The Program tr-2 Page 20

  "I've got a loudmouth Hollywood producer crawling up my ass, calling you a diva." Tannino's lips twitched, and he looked away until the incipient grin no longer threatened. "You've dipped into the honey pot pretty good already, driving Hummers, wearing Cavaricci pants." Tim sensed Tannino's shift from pissed-off manager to long-suffering Italian paterfamilias. He was about to cave.

  "Versace."

  "Whatever. You have Thomas and Freed bloodhounding finances. Now you want more undercover at a secret location. This was not intended to be a balls-to-the-wall operation."

  They stared at each other for a few moments, Tim letting the silence work on him. Finally Tannino snatched up the phone and dialed. He slid down the receiver and spoke over it. "Mention my niece again, I'll cut your eyes out." He snapped the phone back up. "Tannino for Winston Smith."

  The hard-nosed assistant U.S. attorney was a vital ally to the Service. In the federal system, AUSAs make the world go round.

  "I got a deputy going UC up on a ranch, scouting out a cult. I need to know if I can send him in with some transmitters… No, we don't have enough for a wiretap warrant." Tannino's dark brown eyes fixed on Tim. "We don't have anything… No charges brought." A sigh. "I know." He listened for a while, then said to Tim, "You were asked as a guest, correct?"

  Tim nodded.

  "What's that buy us?…Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Uh-huh. Thanks for nothing, Win." Tannino racked the phone. "Okay, here it is: Since you were invited up, you can bring sound and image, but you have to keep it on your person."

  "I can't wear a wire in. They could have me doing jumping jacks in the nude for all we know. Plus, these guys are too paranoid to do anything in front of me – a wire won't pick up what we need."

  "Anything more, some defense attorney's gonna drop-kick out of court." Off Tim's expression Tannino said, "No one's gonna spank you for doing some extracurricular snooping, but running over a red flag from the AUSA" – he shrugged – "that could sink a case. You know this."

  Tim's hands rose, clapped to his knees. "Looks like I'm going up naked."

  "Looks that way."

  Phone to his ear, Bear sat on Tim's desk, his feet in the bucket of the chair. The wood groaned as he jotted in the notepad pressed open on his knee. Holding engorged files, Thomas and Freed waited on him. All three turned as Tim approached.

  Across the squad room, Denley and Palton rose from their chairs to steal a peek at him, Denley's lips moving as he supplied side-of-mouth commentary.

  Tim Rackley, in-house novelty act.

  Bear set down the phone and gathered up a scattering of printouts. "We'd better get upstairs."

  Thomas and Freed didn't acknowledge Tim on the elevator ride up or as they passed through the bare offices vacated by the Secret Service. Thomas in particular gave off a smoldering resentment. Packing peanuts littered the floor like swollen confetti. Bear put a shoulder into the conference-room door to get it open, and they arranged themselves at one end of the oversize table.

  Bear laid out his notepad, a variety of printed docs, and a few sheets dark with scribbled writing. Across the table, Thomas and Freed exhibited an equally impressive array of paperwork. Stuck pressing flesh at a Head Feds dinner, Tannino had kept Tim waiting nearly an hour for their face-to-face. The deputies had spent the time well.

  "I appreciate your jumping on this for us," Tim said.

  "Let's get something straight right off the bat," Thomas said. "We'll work with you and we'll work well with you, but you can save your Boy Scout routine. Don't forget I pulled a fucking shotgun on you in an alley last March."

  Bear held up his hands placatingly. "It's okay -"

  "Not with me. I didn't like doing that. Not one bit. There was a moment where…" He stopped, his voice shaky, his jowly face flushed.

  Thomas's distress caught Tim by surprise, undercutting his anger.

  "We deal with enough shit on the job," Freed said in a more tempered voice. "You don't put a fellow deputy – let alone a friend – in a position where he might have to shoot you. It doesn't make for dreamless nights."

  "You're right," Tim said as evenly as he could.

  But Thomas wasn't done. "You don't think we all want to kick a little ass on the side sometimes? What you did, you embarrassed the Service. I was embarrassed to know you. I was embarrassed to have been your friend."

