Three shirt deal ss-7 Page 14

  He led me inside the large, expensively designed, Business Center and Administration building.

  This building was obviously where the bigwigs worked. All the really expensive art was in the lobby. The carpet was seventy-ounce plush pile and stretched wall to wall. I followed Wade down a hallway to a private office where he had his own private secretary. She was a good ornament. A nine or ten on the office fantasy scale. If she could type, God knows who she'd be working for-maybe even the great Roger Dahl.

  "Cindy, bring me the Promo Safe folder on the August Bud Light contest," Wade snapped as he passed by her desk into his office.

  She jumped up and exited.

  The office was medium-size, but furnished with expensive antiques. There were law books everywhere. I picked up a thick one entitled Torts, Pleadings and Judicial Reviews that was marked with what looked like fifty or more yellow Post-It Notes.

  "You want to leave my stuff alone?"

  "Right." I put it down.

  Half a minute later Cindy returned and handed Wade the file. He opened it and went through it like he knew exactly what he was looking for. Then he pulled out a single sheet of paper.

  "This is an affidavit attesting to the winner of the West Valley Rare you were talking about." He handed it to me. "As you can see, it wasn't won by anybody named Tru."

  The Promo Safe form was signed by one of their senior investigators named Ron Torgason. The affidavit plainly stated that Tito Alonzo Morales, of 4955 Bellingham Avenue in Valley Village had bought the Bud Light at four-fifteen on August 10 at a 7-Eleven in the 6000 block of Sepulveda. Two days later he had claimed the million-dollar prize.

  "As you can see, Mister Morales was the winner. The agents from Promo Safe go out and stand in the store and-"

  "Yeah, I know how it works," I interrupted.

  "Then you can see this is exactly what I said. It's proof positive that Tito Morales bought and cashed in the rare, not this other guy, this Tru what's-his-face."

  I stared down at the affidavit.

  "Are we done now?" he asked, arrogance again framing every word. "I have to get through three chapters before my bar review class at six."

  "Afraid we're not quite done yet, Wade."

  "We're not?" Now he seemed frustrated, the smile long gone. "Why the hell not?"

  "Because your buddy since the seventh grade, Mike Church, is a longtime associate of Tru Hickman, and because Tito Morales happens to be the D. A. who filed the murder charge against Tru for killing his mom and then did the plea bargain sending the kid away for life." I did my endearing little smile again. "This is the same Tito Morales who bought a contest rare and won a million dollars from a company that you're involved with, and whose campaign office you visited yesterday, completing a nice little circle of facts. In some crowds, this might be viewed as a scam. But any way you cut it, it's way too cozy, contest-wise."

  Wade's smile suddenly reappeared. I was beginning to suspect that it was just camouflage, that he used it when he was in trouble. Either that, or this kid had more chutzpah than the ten best murderers I'd ever worked.

  "That is all just a coincidence," he offered. "I was at his office because after he won our prize I got to know him, and I'm now working on his campaign. Besides, why would I give a damn one way or the other if Tito Morales won a million dollars? How does that affect my life?"

  "Maybe Mike Church is still stealing your toys. Or maybe we just haven't located the reason, yet."

  "I see."

  "Do you?"

  For a moment it seemed he was regarding me almost with affection. He was so sure of himself that he was actually beginning to enjoy this. I decided right then that his giant ego was his biggest weakness. He thought he was simply brilliant. A good technique when you've got a suspect in play is to be exactly what the guy wants you to be. He thought I was a moron and no match for his rapid repartee. The dumber he thought I was, the more careless he would become and the more mistakes he was bound to make. I let fifty IQ points I couldn't spare drop out of my head and hit the floor, then fixed him with a smile as dull as my razor.

  "Since you obviously are not going to leave me alone until I figure this out for you, let me see if I can help," he said.

  "That would be excellent."

  He looked at his watch. "You had lunch yet?"

  "No, sir."

  "I know a spot near here. Let's go get something and we'll see what I can come up with."

  As we crossed toward the office door, I couldn't resist taking one last shot. "Guess this means you owe me the hundred dollars."

