“Okay, you’ve caught me out. So can you put me in touch with him?”
“Yes, I can. But she’s a woman—Laura Logan. I’ll call her, ask her to get in touch with you.” His smile showed small, pointed
teeth. “That way she’ll be sure to give me the twenty percent I get for throwing jobs her way.”
B
y two-fifty he was airborne again. Going back to SF with a briefcase full of photos and enough information to shake city and
state government to its foundations.
After takeoff, he tilted his seat back and thought about the prints Daniel had made for him from the videos.
The woman with the long blonde hair: no clue as to her identity.
The same for the dark-haired woman in bed with her.
But the men: top city hall figures and state officials, including Jim Yatz, the mayor’s closest associate.
Craig looked out the window at Phoenix’s receding smog-shrouded skyline, making connections.
Okay, somebody was trying to gain control over the city hall crowd, as well as minor state officials. They couldn’t entice
the mayor or Amanda Teller, so they did their best to fake it.
Teller had had a hold over State Representative Paul Janssen. Forced him to sign a document.
Their deaths had been arranged to look like a murder-suicide pact, and someone had taken the document.
So how did all of this pertain to the attack on Shar?
Still unclear.
He thought of the call he’d received from Mick before he boarded his flight: “We’ve got an imposter in the office. Diane D’Angelo
is really Susan Angelo, a small-time investigator from DC—and a close friend of Jim Yatz.”
So Yatz had probably hired her to find out what was in the agency files about the city hall investigation. But she had free
run of the office and its computer system. Why would she have gone there at night to retrieve information and end up shooting
Shar?
Whatever, Diane and Yatz were dirty, and they were going down. A large number of state and city officials as well. And the
mayor, whom Craig liked, would have a hell of a time extricating himself from this one.
No worries. He’d done it before. The mayor was one slick, smart bastard.
I
t was after four in the afternoon when Ben Travers came out and told him the news—the
good
news. McCone was awake and responsive—not locked in any more. He could see her briefly.
“Don’t expect too much,” Travers told him as they took the elevator to intensive care. “We don’t yet know what damage the
pressure on her brain stem did. Even if it’s not severe, she’s still got a long way to go—therapy, relearning skills she’s
lost.”
“But she’ll be all right?”
“Ultimately that’s what we’re hoping for. The important thing is that she’s alive and cognizant.”
Hy leaned heavily against the elevator wall. “I don’t care how long it takes for her to recover. Just so she does.”
Travers looked as if he wanted to say more, but the elevator door opened. He led Hy through a large circular area of rooms
arranged around a central nurses’ station. Each room had a window and its door was open—so the nurses could monitor the patients
from the desk, Hy supposed.
Shar’s head was swathed in bandages and she was hooked up to monitors that kept blinking on and off, providing running strips
of information. Her eyes were open, and they lighted up when she saw him.
Hy kissed her cheek. “Welcome back. You’ll be all the way back in time.”
Doubtful look.
“Don’t try to talk now. You need your rest.”
Hy studied her face. The skin below her eyes looked bruised and her complexion was sallow. There were lines around her mouth
that he hadn’t noticed before. But she was alive, and that was everything to him—everything.
She regarded him with a long, intense stare.
“They removed a blood clot and some bone and bullet fragments. No more pressure on your brain stem now.”
Still she stared at him.
“Dr. Travers, your surgeon, will explain more fully later on.”
Still staring.
“You want to know about the investigation. Is that it?”
Blink.
“You’re insatiable.”
He explained that everybody was working 24/7, gathering data. Once they had all they could get, they’d pool their information
and present it to her. Another eyeblink. Then her lids closed and stayed that way.
Hy kissed her again and slipped out of the room. In the corridor he faltered and steadied himself on a railing. The constant
emotional highs and lows had left him exhausted—but he wasn’t ready to give in to it yet. He’d go back to the waiting room
and talk with Elwood. Then he’d begin to make phone calls.
“Now you realize her strength, Son.”
Nobody had called him “Son” since his daddy tangled with those high-tension wires in his beat-up old crop duster. He guessed
he’d qualified as family with Elwood.
