Steven Gore - Power Blind

“Four.”

“Four?”

“One is in Bermuda. That’s where the insurance company finally ended up. They figured out it was better if the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was really doing, or at least how they were doing it.” Norbett smiled. “The bank account was here, but the company was there.”

“Let me guess. Cayman Exchange Bank.”

Norbett spread his hands. “Who else does Quinton use?”

They fell silent as the waitress delivered their salads and walked away.

Norbett stabbed at a piece of spinach and then locked his eyes on Gage’s.

“How about we cut to the proverbial chase?”

Gage nodded. “What’s your hourly rate?”

“For accounting?”

“For what we’ll call research.”

Norbett drummed the table with the fingers of his left hand. “I would say… maybe… ten thousand as a retainer and two hundred an hour.”

“I take it the retainer would be nonrefundable.”

“Call it catastrophic medical insurance. Because if anybody finds out…”

" I’m picking up drumbeats from all over,” Brandon Meyer told Gage in his chambers in the San Francisco Federal Building the next day.

Gage had responded to Meyer’s voice mail demanding he call back by dropping by an hour and a half after his flight from the Caymans landed at SFO.

“Good ears.”

“I haven’t had a thing to do with Pegasus since I left my law firm, and the worst anyone can say is that what we did was in a gray area of tax law.” Brandon pounded his desk with his knuckle. “The IRS never even published a notice prohibiting the practice until two years after I was appointed to the bench.”

“That’s not the question the drums were asking,” Gage said, from where he stood near the window overlooking the city and the Pacific Ocean beyond. “The question is whether you had anything to do with the payoffs to Wilbert Hawkins and Ray Karopian in TIMCO.”

“And I assume the next accusation is I had something to do with the deaths of those two and recruited John Porzolkiewski to poison them.” Brandon smirked. “That verges on the ludicrous.”

“I’m not making that accusation. But I’m also not sure Porzolkiewski did it.”

“There was enough probable cause to arrest him. Despite your rather jaundiced view of how some judges do their work, none of us would sign a search warrant unless the probable cause was convincing.”

“Aren’t you worried about how convincing the evidence might be? And who might be implicated?”

Brandon’s face twisted with anger. “There’ll be hell to pay if my name is in it.”

“Your name isn’t. Anston’s is.”

Brandon rocked himself out of his chair and walked over to the bar. He poured two fingers of bourbon into a highball glass. He didn’t offer any to Gage. He took a sip as he turned back.

“You don’t have a clue about the relationship between Anston and Palmer, do you?” Brandon asked.

“I know exactly what their relationship was.”

“I don’t think so. You think there was ever a time in the twenty-some years they worked together that Marc Anston called up Charlie and said, ‘Get rid of the witnesses.’ It’s the same on both sides. You think any DEA agent has to skirt the law by telling a snitch to go search somebody’s house and check if the drugs are there before the agent bothers to get a warrant? The snitch knows what to do.”

“It’s not the law that’s rough, it’s how some people practice it.”

Brandon turned away and walked toward his desk.

“I don’t know why we’re talking about this,” Brandon said. “You can’t prove what Anston does has anything to do with me.”

“We’ll see.” Gage rose to his feet. “Did you get your wallet back from SFPD?”

“Yes.”

“Everything there?”

Brandon’s face colored as he slid onto his chair.

“I believe so.”

“Including the-”

“I said everything was there.”

Gage persisted. “Including the Cayman Citibank credit card?”

“Yes, including the credit card.”

“How do you pay the charges?”

“I don’t believe it’s any of your business.”

“You’re right, it’s not my business, except to the extent it’s paid for by money you and Anston received offshore for making TIMCO and other cases disappear.”

“It doesn’t make any difference where the firm received legal fees as long as it paid taxes on the income. And as far I know that was always done.”

“I’m not sure anyone would call the money you got from TIMCO a legal fee.”

“That’s neither here nor there since I’ve received no compensation, directly, indirectly, or deferred since I left the firm.”

“The money had to come from somewhere.”

“Don’t play naive. There are few things judges may do to earn money beyond their salaries. Books, lectures, and investments. And I don’t write books and I don’t give lectures.”

“Then why make the investments offshore?”

“Tax planning, man. What else?”

“There are lots of other possibilities.”

Brandon held up a palm toward Gage. His face went dark.

“Don’t even go there. I challenge you to find one instance where I profited from a decision in a case.”

“Thinking back over the records, there seem to be lots of payments to Pegasus from companies appearing in your court.” Gage waited a beat. Brandon’s expression remained fixed. “Aren’t you supposed to look offended now?”

Brandon waved away the accusation.

“The suggestion is too ludicrous. While I have no direct knowledge, I suspect you’ll find they were clients of Anston. Remember, he’s not a trial lawyer. He’s hired to advise on corporate issues. It was between him and his clients if he suggested offshore insurance is a wise investment. Countless U.S. corporations are engaged in self-insurance and he happens to be an expert in the field.”

“And your investment portfolio doesn’t include any of those corporations?”

“Yes, it does. But you’ll find I recused myself in each case involving those corporations. Check the dockets.”

“Look, there’s a reason why all these companies hire Anston to play trial lawyer, especially on cases in your court. They figure they’ll get something for their money.”

“That’s a crock. He files motions, the other side responds, then I decide them on the merits. The Ninth Circuit has never reversed me. Never. I make every decision with twenty-eight appeals court judges peering over my shoulder. I don’t control the entire game.”

Brandon rose again, then put his shoulders back and glared at Gage.

“I’m starting to lose patience with this little exercise,” Brandon said. “I have no need to explain my finances to you.” He pointed at Gage. “And I’m warning you. Make any of your accusations public and I’ll bury you. Anston will be more than happy to disclose whatever Pegasus bank records are required to show I didn’t receive a dime since I left the firm.”

Gage let the threat slide by.

“So Pegasus is Anston’s company?”

“Does it make a difference who owns it? I don’t know whether it was Anston’s or Charlie’s or somebody else’s. I never inquired.” Brandon paused and a half-smile came to his face. “Let’s just say Charlie and I had sort of an investment club. In exchange for his managing the fund, I let him piggyback off my investments.”

“Socorro doesn’t seem to have any record, not even a clue, what were the investments that funded her annuity and the life insurance policies for her kids.”

“That’s not my problem. Charlie apparently chose not to include her in on his financial decisions any more than I include my wife in mine.”