  Chapter 25

  We went to a steakhouse ten blocks from Cartco. The decor was plush. Dark green carpets, dark wood paneling, hunting prints everywhere.

  He ordered a beer and a rib eye. I had coffee and a Chinese chicken salad. When the waiter left, Wade's BlackBerry rang. He pulled it out and looked at a text message. I pulled out mine, showed it to him proudly.

  "Hey, look at this. We got the same damn phone," grinning stupidly, as if I thought we could bond over owning identical BlackBerries.

  "Phone rocks," he said distractedly, and started instant messaging.

  " 'Cept I can never get the hang of all the new features on this thing," I complained.

  "Read the manual," still working on his IM.

  "Well, I would, but even then I get kinda lost. I'm from the old rotary dial age of communications."

  He looked up over the BlackBerry with a shit-eating grin. "What are you, about ten years older than me?"

  "Little more."

  He held up his BlackBerry. "This shit's Y-Gen weaponry. Computers, digital information, it's all moving at warp speed. Unless you were born with a PC on your nursery table, you're bound to fall behind. Don't let it haunt you, dude."

  "That's comforting."

  His cell rang again and he answered it. Another text message, but this time I reached over and covered his phone with my hand. "I think we need to turn that off," I said gently.

  "I'm not used to being told what to do." He scowled.

  "Then I'll try and keep these moments to a minimum."

  He heaved a sigh, turned off the phone, then looked up and said, "Better?"

  "Much."

  What came next was so utterly ridiculous it was hard for me to believe this guy was actually trying to sell it to me.

  He leaned forward in his seat and fixed me with a professorial stare. "Okay, so as long as we're waiting for our food, why don't I put the time to good use and just go ahead and solve your little problem. Explain how people, who have no real connection to one another, could appear in the same numerical sample."

  "Okay." I smiled. "But remember, winning this contest in Los Angeles is, by my estimate, about a ten-million-to-one shot."

  "Then this will be a good lesson for you in statistical analysis. In order for you to understand, I'm going to have to start by giving you a short course in probability curves."

  "Hang on a minute. I don't want to miss anything." I figured this was going to be rich, so I played it for all it was worth. I reached for my notebook, took out my pen, and held it at the ready, looking stupidly down at a blank page. The only thing I didn't do was lick the ink tip.

  "A Y-Gen would carry a little DAT recorder for moments like these," Wade sneered.

  "Got one. Can't work it."

  "Okay, so where does Tito Morales live?" he asked.

  "Valley Village."

  "The East Valley. But where does he work?"

  "Van Nuys Courthouse."

  "West Valley, good. That courthouse, if I recall, is within blocks of where this prize-winning rare was placed out on Sepulveda. Correct?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay, now follow me here. In that West Valley section of town there are what, maybe ten thousand people?"

  "Ten, probably less."

  "Exactly. Probably less. But let's keep it to round numbers and say ten so you won't get lost in the math."

  "Good, 'cause I'm horrible wit
h fractions."

  "I kinda knew that." He smiled condesendingly. "Okay, ten thousand people. And how many of those ten thousand people in the West Valley would even shop for beer at a 7-Eleven instead of, say, a supermarket or liquor store?"

  "Boy, Wade, I just don't know. Don't have a clue."

  "Let's estimate on the high side to keep our sample safe. Let's say half. Say five thousand. You think half the West Valley might shop at a 7-Eleven-type mini-market? Sound fair?"

  "Okay."

  "And how many of those five thousand people do you think buy Bud Light beer instead of some other brand?"

  "How many? I have no idea." I tried to sound confused and hopelessly lost.

  "It so happens, I can help us there, because as part of my job, I know the company's local market share. It's twenty-two point six. But let's shit-can the two point six and round it off to twenty so it doesn't get too complicated."

  "Good." I dutifully wrote it down.

  "So twenty percent of five thousand is one thousand people who conceivably might buy Bud Light at that particular market in a month. So now we're down from your original, but incorrect, ten million to one figure to a more realistic and vastly more manageable figure of one thousand to one. Still with me?"

