Authors: Steven Gore
Power Blind (30 page)
T
he Elf was leading a different Wolf when Gage pulled to stop on the one-way Folsom Street in front of the Bootstrap at eleven-forty that night. Apparently Jeffrey Stark, Charlie Palmer's physical therapist, hadn't taken all that well to the yoke.
Gage stepped out of his car as they came even with him. The overhead streetlight gave Elf's face a yellow pallor. His eyes widened and he dropped the leash.
Gage shook his head. “This isn't about you. I'm trying to find Jeffrey. His cell phone is disconnected.”
“He fell behind on the payments so it got turned off.”
“And I went by the place where he told me he was staying. Nobody answered the door all day.”
Elf's eyebrows narrowed. “Why's everybody so interested in Jeffrey?”
“Who's everybody?”
“The company he worked forâ”
“Physical Therapy Associates?”
“Yeah. They called me like six times in the last two days, real anxious to contact him.”
“Why you?”
Elf glanced over at his Wolf. “He put me down as his next of kin on his application.”
The Wolf glared at Elf, then stomped away.
“Sorry,” Gage said.
“No problem.” Elf tilted his head toward the club. “There's lots where he came from.”
“Practically a candy store.”
Elf's eyebrows went up. “You're not . . .”
Gage shook his head again.
“Too bad.”
Gage smiled. “Anyway I think I'm a little old for you.”
Elf smiled back. “I don't know. I've seen
Sabrina
like a hundred times. Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. May and December.”
“Sorry.”
Elf shrugged. “So what's up with Jeffrey?”
“I'm trying to figure that out. Do you know why the company was trying to contact him?”
“A job, I guess. But I'm not sure why they ever hired him.”
“Because of the identify theft convictions?”
Elf nodded. “The state revoked his license because his victims were all people he was treating. Mostly old folks recovering from hip and knee replacements.”
“Then why did Physical Therapy Associates take him?”
“It's not like he applied. They came to him. Like out of the blue. A couple of days after he got out of jail.”
“When did they last call you?”
“Three hours ago. I got tired of them bothering me so I told them about his new job working as a security guard at the MetroTowers construction site.”
“Which shift?”
“Midnight until eight.”
Gage checked his watch. Eleven forty-five. He pulled out a business card and handed it to Elf.
“I'll head over,” Gage said, “but if you hear from him before I get there, tell him to go to a safe place and give me a call.”
Elf peered up at Gage. “A safe place? What do you mean a safe place?”
Gage opened his car door.
“He'll know.”
G
age made the half-mile drive to New Montgomery Street in two minutes. He squinted as he cruised the half-block construction site trying to see past the halogen lights flooding the perimeter. He caught glimpses of rebar rising from the unfinished below-ground parking structure and a latticed crane rising up fifteen stories, its mast topped by a horizontal jib. He finally spotted a brown modular construction trailer stationed along the alley behind the site. He parked on a side street next to a half-finished condo tower and retrieved a semiautomatic from a lockbox in his trunk.
Gage ducked in and out of the shadows until he reached the single lit window of the trailer, and then climbed the metal steps and stretched over the railing until he could peek inside.
The body in the chair was slumped over the desk.
Damn. Too late.
He straightened up and checked the time. Eleven fifty-five.
This isn't right.
He smiled to himself, then leaned over again and tapped the window. Jeffrey Stark's head jerked up. He blew out a breath when he saw it was Gage, then pushed himself to his feet and opened the door.
“Man, you scared the hell out of me,” Jeffrey said. “I thought you were my supervisor.”
“What are you doing at work so early?”
“I kinda used up my welcome where I was staying, so I've been sleeping here before my shift.”
A clunk sounded from the wall behind Jeffrey. Gage glanced over, then at the opposite window. A dime-sized hole was centered in the glass. He grabbed Jeffrey by the front of his uniform jacket and yanked him down to the floor. Gage heard a bone crack and a shriek as Jeffrey's shoulder hit the linoleum, then the rapid-fire clunk-clunk-clunk of slugs piercing the trailer.
Gage dragged Jeffrey behind the desk, fired three times to knock out the overhead lights, then punched 911 into his cell phone.
“Shots fired at New Montgomery near Mission. MetroTowers,” Gage told the dispatcher. “We're trapped in the construction trailer.”
The clunks then became methodical, as if the shooter was calculating how to place his shots for the best coverage. One slug ricocheted off the desktop, two hit the file cabinet.
Sirens in the distance brought them to a halt.
Jeffrey grabbed the edge of the desk with his good arm and tried to get up. He yelped as Gage pulled him back down and propped him against the wall.
