Undue Influence by Steve Martini Read Free Book Online

says, big round eyes looking at me. She seems relieved by the thought that the Merlows and Vegas were strangers, as if perhaps violence is something contagious, and that with distance comes immunity like a vaccine. “I think we should be getting home.” George is looking at his wife like maybe all of this has been too much for her. He looks at Colby, then whispers something in her ear. She nods, but no smile. I suspect he’s making amends to get his wife out of here. “Come on, let’s go,” he says. He tugs Kathy Merlow toward the street.
    “Nice to meet you,” he tells me. “Wish it coulda been under better circumstances,” he says. They wander off toward the street. “Nice couple,” says Colby.
    “Yeah.” I watch them as they go, across the cul-de-sac and up the driveway to their house. “But they must be recluses,” I say.
    “Why’s that?”
    “They don’t know the Vegas but they live next door.”
    She looks at me, a puzzled expression. “You’re right,” she says.
    Suddenly my attention is drawn to the “south lawn,” to the portico that is Jack’s fantasy of helicopters and grand trips of state. There’s action on the front porch I see Vega and another man come out. lack’s scanning the crowd in front of the house. Even from this distance his image is one of death warmed. His face haggard, there are bags the size of blimps under his eyes. But my focus is riveted on the guy behind him.
    My blood runs cold at the sight of Jimmy Lama, the cop from hell. Lama and I go back a ways, to a time years ago when I had him drawn and quartered on charges of excessive force in the arrest of one of my clients. More recently we tangled in the trial of Talia Potter, when Lama, in violation of a court-issued gag order, leaked damaging information to the press, seeming to link me to the murder of Talia’s husband, Ben Potter, the senior partner of my old law firm. Talia and I had been an item. To my discredit we’d had a brief affair during a period when I was separated from Nikki. But Lama’s efforts to draw me into Ben’s murder came to naught when Talia was acquitted of her husband’s murder, and the riddle of who did it and why was solved. On Lama’s scorecard I am still ahead. Jimmy was disciplined for violating the court’s order, a suspension without pay, and a demotion. Vega’s searching the crowd, looking, shading his eyes against the glare of the lights, police vehicles in his driveway, some with their light bars gyrating with synchronous color. Then suddenly Vega points with an outstretched arm, finger like a cocked pistol, Jimmy Lama at his shoulder taking a bead dead center on me. “Counselor. Fancy seeing you,” he says. “And I thought life was too short.” The smile on Jimmy Lama’s face is nothing less than sinister. Lama’s most dominant feature is his blockhouse build. Lama is square, from the angle of his jaw to what is left of the hair on his head, leveled by shears to a flattop. The haircut is a holdover from his days in the military. I am told he once did M.P. duty in an embassy behind the iron curtain. I have often wondered for which side. Lama and I have a long and untoward history, a level of enmity that rivals things between Arabs and Israelis. Our respective bunkers have been the courthouse and the cop shops of this town. Lama stands about five-nine, though his moral stature is somewhat more dwarfed. He is ambitious to a fault, and corrupted in the way many aspiring people are, not by money so much as by the pursuit of upward mobility. His career has been stunted to a degree by our last outing. He has spent the last three years getting back to level ground following the disciplinary action for which he blames me. Tonight I wear this like a badge of honor. The young cop, the uniform who hauled me off the street, introduces me like I don’t know Lama. “So it’s lieutenant again,” I say. “That explains the noise,” I tell him, “that old familiar