Page 43 of The Wrong Side of the Law

“Okay. Following so far. I haven’t been able to go through everything from Banks, yet, but Emily’s been working on it. You said there was more there? Stuff that you didn’t send to Banks?”

“Yes. I told Dave about this stuff and gave him some cautions to go with it. Look, I’m not going to put this stuff down on paper, and if you’re smart, neither will you.”

“You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Lopez says, his voice grim. “I wanted to check you out, too, before talking to you.”

“And?” Curiosity overwhelms me. “What did your investigation into me reveal?”

“Let me put it this way,” he says. “You’re not going to win any popularity contests, but you’re good enough at your job that you can get away with it. But even the people who think you’re an asshole believe that you walk the straight and narrow. You’re not dirty.”

“Good to know my fame is spreading, I guess,” I say. I wonder who he talked to? I don’t really know a lot of people outside of this judicial district. “Or perhaps that’s infamy? I’m not sure.”

“Either way, you’re okay in my book.”

“So, what’s the big secret, then?” I ask. “What’ve you got on Ferry?”

“First, what’veyougot?”

“Cards on the table? All of them?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “That’s the idea, man.”

“I got nothin’,” I admit, with a shrug that Diego can’t see over the phone. “I mean, I’ve got suspicions, strong ones, but I’ve got absolutelynothingthat I can put in front of a judge.”

“I hear you, man. It can’t be a coincidence, right?” He laughs, but this time there’s a hard, humorless edge to it. “I mean, how many times can lightning strikethatclose to the guy before people start wondering?”

“Nah. We know the answer to that,” I tell him. “It’s at… about, I think thirty-four times now? Thirty-five? And we’re wondering.”

“It was a rhetorical question, man,” Lopez says, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But seriously. The guy’s got connections. Heavy-duty ones.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“Okay. Eight years ago, almost nine, now. I’m sitting there doing my job, right? I’ve got this roadie in lockup. Bail was denied—flight risk, means and resources, no local ties, severity of the charges—and he’s telling me that he didn’t do it.”

“Well, yeah,” I say. “Obviously. I mean, you know as well as I do there’s not a single guilty person in a jail cell.”

“Right,” Lopez says, “I know, but this guy was different. He wasn’t just denying everything. He had a plausible story. He wasn’t some incoherent burnout. And I looked in his eyes, man. First time I’ve ever looked in a guy’s eyes while he’s laying out a blanket denial and ever actually believed him. He says to me that the stuff not only wasn’t his, but that it was planted there.”

“Planted? He’s an unsuspecting mule?”

“No, no. Not like that,” Lopez says, and he’s so definite on the point that I can almost hear him shaking his head. “He wasn’t transporting the drugs. He wasn’t being used as a mule. They wereplantedon him, for the cops to find.”

“That’s a little harder to swallow,” I say. “But then I’m also reminded that Ferry has actually dropped the dime on one of his own people.”

“Yeah. That’s a tie-in, right there. This guy, he said that these drug arrests, they’re mostly for show. They’re real drugs, real arrests, real prison time, but they’re a show. It gets him in the news. Notoriety brings ticket and album sales.”

“No shit?” I turn that idea over in my head. “That does make a certain twisted sort of logic, I guess. A half-million investment in some cocaine, a few months invested in a roadie or a guitar player, and the payout is another ten million in free publicity.”

“Yeah. That was this guy’s story, at least,” Lopez says. “And I believed him.”

“What happened?”

“You know the old saying, right? ‘It’s notwhatyou know, it’swhoyou know’?”

“I do,” I answer. “So, who’s Ferry know?”

“Everyone,” Lopez says, his voice again cold and hard. “Let me finish the story. I’m on the trail here. Ibelievethis guy, Ibelievethat he’s getting framed up, and Ibelievethat he’s right about it just being part of a long chain of publicity stunts. And I’m starting to pull on that string, see where it goes to.”

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