Treasure Hunt

“But wait,” Juhle suddenly said. “Let’s back up to the first thing Wyatt asked about that. Maybe what Como told this guy Carter wasn’t true. Maybe he wasn’t meeting an old friend after all.”

“Devin likes the idea of a woman being involved,” Russo said.

“Who’s that?” Hunt asked, all i

“Young girl,” Juhle said. “Really, really beautiful young girl, I think even Sarah will agree…”

Russo nodded. “Even Sarah admits she’s very pretty.”

“In fact”-Juhle leaned halfway across the table to Hunt-“she is so incredibly beautiful she’ll make your teeth bleed. Alicia Thorpe. Twenty-five or so, volunteering at Sunset-”

“-and Como was having an affair with her?”

“That’s the problem.” Juhle shook his head sadly. “If he was, they both were damned discreet.”

“And so,” Hunt asked, “how would she be involved then, exactly?”

Russo let herself chuckle. “Probably not, is your answer. And Devin’s answer after we talked to her. And mine, too, while we’re at it. And Dev so badly wants an excuse to go look at her again. I told him if he kept it up I’d have to tell Co

“Hell,” Juhle said, “I’ve already told Co

“Morton’s?” Hunt asked.

“She’s the hostess there,” Russo told him.

Hunt looked over at Juhle. “Is she there Tuesday nights?”

Juhle pointed back at him. “Not the last one. She could have been anywhere.”

“Did you ask her?”

Juhle threw him a withering gaze. “Oh, I must have forgot. What a good idea.” Then, “Of course I asked her, Wyatt. She, like Mrs. Como, was home alone watching television. Except if she really was out with Como.”

“But alas,” Russo said, “we have nothing like any evidence on her.”

Hunt’s cell phone went off and he brought it to his ear and had a short conversation. When he closed it, he said, “Well, I’m glad you took this opportunity to get me caught up on all the excellent police work and progress you’ve made so far. That was Tamara from my office and it looks like we’re going to be in business together for a while.”

Jaime Sanchez came up from the Mission Street Coalition offices to downtown to have lunch with Len Turner at the Olympic Club, a venue in the grand tradition of old San Francisco. The spacious, high-ceilinged dining room conveyed a tone of gentility and leisure. Here all voices were well-modulated, controlled; there was no unseemly hurry or vulgar clothing on display. Almost all of the male diners today-and today, as every day, they were mostly male-wore conservative dark business suits and ties. One could order, of course, nearly anything from the waitstaff, but the buffet was so staggeringly laden with all ma

Sanchez wore his own personal uniform-unpolished brogues, a pair of well-worn khakis, a blue blazer with some years on it, and a light orange shirt with matching woolen tie. He enjoyed flouting this bastion of privilege with his inadequate attire. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and his relatively short physical stature, along with the general swarthiness of his complexion, didn’t make for much of a presentation, either, at least in this crowd.

To hell with ’em, he thought. He knew he was here because of what he represented.

His partner, Len, on the other hand, couldn’t have looked more natural here, and couldn’t have fit in more easily. Sanchez thought that he had probably come here as a child, on his father’s knee. He knew not just the greeter and the waiters by first name but the bussers behind the buffet.

Well, he told himself, this was why Len was so valuable to have as a partner. The man was not only a skilled negotiator (and lawyer), but he cultivated an ease that inspired confidence, the sense that everything was as it should be, and under control. Even in rarefied settings such as this one, Len was always at home. Tall, aristocratic, fit, and ta

Now they were returning from the buffet. In contrast to Sanchez’s overheaping plate of fettuccine, green beans, French fries, Caesar salad, and prime rib, Turner’s plate held a small bit of petrale in lemon-caper sauce, a few slices of scalloped potatoes, and three spears of asparagus.

As they sat down, two of them at their four- person, white-tablecloth table, Sanchez forced a laugh. “I’ve got to learn to control myself around a buffet like that. I see all that incredible food and I swear to you, Len, I want all of it.”

His elegant colleague offered a small smile. “That’s what it’s there for, Jimi. You want more, when you’re done, go back and get it. Nobody’s going to say a word.” He forked himself a bite of fish, savored it, nodded in mute approval, then directed his attention back across the table. “Thanks for coming up on short notice.”

“No problem,” Sanchez said. “Always better to talk in person anyway. You said it was urgent.”

“Well”-Turner waved a hand-“maybe the urgency is relative. But I thought it would be worthwhile if you and I, first, came together on a consistent game plan for this reward idea, which basically I like, and then talked a little about strategy for the succession at Sunset, which is going to be a huge deal.”

“Don’t I know,” Sanchez said.

“Yes, I’m sure you do. But first things first, huh?”

“Always. So what do you have?”

Turner put his fork down. “Nancy Neshek called me as soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Lorraine. What Nancy understands, and you I’m sure, while perhaps Lorraine doesn’t, is what a great fund-raising opportunity this reward scenario is for all of us.” He lowered his voice and leaned in over the table. “Here’s Dominic Como, fallen hero, champion of the people. Every organization where he’s on the board-that’s yours and Nancy’s and at least three others I could name-we a

For Sanchez, the picture suddenly snapped into sharp focus. “Our generous contributors.”

“Right. We make a special, one-time appeal for emergency funds to cover the reward we’re offering. So we commit, let’s say, a couple of hundred grand between us, maybe more-it doesn’t really matter, chump change, whatever it turns out to be. We print up special pledge cards, get ’em out to your mailing lists and into the community, make a pitch on TV. It could easily bring in two, three million, maybe more.”

The number lit up Sanchez’s eyes. This was the kind of plan that could make the nonprofit world so incredibly lucrative. Turner was proposing that he and Nancy Neshek and a few other executives could invest thirty or forty thousand dollars each on the reward and its attendant publicity, and conceivably bring in a million or more each for their efforts. And that wasn’t even including private foundation and grant money, which-given Dominic Como’s personal co

Never mind that none of the charities might ever actually have to pay a cent of that reward, since it was far from a certainty that anyone could provide the information that would lead to an arrest in the Como case. Nevertheless, this one-time, special fund-raising campaign would raise money that no one in the real world would ever audit or follow up on in any way. This was because once they gave, contributors simply tended to assume that the funds would be used either for the express purpose of the campaign, or to buttress another needy area in the charity’s charter.