J. Jance - Web of Evil

The old Roseanne wouldn't have ventured out of the house without a complete assortment of high-end jewelry adorning her fingers, neck, and ears and a layer of full-armor-of-God makeup on her face. This new Roseanne wore no jewelry whatsoever, and her makeup consisted of a little lipstick and nothing else. Roseanne had stopped smoking years earlier. Without the ongoing attention of her cosmetic surgeon and artfully applied Botox, the telltale lines had reasserted themselves. In less than a year she had aged a good decade's worth.

Roseanne grabbed Ali's arm and hugged her close. "I know. I know," she whispered. "I look like hell. You don't have to tell me. Come on," she added. "I came early. I already have a table."

Ali allowed herself to be led through the crowded restaurant to a secluded table in the far back of the room.

"Nobody followed you, did they?" Roseanne asked nervously.

Taking her phone out of her pocket and turning the ringer to "silent," Ali shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I checked."

"I hope you don't mind meeting me here. Carrie, the hostess, is a friend of mine. I met her in NA. I needed a place to stay, and she happened to have a spare bedroom in her house. So that's where I'm staying at the moment. And because I can't risk driving my own car right now, she gave me a lift when she came to work."

"NA?" Ali asked.

"Narcotics Anonymous," Roseanne returned. "I'm trying to get straight, if I can live long enough, that is." She patted her badly cut hair. "Good disguise, don't you think?"

"Very," Ali agreed. "Now what's going on?"

For an answer, Roseanne opened her purse and pushed a ziplock bag across the table. Ali picked it up and studied it. A collection of jewels and golddiamond-studded rings, necklaces, earrings, and braceletswinked back at her through the clear plastic.

"What's this?" Ali asked, handing the bag back across the table.

"My jewelry," Roseanne said. "I need to sell itall of it. If I go to a pawnshop, I'll only get a fraction of what they're worth. Besides, I'm sure word of it would get back to Jake. Please buy them from me, Ali. I know you've got the money to do it, and it's my only chance to get away. Just give it to me in cash, and then I'll disappear. No one will ever find me. If they do, I'm dead anyway."

"Get away?" Ali asked. "From whom?"

"The people who ruined our lives," Roseanne replied, lowering her voice to a strained whisper. "The people who killed Paul."

"What people?" Ali demanded. "The drug dealers?"

"You know about them then?" Roseanne asked with a stricken look on her face.

Ali nodded. "A little," she said. "But not enough. You probably know way more. You should go to the cops and tell them what you know."

"I can't," Roseanne said in a hoarse whisper.

"Why not?"

"Because some of the cops are in on it. I've seen them."

Ali's first reaction was one of total disbelief. Obviously Roseanne was suffering some kind of paranoid delusion. If she was involved in drugs enough that she had turned to NA for help, maybe that wasn't too surprising.

"Look," Ali said placatingly. "I'm sure you have some reason to think so, but"

"I'm afraid somebody tapped my phone," Roseanne said. "My old phone. I'm sure they were listening in on everything I said. Who else would have done that but the cops? That's why I got this new onea disposable. They're much harder to trace than the other ones are."

Ali restrained herself from making a wry comment about conspiracy theories and people wearing tinfoil hats. Roseanne Maxwell was absolutely serious. Painfully so.

"It takes a lot of effort to tap telephones," Ali pointed out. "Cops can't do it just for the hell of it. They'd need judges, warrants, and everything."

"They already have those," Roseanne said.

"Who's doing this then?" Ali asked. "And why?"

At that precise moment, Ali's phone vibrated silently in her pocket. With Roseanne already off the charts about people tapping telephones, Ali thought it best to ignore the call.

Roseanne sighed. "You know about the Pink Swan?"

"Some," Ali replied. "I know there's a lot more happening there than meets the eye."

Roseanne nodded. "When we first started going there, it seemed like it was all fun all the time. Jake always liked to gamble. It was a place where I could go along and do my thing while he was doing his. But eventually he got in over his head, and it got worse after the network cut him loosea lot worse."

Ali managed to keep a straight face when Roseanne used the term "cut loose." It turned out there was a lot of that going around.

"That's how those people work," Roseanne continued. "They suck you in a little at a time. Like I said, at first it was just Jake's gambling and a few recreational drugs for me. It felt like a nice place, a safe place, because we had no idea what else was going on. By the time we figured out the rest of it, we were in way too deep. Jake said we either did what they said or else."

"So you moved from using drugs to transporting them?" Ali asked.

Roseanne looked at her sharply, then she nodded. "Yes," she admitted. "That's where Sumo Sudoku came in. It gave them a whole collection of RVs that they can use to run up and down the West Coast. That way, their loads come and go in plain sight with no questions asked. So far no one has ever suspected they're hauling anything but those damn rocks."

No one but Dave and me, Ali thought. "Paul was in on all of this?" she asked.

"No," Roseanne answered. "Even though April and Tracy McLaughlin were friends, Jake was the one who actually pitched the Sumo Sudoku idea to Paul. When it came time to put the deal together, Paul put up his money. I'm sure he thought we were putting up ours, too. But the money we used didn't really belong to us because we were broke by then, or we would have been."

"So the whole Sumo Sudoku thing is really nothing but a cover for moving drugs?" Ali asked.

"It's actually more than that," Roseanne admitted. "By involving Paul in the project, they ended up with what looks like a legitimate entity, and there was enough money in the deal for Jake that we were able to hang on to our house. They promised Jake even morelots moreif he could get Sumo Sudoku some network exposure and have it go national."

No wonder they needed Paul, Ali thought. "What about the players?" she asked.

"The guys who drive the RVs?" Roseanne returned. "They all have their own particular vices, and the Pink Swan is a one-stop shop when it comes to that kind of thing. Tracy McLaughlin doesn't do any drugs other than cigarettes and beer. His big thing is gambling. That's how they hooked him ingambling debts and forgiveness of same."

Ali realized this was more or less the same story Jake had told but with a few key differences.

"With so many illegal activities going on, how does the Pink Swan stay in business?" Ali asked.

"They pay off the right people," Roseanne responded. "I know for sure that several top dogs from LAPD are regulars at the gambling tables upstairs. I know them because I've seen them. The Pink Swan's management makes sure the club and its customers don't annoy the neighbors. The place is clean, it's quiet, and the club does a lot of strategic charitable giving. I hear they're big on putting playground equipment in local parks."

"What about the DEA?" Ali asked.

"What about them?" Roseanne asked with a shrug. "I don't know any people from the DEA personally, if that's what you mean, but they could be there. After all, if people from LAPD can be bought off, why couldn't people from the DEA? We're talking about astonishing amounts of money, Ali. Cops who play ball with them can make more money in a year than they'd make in a lifetime of pounding a beat somewhere."

A harried waitress veered in their direction, but Roseanne waved her away with a shake of her head while Ali thought about what Dave had said about the possibility of an ongoing undercover DEA investigation being conducted at the Pink Swan. Maybe there was something to what Roseanne was saying after all.