Hard Count (Burnside Series Book 11) Read online

  “Maybe that’ll jog your memory,” he said. “And now that you’re officially working for me, you don’t have any excuses.”

  “I already have a client.”

  “Don’t worry about Harold. We’re all on the same team here.”

  “You know about Harold, too?” I peered at him.

  “I know about the things that are worth knowing about. I know about the people that matter. I got to my station in life by being in the loop. You could learn a few things from me, you know. Now back to business. What does the LAPD know?”

  I placed the envelope back on my desk. It wouldn’t matter if I gave the money back to Roper. He would persist in getting what he wanted, regardless of whether I was formally employed by him or not. Better to be on his side, even if it was mildly sordid.

  “I need to follow up with the detective assigned to the case,” I said. “Look, the police have been called a number of times. Neighbor issues. Latest one was a few nights ago. And Brady’s dad has been having an ongoing feud with a guy named Gavin Yunis, who’s been building a mega-mansion next door to him.”

  “I know all about that neighbor, Yunis, he’s a piece of work. You’re not giving me much. Not for what I’m paying you.”

  “You just started paying me.”

  “Don’t get cute. What did Brady tell you?”

  I shrugged. “He’s got a problem with his stepmom.”

  “Everyone has a problem with their stepmom. That’s why their stepmoms. They’re interlopers. They’re trying to take the place of the real mom, but they can’t.”

  “Maybe I should be taking notes here.”

  “Maybe you should,” he replied. “What else?”

  “Nothing scandalous. Brady’s got an attitude problem, but that’s nothing new, he’s had that since high school. That’s why he didn’t get recruited at SC.”

  “You always see the worst in people,” he groaned. “The kid has immense talent. He’s going to take the league by storm. What you call an attitude problem, I call leadership. You see what he did at San Diego State?”

  “No, but playing against the likes of Nevada-Reno and Fresno State, I don’t have to. It’s not like he’s going up against Alabama or LSU every week. The bar hasn’t been set real high.”

  “Oh, you don’t think so, huh? Guess you forgot Tony Romo and Jimmy Garoppalo both played for Eastern Butt Crack U. Same with Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger. Lots of great QBs went to small schools. You guys at SC just whiffed on Brady.”

  “I don’t think we did. But my guess is he’ll be out of the NFL in three years. If he gets his act together, maybe he’ll have a shot at being a career backup.”

  Roper sniffed at that idea. “I didn’t come here to discuss how he might fail. I’m just trying to make sure he succeeds. At least for a few years.”

  “And just how am I supposed to help you on that?” I asked.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward and wagging a finger in my face. “The draft is in a week. Like I said, if he’s the first one picked he’ll get a $30 million contract. Four-year deal, but he’ll get a big signing bonus. Lots of guaranteed money. If he’s the second one picked, it’ll be $29 million. If he’s the tenth player picked, he’ll get $20 million. If he drops to the second round, his stock falls, he won’t even get $10 million. You see where this is going?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You want to get paid.”

  Roper shook his head. “It must be hard being you.”

  I shrugged. “It’s worth it, though.”

  “No, everything with you is hard. We need to make sure nothing comes out about Brady before the draft. Nothing. Whatever’s going on in that crazy house of his has to stay there. The media can’t get wind of this. Which is why that shooting on PCH screws everything up. Brady can’t be implicated. He’s an innocent victim, just like his stepmom. Random shooting, robbery gone bad, whatever. That’s what has to come out of this. We’re talking about a kid’s entire future here.”

  “And your own financial gain.”

  “I’m not a charity. But yeah, I stand to get paid. Is that bad? This is America, last I checked.”

  I sat back in my chair. “There is the possibility Brady might have been involved. When someone is killed, even if it looks like just a random street crime, the spouse or partner gets investigated. Especially if the suspect manages to take off. It’s just part of the drill. Other family members are investigated too. If anything looks suspicious, the cops will probe further into the family. And I have to tell you, there’s plenty here that looks suspicious.”

  Cliff Roper pointed to the envelope that was still laying on my desk. “Make it go away.”

  “If Brady had anything to do with this, I can’t.”

  “Let me put this in language you might understand. If this goes away, I’ll be making an even larger campaign donation to that wife of yours. Maybe I’ll drop six figures. I know she needs it. Looking like it’ll be a close race. You do what you have to do. Pull whatever strings you have with the LAPD. I know you’re still connected.”

  I stared at him. “You really think bribery will work here?”

  “Then let me put it another way, señor. I just told you there’s tens of millions of dollars riding on this draft. I’ll tell you this, and I promise you it’ll be true. If anything goes haywire to mess this up for Brady, I’ll take that six-figure donation and give it to her opponent, Paul Bleeker. I hear he’s gaining ground in that race. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me who wins. I just want access.”

  “So, now you’re blackmailing me.”

  “No,” he declared and stood up, indicating our session was ending. “I’m conducting business. Get with the program.”

  “Nice how people like you have taken sports and twisted it into finance,” I said.

  “It’s not just sports and it’s not just finance.”

  “What is it then?”

  “It’s show business,” he declared.