  "His fucking daughter got killed." Bear was on his feet, hands spread on the table. More intimately involved in Tim's trespasses, he'd already had the benefit of dealing with his anger and coming out the other side. He was no good at holding a grudge, and his loyalty, once renewed, had played revisionist historian with his own heated outlook during last year's tribulations. "He went through the wringer already, you smug fuck – court, media, jail. What gives you the right -"

  "Bear. It's okay." Tim kept his eyes on Thomas. "I get it."

  Thomas finally glanced away.

  "Where should we start?" Tim said.

  As Thomas continued to weather Bear's glare, Freed tapped his fingertips on the file before him. "As you likely surmised, Terrance Donald Betters is the principal of TDB Corp."

  Bear slid a rap sheet from one of the stacks. "Born 'No Name Summers' to a teenage prostitute. Date of birth is different every time it pops up. We know he got hitched in '95. He deserted his wife, changed his name, and remarried. He would've gotten dinged for bigamy, but the first wife filed on grounds of desertion, inadvertently letting him off the hook. Divorced the second wife after five months. He has a certificate in biofeedback from a mail-order house, but he goes by 'Doctor' and tells people he's a Ph. D. His first cult, called 'Uroboris,' was composed of clients he stole from a psychologist he assisted in Oregon while using the name Fred Wick. The psychologist disappeared a few months after Betters started working there. Betters was never brought up on murder charges, but he got kicked out of the state for fraudulent activity. He came to California and started up a series of human-potential cults, each incarnation growing in size."

  Freed's thin lips grew even thinner. "Ernie Tramine's substantial bank account was bilked – the money wired through a Cayman clearing account that was subsequently closed. Nothing concrete to link him to Betters. Nothing new on Reggie Rondell, but from what we've seen, his story checks out."

  "You were right about the apartment where you had your first cult meet," Thomas said. "It's vacant. When I pressed the manager, he admitted that some college girl offered him a couple hundred to rent the pad for the day. She matches your description of Lorraine. I took a peek through the place – nothing. After the sign-up-fest, they cleared out."

  Tim scanned over the numerous charges. Theft by trickery, 3-14-96 – arrest only, DA reject. Embezzlement, 1-17-99 – acquitted after jury trial. Unauthorized access to computer data, 9-21-01 – released, insufficient evidence. "Busy citizen."

  "Busy enough to have learned his way around the law by this point in the game," Freed said. "He's got no wants, no warrants. He pays his taxes. We can't pry in with any wage-and-hour laws since he pays his herd as dollar-a-year consultants, and the Department of Labor won't be bothered without a complainant. Betters picks extremely affluent people who sign their cash over to him – nothing illegal about that."

  "How about cooling – off – period laws?"

  "It seems they all thaw out quite happily. No one's ever come forward to protest."

  Tim tapped Bear's elbow with a pen. "Reggie could open a class action."

  "Yeah," Bear said, "I'm sure he'll get right on that."

  "Money trail?"

  Freed said, "I called my hook at the IRS and spent the better part of ten hours rifling through Betters's filings, got dick and more dick. The cash he protects in this elaborate offshore scheme, that we had a tough time untangling, but it looks to steer through all the right loopholes to stay legal. He conducts business through a network of dummy corporations and holding companies." Freed's clean-shaven face took on the taint of a scowl, a rare show of emotion. "He's unscrupulous as hell,
but for the life of us, we can't find a single thing he's doing that's illegal."

  "How about the shrink who disappeared? And Katanga, Will Henning's hired dick?"

  "I tracked down the detectives for both cases," Thomas said. "Nothing forensic, nothing circumstantial, nothing at all. He's the king of Teflon this guy. Nothing sticks."

  "What's he worth?"

  "Upward of seventy million dollars," Freed said.

  Bear let out a whistle.

  "In 2000 he was living in a Silver Lake residence, long since sold. He's an Internet and P.O.-box junkie – your typical privacy freak. Different accounts under different names, the whole nine yards."

  "How about the corporation?"

  "It's been active. This year alone it bought land in…" Freed licked his thumb, turning back several stapled papers. "Here we go. Houston, Scottsdale, Spokane, Sylmar – right here in the North Valley, Fort Lauderdale, and Cambridge, Mass."

  Bear shot Tim a knowing glance. Sylmar was a short drive from both Leah's former Van Nuys apartment and the San Fernando P.O. box.

