Mark Gimenez - Accused

"Gabe said so."

"You talked to him? In person?"

"At his bar."

"No one talks to us, but they spill their guts to you."

"You guys are cops. I'm a curiosity, a lawyer defending his ex. Benito and Gabe got a kick out of that."

"They would. But Gabe wouldn't lie about Trey owing money to the mob."

"Trey threw two tournaments, to pay them back, in California and Miami, earlier this year. He intentionally missed short putts to win."

"I was watching on TV both times. Couldn't believe he missed those. So if he paid them back, why'd they kill him?"

"Those two tournaments didn't cover his full debt. He was supposed to lose at Atlanta, too, but he made a long putt to win."

"I saw that putt. One in a million."

"Twenty million. Gabe said that's how much the mob lost on that putt."

The D.A. sat quietly a moment, then stood. "Slow around here today. Feel like taking a ride?"

They walked out to the back parking lot and climbed into the D.A.'s black four-wheel-drive pickup truck. The D.A. fired up a cigar and the engine then steered out of the lot and onto Ball Street. A vacant lot-the FOR SALE sign said "11 acres"-separated the courthouse from Broadway and on the lot stood two large industrial contraptions that looked like Imperial Walkers in those Star Wars movies the girls liked.

"Cotton compresses," the D.A. said. "Back before the Civil War, most of the Confederate cotton was shipped to England out of Galveston. When the Union blockaded the port, they took the cotton overland down to Matamoros, shipped it out from Mexico." He gestured at the contraptions. "They tore the buildings down, but moving those things would cost three hundred grand, so they're Island art now."

At Broadway, a wide six-lane avenue with an esplanade separating the east- and west-bound traffic, they turned east. The D.A. pointed his cigar to the north side at another stretch of vacant lots.

"Public housing used to be there, before Ike."

"Senator Armstrong said he doesn't want to rebuild, wants the Island to be another Hamptons."

"Unlikely." The D.A. inhaled on the cigar then exhaled smoke out his window. "BOIs been longing for the glory days ever since the Great Storm, back in the late eighteen-hundreds when they built the Broadway Beauties"-he pointed out his window at the Victorian mansions that lined the north side of the boulevard-"Moody Mansion… Sealy Mansion… Ashton Villa… Bishop's Palace-a lawyer built that, then the church bought it. Those survived Ike better than most. This stretch of Broadway used to be real pretty when the oleanders bloomed."

Other mansions sat vacant and sad-looking, like homeless people sitting on the curb in downtown Dallas. But the south side of Broadway was worse, with boarded-up storefronts and overgrown lots and yellow condemnation notices tacked to abandoned houses.

"Seawall held off Ike's storm surge on the Gulf side," the D.A. said, "but the water went around the Island into the bay and flooded us from the north side-the low side of the Island. Reverse storm surge, they called it. Water came up six feet right here, flooded those homes and killed all our oak trees. Salt water."

He waved the cigar at the stumps in the esplanade.

"Had to cut down forty thousand dead trees, planted after the Great Storm. Without the trees, the Island looks like an old person with cancer."

The D.A. exhaled smoke out his window again.

"I love the Island. Hard to look at her like this."

They stopped at the 6th Street light on the East End of the Island. The beach lay directly in front of them. The sea breeze blew through the cab and took the cigar smoke with it.

"Those six thousand folks that died in the Great Storm, most were cremated right there on the beach. You'd never forget that sight, would you?"

They turned north on Sixth. A few blocks up, the D.A. pointed out his window at a complex of medical buildings.

"I was born right there. University of Texas Medical Branch. The med school and charity hospital for Galveston County. Survived Ike and the UT regents."

They drove past the harbor where a tall cruise ship was docked and entered the Galveston Yacht Club. The guard waved them through. The D.A. parked the pickup and cut the engine but didn't get out.

"Scott, if you're serious about calling Benito and Gabe, let me get Hank to serve your subpoenas, so you don't get yourself killed. Or someone else."

"Thanks. I've got a PI in Dallas, he'll serve the players and their wives at the tournament up there next week."

"Married women, teenage girls, porn, cocaine, gambling-that's not the Trey Rawlins I knew. He called me Mr. Truitt, like he was still in high school with my boy. Out at the club, he'd stop practicing and teach the kids. He was that kind of boy."

"The good Trey."

The D.A. nodded.

"But there was a bad Trey, too," Scott said.

"I guess he did have a dark side. You wonder if all this was hardwired from birth or was it because of his folks dying when he was just a kid? What makes a young man with all that going for him drive his life off a cliff?"

"Dr. Tim said he had an addictive personality."

"Dr. Tim? "

"His sports psychologist."

"He was seeing a shrink?"

Scott nodded. "Said he was addicted to sex."

"I'd like to try that for a while before I die. Course, it'd probably kill me."

They got out and walked to the marina entrance. The D.A. led Scott down a walkway fronting the covered slips where speedboats and sailboats and small fishing boats were docked. He stopped.

"This one's mine."

It was a twenty-foot fishing boat with a bolted-down chair in the rear and a canopy over the center portion.

"Looks new," Scott said.

"It is. Found my old one on Broadway, after Ike."

"You catch that sailfish in this boat?"

"Nope. I hooked that baby off the Bahamas. Two more years, all I'm doing is golfing and fishing."

"And taking Viagra."

The D.A. smiled. "And that."

"The old man and the sea… with an ED prescription."

"Hemingway might've been a happier man if he had had Viagra. I know I am."

"Well, I'll still be trying to make a living practicing law in Dallas, so think of me when you're… fishing."

The D.A. puffed on his cigar and said, "At the arraignment, your wife said you were broke. That true?"

"Yep."

"Hard for an honest lawyer to make a living these days."

"I have options."

"The federal bench?"

"Not likely. The senator owes some sort of debt to Judge Morgan."

The D.A. inhaled his cigar then exhaled and said, "His daughter's a cokehead. In and out of rehab… and jail. Shelby keeps it quiet. It's a small island, smaller since Ike. BOIs stick together."

"I understand that debt."

"Come on, I'll show you Trey's boat."

Scott followed him down the walkway. The farther they went, the bigger the boats became. Near the end of the walkway, the D.A. stopped in front of a FOR SALE sign on a large silver-and-black boat.

"Fifty-six-foot Riva, they call it a sport yacht. Full living quarters, galley, the works. A five-star hotel that floats. Heard Trey paid two million. Melvyn's got it for sale for half a million, be lucky to get that. Bad economy to be selling a luxury boat."

"It wasn't damaged by Ike?"

"Heard he took it down to Padre to ride out the storm. Come aboard."

Scott stepped onto the boat and followed the D.A. up a set of stairs.

"Flybridge," the D.A. said. "You can pilot this boat from up here or downstairs in air conditioning."

"What size crew do you need to operate this boat?"

"One."

"One person can drive this boat?"

"Pilot the boat." The D.A. gestured with his cigar. "Check out the galley."

They went down two flights of stairs into the living quarters filled with leather and wood. The bed was king-sized. The kitchen was stainless steel and sleek. The liquor cabinet was well-stocked.