  And with that, Cliff Roper walked out of my office. I watched him go, and shook my head. I thought back to my own pro football dream, many moons ago, one that held so much promise. I had been a four-year starter at USC under my head coach, Bulldog Martin. It looked like I would have had a good shot at playing in the NFL. But a freak injury ended my pro career before it began.

  Coach Martin was like a lot of football men back in the day. He instructed us to play with pride and play with dignity. To focus, not on winning or losing, but on striving to be the very best we could. He told us if we made money off of football that was fine; if people in the Coliseum cheered us, that was fine, too. But those were not the real reasons we played the game. We played to reach our potential. I thought back to my injury, and how it happened when I was helping campus security chase down a thief on campus. I caught the guy, but I paid a steep price with a debilitating injury. But with that came a shift in how I would live my life going forward. It led me to a new career in law enforcement, satisfying in many ways, frustrating in others. I did actualize my potential. But now looking at the empty chair Cliff Roper had been sitting in, and pondering my conversation with Brady Starr yesterday, I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sadness, that so much of what Coach Martin and his colleagues taught us, and what they stood for, had been largely, and inextricably lost.

  Chapter 5

  Detective Knapp was not expected to be at the West L.A. Division until later in the morning, and no one seemed to know where he was or to even care. I called Harold Stevens, who was already aware of the gruesome scene on PCH, and he told me to keep pushing forward with my investigation. But aside from trying in vain to follow up with the LAPD, I didn’t have a lot to do, leaving me to finish my coffee and replay the testy conversation with Cliff Roper in my head. I considered what I might do next, and the options struck me as highly limited. I finally decided to go visit an old friend.

  It had been a few weeks since I had last seen Crystal Fairborn, but unlike a lot of people, I always seemed to be a welcomed presen
ce in her luxurious home. I had been friends with Crystal and her first husband, Wayne, until his untimely death set a chain of events in motion, not the least of which was my discovery that he had been killed by someone no one could have ever expected. It had, not surprisingly, devastated Crystal, and both her husband’s death and the revelation of the guilty party took her years to recover.

  She now lived with her second husband, Rex Palmer, who was a former governor, a former client of mine, and the type of person who was unlikely to have kept me on their Christmas card list, even though I had unwittingly helped to introduce him to his bride. I had been brought in to find Rex’s wayward daughter in the midst of his nasty reelection campaign, but when I stumbled upon Molly, reuniting her with her parents was not a good option. I squirreled her away with Crystal for a short period, and in so doing, served to bring Crystal and Rex together in an unlikely romance.

  I called first to make sure Rex was away from home, not because of any lingering problems I had with him, but because I wanted to have Crystal’s full attention. As it turned out, Rex was at work, his job as a partner in a white-shoe law firm came with the inconvenience of going into the office periodically. And while Rex had sworn off of politics following his resounding drubbing in his reelection campaign, he was not a supporter of Gail for City Attorney. Though we solicited campaign contributions directly from Crystal, there was no doubt Rex did not approve of the family coffers being drained for a Democrat. He was probably even less likely to approve of any funds going toward anything related to me.

  I walked up a winding pathway that cut through the wide lawn in front of their home on Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica. It was a Craftsman home, the type of structure inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, and possibly even designed by him. I rang the doorbell and it took about five seconds for Crystal to pull the door open.

  “Well, good morning,” she said, ushering me inside. The interior of her home was lovely. The décor could have easily been featured in House Beautiful, her living room tastefully adorned with Persian rugs, modern art, and a pair of working fireplaces. I liked coming here for the same reason I liked Crystal. Her home was elegant yet restrained, it communicated a home with style, but not one that was ostentatious. And that was Crystal Fairborn. Wealthy beyond imagination, but you would never know it if you met her.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” I said, and sat down on a thick-cushioned rattan chair that was more comfortable than it looked.

  “My pleasure,” she said, sitting down across from me. “How are you two holding up?”

  “Managing,” I answered. “It’s tough. Gail has been putting in some long hours with the campaign. I know she misses spending time with Marcus.”

  “I can imagine. One of Rex’s big regrets is that he was unable to watch his daughter grow up. Public service is awfully demanding.”

  “How is Molly doing now at NYU?”

  Crystal shrugged a little sadly. “She’s a senior, but I guess we have to face it, Molly’s a party girl. I worked with her a bit after Rex and I got together, but her father was deeply involved in politics and her mother, well, you know. The best one can say is she was an absentee mom. A lot of Molly’s habits were developed from her friends, from TV, from social media, all the wrong places. She’s apparently big on the club scene in Manhattan. Her friends are other kids from wealthy backgrounds. At least she hasn’t gotten into any trouble, not yet anyhow. And nothing that’s hit the tabloids.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, thinking about Marcus, and the impact a political career for Gail might have on him. “Is she going to work after college?”

  “Well, that’s perhaps the spot of good news. Molly has a job lined up with a nonprofit. Cancer research. She’ll be doing event planning. Arranging fundraisers, organizing large galas, doing things to raise money for a good cause. I think if she focuses, she can be exceptional at it.”

