She nodded her head toward the front of the car. "You're forgetting the driver."
"What about him?"
"He saw it all."
"So what? You encouraged me," he said, hissing. "You were being seductive. Any guy knows the signs."
"Apparently you didn't."
"Hostile ballbreaker?" He turned and took the vodka bottle from the rack. He needed it to rinse out his mouth. He poured himself a glass, and looked back.
She was reading the talking points. She held the paper in her hands. He lunged for it. "That's not yours."
She was quick, holding the paper away from him. She raised her other hand, edge on, like a chopping knife.
"Care to try your luck again, Ted?"
"Fuck you," he said, and took a big gulp of the vodka. His tongue was on fire. What a bitch, he thought. What a goddamned bitch. Well, she'd be looking for a new job tomorrow. He'd see to that. This bimbo lawyer couldn't fuck around with Ted Bradley and get away with it.
Standing beneath the crashed Ferrari, Evans endured another ten minutes of grilling by the plainclothesmen who encircled him. Fundamentally, the story didn't make sense to him.
Evans said, "George was a good driver. If all these changes were made to the car, wouldn't he have noticed something was wrong?"
"Perhaps. But not if he was drinking heavily."
"Well, he was drinking, that's for sure."
"And who got him the drinks, Mr. Evans?"
"George got his own drinks."
"The waiter at the banquet said you were pushing drinks at Morton."
"That's not true. I was trying to limit his drinking."
Abruptly, they changed course. "Who worked on the Ferrari, Mr. Evans?"
"I have no idea."
"We know you rented a private garage outside Sonoma on Route 54. It was fairly quiet and out of the way. Any person or persons who worked on the car would have been able to come and go as they wished, without being seen. Why would you choose such a garage?"
"I didn't choose it."
"Your name is on the lease."
"How was the lease arranged?"
"By phone."
"Who paid for it?"
"It was paid in cash."
"By whom?"
"Delivered by messenger."
"You have my signature on anything? Fingerprints?"
"No. Just your name."
Evans shrugged. "Then I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about this. It's well known that I'm George Morton's attorney. Anybody could have used my name. If anything was done to this car, it was done without my knowledge."
He was thinking that they should have been asking Sarah about all this, but then, if they were good at their jobs, they'd already have talked to her.
And sure enough, she appeared from around the corner, talking on a cell phone and nodding to Kenner.
That was when Kenner stepped forward. "Okay, gentlemen. Unless you have further questions, I'll take Mr. Evans into custody on my recognizance. I don't believe he is a flight risk. He will be safe enough with me."
The cops grumbled, but in the end they agreed. Kenner handed out his card, and then he headed back toward the entrance, his arm firmly on Evans's shoulder.
Sarah followed some distance behind. The cops stayed with the Ferrari.
As they neared the door, Kenner said, "Sorry about all that. But the police didn't tell you everything. The fact is, they photographed the car from various angles and fed the shots into a computer that simulates crashes. And the computer-generated simulation didn't match the photos of the actual crash."
"I didn't know you could do that."
"Oh yes. Everybody uses computer models these days. They arede rigueur for the modern organization. Armed with their computer simulation, the police went back to the wreck itself, where they now decided that it had been monkeyed with. They never imagined this during their previous examinations of the wreck, but now they do. Clear example of using a computer simulation to alter your version of reality. They trusted the simulation and not the data from the ground."
"Uh-huh."
"And of course their simulation was optimized for the most common vehicle types on American roads. The computer had no ability to model the behavior of a forty-year-old, limited-production Italian racing car. They ran the simulation anyway."
Evans said, "But what's all this about a garage in Sonoma?"
Kenner shrugged. "You don't know. Sarah doesn't know. Nobody can even verify if the car was ever there. But the garage was rented--I'd guess by George himself. Though we'll never know for sure."
Back outside, Evans threw open the door to his limo and climbed in. He was astonished to see Ted Bradley covered in blood, all down his chin and shirt front.
"What happened?"
"He slipped," Jennifer said. "And hurt himself."
TO LOS ANGELES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12