“Let's pick a story,” Gage said.
“As opposed to what?”
“You bird-dogging Charlie Palmer and conspiracy to commit murder.”
“Murder?” Jeffrey's voice rose. “Murder wasn't part of it. I was just supposed to keep an eye on him and report in.”
“To who?”
“I can't say.”
Gage jammed his elbow into Jeffrey's broken shoulder blade. “Yes you can.”
“Shit, man.”
“I need the name.”
“Mr. Botas.”
“Is that a nickname or last name?”
Gage didn't tell him, but
botas
was Spanish for “boots.”
“That's all I know. Botas. I never met him. Just by phone.”
“He have an accent?”
“Texan.”
“How'd you meetâ”
Spotlight beams hit the side of the trailer. A voice boomed from a patrol car loudspeaker:
“This is the San Francisco Police.”
“I can't go back to jail,” Jeffrey said. “What's our story gonna be?”
“I'm investigating construction equipment thefts at a site down the street. I was canvassing the area. We've never met before.”
“Are we going to meet again?”
“You want to keep on living?”
W
hat are you going to do with me?” Jeffrey asked Gage.
It was two o'clock in the morning and they were sitting outside the emergency room of SF Medical, waiting for the radiologist to examine the X-rays to decide whether a sling would be sufficient to immobilize Jeffrey's broken shoulder. An icepack was strapped over it.
“That's up to you.”
“Right now I'm afraid to leave this place. What if the guy's waiting outside?”
“He probably is.”
Jeffrey's gaze shifted toward the door. “Thanks. That's just what I wanted to hear.”
“Tell me how you got hooked up with Botas.”
“Shit. Is he the one who's out there?”
“Probably.”
Jeffrey held out a trembling hand. “Look at this. Nobody's tried to kill me before.”
“How'd you meet him?”
“Through somebody in jail. He knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who wanted a guy to keep an eye on Palmer. They set it up with Physical Therapy Associates to hire me and place me at his house.”
“Did you ask who arranged it?”
“The director just said somebody dropped by and offered to pay triple the going rate if they did it.”
“What was this somebody trying to find out?”
“They didn't tell me. They just wanted me to cozy up to him. Dependent people tend to talk a lot. But I didn't have much time. I was only there a week before he died.” Jeffrey drew back and winced. “Is that what this is about?”
“Yes.”
“So the comb-over guy really did it?”
“Porzolkiewski.”
“Yeah. Porzolkiewski.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me the truth about when he came by.”
“Sorry about that. Botas told me to say that Porzolkiewski showed up the day before Palmer died, not three days before.”
“Did you ask why?”
“I tried to, but he cut me off. And he isn't the kind of guy you argue with.”
“Did Porzolkiewski come back?”
“Not that I saw. But I was only there in the afternoons.”
“Anything happen the day before Palmer died?”
“Aren't you supposed to be asking me about the day he died? I thought he was murdered.”
“Just play along.”
Jeffrey tilted his head upward and scrunched up his face. “Let me think.” After a moment, he looked back at Gage. “Nothing except a messenger delivery from a pharmacy.”
“What was that?”
“Oxycontin tablets I gave him.”
“I didn't see the bottle.”
“I . . . I . . . went into his bedroom and pocketed it after they took him away. He wasn't gonna need it anymore and I figured I could make a little money on the side.”
Gage had the urge to jam his elbow in Jeffrey's shoulder again. He now knew how Palmer had ingested the poison and imagined a couple dozen dead drug users scattered around San Francisco.
“You mean you sold them,” Gage said.
“No. I didn't. Botas called me the night Palmer died. Somehow he guessed I took them. He told me to flush the pills and destroy the bottle.”
“Did you?”
“Flush money down the drain? No way. I just told him I would.”
“Where are they now?”
“I have a little stash of things where I used to stay. A guy down the hall let me use his storage locker in the basement until I find a new place.”
“Did you give any to Palmer?”
Jeffrey's head snapped toward Gage. “Wait a second . . . you're not saying I killed him?”
“No. I think poison in the tablets did.”
“Hey man, I didn't sign up for that.” Jeffrey looked again at the door. “Shit. Then who's trying to kill me, Palmer's people or Botas?”
They were one and the same, but it wasn't something Jeffrey needed to know.
“Botas. You seem to be a link in a chain that needs to be broken.”
Jeffrey leaned away from Gage as if he was afraid of being caught in a crossfire. “I'm starting to think maybe you're one, too.”
