Power Lawyer 3 Read online

  “Okay,” she murmured, “I’ll drop the probably. But I’m changing good to great. In all caps.”

  “But we’ve only just started,” I teased.

  “Is that so?” she asked primly, though the grin made it clear that she wasn’t averse to a little more night action.

  “As you pointed out, your mother will never know,” I replied.

  “I did say that,” she agreed. “Well, if that’s true, then I don’t need to play Sunday school girl either. I want to control this next one.”

  She rolled me onto my back and tapped my right knee.

  “Bend your leg,” she instructed.

  I bent my leg and she smiled again. Then she started stroking my shaft again, bringing me back to the full, upright position. When she was satisfied with what she felt, she lowered herself onto me so that I had a perfect view of her long, sinuous back and her sun-kissed hair as she started to move up and down.

  I grabbed her around the hips, helping her move up and down as she slid along my shaft. I heard her moan and one hand reached down and started to stroke the area just under my balls. The other arm latched onto my leg for support for a moment, and when she was secure in her position, she started to rub her vulva along my leg, creating a hot friction that sizzled through me, all the way to my brain.

  She was an expert rider, controlling the pace and the depth. She experimented with several angles until she found the one that drove her wild. She started to grind down onto me then, even harder. I could see the tension in her legs and feel it in her back.

  “So hard,” she panted, “so good. You feel so right.”

  She was sliding much faster and I felt myself arch up to meet her. She let go of my leg and pulled herself upright, as straight as a ruler. She stayed on me, riding me until her thighs started to quiver. I was nearly blind from the heat but still I drove into her.

  “Yesss!” she cried out as her body began to shake from the effort.

  I shifted into a sitting position, my arms wrapped around her waist while she groaned and writhed against me. We hit climax at the same moment, our bodies perfectly tuned to each other, our frenzy feeding each other. She clenched me hard inside her as I spurted another long stream, and then, ever so slowly, we started to relax.

  I fell back against the bed and she slowly lowered herself next to me. I looked into those beautiful blue eyes and rained kisses on her face. When I reached her lips, she pulled me in for a long, long exploratory kiss.

  “Stay,” she said quietly when we finally came up for air.

  “Are you sure?” I asked as I traced a finger slowly along her cheekbone.

  “I have a few more positions we could test,” she replied.

  “I’m always happy to test a few more positions,” I mused.

  “Then maybe it’s time we tested your stamina,” she said with a grin.

  We tested a lot of positions that night, and we stayed in sync through each one. I lost count of how many times we climaxed, but the sky was already shifting towards grey when we finally collapsed onto the bed for the last time.

  Chapter 6

  Yet another morning when I arrived late to the office. I’d sprinted out of Perrin’s place after a very quick shower and drove back to my apartment for a change of clothes. The stitches had survived my nocturnal adventures, though I had to remind myself that I was supposed to be taking it easy with the arm. I grabbed a bagel with a schmear at the corner deli, then hopped back in my Honda for the drive to the office.

  The air was still heavy with ash though the morning traffic report claimed the fire was eighty percent contained. Rain was in the forecast as well, a fact which the morning shift reporters cheered. I scanned the distant skyline toward the hills and decided that it did look slightly less black. Not that it improved the smell at all, but maybe I could start wearing white shirts again.

  “What? No text this morning, letting me know you were going to be late?” Sofia chided as I stepped into the office.

  “Sorry,” I apologized, “I lost track of time.”

  “I’d say starting sometime late last night, to judge by your appearance,” Sofia said playfully as she studied me. “I know it wasn’t Anna, and definitely not Gloria, since she’s out of town.”

  “Perrin,” I admitted.

  “The daughter?” Sofia said in mock surprise. “Didn’t you just meet her, like, yesterday?”

  “Something like that,” I mumbled.

  “Not that I blame her,” Sofia added with a smile. “I’ve certainly never regretted it.”

  “That’s good to know,” I replied with a smile of my own as I snuck a peek at Sofia’s very long and lithesome legs.

  “Maybe we should compare notes,” Sofia mused as she stretched out one very enticing leg. “See if she has interesting ideas on what to do with you.”

  “As intriguing as that idea is, I do need to make some money at some point,” I sighed as I forced my mind back to the business of the day. “Any calls?”

  “Not yet,” Sofia replied as she slipped into professional mode. “I made a few edits to our motion if you want to take a look and then we can file.”

  “Thanks,” I replied as I stepped into my own office.

  Sofia had left a hard copy of our motion to have Matthew Burke declared dead and our claim against the FBI on my desk. I double checked the edits and then told her to go ahead and file. I wondered who would respond to our motion first, and I didn’t have long to wait.

  “Agent Smart’s on the phone,” Sofia said as she stepped into my office with a stack of paperwork for me to sign.

  “One hour,” I said as I glanced at the time. “Is that slow or fast?”

  “Since they probably haven’t even been served yet, I’d say fast,” Sofia replied.

  “Agent Smart wasn’t kidding when she said the FBI was still watching the Burkes,” I sighed.