“Oh, Hy! My baby’s all right! Did you hear that, Saskia—our baby’s all right!”
Kay started wailing. Why the hell hadn’t Saskia or Melvin answered the phone?
“You know what I’m gonna do tonight? Clean this house. We can’t have Shar coming home to a dirty place.”
Well, maybe John would finally get rid of the empty beer bottles.
“You’ve reached Charlene and Vic…”
“Patsy and Evans are heading for the Bay Area. If this is about restaurant business, please call 801-2345 and speak with Nora.”
“Rae Kelleher. Please leave a message.”
“This is Julia Rafael. I’m sorry I can’t answer the phone…”
“This is Ann-Marie. I’m not available…”
“Hank Zahn here. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.” Dammit, people had cell phones so they could keep connected.
Then they turned them off at a critical moment.
“McCone Investigations, Ted Smalley speaking.”
Finally—a real voice again.
“It’s Hy. Shar’s awake, not locked in any more. They think she’ll eventually be okay.”
“I knew it! I just knew it!”
“I’ve been trying to tell everybody, but most’ve them are unavailable. Is anybody else there?”
“Craig and Mick are, and if you can leave Shar, I think you ought to get over here. Something ugly’s about to go down.”
I
’m still alive! And I’m not going to be a vegetable after all. Just days ago, the future looked so bleak, but now…
Tears again. One thing that hadn’t changed was the roller-coaster ride of emotions.
I could see nurses moving around hurriedly, checking on other patients, carrying medicines. No downtime on the floor of an
ICU. Nurses—I’d never before had so much respect for individuals in any single profession. Well, except for doctors or cops
or firemen or, come to think of it, anybody who put it all on the line for others.
Hy had been here. I could see the relief and happiness in his eyes. Now maybe he wouldn’t do anything crazy.
Yeah, right…
I looked around. The lights were low, but my monitors flashed in a hypnotic rhythm.
Blip, blip, blip…
My throat felt raw from the breathing tube.
I’d sustained a lot of damage, the doctor told me. I was going to have to work hard at therapy. Well, I could do that. Given
what I’d already been through, I could do anything.
I knew I shouldn’t be worrying about a triviality at a time like this, but they had had to shave my head—twice. Would my hair
grow back right?
Did it matter?
A nurse popped in, checked the monitors. Went away, leaving me alone.
Fuck the hair. I’m still here. Probably bald as the proverbial egg, but I’m still here!
T
he scene he walked into in Shar’s office at the pier was tense in the extreme. Mick sat in Shar’s desk chair, and Craig leaned
against a file cabinet—positions of power. Diane D’Angelo was in one of the clients’ chairs; from the way she clutched its
arms, and from her tightly crossed ankles, she looked as if an invisible rope bound her there.
Craig said, “Join us, Hy. We’ve been having a very interesting conversation with Diane. I mean Susan. Susan Angelo, an investigator
formerly of New York City, and a good friend of Jim Yatz.”
“Susan was just telling us that Yatz hired her to infiltrate our offices,” Mick added. “Seems he was concerned about an investigation
Shar conducted for Amanda Teller last year. And there were problems at city hall that he wanted to put a good spin on by coming
up clean in an additional investigation by us.”
Hy looked at the woman he’d known as Diane D’Angelo. She kept her eyes down.
He said, “I’ve read that file. Background checks on the Pro Terra Party, its chairman, Lee Summers, and State Representative
Paul Janssen. Nothing incriminating, as far as I could tell.”
“But Yatz didn’t know that until Diane—Susan—delivered it to him. She deleted it from the agency files, but kept a copy in
her own blocked files.”
Hy said, “Diane, Susan, whatever—why did you stay on here after you turned over the information on the Teller investigation
to Yatz?”
Silence. Then, “Jim told me there was a potential scandal brewing at city hall, and that he might need me here. Besides, the
pay and benefits were better than what I was getting in New York.”
“How the hell did you get around the agency’s background checks?”
No reply.
Mick said, “Shar hired her provisionally, because Thelia was totally swamped at the time, and Jim Yatz had highly recommended
her. She asked Derek for a check, but the request never got to him. Someone”—he glared at Susan Angelo—“intercepted it, and
wrote Shar an excellent report.”
