Silent Joe (40 page)

Savannah entered the vineyard. The vines were leafy and you see the small clusters of grapes. Slowly, the guest house came into focus. Savannah got down on her stomach and inched along.

"Savannah the Spy takes no chances that the recluse Carny will spot her. Even the great spy dog Abner has been locked away so as not to blow Savannah's cover. The greatest virtue of the spy is silence. Boy, hard crawling on your stomach over dirt. Better watch out for anacondas.''

The vines slowly passed by the camera and the guest house got closer. There were lights on inside.

"Three more rows, then Savannah the Spy will have to sneak very quietly to the window, hoping for just a peek of the trillionaire power broker Simon Carny."

The guest house grew larger as Savannah carried the camera close. There was a recessed window with vertical wrought iron bars over it. The window was half open and a gauzy white fabric lilted in and out. There were sconces brimming with red geraniums on either side. On the ground was a curved concrete bench. You could hear a man's voice as closer. And another sound, too, high-pitched and intermittent: crying or laughing. Savannah approached the bench, then got up onto it.

Through the bars and the swaying curtain you could see the In the kitchen, and a doorway that led to the back part of the guest house. The Man's Voice:
"Here, this'll fix it.
"

Then a flat
whump,
like a feather pillow being smacked. The high-pitched sound wasn't laughter at all, but a woman gagging, fighting for breath.

Whump!

"You think you can pull that shit on a man like me?"

The woman gagging, but no words.

Whump!

"So you're going to take care of it, right, bitch? "

Gagging, then:
"Yes. Yes!"

"Damnit right the answer is yes. You'll take what I give you and get the rest of those stupid ideas out of your rotten little brain. Right? "

Whump!

"Yes. Yes."

Then a big intake of breath as the woman was allowed to breathe. Giant gulps choked by sobs and unintelligible syllables. Like somebody who's been held under by waves.

"Get your fuckin' clothes on. You 're outta here forever, bitch. Hey, here's a reminder of what you're going to do. "

Whump!

"Shuttup. Shuttup. There, breathe all you want. I'm a nice guy once you get to know me. "

Jack Blazak stormed into the living room wearing nothing but shorts. He pulled a polo shirt over his head and jammed his arms through. Then he stormed back out of the picture.

"No! No!"

Whump.

"Get your clothes on, you scrawny bitch. I can't stand the sight of you."

Blazak came back out, balancing on one foot, the other raised as he worked it into a boat shoe.

Sobbing from the back of the house.

"Stupidest damned woman on earth, and that's saying something. "

He put on the other shoe.

He sat at the small kitchen bar and looked at a
Forbes
magazine. He touched the back of his neck and looked at his fingers. He glanced toward the woman, then went back to the magazine.

A few minutes later she staggered out. Short black dress, black heels, a small cashmere sweater with mother-of-pearl and sequins woven into it. She was hunched over, wobbling on the shoes. In one hand she clutched thick wad of money. She pulled the sweater against her shoulders like was freezing. Her arms were thin and brown. Her long black hair tangled and covered her face. She reached up and took a handful of her hair and threw it back, revealing her terrified and beautiful face.

Birch froze the frame.

"Luria Bias," I said. "Eighteen years old and pregnant by then. Severely beaten a few hours before she died. It looks to me like she just gave Blazak the news."

"The woman who got run over?" asked Collier.

"It sounds like she was shaking him down for money," said Oude

"Shit, Harmon," said Redd. "If she's eighteen, unmarried and pregnant by number forty-one on the richest assholes in America list, maybe she was just asking for some
help."

"Sorry, that's what I meant."

"Jesus, Harmon, he was beating the fetus."

"I know! I give! I was trying to establish motive for the beating. Blazak was trying to get her to have an abortion. She was threatening to keep baby and file a paternity suit."

A moment of silence then, while the ugliness of what we watched settled in.

Birch hit play again. Luria wobbled over to the bar and collected a small black purse. She stuffed the money inside and tried to work a zipper but the bills were in the way. Black hair falling around her face smudge of an old bruise still showing under one eye. Dark legs trembling.

Blazak watched her like she was a waitress doing a lousy job. He fingered the back of his neck again.

"You scratched me. "

"Sorry."

"Get out."

"I'm go."" That'll cover everything. And more. Use it to go back where you from."

"I'm go home."

Luria moved toward the door and the camera. The picture jostled wildly, then went black.

"The lab has a skin sample taken from under Luria's fingernail," I said. "Maybe that scratch is what we'll use to convict him."

"And this tape," Birch said. "And Savannah Blazak's testimony." Again, a moment of silence, as the pieces continued to fall into place. Marchant stood. "Rick, do what you need to do. We're here to help."

"Look, Blazak paid three million dollars to get his daughter and this tape," said Birch. "He needs Savannah silent. He needs this tape destroyed. Now he's got neither. Cheryl, get two more uniforms over to Hillview."

"Will do."

"Harmon, dupe this tape, then dupe it again."

"Got it."

"Collier, get to McCallum when he opens the lab. Explain our situation and tell him I'll have a comparison sample by noon. We'll see if Blazak left his skin under Luria Bias's fingernail."

"I'll be waiting for him," said Collier.

"Joe, it's two in the morning. Go home and get some rest. And congratulations. You just saved a girl from a crazy brother and a father who beats women with his fists. Hillview is where she belongs right now. And be careful. That mutt Jack might want a piece of you."