Y
ou're in the crosshairs.” FBI senior special agent Joe Casey's voice blasted through the phone at Gage the following morning. Gage imagined him stomping around his Federal Building office. “Because of what happened yesterday.”
“How'd you find out so fast?” Gage was sitting at his desk searching online news reports to see how the shooting at MetroTowers had been reported. He and Jeffrey had been convincing. It had been reported as random shots, just an aggravated malicious mischief, and neither of their names had been mentioned.
“What do you mean, how did I find out so fast?” Casey said. “I was there.”
“Then why'd didn't you do something?”
“They don't let me talk in court.”
“In court?”
“Yeah, in court.”
Gage laughed. “I think we're talking about different crosshairs.”
“Don't laugh man, Brandon Meyer painted a bull's-eye on your face yesterday afternoon. Mine, too.”
Gage sat up. “What?”
“OptiCom is claiming you threatened Oscar Mogasci into implicating their executives and you tampered with the recording you made of the call between Mogasci and the OptiCom president. They've even got a declaration from the little punk. He says you held him hostage in Zurich until he said the right words.”
“Why didn't you call me last night?”
“Orders. The head of my office and the chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office ordered me not to talk to you until they debriefed me. And it didn't end until past midnight.”
“How is OptiCom going to get around the fact that they bought stolen designs?”
“They're claiming they came up with their own simultaneously with FiberLink.”
“That's a crock. The material you seized during the search shows it's not true.”
“That's the other thing. Meyer's making sounds like he's going to suppress the evidence.”
“Let me guess. Based on false statements in the affidavit?”
“Yeah. And get this, that the search warrant was too broad.”
“But he signed the thing.”
“So what. His argument is that once you delete from the affidavit what the defense is claiming is false, what's left doesn't justify what he's now calling a fishing expedition.”
Gage heard Skeeter Hall's voice in his head:
Asshole
.
“He's claiming you lied to him in the affidavit?”
“Not yet,” Casey said. “But he will. And that you lied to him through me.”
“Who's representing OptiCom?”
“Two lawyers from Kemper Stewart and one from Anston's firm to give them some extra leverage. Word is Meyer mentored him when he was a new associate twenty years ago and they stayed close after he became a judge.”
“I should've guessed. This isn't about OptiCom.”
“You bet your ass it isn't. It's about attacking your credibility in case you want to go to the media about TIMCO. Didn't anybody from the press call you after the hearing?”
“There were calls from the
Chronicle
and the
New York Times
and Bloomberg and a few others. I assumed they just wanted some background on OptiCom. I wasn't going to call them back anyway.”
Gage heard Casey drop into his chair, then the sound of tapping keys.
“What are you searching for?” Gage asked.
“OptiCom's share price.” The sound of Casey's fist slamming his desk reverberated though the phone line. “Son of a bitch. It's five points higher than where it was the day before we kicked in their door. The value of the OptiCom president's stock options just went through the roof. It isn't the wages of sin, it's the rewards of sin. I'll bet he made millions.”
“What about FiberLink's claims?”
“Rumor is that OptiCom is going to buy them out and shut them upâI thought you said those women were straight shooters?”
“They probably had no choice. The cost of civil litigation would've wiped them out.”
Gage leaned back in his chair. He imagined OptiCom's stock chart.
“What are you thinking?” Casey asked.
“Somebody who bought OptiCom stock the day after your search and after it dropped fifty percent, and then sold it this morning would've made an astronomical amount of money.”
“You mean if he was certain the case was going to go away?”
“Exactly. Buy low and wait for it to go highâand who'd be in the best position to know that?”
H
ow'd you know it was going to happen, boss?” Alex Z hadn't bothered knocking. He stood breathless in front the desk holding a file folder. “Mann Trust just gave out another three point three million dollars in loans.”
Gage pointed at a chair. Alex Z dropped into it, then scratched his head.
“There's just one problem. I'm not sure where the money came from. Just like you thought, the investment arm of Mann Trust bought a couple of million shares of OptiCom the day after the search, right when it hit bottom, but as far as I can tell, they never sold them. The three point two must've originated somewhere else.”
The financial flowchart Gage had drawn in his mind fractured.
“That means our theory is wrong and there's no way to link it to Meyer.”
“Looks that way.” Alex Z withdrew a sheet from his folder, and reached it out toward Gage. “And you've got nothing to fight this. It just hit the Internet. It'll be on all the cable channels in a few minutes.”
Gage took it and read the Reuters headline:
“FBI Agent Under Investigation for Perjury, Relationship with PI Under Scrutiny”