Hy thought about that; his wife pretty much accepted her operatives’ reports at face value because she knew and trusted them.
Angelo must’ve accessed some of Derek’s other background checks and copied his style.
He raised an eyebrow at Craig. “This city hall investigation—you put her on it?”
“Right. And she turned up nothing. Couldn’t’ve, because Yatz set up a smoke screen involving disappearing files and memos.
But in reality, there was only one memo that went away—from Amanda Teller to the mayor.”
“Saying what?”
“Sit down, Ripinsky, and I’ll tell you what the boys and girls at city hall have been up to.”
H
e and Craig and Hy debated what to do about Susan Angelo. She was being cooperative—obviously all her loyalty to her friend
Yatz had evaporated upon her being found out—but her cooperation would only last so long. There wasn’t anything they could
have her arrested for except presenting false credentials, and even a bad public defender could get her out on bail in hours
on such a charge. Then, to save her ass, she’d either take off or, more likely, sell her story to the press. And all hell
would break loose.
People involved in the scandal would start lawyering up. The mayor would take a heavy hit. And they still didn’t have all
the answers.
Such as: Who shot Shar? Who killed Harvey Davis? Who killed Teller and Janssen?
“Shit, I don’t know,” Hy said. They were in the conference room, while Julia, who had returned from dropping something off
at Richman Labs, was pretending to make nice to Angelo in Shar’s office. “We can’t keep her here against her will.”
Mick said, “I don’t trust her. She walks out of here, and she’ll go straight to the media. D’you know how much money a story
like this would bring?”
“Yeah.” Craig was silent for a moment. “There may be a way to hold her.” He took out his phone, speed-dialed a number.
“Tyler, it’s Craig Morland. I need a favor. We’ve got an operative here who needs to be in protective custody… Witness against
a number of high-level city officials… I know it’s not a federal case, but I can’t ask for help from the SFPD—some of them
may be involved… Yes, our agency will pay you… A day or two, no more… Thanks, Tyler. I’ll look for you within the hour.”
He replaced the receiver. “Tyler’s with the local field office, but he moonlights. He’s also a good actor; he’ll make Susan
feel like a celebrity witness.”
“Which she is, in a way,” Mick said.
D
iane D’Angelo—Susan Angelo—smiled at her and said, “I suppose they told you about my charade.”
“Yes, they did.”
“That’s all it was—an acting job to please my boyfriend.”
“That did harm to my boss and this agency.”
“How? What does it matter who’s fucking who at city hall?”
“It matters that Sharon McCone is in a locked-in state and may remain there forever. It matters that Amanda Teller and Paul
Janssen are dead.”
D’Angelo—Angelo, whatever—sat on the edge of Shar’s desk, rolling a cut-glass paperweight between her hands.
“Teller and Janssen were corrupt; they deserved what they got. McCone—she was in the way.”
Julia tensed. Craig and Mick had urged her not to confront the woman, but…
Diane—Susan—frowned. “Jim isn’t going to like me getting caught out. Or admitting to the scam.” She looked down at the paperweight
in her hands. “I need to tell him what happened, that they forced me to talk.”
Julia didn’t see what was coming until the woman rose from the desk and raised the crystal globe. She tried to shield her
head—
She woke up slowly, her vision swimming, then focusing on carpet.
What carpet? Had she passed out? No way. She’d quit the drugs and booze years ago.
Footsteps coming toward her. “Jules? What happened?” Gentle hands on her shoulders. “Jesus, there’s a bloody welt on the side
of your head!”
She stiffened. Then: nothing to fear. It was Craig Morland’s voice; he wouldn’t hurt her. But somebody had.
Oh, yeah, that
puta
, Susan Angelo. Slammed her on the head with the heavy crystal paperweight from Shar’s desk.
Craig asked, “Can you sit up?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about turning over on your back? Or should I call nine-one-one?”
“Help me. Then we’ll see.”
When she was on her back again her vision swam, then focused on Craig, who was kneeling next to her.