  "Right." I was scribbling, and furrowing my brow in tortured thought, giving this arrogant asshole a ride.

  "Okay. So we're now saying there are a thousand people who would buy Bud Light in a mini-market in the West Valley," he said. "Of that one thousand people, how many do you think would choose to buy a six-pack of beer in that exact store on that exact day?"

  "Not very many."

  "Ten?"

  "Uh… I don't see how…"

  "Stick with me," he interrupted. "You think ten people might conceivably buy a six-pack of Bud Light in that market on that day?"

  "Maybe."

  "So now we're at ten to one." He smiled at me. "Or the real odds on Tito Morales, who worked just up the street, buying that prize package of beer. Not such a big stretch anymore, is it?"

  It was complete gobbledy-gook. He must have thought I learned my math from primates.

  "Except, how do we know he'd buy beer in that market on that day?" I asked stupidly. "I don't think you can do it that way."

  "Sure you can, because that's empirical evidence."

  "It is?"

  "Absolutely, Detective Scully. It's empirical evidence because we know that Tito Morales did, in fact, buy beer in that market on that day, witnessed and signed-off on by Promo Safe. Therefore, that fact stands as incontrovertible."

  I looked up at him and let a slow smile break. The dull child finally gets it.

  "See?" He smiled back.

  "Okay, okay. Now I think I may see what you're driving at."

  "Good."

  "Except we still have the other end of it," I argued. "The coincidence that Tito Morales was also handling the murder case against Tru Hickman, who's a longtime associate of Mike Church who, it turns out, you've known since junior high."

  "Same deal. In a statistical sample, it's called the Rule of Parallel Correlations. So stick with me here, we'll take those one at a time."

  "Okay."

  "Tito Morales is the head D. A. in Van Nuys, right?"

  "Yes."

  "How many murders does the Van Nuys D. A.'s office get, say, in a week?"

  "Four, maybe five."

  "And isn't the head D. A. the guy who, in the end, signs off on all plea bargains?"

  "Yes."

  "Right, so he handles one hundred percent of them when they occur, so it follows he had a one-hundred-percent chance of doing Hickman's plea bargain. So now let's put those two percentages together. We got a one-in-ten chance Morales would buy the contest six-pack of beer, and a one-hundred-percent chance he'd handle the Hickman plea bargain. Same odds. As far as my knowing Church who knows this Hickman dude, that's just the six-degrees-of-separation thing. See what I'm saying?"

  I was writing all of this down. Of course, the odds against all of this were so high they were off the charts. Incomputable. But to keep Wade in play, I nodded studiously. Then I closed the notebook and tapped the pen on the cover as if a great truth had just been revealed.

  "That's fucking amazing," I said, letting my mouth gape open in wonder.

  "They probably don't teach statistics at City College." He grinned, trying to sound like he was commiserating, but instead, just coming off like an elitist dick.

  "How'd you know I went to City College?"

  "Lucky guess," he smiled.

  "As a matter of fact, they did teach it, but I only went there three semesters."

  "You should've stayed in school, dude. Education is life's greatest tool."

  "And here, all this time, I always thought it was a good erection." I gave him my front sixteen. He didn't return the smile. "So you think then that all this isn't too big a coincidence?" I said.

  "We're just talking hypothetically here. But no, Detective, I don't."

  I snuck a look at my watch. I had to suffer through this B. S. for at least thirty more seconds.

  "Man, I probably should've taken that stat course," I told him. "You're a pretty smart guy."

  "I've got some intellectual gifts," he allowed modestly. "My mind parses problems well. I graduated top of my class at Harvard Law. It's why I was selected to clerk for a U. S. Supreme Court justice last summer. She said my briefs were the most thoroughly annotated she'd ever seen."

  "My briefs are usually thoroughly defecated," I said, grinning stupidly. I was probably overdoing the bit, and decided maybe I should dial it back a notch.

  "Don't do the brief joke thing, okay? That's first-year law school stuff."

  "Sorry." I was just stalling now, fooling around with him while I waited.