  "He's in escrow in Kushiro, Japan; Christchurch, New Zealand; and a village outside Hamburg. Seems to me your boy's looking to build an empire."

  The thought brought a tingle across Tim's neck. "What kind of land?"

  "Remote rural facilities. Former communes. Campgrounds. Retreats. Bankrupt rehabs. The place in Spokane's just fallow wheat fields."

  "Tell me about Sylmar. Looks like that's where I'm headed."

  "It's way up on the north peak of the Valley bordering Santa Clarita, smack in the middle of federal land – the Angeles National Forest. Colorful history to the place. Some Hollywood director built a ranch way back when, let it go to pot."

  "Hollywood players and cult leaders, I'm learning, share a particular approach to the world. Doesn't surprise me they also share taste in real estate."

  "For decades it was a home for fucked-up juveniles, but it went on the block about a year back. TDB Corp snapped it up. The Department of Defense got caught with their pants down – turns out they'd earmarked the area for a chemical-weapons incinerator facility. Talks were had, Betters wasn't selling. DOD sicced the IRS on him, got nowhere – not surprising."

  Freed looked at his partner expectantly, and Thomas flipped through his notes, finger tracing down the sheets until it tapped twice. "June sixth last year, they sent in the FBI on some unsubstantiated fraud charges. They hit dead ends all around. To top it off, they got a bit aggressive. Things got ugly for a minute and a half. The ACLU cried religious freedom, though Betters's outfit insists it's not a religion. Betters, turns out, isn't afraid to get litigious. Next thing you know, the Feebs are facing a boatload of injunctions and criminal-action suits."

  "Why didn't we hear about this?"

  "It quieted down in a hurry. Betters hates press, and I'd guess the DOD wasn't eager for word to spread they were planning to put millions of rounds of decaying chemical weapons upwind of taxpayers."

  Tim tugged on the collar of his shirt. "Christ."

  "Special agent I talked to said Betters worked them like a Tijuana donkey."

  "Impressive candor for the Feebs."

  "He was a former Ranger."

  "That explains it."

  "Law enforcement won't go near the place now. It's a weird, scary group with an in-house staff of brainwashed lawyers. I think the cops and the agents figure, let sunning snakes lie. No one wants a civil suit up their ass."

  Freed brought his hands to rest on the table. "Everything Betters does is just one inch legal."

  "No layups," Tim mused.

  "Not a one," Thomas said. "You want him, you're gonna have to go out and sniff the trail." He looked away sharply, disrupting the brief rapport they'd developed, and started shoving papers back into the files.

  "Have you briefed the marshal on this?" Tim asked. "The stuff with the Feebs?"

  Freed shook his head. "Your case, we'll let you spin it."

  "He's gonna want no piece," Thomas said. "It's a hornet's nest."

  Freed gave Tim a little nod before leaving, but Thomas ignored him. Bear and Tim sat for a while with their thoughts, crunching stray Styrofoam peanuts under their shoes.

  Finally Tim said, "You send in the food samples?"

  "Sheriff's crime lab."

  "Aaronson still over there?"

  Bear nodded. "Said he'd swing a twenty-four-hour turnaround. We get a good bounce, maybe you don't have to go undercover."

  "What did you get on Skate Daniels?"

  "Nothing. Name didn't put out."

  "You try the moniker database? Odds are Mrs. Daniels didn't name her boy 'Skate.' "

  "Right. No, I didn't." Bear held up his fists and squeezed – his big-shot way of cracking his knuckles. "Given all the pitfalls around Betters, how do we convince the old man to let you press forward?"

  "I've already burned eight lives with him, so you'll have to suit up. Present it to him like an opportunity. Be excited – you're selling him on what great news this is. If we find the right leverage point and lean, there'll be a windfall of charges. Betters is Al Capone, and we're looking for income-tax evasion. Once we nail him, Tannino gets to scratch some back for the Department of Defense, get them that parcel of land, maybe even throw table meat to his buddies in the private sector. He goes into the next Puzzle Palace budget meeting wearing a red cape. Plus, it's his big chance to show up the Feebs, and we both know the thought of that makes his engine turn over cold mornings."

  Bear tugged at his cheeks. "I don't know how you come up with this shit."

