City of War (12 page)

“Technically correct, sir. But the business is in the hands
of professional managers. I do have dual citizenship, but I think of myself only as an American.”

“Well, some very high-placed folks in London seem to have a problem with that kind of simplicity. And when word reached them that you’d almost been killed, they demanded we put you on the next available flight.”

“Begging the general’s pardon, sir, but I have no interest in going to the UK. I’m a Delta operator.”

“So now you’re a Delta operator attached to an ally. The decision was made way the hell up the chain of command, Sergeant, and it’s not open for debate. Draw your travel orders from my aide. That’s all.”

I arrived at 10 Downing Street in civilian clothes accompanied by a Mr. Vickers, who had lectured me in his office beforehand. “The prime minister is extremely busy, and though he’s asked to see you, it’s only perfunctory. So you’ll listen, say nothing, and we’ll be out of there in ten minutes. Do you understand?”

I looked at Vickers, a dour gent with some vague title in the Home Office. He had graying hair and an ill-fitted glass eye that maintained a position looking off to the right. And so far, he’d shown no indication he knew how to smile.

“Perhaps I could answer his hello. You know, just so he’ll realize I’m not deaf.”

Vickers’s sense of humor must have resided in his missing orb, because he gave me a look that would have chilled stone.

We were ushered into the PM’s study, a tightly organized room down the main hallway to the left. Number 10 is a rambling warren of niches, passageways and offices stretching two blocks and housing a maze of staff and electronics. To thwart a bomb blast, none of the rooms in front is used except for formal occasions, making the already jammed facility mostly windowless and claustrophobic.

As Vickers and I waited, I admired a portrait of Crom
well over the fireplace and the hand-bound collection of Sir Winston’s books behind glass an arm’s length from the desk. When the prime minister appeared, he was taller than on television. His rugged face housed a pair of bright, insightful eyes and a good smile. It was the kind of face people instinctively liked. A politician’s face.

He crossed the room and took my extended hand in both of his. “Mr. Black. I’m so pleased to meet you. You’re taller than your father, but you look just like him. He was one of my role models.”

“Thank you, sir. Mine too.”

“Something not easily said about a newspaper publisher,” he laughed.

The PM suddenly noticed my companion. “Ah, Vickers. No need for you to stay. I’ll send Mr. Black home in my car.” He turned back to me. “You’re staying at Strathmoor Hall, I assume?”

“I didn’t know how long I’d be here, so I booked a room at the Lanesborough.”

Vickers cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister, but I know how busy you are. I could just wait.”

There’s something about power. When it speaks, no matter how softly, the words take on weight. The PM’s were like blocks of concrete. “Mr. Black and I have a great deal to discuss, and I’m certain you have pressing issues of your own. You’re dismissed, Vickers.”

Vickers disappeared like a puff of smoke in a gale.

The PM led me further down the hall to a comfortable sitting room. A valet brought us tea, and as he was leaving, the PM told him we weren’t to be interrupted.

“May I call you Rail?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I know you’re unhappy about being sent here.”

“It’s just that I would have preferred not leaving my team. And, sir, I’ve cross-trained with British Special Forces, and there is no skill I have that they don’t.”

He took a sip of tea. “Except that none of them is named
Black. And none of them is the controlling shareholder of several of our largest companies.”

We’d each said our piece, so it was time for me to listen. “Sir, if I can be of any assistance, of course I’m ready to serve.”

“Thank you, Rail. I know you mean it, and I’m deeply appreciative. You remember the Ravensheart family, don’t you?”

“If you mean Stanley, I was an altar boy at his wedding, and if I’m not mistaken, he and his father visited us once on Clarissima.”

“Stanley is Lord Ravensheart now. His father passed on several years ago. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind picking up your acquaintanceship again. He’s managed to get himself into a bit of unpleasantness that could be embarrassing to a great many people.”

“Can you tell me what kind of unpleasantness?”

He hesitated. “I’d rather not.”

“Then may I speak frankly, sir?”

“By all means.”

