Steven Gore - Power Blind

Between them now lay sourdough French rolls and paper take-out boxes of grilled vegetables, olives, mushrooms, and tuna salad. Both were sipping on sodas and watching students and staff flood from the buildings and separate into streams, some heading to the garages, some to the buses, some up or down the sidewalks to dorms or frat houses or the apartments surrounding the campus.

“How’s Porzolkiewski?” Faith asked.

“Off the deep end.”

“There’s a student group here that visits prisoners. You want me to give them his name? Maybe some outsiders would keep him in contact with reality.”

Gage shook his head. “I can’t take a chance he’ll start ranting about Brandon and TIMCO. Next thing you know one of them is running to the press, either because it would be a big story or because Porzolkiewski looks like the victim of a conspiracy. They’re good-hearted kids and too likely to believe everyone is innocent. And once they get a glimpse of that hangdog face of his, they’ll be marching on San Francisco City Hall. That’s the same reason I told him not to hire a lawyer. I didn’t want to lose control of the case.”

“What do you think?” Faith peered at him. “Is he innocent?”

“I don’t know. I can see him losing control and committing a manslaughter, but premeditated murder, I’m not sure.” Gage opened the grilled vegetables and handed Faith a plastic fork. “On the other hand, he was on a mission for years trying to prove TIMCO lied about the explosion and that Brandon was involved. He was damn methodical about that.”

“He had to have been furious when Brandon got appointed to the bench. It must have felt like a betrayal, like the devil being appointed God.” Faith smiled at Gage. “As I recall, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.”

“I don’t know what Landon was thinking when he put in his brother’s name. It was like opening the door to the henhouse and laying out a red carpet for the fox.”

“But I thought you said you can’t link any of the premium payments into Pegasus to any decisions he’s made in cases.”

“None of those companies really thought they were buying insurance. Charlie Palmer didn’t run an insurance company and the Pegasus money we’ve traced came back as payoffs to witnesses, not as payments on insurance claims.”

A car backfire rocked Bancroft Avenue as it bounced off the concrete facade of the building behind them. They both glanced over to see smoke envelop an early-seventies Suburban as it rolled to a stop.

When it cleared Gage noticed a familiar brown Taurus with a man in the passenger seat. Unlike everyone else on the street, he didn’t watch the spectacle. He kept staring down toward the bay. He was also too old to be a student and too tough to be staff or faculty.

Gage lowered his eyes. “Look away from the street.”

Faith reached for the vegetables and made a point of picking through them. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll try to find out.” Gage pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and called a number in its memory.

Viz answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”

“I’m in Berkeley with Faith, near her office. Boots Marnin just showed up across the street. When can you get here?”

“I’m at the Federal Building waiting for Brandon to come out. So about a half hour.”

“We’re by the fountain. Call me when you get close and we’ll figure out a plan.”

H ow long did he hang around our house after Faith and I got home?” Gage asked Viz in a late night call.

“Couple of minutes, then he followed the ridge and took Snake Road down to the freeway. I think he’s been to your house a few times, he drove those winding streets like a local.”

“And after that?”

“He was all over the place. I couldn’t tell whether he was doing countersurveillance or what. He hit about eight different restaurants and warehouses in San Francisco. Inside for fifteen or twenty minutes, then on to another one.”

“Did he make you?”

“Me?” Viz’s voice rose. “Make me?”

Gage laughed. “Sorry I asked.”

A message was waiting on Gage’s voice mail when his plane touched down in Denver on the way to Des Moines to meet Landon Meyer.

“Boss. I listened to the recording Viz made of Brandon Meyer outside of the Tadich Grill and then did what you said. It looks like money from Landon’s Silicon Valley group just showed up in the Ohio and Massachusetts senators’ campaigns. Each got a million-dollar loan from a San Jose bank called Mann Trust. Three members of the Silicon Valley group are on the board. I’ll e-mail you a list of all of the money I’ve traced.”

Gage stared out his window as the other passengers deplaned, still stunned by the cynical opportunism of Landon Meyer, whose campaign he’d saved from internal sabotage just two years earlier. Gage tasted the bitterness of Brandon’s snide comment about him believing in the purity of the process.

Since candidates couldn’t accept contributions directly from corporations, Landon had deposited the Silicon Valley Group money into Mann Trust, and then the bank used it to secure the loans to the candidates.

Nothing more or less than political money laundering.

T hanks for flying out,” Landon said. “It’s not exactly a short hop from San Francisco to Des Moines, but I didn’t want to talk on the telephone.”

Gage walked across the thin blue carpet in the Super 8 Motel toward the east-facing window with a view of Interstate 35. The afternoon sun gave an orange glow to the aluminum-sided semis grinding their way along the highway.

“I figured you for the Savery Hotel downtown,” Gage said. “Georgian Revival in the prairie.” He turned and scanned the child-sized desk, the winter scene print nailed to the wall, the stain-disguising green, blue, and yellow kaleidoscopic bedspread, and the television bolted to the dresser. He then took in a breath infused with an overdose of air freshener. “A tenth floor suite, not a second floor walkup.”

“This is Iowa. Folks here keep an eye on how you spend the money when you’ve got your hand out.” Landon spread his arms to encompass the room. “Sixty-three dollars a night, including breakfast.”

“Folks?”

Landon smiled.

“Of course. And I even eat at the Flying J Truck Stop.”

“Country fried steak and mashed potatoes?”

“What else?”

“Sounds like the Heartland Inn across the street would have been a better choice.”

“They were booked up. It’s the start of pumpkin season, and everybody in Washington, D.C., who has even the faintest hope of becoming president is out here kissing babies and thumping squash.”

“Just be careful you don’t do it backward.”

“Sometimes I’m so tired I can’t tell the difference.”

Gage glanced back toward the hallway. “Aren’t there supposed to be a bunch of underlings from Washington scurrying in and out of here?”

Landon shook his head. “I’ve got one guy next door, but otherwise I use local people. They’re not as efficient, but they help get the message across.”

“Which is?”

“That I was never a Washington insider who got cash from Jack Abramoff and from the K Street gang leaning on people.”

Gage resisted the urge to reveal what he had just learned from Alex Z. It wasn’t the right moment to talk about money.

“How many times have you flown solo on the Iowa circuit?” Gage asked.

“Altogether? Ten in the last two years. I’m a helluva lot more popular here than I am in California.”

“Especially after the Supreme Court nominations.”

“I better win the presidency.” Landon pointed west. “I don’t think the people of the Golden State are going to elect me again.”