  An image of himself at five years of age, working a mortuary parking lot in a snap-on leg cast, clutching to his chest a donation bucket his father had salted with a few creased twenties. Tim emerged from his thoughts to find Bear staring at him expectantly. "What?"

  "I said the mutt sure as hell runs an airtight operation."

  Tim curled his index finger into his thumb and held up his hand. Closing one eye, he sighted on Bear through the tiny O. "This big. We just need an opening this big."

  Bear gathered his papers and rose. "What if he didn't leave one?"

  Tim grabbed a sandwich and holed up in the Cell Block comm center. The mood was grave. One of the on-shift detention enforcement officers sported a fresh shiner. Tim didn't ask.

  He called Dray's cell and caught her on patrol with Mac. The foul yellowtail had finally finished paddling through her system; she spoke around mouthfuls of chili fries. The doctor had told her to take the day off and eat bland foods, directives that stood a stray dog's chance in Nam Dinh. She told Tim that the Asshole Car was cramping her Blazer in the garage, her implicit way of apologizing for her reaction to his ill-advised adjective last night. He informed her that a Hummer alone could accommodate his unwillowy build.

  Logging a call to the sheriff's department, Tim asked the resource analyst to run Skate Daniels through the moniker database. For approximate age he guessed thirty-five, and he told the analyst to focus on L.A. County. Within ten minutes the identifiers and photo of the sole candidate checked into Tim's e-mail box. Skate's beauty-pageant features scowled out from the jpeg. Though in the mug shot he had a bit more tread on the tires, he looked dirtier and somehow unwound. Something, maybe The Program, had reined him in, given him focus. Tim played digit shuffle next, running Skate's SID, FBI, and Social Security numbers through an obstacle course of databases. As he clicked down the screen, his eyes locked on an entry, and he was hit with the minirush he got when a lead panned.

  2-23-03. Daniels stopped for speeding violation at 6th and Hill in a red Mustang, license 9CYT683, passenger Randall Kane.

  A few more keyboard gymnastics snared him Randall's identifiers, and, using county booking to round out both his and Skate's criminal histories, Tim printed and perused. His exhaustion made for blurry reading.

  Both men proved to be habitual violent offenders who'd acquainted themselves with the edge of the penal system but never taken a big fall. Between the
m they'd caught some charges, everything from armed robbery to gross-misdemeanor sexual conduct to felony false imprisonment. They'd rolled through a few trials, copped a handful of pleas, and served a number of short stints. Seasoned in lawlessness but currently off parole, they were ideal knockdown men for Betters. Like the rest of his operation, they provided no legal pretext for further investigation.

  A bang snapped Tim's head up from the monitor. Two feet from him, a felon howled, his mouth, cheek, and weak goatee smeared up against the bulletproof glass like a wet stain. Guerrera, forearm thick with tensed muscle, yanked the hefty prisoner back and threw him down the corridor, where three detention-enforcement officers subdued him handily.

  Guerrera wiped a thin trickle of blood from his nose. "Try that shit with me again, hijo de puta, I'll use your nutsack for a speed bag." He stomped out of the cell block, muttering in Spanish.

  Tim tied up a few loose ends online, then called Glen Bederman, apologizing for bothering him at home.

  "How did you get this number? It's unlisted." A brief pause. "Okay, foolish question. What can I do for you?"

  "Does the name Terrance Betters mean anything to you?"

  "No. Why?"

  Tim told him. Halfway through his account, he heard the creak of a chair absorbing Bederman's weight. When he finished, Bederman made a strangled little sound of disbelief. "I can't say I've ever heard of someone as ill prepared as you coming unmarked out of a twenty-four-hour induction session." He released a sigh. "Relieved as I am that you didn't throw the poor girl into a sack, I have to tell you – that was a reckless thing you did, going there."

  "I'm about to do something worse. Monday I'm going undercover for a three-day retreat. I'd really like to see you before. Can I?"

  "At this point I'd meet with you just out of curiosity. I have some appointments at my house tomorrow morning, but how about ten?" His tone took on an ironic edge. "I trust you'll be able to locate it on your own."

  Tim thanked him and hung up, folding the papers into his pocket as he passed out through the security doors. Guerrera squatted in the hall, arms between his bowed legs, catching his breath. He gripped one hand with the other, turning it slightly. He looked up and shot Tim a wink. "Hey, Rack."