  “I’d like to find this guy myself,” Sofia remarked, “just to see what the big deal is.”

  I laughed as she stepped from the office and picked up the phone.

  “Agent Smart,” I said.

  “You just don’t listen very well, do you Creed?” Agent Smart barked.

  “I told you what we were going to do,” I replied nonchalantly.

  “You said you would file the petition for a declaration of death,” Smart snapped. “But now you’re suing the FBI? For interfering in a civil matter and acting outside the scope of our authority?”

  “All true,” I agreed. “You can’t tell me that the FBI has standing to challenge Gloria’s motion.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, but I could feel Agent Smart’s anger as surely as if she had been standing in front of me.

  “We have standing,” she finally asserted.

  “How?” I asked. “What possible interest could the FBI have in Matthew Burke’s death?”

  “The White Collar guys are going to be all over you,” she said which avoided the question with a vague threat.

  “Fine,” I replied. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Vince,” Agent Smart declaimed in exasperation.

  “I’m sorry, but the little you’ve given me hasn’t shown me that the FBI is in any way a person of standing in this matter,” I offered. “Just because you and some gang bangers want him to be alive doesn’t make it so. To be honest, I haven’t seen any reason to believe he is alive.”

  “Oh, she’s got you snowed,” Agent Smart replied.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Who, he asks,” Agent Smart snarked. “Gloria Burke, that’s who. Don’t think she isn’t as good a manipulator as her husband. She may even be better.”

  “She is a salesperson,” I pointed out.

  “She’s a lot more than that,” Agent Smart snapped.

  “Well, I guess I’ll find out during discovery,” I replied. “You know, when I can get my hands on everything relevant to the case, like the computer you took from his home office.”

  “Right, f
ine,” Agent Smart said.

  “Look, you know I’ll work with you,” I added. “But you have to give me something to work with. All I’ve got right now is a guy who goes out fishing and never comes back. The Coast Guard found the boat drifting in the Pacific.”

  “You don’t find that at all suspicious,” she asked, “that in that whole, wide, huge ocean, the Coast Guard should stumble across a boat that was heading ever further out to sea?”

  “It ran out of gas,” I replied.

  “Right,” she noted sarcastically.

  “Then tell me what you have,” I suggested. “I’ll come to you.”

  “Today,” Smart insisted, and I knew then that setting up a meeting had been her plan all along. “Two o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there,” I assured her.

  She hung up without another word.

  I glanced at the clock again and decided I still had time to get some work done before the drive to the Federal Building in downtown L.A. I knocked out some of the easy stuff first, moved on to negotiating a plea deal for a client who was arrested for disturbing the peace when he refused to get rid of the candy he’d smuggled into a movie theater, and then I snarfed down a heaping plateful of Mrs. Calderon’s version of chicken salad.

  Feeling pleasantly sated, I left Sofia with a few more documents to edit and headed down the stairs to the parking lot. I glanced inside the burrito joint and was happy to see that all looked well. Muriel spotted me and gave me a quick smile before hustling over to one of the tables. I even spotted Tony, standing behind the counter pouring drinks. I waved when he glanced up and made my way to my trusty Honda.

  The drive downtown felt like forever and a quick check of the traffic report revealed the source: there was a police chase winding on and off the interstate and various ramps had been closed to try to bring things to an end. I was stuck on local streets for most of the trip, and I hit just about every red light along the way. I was in a foul temper by the time I made it to the vicinity of the Federal Building, and I still hadn’t found a place to park.

  After a few fruitless circles around the neighborhood, I gave up and parked in a lot. Despite its distance from any government building, or any other building that might be of interest to someone, the rate was outrageous. If I hadn’t already been late for my meeting, I would have circled the block a few more times. Desperate times.

  I made it through the x-ray machine and claimed the pass that Agent Smart had left for me at the desk. My escort during this visit was a tall, muscular agent who looked like he should have been checking in at the Rams’ training camp. We stepped onto the elevator with two other people and it felt like we’d crammed fifty people into the world’s smallest elevator.

  Fortunately, we had a short ride. We got off at the third floor and my escort left me in a small interview room. There was no window, just a picture of the current Director of the FBI, and for some reason, an old photo of JFK. The table and three chairs in the room all looked like they had been there since JFK’s time as well. I sat down in one of the plastic chairs and had a flashback to the old desk- slash-chair combinations we were forced to use in school. My butt and backside were getting sore just thinking about it.

  The door opened again and Special Agent Tabitha Smart stepped into the room. She had on the standard dark blue pant suit that did little to hide her shape or the gun she wore in a holster on her hip. I quickly stood up and offered her my hand. She shook it and we both sat down on opposite sides of the table.

  “I apologize for being late,” I began. “There was a car chase that backed up everything.”

  “I heard,” she replied in a far calmer voice than she’d used on the phone. “Some fool who tried to rob a convenience store.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that lately,” I mused.

  “Tough times,” Agent Smart noted. “Even if you have a job, you can’t always pay all the bills.”

