Chapter 68
I EDGED INTO the thickest part of the crowd, got within shouting distance of Rick and the howling, bleeding, cursing Dexter Lewis. I called out to Caine and he yelled back, “Can you give me a hand, Jack?”
He and I bundled Rick into the backseat of Caine’s car as cameras in a circle around us fired off shots. The raccoons reveled in the unexpected opportunity to have me and Rick in the same frame, and they peppered me with questions: “Jack, a few words, please, for Fox News?” “Morgan, d’you still believe Rick Del Rio is innocent?”
I leaned into the car, put a hand on Del Rio’s shoulder, made eye contact, and said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Don’t worry, Jack. The jury didn’t see anything.”
“Might have been better if they had, Rick. This whole trial would have been scratched. That would be a good thing.”
“Jack, I like this jury. They like me. I’ll be fine, my friend. Just fine.”
Caine didn’t look fine. He looked like he thought he was about to lose Rick to the penal system. We exchanged a few pat assurances, then I swam against the tide until I reached my loaner car.
I was trying to ease the Mercedes around the mob when there was a sharp rap on my window and I turned to see my mirror image staring at me. Tommy was making the universal gesture to roll down the glass.
I did it.
He said, “Ten million, Jack. I’m slashing my offer for Private from twenty to ten. You’re going to lose your clients, Jacko. They won’t want to be associated with that slime bucket.”
“What do you want, Junior?”
“What’s rightfully mine.”
“Don’t move your feet,” I said.
There was an opening in front of me and I stepped hard on the gas, cut out of the lot, and headed to the office. I was livid. My brother saying that Private was rightfully his was the crock-of-shit delusion that drove him.
Tommy was Dad’s favorite, sure. But Dad had given Private to me and I’d built it up from an empty wreck of a company to a profitable and respected global operation—despite my father’s conviction and then, some time later, his death by shiv in the showers at Corcoran.
I wondered if Tommy was even sane.
The Mercedes seemed to drive itself downtown to Figueroa. I turned into the lot under our building and took the lower-level entrance through the lab.
I passed Mo-bot’s incense-perfumed cave of an office on my way to see Sci. All of Mo’s computer monitors were glowing, and she was doing a funky-chicken dance with her back to the door. Acting like a little kid.
“What are we celebrating?” I said.
She screamed, startled. Then she said, “Oh, Jack. I’ve got something you’ll want to see. This is Barbie Summers. She’s Tule Archer’s former roommate.”
A photo filled the screen: a leggy blond showgirl wearing a feathered corset, a pair of ten-inch stilettos, and not much else.
“Show me everything,” I said.
“I knew you’d say that,” said Mo-bot.