The Viper

Then there was the matter of the attack on Blackmore Mountain, the murder of Sonny Lerman, and the gruesome execution of Charlene Vesco. Was it conceivable that Ian Valdez masterminded all of that?

And if not Valdez, then who? Who was the spider who sat in the center of the web? Who was the ultimate controller—the one who had the power to tell the other players what to do—the one who knew why Lerman’s head and fingers had to be amputated, what Slade’s dark secret was, why Slade and Sonny and Charlene had to be killed?

Something at the beginning of that sequence of thoughts—the one who had the power to tell the other players what to do—reminded Gurney of something. At first, it was just a faint echo. Then he remembered where it came from.

He placed a call to Marcus Thorne.

The man answered immediately, sounding busy but curious.

“Surprised to hear from you again. Emma told me Slade’s death put an end to her exoneration quest.”

“Hers but not mine. There’s something from our meeting I wanted to ask you about.”

“Talk fast.”

“You told me a story about a gem courier who needed money to bail his son out of some difficulty, and he wanted to set up a heist.”

“Not just wanted to, he went ahead with it.”

“I remember you told me the story to make an interesting point about the importance of a jury’s emotional reaction to the defendant.”

“Exactly,” said Thorne, more warmly now.

The emotional basis of verdicts wasn’t the point Gurney cared about, but he knew Thorne did and that quoting him would make him more willing to talk.

“I was wondering,” said Gurney in the tone of an eager student, “could you tell me the story again?”

“I’m crushed for time, but . . . alright, short version. It was a major robbery-and-murder case. Prosecution had a seemingly airtight case. A precious gems courier is held up in a parking lot, gets robbed of an attaché case containing three million bucks’ worth of emeralds. He gets a punch in the face, and the lot attendant is shot dead. The heist team gets away with the emeralds. But then the courier ID’s the heist driver as a guy who’d been following him for a few days. He gives the cops a picture he says he took of the guy on the street. And he gives the cops a plate number for the getaway car. Plate number turns out to be for a car registered to a local scumbag involved in various nasty activities, the nicest of which was fencing high-end jewelry. The scumbag had no solid alibi, and the guy the courier ID’d as the driver turned out to be the scumbag’s right-hand man. The DA had a very persuasive case. At this point, I am the scumbag’s attorney. The DA offered us a reasonable plea deal, and—given the evidentiary lay of the land, the unsavoriness of my client, and the likelihood of a murder conviction for the dead parking lot attendant—I recommended that he accept it. He refused. He insisted he’d been set up by a business rival, guy by the name of Jimmy Peskin. He gave me a blank check to get to the truth. And I did.”

This was the part of the story that Thorne liked, and his pleasure in telling it enlivened his voice. “The real story began with the gem courier’s son. The kid had been hired by a top L.A. law firm. But—major but—he had problems with gambling, coke, and hookers. His gambling had gotten him into significant debt with a mob guy who was demanding immediate payment or pictures would appear on the internet that would end the kid’s career. The kid went to Dad. Dad, desperate to get his son out of trouble, approached a guy whose street rep suggested he might be open to . . . an arrangement. This guy was Jimmy Peskin, major business rival of my client. Dad proposed a jewel heist to Peskin with a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds—providing that Dad incriminate my client by giving the police a false ID of the driver, a false plate number and description of the getaway car, a bullshit story about the driver having followed him, et cetera. Bottom line? Our presentation at my guy’s trial incorporated enough of what we discovered about Peskin to create a textbook example of reasonable doubt. In fact, the court reporters found our case a hell of a lot more persuasive than the prosecutor’s. One reporter called it a steel-trap indictment of Jimmy Peskin. But, like I told you before, the jury found my guy guilty on all counts, including the murder of the attendant. Because the greatest defense in the world is worthless if the jury thinks your client is a scumbag.”

Gurney thought about it for a moment. “So, Peskin agreed to carry out the arranged heist and give the courier half the proceeds, on the condition that the courier tell the police a story that incriminated your client?”