“Presumably, there are others you could have asked to pal around with the new Lord Ravensheart who could do a much better job of collecting gossip among the idle rich than I.”

I had made my point, and I could seem him wrestling with what he wanted to tell me. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Stanley’s fallen in with some folks who want to assassinate me.”

I don’t think I could have been more surprised. “Well, he was always a horse’s ass, but assassination? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. They’ve even hired a shooter. A very competent one, I’m told. From somewhere on the Continent. And they’ve given him a timetable.”

“For God sakes, why?”

“Back at Cambridge, I wrote my thesis on the inevitability of independence for Northern Ireland.”

“True independence, not reunification?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. In the short term, there would be political turmoil and perhaps even some bloodshed, but the oil wealth of the country would eventually force the factions to sort it out, and we could all get on with business. No more military drain on our economy and a trading partner of real importance.”

“But you haven’t advocated such a position as prime minister.”

“No, and I’m not certain I will. Timing is everything. However, Lord Ravensheart and his coconspirators, all of whom have significant portions of their wealth tied up in the status quo, have convinced themselves it’s imminent.”

“That’s the problem with going through your whole life never having heard the word no. You can start to think like a Menendez brother.”

“I like that,” the PM smiled. “But let’s hope Stanley’s chap is a better shot. I’d prefer not to roll around on the floor while someone pours birdshot into me.”

The man had a sense of humor.

“Isn’t this something for the police?” I asked.

“It was one of their informants who provided what I’ve told you. But Stanley’s little club is made up exclusively of members of the Derbyshire crowd, meaning they speak only among themselves. So we don’t know everything—or even everyone who is involved. Besides, I don’t want them in jail. That would mean trials, and nobody’s served by that…except, of course, the press.”

He stopped and looked at me, and I could see that he knew how vulnerable he’d made himself by saying what he’d just said to someone who owned several hundred newspapers. He didn’t need to worry, and I told him so.

“What do you want to happen to them?”

“I just want them to get back to fox hunting and fucking each other’s wives.”

I must have dozed off again, because all of sudden Mallory was standing over me with a breakfast tray from the Sofitel. I told him what I’d been remembering.

He gave me a wry smile. “I’ve never been sure saving the life of that particular prime minister was all that admirable, but from my standpoint, it’s been a lot more interesting living in California than rambling around Strathmoor Hall with no one to talk to but a flatulent cook.”

10

A Couple of Cops and a Tiger

The cops came, of course. In the early going, the place was swarming with Beverly Hills detectives who looked and dressed like the citizens they served, meaning lots of gym work and very sharp clothes. The Colombo look doesn’t fly at BHPD, which occasionally earns them static from other law enforcement types. But when you’re dealing with people who think fast food is a brisk sushi chef, you get a lot farther if you don’t show up sporting three shades of plaid. The chief once told me that being a good cop
and
knowing which tie goes with which shirt aren’t incompatible skills. I agree.

But well-dressed or not, they’d all been warned by Jake Praxis, who’d somehow shown up at the hospital an hour after I’d been shot, to not even breathe in my direction unless he was present. And when one captain tried an end-around, Jake buttonholed him and said that if he did it again, he’d drop the chief as a client.

So when the medical staff finally okayed an interview, Jake, attired in his jury-best, sat in my green La-Z-Boy, dangling an Italian loafer, while Detective Sergeant Dion Manarca, a stocky guy with a prematurely gray crew cut, opened the session. His partner, a piranha-eyed skeleton
named Pantiagua, stood off to the side, one hand in his pocket, absentmindedly clicking a Zippo.

But Manarca and Pantiagua weren’t from Beverly Hills. They were from the Major Crimes unit of the LAPD, and they didn’t open the conversation by explaining why they were involved.

Earlier, Mallory had brought me a quart bottle of Broguiere’s milk and an egg salad sandwich from Jerry’s, but I’d only eaten half the sandwich and had one glass of milk. Sgt. Manarca eyed what was left. “You gonna finish that?”