  Then I saw Secada making her way hurriedly across the restaurant.

  "Shane," she said urgently as she approached our table. "We need to go now! We just got a fresh one-eighty-seven in the Heights."

  Now Wade's smile became a dazzler as he took in the beautiful Ms. Llevar.

  "Sorry. Gotta go," I said, "you can buy my lunch and send the balance of our hundred dollar bet to me later." I stood and picked up a BlackBerry off the table. His, not mine. He didn't notice the switch because his eyes were busy undressing Secada.

  "Shane, you simply must introduce me to this enchanting creature.

  "Secada Llevar, meet Wade Wyatt."

  "Nice to meet you," she said. Then, before he could respond, turned abruptly and almost dragged me out of the restaurant.

  Once outside I got into her SUV, turned on Wade's BlackBerry, and scrolled through his archived text messages. I quickly went back to August 10, the night of Olivia Hickman's murder. There were three IMs back and forth between WW and MC-all of them shortly after midnight.

  "What're you doing?" Secada said.

  "Checking my IMs," I lied.

  I had just finished scanning Wade's messages from that date when I saw him explode into the lot in his tennis whites, holding my BlackBerry in front of him like shit in a black sock. He looked around frantically.

  "Over here," I called.

  He turned and spotted us in the front seat of the SUV, then ran to the passenger window. He was out of breath by the time he got there. "I think we accidentally switched BlackBerries," he said.

  "Yeah, I just realized it, too." I handed his back while he returned mine. A relieved look passed across his face.

  "You got nothing on yours," he told me. "You should set up your features."

  "Yeah. Maybe you could help me do that sometime," I said.

  "Not too fucking likely, Detective. I'm not your personal electronics geek. I got a bar exam to study for." Then he smiled at Secada. "You, I intend to see again," he said, and started to walk away.

  All the evidence I'd just gotten off Wyatt's BlackBerry was in-admissable because it was an illegal search. But if he complained, I could still claim it was just an accident and hope the rest of the c
ase would survive a fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree defense. After all, it was his word against mine. As a police maneuver, it was definitely borderline. But I had to take the shot if I wanted to shake up Wade. I needed him to make a bad move that I could capitalize on. He was still heading back to his car when I called out to him, "Hey, Wade?"

  He turned.

  "Just one question."

  "Sure." He still had a smile on his face. He was back in control, but I was about to change that.

  "What the hell is a three shirt deal?" I asked innocently.

  "A what?" His face went blank.

  "I accidentally hit your archived messages." His face fell. "One of Mike Church's messages to you was on August tenth, which coincidentally is the night Olivia Hickman was murdered. Wonder if that's part of the Law of Parallel Correlations." He looked a little sick, so I went on, "MC text-messaged: This just turned into a three shirt deal.'" I gave him my best stupid cop look. "I been sitting here wondering what on earth that could mean. I just remembered, when the mob shot a guy they used to call it buying him a suit because the bullets ruined the clothing. When you stab someone, plunge a knife into them twenty times like in Olivia Hickman's homicide, it would certainly ruin their shirt."

  He stood there, frozen.

  "I sure hope we aren't talking about murders here. I hope there aren't two more dead bodies in this case that I don't know anything about."

  His face paled, his complexion got shiny.

  "It's nothing," he said. "It's just bullshit."

  "So what's it mean?"

  More rapid eye work, some jerky body movements. Then he said, "Vomit. Mike Church used to get drunk and throw up on my Harvard sweatshirts. He used to borrow them all the time. It was the third one he did it to… a three shirt deal."

  I furrowed my brow in confusion. "That doesn't sound quite right to me, Wade. He threw up three times on three of your shirts? God, what d'ya suppose the odds of that are? Of course, you're the man when it comes to probability curves." I looked over at Secada. "Let's go."

  She put the Suburban in gear and we powered away, leaving him in sheer panic.

  "You know you can't use any of that. You didn't have P. C. or a search warrant for that BlackBerry."

  "It was a mistake, an accident. I couldn't help what I saw."