He exhaled. “Upsetting his kids is the least of his problems. He’s in serious trouble, Alex.”
My stomach lurched. “On Mate?”
“Oh yeah.”
“What the hell changed in two hours?” I said.
“What changed is we’ve got evidence on Doss.”
“What kind of evidence?”
He ran a finger under his collar. “If you breathe a word of it, you’re essentially decapitating me.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said. “Without a head, you couldn’t eat. Come on, what do you have?”
He stretched a leg, sat on the top step. “What I have is a pleasant fellow named Quentin Goad, locked up at County, waiting trial on an armed robbery beef.”
He fished a mug shot out of his pocket. Heavyset white man with a shaved head and black goatee.
“Looks like an overweight Satan,” I said.
“When Quentin’s not holding up 7-Elevens, he works construction—roofing and sheet-metal work. He’s done a lot of work for Mr. Doss—apparently Mr. Doss likes to hire cons, pays them under the table to avoid taxes, which tells you something about his character. The way Goad tells it, two months ago he was roofing a project out in San Bernardino—some big shopping center Doss bought cheap and was refurbishing—when Doss approached him and offered him five thousand bucks to kill Mate. Told him to make it nasty and bloody so everyone would think it was a serial killer. Gave Goad a thousand up front, promised four when the job was finished. Goad says he took the dough but never intended to follow through, saw it as a perfect way to con Doss and cut town with a grand. He’d been wanting to move to Nevada anyway, because he had two strikes against him in California and it made him nervous.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Before he left, he decided to give himself a going-away party.”
“A month ago, hamburger joint in San Fernando, late at night, just before closing time. Mr. Goad, a .22, a paper bag. Eight-hundred-buck haul. Goad already had the counter boy facedown on the floor and the money in the bag when the security guard appeared out of nowhere and took him down. Gunshot to the leg. Flesh wound. Goad spent two weeks at County Gen getting free medical care, and then they moved him to the Twin Towers. The .22 wasn’t even loaded.”
“So now he’s facing three strikes and he’s trying to deal by selling out Richard. He’s claiming Richard gave him money two months ago and didn’t mind no follow-through. The Richard I know isn’t high on patience.”
“Richard bugged him, all right. About three weeks in, wanting a progress report. Goad told him he needed to plan it just right, was watching Mate, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Was he?”
“He says no. The whole thing was a scam.
Come on, Milo, however you look at it, this guy’s a liar and a—”
“Low-life moke. And if it was only Goad’s story, your pal would be facing a much brighter future. Unfortunately, witnesses saw Doss and Goad meet at one of Goad’s hangouts—ex-con bar in San Fernando, only a block from the hamburger joint he tried to rip off, which tells you how smart Goad is. The thing is, Doss didn’t act too smart, either. We’ve got three drinkers and the bartender who saw the two of them having a serious head-to-head. They remember Doss because of the way he dressed. Fancy black duds, he didn’t fit in. The waitress saw Doss pass an envelope to Goad. Nice, fat envelope. And she’s got no reason to lie.”
“But she never actually saw money changing hands.”
“What?” he said. “Doss was passing him Halloween candy?”
“Goad claims Richard passed him cash, right out in the open?”
“The bar’s a con hangout, Alex. Dark dive. Maybe Doss figured no one was watching. Or that it wouldn’t come back to haunt him. For all I know, this isn’t the first time Doss paid a con to do dirty work for him. We’ve also recovered some of the money. Doss paid Goad ten hundreds, Goad spent eight but two bills are left. We just printed Doss, should know soon if anything shows up. Want to take bets on that?”