Steven Gore - Power Blind

“Could be that he was getting a little lax since he was near the end of the career, then got shot and trapped inside his body.”

Gage scanned the spreadsheet displayed on the monitor.

“Why would Charlie encrypt this and code it too?” Gage asked. “One or the other should’ve been enough.” He reached for the mouse, clicked twice, opening the hidden document properties, including the author and the company that created it.

“He didn’t put this spreadsheet together,” Alex Z said, taping the author field on the screen. “Who is CEB?”

“Or what is CEB? It’s also listed as the company.”

“I wonder whether CEB sent it over coded, then Charlie encrypted it for extra security.”

“Maybe,” Gage said. “How many encrypted files are left?”

“About thirty. Plus two encrypted folders. I have no idea how many files are in those. I haven’t been able to decrypt his password file yet.”

“Print out whatever you can and have Tansy put them in my safe.” Gage settled back in his chair and stared at the screen. “This is all very interesting, but-”

“But it may have nothing to do with why Charlie was shot.”

“Exactly. Charlie had a lot to hide. We could uncover a dozen different schemes, but still never find out which was the one that ended with the bullet that cut him in half.”

"You Toby?” Gage asked the twenty-five-year-old steaming milk behind the granite counter at Ground Up Coffee Shop.

“That’s me,” Toby answered, looking up at Gage. “Is this about the car accident? I talked to the adjuster yesterday.”

Gage shook his head. “A customer.” He pointed toward the front window. “And about something that happened down the street.”

“Sure. I got a break in ten. You want something to drink?”

“Decaf.”

“Cappuccino? Espresso? Mocha Macchiato?”

“Just a decaf coffee.”

Toby grinned. “You must be from out of town.”

“Thirty years ago.”

Toby waved off Gage’s money and said he’d bring the coffee to his table.

Gage grabbed a New York Times strung on a three-foot wooden dowel from a wall mount, then took the rear table in the narrow cafe. A few minutes later, Toby delivered the coffee and sat down.

“So what’s up, Decaf?”

Gage pulled a photo of Charlie Palmer from his suit pocket.

“You remember a cop coming in here a few months ago asking about this guy?”

Toby took the photo. “Sure. Different picture, but I think it’s the same guy. Got shot or something, right?”

“Yeah.”

Toby set it down. “He doing okay?”

“He didn’t make it.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Toby paused and shook his head, then pointed at Gage’s coffee. “You want sugar or something?”

“No thanks.”

Gage took a confirmatory sip.

“What’s your part in this?” Toby asked.

“I’m a private investigator.”

Gage handed him a business card.

“Graham Gage,” Toby said, reading it line by line. “I heard of you. This guy’s family must have big, big bucks.”

“Not so big.”

“I didn’t mean that. I’m happy to help out. No charge.”

Toby inspected Gage’s face. “How come you don’t look like a PI?”

“How is one supposed to look?”

“You know, grizzled. And not so tall. You look like a guy who thinks for a living, not somebody who mixes it up in back alleys.”

“Mixes it up with whom?”

Toby shrugged. “The bad guys, I guess.”

Gage smiled. “I’ll go look for some after we’re done and let you know how it turns out.”

Toby picked up the photo again. “I think this is the same guy who was in here, but I’m not sure.” He rocked his head side to side. “Maybe I’m just remembering the other photo.”

“Assuming it was him, was he alone?”

“Assuming it was him, no. I was thinking about it a while back. I have a really vague recollection Mr. Comb-Over was with him. A white guy, early sixties, gray hair-what there was of it.”

“Has he been here more than once?”

“Yeah. You don’t forget a hair felony like that.” Toby rested his palm on top of his head, then waved his fingers. “The kind that flaps in the wind.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Last week. That’s what got me thinking. I’m off Tuesday and Wednesday, so it must’ve been Thursday or Friday… I think Friday.”

“Driving or walking?”

Toby turned and squinted toward the front window. “Driving. He needed change for the meter. An early eighties Toyota Corona.”

“You know your Toyotas. They haven’t imported that model for over two decades.”

“My dad owned one for like twenty years. I’ll never forget it.” Toby grinned. “It was the first place I got laid. Except Dad’s was white. Comb-Over’s was brown.”

“Anything distinctive?”

“Just what you’d expect with a car that old. Faded.” Toby closed his eyes. “No hubcaps.” He opened them again. “At least on the passenger side.”

“What about the plate? Regular or personalized?”

“Don’t know.” Toby pointed at a parking space directly in front of the store window. “He had that spot. All I could see was the side of the car.”

“Can you get it for me if he comes by?”

“I’ll call you right when he walks in the door. But…” Apprehension clouded Toby’s face. “But he’s not the shooter is he? I don’t want-”

“No, he’s just the beginning of the trail.”

Toby held up Gage’s business card. “You want me to tell him to call you if he comes in?”

Gage shook his head. “I think I’d rather he doesn’t know I’m working on this. It’ll give me a chance to deal with him fresh.”

Landon Meyer found himself pacing as he read over the updated FBI background reports on his nominees, Starsky and Hutch. They both had told the truth when he’d grilled them in August. They’d remained as clean as they were at the time of their appeals court confirmation hearings less than a year earlier. And both had done as they were instructed. Neither had made any public statements except from the bench. Each had avoided sarcasm and hyperbole in their usually dissenting opinions. Landon had read each one himself before they were filed to make sure. No verb stronger than “disagree,” no adverb more rabid than “respectfully,” no adjective more extreme than “learned,” and no noun more pejorative than “colleague.”

Landon recalled fuming all through the Ardino confirmation. Not only had Ardino left fifty typhoonlike speeches in his wake, but his fifteen years of opinions had blown the door open to the Democrats’ exploration of nearly every major constitutional issue facing the Court: presidential power, the death penalty, torture, the role of international law, and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. It also hurt that Ardino’s forced and ominous smile engendered queasiness even among his supporters. The good news was he knew how to play the political game that was at the heart of confirmation hearings. The bad news was he appeared to be playing. His weeping wife fleeing the hearing room even seemed to Landon to be a stunt.

Not this time. Not with Landon as Judiciary Committee chairman.

Starsky and Hutch were going to play it straight and their wives were going sit behind them as poised and gracious as Laura Bush. If they didn’t, they’d be doing a whole lot of crying for real, in private, in his office.

Landon walked to his desk and picked up the telephone. Committee staff lawyer Norvil Whithers answered on the first ring and arrived a few minutes later. He brought with him the list of lawyers appointed by the White House to Starsky and Hutch’s murder boards. These teams of experts would question and requestion the nominees on every subject of potential interest to the senators on the committee until they had perfected sufficiently vague and mind-numbing answers that would cause the opposition to surrender, wearied of combat and defeated by obfuscation.