  “We’ve all had those times,” I agreed.

  “Have we?” Agent Smart asked speculatively.

  “Ah,” I said with a smile. “Are you asking about the Burkes? Or me?”

  “Both, neither,” Agent Smart replied. “I know the answer to that in either case.”

  “Big Brother is alive and well,” I commented.

  “That gets very old very quickly,” she noted with a small frown. “Especially since you’re here asking for that information.”

  “I’ll try to avoid any more references to Orwell,” I replied. “And I do appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. What can you tell me Matthew Burke?”

  “I’m sure you’ve already heard that he was really good at investing,” she noted.

  “Several people have mentioned that,” I agreed. “Even those who thought he might have been keeping some of the money for himself.”

  “He’s one of those people who can see how everything ties together,” she added. “It’s partly the math, but he can see and understand other links as well. As long as he focused on economies, he was golden.”

  “But then he tried his hand at sports,” I mused.

  “Sports don’t always follow the same set of rules,” she agreed. “He lost a fair amount of his own money, and that’s when he started dipping into his client’s accounts. He got away with it for some time, but then some of the client’s started to ask for their money.”

  “Like Carla Bowles,” I suggested, “and the Delrays.”

  “Most of his clients didn’t notice if a few thousand went missing for a few months,” she stated. “But a few did, and they weren’t happy serving as Burke’s personal bank.”

  “I know several tried to pull their money out, and he did eventually pay them, although it took time,” I replied.

  “That’s because he had to get the money from someone else,” she explained.

  “So it really was a Ponzi scheme,” I noted.

  “At the end, yes,” she agreed.

  “How does this tie into street gangs?” I asked. “And small-time street gangs at that?”

  “We think Burke was desperate for ways to raise more money,” she replied. “We know he was trying to use his client base to find more investors.”

  “Not unusual,” I pointed out.

  “No,” she agreed, “but one of Burke’s investors is a Mexican businessman named Juan Varona.”

  “Where have I heard that name?” I asked as I tried to remember why the name was so familiar.

  “He pops up on the news sometimes,” she noted. “He’s in the gossip rags a lot. He’s one of Mexico’s richest men, with money in everything from telecom to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “That’s it,” I replied. “He threw that massive party for his daughter’s quinceañera a few years back. It went on for three days or something.”

  “That’s the guy,” Agent Smart confirmed.

  “So what’s his part in this?” I asked.

  “Tell me, how do you think someone with that much money has managed to stay in business and protect his family in Mexico?” she prodded. “There’s never been an attempt to kidnap anyone close to him, no threats made against his life, no break-ins at any of his properties. All that security in a country where kidnapping wealthy individuals is a going business.”

  “He’d need protection,” I stated. “And not just of the police variety.”

  “We’ve been able to tie him to several gangs in Mexico, as well as various revolutionary groups throughout Central and South America,” she continued. “He provides money, they provide protection. We’ve been working with officials in Mexico for years, but we haven’t found the evidence to tie him directly to any illegal activities.”

  “So how does this work?” I asked. “Matthew Burke loses heavily in Vegas and happens to mention that fact to Varona?”

  “Varona has sources in Vegas,” she explained. “He doesn’t have anything to do with any of the casinos, at least not directly, but he keeps tabs on who’s doing what.”

  “So you think Varo
na went to to Burke first?” I ventured.

  “We know that Burke was being pressured by Vegas to pay what he owed,” she replied. “We believe that’s when Burke first started dipping into his client funds. The guys in Vegas were paid off and they were happy, but someone like Varona would have seen an opportunity.”

  “He would have wondered where Burke got the money,” I mused.

  “And it wasn’t hard to figure out,” she agreed. “Rather than blackmail Burke or ask him for insider information, he asks him to set up accounts for some of the smaller gangs who need a hand funneling money.”

  “But why such small fry groups?” I asked. “If this guy is involved with the big dogs, why mess around with the Chucos Locos?”

  “Varona’s a power player,” she stated. “We’re pretty sure he was using the smaller gangs to help launder money, his own as well as money for some of the big cartels.”

  “And once Burke’s in, it’s hard for him to get out,” I added. “Even once he’s paid off what he owes.”

  “Things we’re going all right for Burke and Varona for a while,” she replied. “Both were making good money off the fees and a lot of money was being moved into offshore accounts.”

  “The one’s Pickering found,” I guessed.

  “Among others,” she agreed. “But then Burke decided to take more than his agreed-on share.”

  “That could definitely create a tough week at work,” I said as I remembered Gloria’s description.

  “That’s an understatement,” Agent Smart stated. “And these guys follow their money much more closely than most of Burke’s clients in the Hills. We know there was a confrontation between Burke and several gang members outside his office. A cop car on patrol broke it up, but not before Burke had a bloody nose.”

  “Gloria never mentioned any attack on Matthew,” I noted.

  “She may not have known,” she said with a shrug. “Burke claimed he was accidentally punched while he was working at the gym.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “And how do you know this?”