 'Listen, is the High Plains Drifter with you, or is this your own two A.M. brainstorm?'
'Yeah, Rackley's here.'
'You got hands-free?' Bear snapped his Nextel into the speaker cradle as Tannino continued without a pause. 'If not, just repeat this as I go. The judiciary do not construe their role as making our job easier. Sorry-less difficult. The bench sees its duty, vis-a-vis us, thanks to the attorney general and his buddy Chertoff, as defending the rights of citizens. The rights of certain citizens have always been particularly fiercely defended. The people you guys just left are not merely rich. They don't just put people in office. They decide who stays in office. And how far forward on the gravy train the officeholders ride. I've already had three calls at this hour-one from Sacramento, two from our nation's capital: Houston, Texas-regarding the little speechifying you did in Kagan's study, improvised from your law degree taken at Camarillo Veterinary College. The people calling me are shocked-shocked-that we appear to be taking the victims of such a heinous crime into a back room of their own modestly decorated middle-class home and beating them with a rubber hose. The callers assume they can make our lives unpleasant. So the fuck what? Our lives are unpleasant. But they can make it nigh on impossible for us to do our jobs.'
Bear said, 'So that's a no, then?'
'We wouldn't even get to hear a judge say no. The AUSA would run circles around us with probable cause. And because the old man's playing it all smiley, Your Honor'll say, 'If he quits cooperating…'' Tannino muttered something to his stirring wife, then said, 'Don't pick fights you can't win. Until you can win them.'
Dial tone.
Bear disconnected the call, looked at Tim. 'Thanks. Set up by my partner. Explains why animals always react to you with instinctive hostility.'
They passed a few blocks in silence, and then Bear said, 'I knew I should've driven.'
Chapter 36
Ortiz got off a solid blow, and Kenny Shamrock's nose exploded in red mist. Chase whooped and raised the volume on the plasma as the Ultimate Fighting Championship surged into the fifth round. He sat in the embrace of a soft leather couch in the sunken TV pit, picking absentmindedly at his Gibson-natural finish, spruce top, mahogany sides, rosewood fingerboard, nickel frets, and abalone inlays. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue pinned down a magazine on the coffee table on which he propped his feet. His eyes and nostrils had gone pink around the rims, pronounced flares of color against his fair skin.
Dolan paced frenetically behind him in the game room proper, circling the pool table and knocking balls off one another. The spacious area, a converted drawing room on the second floor of the south wing, had been redone in the style of an architectural loft. Composed of a bar, a panel kitchen, a game area, and the conversation pit-cum- lounge, the sleek room joined the brothers' childhood bedroom suites.
Dean had waited until late in life to have children, and Dolan had been the recipient of four years of undivided domestic attention before Dean's long-suffering wife, Mary, had died giving birth to a second son. In a rare touch of sentimentality, Dean gave the baby her maiden name, Chaisson.
With relief Dean had recognized his second son's intensity and charisma and sought to cultivate them further. Chase was strong-willed, daring, at ease in his own body. Slamming doors. Skin lifted at the knuckles. Girls climbing through his window. Over the years Dean managed to keep Chase on course without reining him in. Riding the momentum of a strategically timed Kagan-endowed Business Department chair, Chase had entered USC. In the fall semester of his sophomore year, he'd switched his major from sociology to finance. Dean had overseen the transition, supplying a team of tutors, including a former adviser to the state treasury. Within months, Chase had hit his stride, as Dean always claimed he would. There'd been no slowing him since.
Though tonight was a hell of a shock for them all. After the grenade on the front walk had designated Ted Sands as proxy target, Dean had insisted-with little resistance-that Chase and Dolan move back behind the gates. Concentrating resources had been a mantra of the old man's since back when Beacon was still in the picture.
A plexi-coated bulletproof window (all the better to ease Dean's paranoia) looked out over the back pool. Dolan had undone its various locks and cracked it a few inches, hoping the breeze would evaporate his panic sweat. Honeysuckle had worked its way up the lattice outside, framing the window, the bobbing white flowers scenting the cool inrush of air.
'Did you know Ted Sands?' Dolan asked.
Chase strummed the first four notes of the Fifth with bored irony. 'I remember him, sure. Nice guy. Good head on his shoulders.' Chase finally turned around. 'Oh, come on, that was funny.' He whipped a coaster at Dolan, narrowly missing. 'Have a drink or something. Christ. It's not good to stress this late at night, D. Especially after dinner. All you're doing is stewing in unused fatty acids.'
'Not my predominant concern at the moment.'
'Right. Your health pales as a priority next to the boogeyman.' Chase feinted a few jabs, leaning with the defending champ though he'd watched the recorded fight at least ten times and knew that Ortiz would finish him with an armlock in the next round. 'Listen. The Dean's having Perce beef up security. Jameson does it again, he'll get his nuts shot off.' Abruptly, Chase turned off the TV and rose.
'Where you going?'
Chase brushed past him, sliding the window open farther and swinging a leg over the sill. 'Girl.' He waited for the patrolling guard to disappear around the corner below.
'Percy said-'
'Yeah, but Percy doesn't put out.' Chase got a toehold in the sturdy lattice, then looked up and grinned. 'Old times, huh?' His flexed arm pulled out of view, leaving Dolan to watch the honeysuckle buds shaking with his brother's continued momentum.