The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(25)

Jacobi nodded slowly, said, “I can do that.”

Swanson reached his hands out the length of his chain as if to shake on it.

Jacobi didn’t go for it. “Let’s see if you still have your chops. Ever heard of a guy named Loman?”

“He’s the one who’s doing this?”

“His name came up in the investigation,” said Jacobi.

“Look, I don’t know him, but I know a little about him. He supposedly knocked off an armored car and a bank, two-for-one heist in LA about five years ago.

“There were about five or six fatalities, if I remember correctly. LAPD got his name from one of his crew who was breathing his last. Then there was a casino job in Vegas a couple of years later that looked like Loman. Close to a nine-million-dollar haul.”

Jacobi said, “Black Diamond Casino, right?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Swanson. “Bodies were littering the pit. The robbery crew got out with their mega-score but then fate intervened. They were incinerated in a collision with a gas truck.”

Jacobi said, “What about Loman himself? Is that his name or an alias? Where does he live? Known associates?”

“What I heard is that he hires guys for a job or two. They’re dispensable. My guess, that’s how Loman stays invisible. And I’ll tell you something else. A hunch, really.”

“Go on.”

Swanson grinned. “He doesn’t make mistakes. Given the bodies he’s left behind, that’s almost impossible. Yet it’s apparently true.”

“Okay, Swanson. You’ve given me nothing I didn’t know.” Jacobi got up, banged on the door, and called for the guard. Swanson swiveled in his seat and said, “What about our deal, Jacobi?”

Jacobi scoffed. “When you have something I can use, get in touch.”

Guards opened the door for Jacobi.

“Have a heart, Chief. Costs you nothing. Come on. Be a person.”

Jacobi’s mind filled with furious retorts concerning Swanson’s legendary crime spree, but he stifled them. He needed to get out of this prison and away from Swanson, the sick son of a bitch.

When he got outside, he called Boxer and then drove to the de Young Museum.





CHAPTER 33





WILLIAM LOMACHENKO WAS washing his car in the driveway when his wife, Imogene, came to the front door and called out to him.

“Willy. Phone.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s Dick. Should I tell him you’ll call him back?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Lomachenko hosed the soap off the car, moved the bucket out of the way, dried his hands on his pants, and trotted up the steps to his brick two-story house on Avila Street.

Imogene handed him the phone, said, “Give me those.”

She took his eyeglasses to the kitchen and cleaned them with Windex. When she returned to her husband, he said, “Dick wants to meet for lunch. I’m going to change.”

“Bring back a package of egg noodles. You know the kind. And a cabbage.”

Dick Russell was waiting for Loman at a back booth in Danny G.’s, on Van Ness, not far from his house. He lifted his hand in greeting, and Loman walked through the dark bar and luncheonette to the table. He hung up his jacket and cap on a hook and slid into the seat.

“We’ve got a problem?” Loman asked his number two.

“None that I can see. We’re at T minus forty-eight hours. I want to review.”

Loman and Dick Russell had known each other for twenty years. They had done half a dozen major jobs together and had never been caught or even brought in for questioning.

Russell was a gambler with a deep knowledge of mathematics and physics and a PhD in engineering from MIT. He was a numbers nerd, could figure out timing and angles and do scientific calculations that were incomprehensible to Loman.

But Russell was also a player—the markets, the ponies, questionable women. He relied on Loman for the planning, then designed the execution from there.

Loman was nothing like Russell.

He saw the big picture and had leadership skills. His cover was selling a line of gold chains to jewelry stores. He kept his head down and put his earnings in gold bullion that was stored in vaults overseas. This he could convert to any one of eight currencies with a couple of keystrokes. And any or all of it could be put on a debit card. Hell of an escape plan.

The two men gave their orders to the waitress. Loman asked for a heart-healthy salad; Russell went with the fried chicken basket, extra fries. Always the gambler. The waitress stood next to Russell, cocked a hip, played with her hair. When she’d gone, Russell opened his tablet and started at the top.

He listed the first distraction: Lambert’s grab-and-dash, leading the cops to Dietz.

The second distraction was Dietz’s suicide-by-cop, a good deal all around.

Distraction three was the clue Dietz had left for the cops on his phone, and distraction four was putting out the idea that Mayor Caputo could be hit.

Along with that rumor were the innumerable random tips about a big heist that they had paid bums, snitches, and ex-cons to leak to cops.

Russell said, “The next head fake is set for tonight, Willy. The cops are frustrated and working overtime. This will throw them over the edge.”