Page 153 of The Grave Artist

The man called the West Coast Don was known for coming up with creative wet work that served two purposes: eliminating a soul he wanted eliminated. And instilling fear in others.

He was also known for announcing the forthcoming demise by arranging for someone to approach the victim and kiss them on each cheek. Mezzo called the gesture the “kiss of death”—a bit obvious, but the mobster was a literal man in a literal business. Once the gesture was delivered there was no stopping the sentence from being carried out.

And it just so happened that Mezzo was Fisher’s boss.

So the trim, handsome, brown-haired Fisher knew he would not be cutting any deals, turning state’s evidence or ratting out Mezzo’s organization in any way. Better to serve a couple of decades at Club Fed than be disemboweled in his bed one night.

Mezzo was patient. He’d been known to spend years hunting down someone who had informed on the company. Fisher recalled one such former associate who’d been foolish enough to draw attention to himself while in witness protection. And Mezzo got wind of it.

The next day, the man was leaving the supermarket when a young woman dropped her grocery bag in the parking lot. He stopped to help her, and she gave him a peck on each cheek, no doubt surprising him with her gratitude for a simple courtesy.

That same night the man had been fed to a swarming horde of rats. While he was alive.

Fisher was one of several employees forced to watch the video before it was destroyed. The footage included what the man must have believed was a chance encounter in the parking lot, but was in fact a display of power and ruthlessness.

With those images burned into his gray cells, Fisher never thought for a moment of betraying Mezzo or anyone else in the company.

Which was why Roberto Sanchez had to die. The financial adviser had been too good at his job. He’d spotted irregularities in Fisher’s bookkeeping and was asking a lot of questions.

Fisher couldn’t go to Mezzo for help. If the boss found out he’d been sloppy, well, that would be nearly as bad as intentionally betraying him. His death might not be so grisly as being a rat entrée, but it would come just the same.

The kiss, the shuffle of footsteps behind you, the cocking gun, the slicing blade.

Rats . . .

So Fisher had trolled the dark web to find someone local to fix the problem. Unfortunately, Sweeney knew who Mezzo was, and began blackmailing Fisher. If Sweeney didn’t get regular payments, he threatened to let the boss know that Fisher had botched the money-laundering operation and, worse yet, he’d covered up his incompetence and lied to Mezzo about it.

This had been going on for three years, and Fisher had already suffered a mild heart attack due to the stress. Hiring another hit man to kill Sweeney wasn’t an option, so Fisher had simply sucked it up every time the man had driven to his house in that damned red pickup truck—which Fisher had paid for—to take another payment.

Now he was finally free of one burden only to find himself crushed under the weight of another. Mezzo would not be pleased at the latest turn of events.

Club Fed was starting to look like a haven.

A bead of sweat began to trickle down from his scalp. Reflexively, he moved to mop it away, only to have the heavy chains stop his arm.

He glanced up at the two-way mirrored glass in the interview room. “This is bullshit,” he called out. “Where’s my lawyer?”

A couple of hours ago, he’d arrived home to find cops of every stripe and flavor crawling all over the place.

Well aware they wouldn’t find anything incriminating at his residence, he stepped out of his vehicle and started asking questions.

Instead of answers, he got a set of steel bracelets and a ride to the police station in the back of an LAPD patrol car.

A detective had read him his rights before explaining that someone had shot and killed Sweeney in Fisher’s house, making it a crime scene. During the investigation, they recovered a home security recording in which Sweeney told Roberto Sanchez’s younger daughter that Fisher had hired him to kill her father because the man had discovered a money-laundering scheme.

Well, fuck . . .

As soon as Fisher knew he was being charged with solicitation to commit murder, and maybe RICO violations, he asked for counsel. The detective had provided a phone, and Fisher had left an urgent voicemail with a defense attorney known for handling high-profile cases. Jonathan Hamilton had even successfully represented Marco Mezzo in the past.

If you were in serious trouble and you had money, Hamilton was the go-to. Fisher knew he’d be in good hands, but the wait wasunnerving. They’d taken his phone and his watch, so he was guessing at how long he’d been cooling his heels. If the LAPD was messing with his head, it was working.

He glanced up at the viewing window again, wondering what the cops and the Feds were doing in there. After he’d placed the call to Hamilton, they’d immediately stopped questioning him. Fisher wasn’t sure how, but he felt certain the famous lawyer would end his incarceration quickly.

The man’s nickname was the “Miracle Worker.”

Chapter 76

Standing in the cramped observation room, Carmen looked from Heron to the prosecutor, Jessica Cohen, a solidly built, no-nonsense woman with short, curly black hair. Carmen had seen her smile only when the jury came back with guilty verdicts, which almost always happened when she was presenting a case.