When I said I wasn’t, he took the sandwich in one big paw and the bottle of milk in the other and got both down in a few seconds. As he wiped his face with the back of his hand, he said, “Fuckin’ ulcer needs to be fed like six times a day.”

He took me through the two days I’d spent with Kim like the pro he was, covering everything in minute detail, sometimes going over a point several times. While he talked, he jotted an occasional note in a small, black leather notebook, but I couldn’t tell what seemed to matter to him and what didn’t.

As we were reliving the evening at Tacitus for the second time, I suddenly remembered the spider on the shooter’s arm. But just as I was about to mention it, Manarca closed his notebook, reached into his breast pocket and came out with two photographs. He handed one to me, and I took it with my good hand. Staring back at me was a mug shot of a good-looking, dark-haired kid in his early teens.

“That the shooter?” asked Manarca.

“Could be, but I’d need to see him in person to be sure.”

“Would it help if I told you Tacitus Gambelli and two of his waiters have already made a positive ID?”

“From this?”

“Yep.”

“I’d still like to see him.”

Manarca took a breath like an exasperated teacher talking to a thick third-grader. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be pos
sible. One of our black and whites found his body early this morning—in the back end of a stolen pickup.”

“Where?”

“East L.A. Behind a dry cleaner’s. Name’s Jacinto “Kiki” Videz. Age fifteen. Guatemalan. Came in by coyote six years ago with his parents and four brothers. Father died of a drug overdose. Mother works as a domestic in Los Feliz. Two brothers are vacationing at San Quentin, and the other, Fernando, is a fugitive. Wanted for boosting about a hundred cars. Another fuckin’ tribute to Homeland Security.”

Now I understood why the Armani cops had stepped aside. They’d want to be kept informed, but this wasn’t their beat. “So what’s Kiki’s story?”

“Known associate of Los Tigres. His juvie record is sealed, but the gang detail has him in the system. Drug trafficking, strong-arm robbery, extortion and arson. A solid citizen.”

“A gangbanger doing a hit in Beverly Hills. I don’t buy it.”

Pantiagua spoke for the first time, spitting out his words. “Fuckin’ Westside gringos. You live in your big fuckin’ houses behind those big fuckin’ walls and don’t know shit.”

Jake coolly looked at Manarca. “Sergeant, why don’t you tell Jimmy Smits here that if he wants to play whose dick is bigger, we’ll call downtown before you ask your next question.”

Pantiagua’s eyes narrowed, and he took a step toward Jake, fists clenched. “What’s with the Jimmy Smitts bullshit, you Jew motherfucker? You don’t have the balls to say ‘beaner’?”

Jake was on his feet and into a boxer’s crouch faster than I thought any man could move, let alone a millionaire lawyer with a bulge around his middle. “For the record, my mother’s name was DaSilva, so I suggest you grab yourself a fistful of
‘lo siento’
before I kick your cock up between your ears. And you so much as breathe the word
half-breed,
your skinny ass goes down the elevator shaft.”

Now, this was a new side of Jake Praxis, and I’ve got to say I was rooting for Pantiagua to test him. But the cooler
head of Manarca prevailed. “Manny, you can’t afford another write-up, so stand over there and shut the fuck up.”

Everybody went back to their respective corners, and Manarca got on with it. “Los Tigres force an associate to murder somebody to become a full member. It’s the way they bond, and how they make it difficult to cultivate a snitch. Not much incentive to turn state’s evidence if you know you’re gonna have to do twenty-five to life anyway. Usually, these guys just whack a rival banger, but Mr. Videz must have had a little showboat in him. You and Ms. York were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“They get bonus points for shooting two?”

“My guess is he decided he had no choice. Guy your size.”

“Then why isn’t Kiki nursing a tequila hangover from his initiation party instead of lying in a meat locker downtown?”

“Because what he did was stupid. Bangers are like cockroaches. They hate the fuckin’ light. It brings out the politicians and the task forces. And there ain’t no brighter light than being the lead story on CNN five straight nights. Videz was a liability, so they served him up.”