He changed his mind. Rotated, showed the camera a partial profile.
Expressionless. More dreadful applause, and something puffed in the center of Larsen’s neck. At the juncture of ruddy neck flesh with tan shirt.
Larsen reached for that, too. His arms shot out spastically and flopped to his sides.
His body lurched forward, onto the grass.
Gull was twenty feet away, staring, screaming.
Birdsongs on the speaker.
Still life on the monitor.
The Starbucks cup hadn’t even moved.
*
The truck’s rear door burst open, and Milo threw himself in.
Ghostly white, breathing hard. “Someone’s up there,” he panted. “Has to be one of the houses on Spalding, a backyard. Has to be a rifle, I was pinned next to the van.”
Diaz returned to the cab, slid the partition open. “Backup’s on its way. Gotta be a long-range scope. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Seconds later—seventeen seconds, according to the monitor—came the sirens.
CHAPTER
45
Bennett Hacker folded easily.
Faced with a mountain of evidence compiled by Medi-Cal fraud investigator Dwight Zevonsky—a twenty-nine-year-old with the look of a hippie grad student and the manner of a grand inquisitor—the parole officer traded full disclosure for a guilty plea to fraud and grand larceny that brought him a six-year sentence in a federal prison. Out of California, under protective isolation because Hacker had once been a Barstow patrolman and former cops didn’t fare well behind bars, even those who’d befriended cons.
The scam had gone just as we’d theorized: Hacker and Degussa trolling for halfway-house residents whose names could be registered as Sentries patients. Compensating the parolees with small cash payments or drugs, or sometimes nothing at all. At first the cons showed up for sign-in sessions and one follow-up, in the unoccupied suite on the ground floor. Later even that pretext was dropped.
Later, the patient population had stretched beyond the halfway houses, with Degussa charged with finding new recruits.
“Sometimes we used dope, sometimes Ray just scared the junkies,” Hacker said. “Ray gives you a look, that can be enough.”
He smiled and smoked. Knowing he’d made a good deal. Probably working out six years of angles.
Milo and Zevonsky sat across from him in the interview room. I watched through the one-way mirror. Before being booked, Hacker’s contact lenses had been removed, and he’d been issued cheap jail eyeglasses with clear plastic frames. A size too large, they slid down his nose and made his chin appear even skimpier. The gestalt was creepy: malicious nerd in County blues.
Hacker tried to tell the story as if he wasn’t a protagonist. Degussa and “his partner” receiving two-thirds of the billings filed under Franco Gull’s name—splitting slightly over two hundred thousand dollars during a sixteen-month period.
“Ray was unhappy,” said Hacker. “He figured the others were making millions, he should be getting more.”
“What did he do about it?” said Milo.
“He was planning to talk to them about it.”
“Them,” said Zevonsky, “being . . .”
“The shrinks—Koppel and Larsen.”
“They were in charge.”
“It was all them. They cooked it up, came to me.”
“How’d you know them?”
“Koppel used to see me at the halfway house she owned. Checking up on my charges.”
“She came to you,” said Zevonsky.
“That’s right.”
“And your job was to . . .”
“Sign my name to some therapy forms. Also, to pinpoint good candidates.”
“Meaning?”
“Druggies, losers, guys who wouldn’t give problems.” Hacker smiled. “She was a businesswoman.”
Milo said, “She owned the halfway houses in partnership, with her ex.”
“So?”
“What about him?”
“Fat boy? He owned the houses, but he had nothing to do with it.”
Zevonsky said, “You’re sure you want to go on record saying that?”
“I’m on record because it’s true. Why would I lie to you?” Puff puff. “Hell, if I could bring someone else into this, I would. Spread the wealth, do myself some more good.”
“Maybe you’d lie just for the fun of it?” said Milo.
“This isn’t fun,” said Hacker. “This isn’t anything near fun.”
“What about Jerome Quick?” said Milo.
“Again with that? The only Quick I know is Gavin, and I already told you about him. Who’s Jerry, the kid’s brother?”