  I smiled. “She’s found a way to turn being a party girl into a full-time job.”

  “Yes, I suppose. Hopefully it will work out for her. She graduates in May. We’ll be going to the commencement. I only regret we’ll have to spend time with my husband’s ex, Nicole, but that’s the reality of divorce. How is Marcus doing?”

  “Good. He starts kindergarten in the fall.”

  “Where is he going?”

  I took a breath. “We’re still deciding. He was accepted into a private school in Santa Monica. Crossroads. But we’re still not entirely sold on it. Very pricey, and I’m not sure it’s right for Marcus. I know Molly went to a different private school, but I’ve seen some kids who’ve gone that route and not all have turned out so well.”

  “It’s something to think about,” Crystal said. “Although it’s really not so much about the school, but about the parents. The two of you are nothing like Molly’s mother. Just make sure both of you carve time out of your busy schedules to spend with him. I know what you mean, though. Crossroads is a good place, but it is very expensive and there are a lot of showbiz kids going there. Nothing wrong with that, but some of those children are being raised by their nannies. Molly was friends with a few kids who were like that. If the parents were involved, they usually turned out okay. If they weren’t, there were problems.”

  “Understood. And we have a pretty good public elementary school in Mar Vista. It’s just that when they reach middle school, that’s where things get sketchy.”

  “One day at a time,” she smiled.

  “Indeed. So I guess you know why I’m here.”

  She nodded. “The campaign is getting tighter. Gail called and told me about the latest polls the other day. That’s the reality of politics. A wealthy candidate can buy an election. I learned that from Wayne, although he was the one trying to buy our local Mayor’s office years ago.”

  “I remember.”

  “And I saw one of Bleeker’s TV ads last night. I didn’t realize he’d be smearing Gail.”

  I nodded cautiously. “What have you seen?”

  “It’s called comparative advertising. Or maybe it’s called attack ads these days. He showed a photo of Gail, not the most flattering one, it was darkened, they must have touched it up, and then they put it inside of those circles with a diagonal red line going through it. They said she was a crony of the former City Attorney, what was his name again, sounded like Sucker?”

  “Jay Sutker.”

  “That’s right. And I gather Sutker was involved in a few questionable dealings.”

  I nodded and felt my fists start to clench and unclench. Mostly clench. “The irony,” I said slowly, “is that Gail threw her hat into the ring to try and put a stop to this. To try and clean up that office. Now she’s being accused of doing the very thing she wants to put an end to.”

  “Politics is an ugly business. And if a candidate spends enough money, it can sometimes get them elected, especially to a less prominent office, one that voters don’t pay a lot of attention to.”

  “He’s essentially buying people’s votes.”

  “More like renting them for a day, but yes.”

  I took a breath. “And that brings me to why I’m here.”

  “Gail needs more money,” she replied crisply.

  I nodded. “Thank you for not making me say the words. You understand Gail is terrible at asking people for donations.”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “And that’s a big point in her favor, and why I like her. She’s sensitive to others and to how she herself is being perceived. It’s a good trait for a human being to have. Maybe not the best for a politician, though.”

  “True,” I said, not adding that I didn’t possess the greatest traits for a political spouse. I worried that my line of work and innate ability to insert myself into messes could easily come back to embarrass Gail.

  Crystal stood up and walked out of the room. I looked at a painting on the wall. It was a work by David Hockney, an oddly pleasing display of a backyard swimming pool in pastel colors, mostly sky blue, sea green and carnation pink. It r
eminded me a little bit of Marcus’s Sharpie drawings, albeit more carefully honed and astonishingly more expensive. If this was an original, which it might well have been, its asking price would be in the seven figures. I didn’t quite know how value was determined in the art world, but this work was nevertheless mesmerizing to look at. When Crystal came back into the room, I had to practically pull my eyes away from it. Crystal opened up a checkbook and casually dashed off a note that would add $100,000 to our campaign war chest. Money means different things to different people.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” I said. “In fact, I don’t even know where to begin. Your generosity is astounding.”

  “Rex and I have far more than we’ll need,” she said. “And when this campaign is all done with, I hope you’ll let Rex and I take you two to dinner. I think Rex is very impressed with Gail.”

  I smiled. “By rights, we should be taking you. But I accept.”

  At that moment, I heard a rustling sound in the next room, and heard a door open. I felt for my gun and took a sharp look at Crystal. “Tell me that’s the maid,” I said.

  She laughed. “No. It’s my father. He’s fixing up our guest house.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Occupational hazard. Your dad is still working? He must be in his early 70s.”

  “He is, but he likes to keep busy. We’re putting in new tile, and, well, he’s as good as they come for doing that.”

  At that point, Serge Markovich entered the room and made his presence felt with a large grunt, befitting a very large man. Even in his advanced years, he still looked vibrant, his ruddy face offsetting a shock of thick, gray hair. He was still bulky, probably tipped the scale at two-forty, but a lot of that was muscle, not fat. He stopped and looked at me.

  “Hello,” he said, with a deep voice and a thick European accent. “You look familiar. But I no place you.”

  “Probably a good thing. I’m a private investigator. We’ve met a few times.”