Birch offered his hand and I shook it. Then the rest of them offered theirs. Even Marchant. Ouderkirk slapped my back.

It was the third proudest moment of my life, after the day that Will and Mary Ann walked into Hillview to see
me
and the first time June Dauer and I made love. I smiled and turned the bad side of my face away and walked out.

When I got to my car I called June. She answered on the third ring, in a voice that sounded unsurprised and lucid.

"It's over," I said. "She's okay. She's safe. Nobody got shot. I was wondering if I could come over."

"You
better
come over."

A little before three
a.m
. I was standing on June Dauer's patio over looking Newport Harbor. The lights twinkled on the water and the smelled of salt and barnacles and nightshade. I knocked and waited, answered the door in the dark and whispered for me to come in.

We started making love at 3:08, 5:22 and 7:12. We ate cereal with whole milk and honey on it at 4:15, and I fried up some eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes at 6:30, which I served with waffles, melon orange juice.

June left for work around nine and told me to sleep as long as I wanted.

I woke up at noon. I walked around her apartment with a cup of coffee. The morning haze was burning off and the water of the bay was glassy gray. It felt like another world to me, another universe entirely. No bars. No uniforms. No guns. No creeps.

June Dauer was everywhere I looked: sitting on the sofa, standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, sitting on the patio. I could see dark curls, the beautiful straight lines of her face, her strong tan legs. I could hear the clear, soft whisper of her voice. I wondered what it would be like to inhabit this place. If it could accommodate a big man, a scar, a gun. It was funny, though, because when I imagined myself here I didn't feel like I was those things. I felt different. I felt smaller, lighter, softer. No scar. No gun. I felt like a smile with legs, and a body in between that only wanted to be close to hers. To be home. As if her flesh was a house and I could move in.

I
stood outside cell eight in Module J, set the dinner tray in the slot and looked into the bright eyes of Alex Blazak. It was four in the afternoon and Sergeant Delano had agreed to let me serve Alex his in-cell dinner. Tonight was meat loaf, mashed potatoes, vegetables and milk.

"Acid Baby."

"My name is Joe Trona."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Will's son. Too bad what happened. He shouldn't have gotten himself mixed up with the heavyweights."

"Who set him up for Gaylen?"

"Get me out of here and I'll tell you."

"Only the DA can do that."

"He'll spring me, when he talks to Savannah and finds out there was no kidnapping. That was Dad's story."

"There's the blackmail."

Alex smiled, jumped off his bed and walked up to the bars. He looked down at the steaming tray and took it.

"Hey, I didn't beat that lady half to death. He did."

"Who hired Gaylen?"

He sat on the bed with the tray on his knees. "Don't ask me. Ask Dad. That was all at his end."

"But you knew something was going to happen. You'd talked with Gaylen. That's why you left Savannah on her own at Lind Street. Sacrifice her, after you'd gotten your money. That's why you had a fallback plan to meet her at Beach and Lincoln."

"Pure instinct. If you grew up with Jack as a father, you'd have it, too. ''How do you shave that thing?"

"What I wonder is, since you got an extra half million, maybe it was for you to help set up Will. You were dealing through him, but around him, too. With someone who wanted him dead."

Blazak colored slightly, looked down at his food. "These vegetable fresh?"

"Frozen. Your face just went pink."

He looked up at me. More color. "Don't talk to me about faces."

I stared at him and said nothing.

"You give me the creeps," he said.

I kept staring. Blazak turned away from me and sat cross-legged on the bed, facing the rear wall.

I let myself in with the cell key Sergeant Delano had given me. Alex was just turning around to look when I asked him for his tray. He handed it to me and I set it on the floor. Then I picked him up by his neck, cranked him to face me, and pinned him to the far wall by his throat. He kicked, then stood on his tiptoes. I could feel his life pulsing urgently beneath my hands.

"Who set him up?"

I lowered him, keeping my grip on his neck.

He sucked some air, eyes wide.

"Want to dangle some more?" I asked.

He coughed and sputtered and coughed again.

"It was just Gaylen
," he rasped. "I'd done business with some friend of his. Months ago. So he knew how to find me. He told me what he needed for the exchange—a place without lots of witnesses, after dark, somewhere they could get in and out of by car. He said there was another three grand in it for me. I figured I'd make some beer money. I didn't know about any setup. Something just told me to get the hell out of there. He still owes me the money. God, my
neck."

"Friends of Gaylen? Who?"

"Pearlita and Felix Escobar."

"And you agreed to do what he said?"

"Well, yeah. Money's money, right? But I didn't know anything about why. I didn't know he was going to take out your father. Or try to get Savannah. If I'd have been there, he'd have probably stepped on me, too. But it was Gaylen. He came to me, man. I don't know how the hell he found out what was going on. He just showed up at my warehouse."

"You were supposed to be at Lind Street for the pickup, weren't you?"

"That's what they all assumed. My dad and yours."

Hands still on his neck, I guided him back to his bed and sat him down. I picked up the dinner tray and handed it to him.

"Eat your vegetables."

"All right."

"You're almost twenty-two years old. You should have known better than to risk your sister like that. Just turn her out there on her own? She came close to getting shot. What's wrong with you?"