But Uncle Fred and his associates would want more than idle chitchat and suspicion. They'd need proof.

I called Del Rio, met him at the garage, and swapped my car for one of our Honda CR-Vs. The Honda was black with tinted windows, outfitted with cutting-edge wireless electronics.

I drove myself and my wingman to Sunset, pulled the car under the porte cochere at the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and dropped Del Rio off.

He pulled down the bill of his cap and adjusted his camera bag as he entered the hotel. Once he was inside, I looped around Sunset and parked on Crescent Drive, a hundred yards and a stucco wall away from the pretty white cottage in the lush garden surrounding the hotel.

Del Rio kept me posted through his lapel mic as he planted the pin cams, one at the bungalow's front door and another at the patio, and stuck three more "spider eyes" on windows facing into the three rooms.

A long twelve minutes later, Del Rio was back in the CR-V, and the microcameras were streaming wireless AV to our laptops.

The only things moving inside the bungalow were dust motes wafting upward in columns of sunlight.

For all of his volatility, Del Rio could sit on a tail for ten hours without having to take a leak. I was still suffering mental whiplash from the earthquake and the devastating memory it had dislodged. After a half hour of staring at sunbeams, I had to say something or I was going to explode.

"Rick. Did you take a look at Danny Young when I brought him out of the helicopter?"

"Huh? Yeah. Why?"

My voice was flat as I told him about my morning. I was a dead man talking, but I got to the point. I didn't need to add color commentary. Del Rio had been there.

"So let me get this straight," Del Rio said when I'd finished. "You're beating yourself up for leaving Jeff Albert in the Phrog and trying to save Danny Young? What about the other guys? We took a missile, Jack. And you landed the goddamn aircraft."

"Do you remember Albert?"

"Sure. He was a good kid. They were all good kids. Jack, you were just a kid yourself."

"I think Danny Young was dead when I pulled him out."

Del Rio stared at me for a few seconds before he said, "Danny's blood was still pumping out of his chest when I got to you. He died on the ground. The helicopter blew up, Jack. If you'd gone back in, Danny Young, Jeff Albert, and you would have died.

"And nobody could've brought you back."

Del Rio was right. Danny's blood had been splashing on my shoes. He had been alive. I had brought him out alive.

I almost felt fully alive myself.

Neither of us spoke again until two men came up the bungalow's front walk.

One was Victor Spano. The other was a short man in a good suit. The guy in the suit put a key card into the slot and opened the door to Bungalow 4.

I put my arms up like a football referee.

"Touchdown!"

Chapter 94

I HAD BIG NEWS, but not necessarily good news, to tell.

It was dark when I pulled up to my uncle's huge Italianate manse in Oakland. I parked at the top of the circular drive and trotted up the walkway.

Fred's second wife, Lois, came to the door and was joined by my boisterous eleven-year-old cousin, Brian, who tackled my thighs like the All-American linebacker for Southern Cal he was sure he was going to be one day.

I rolled around and groaned in fake pain as Brian whooped and did a white-boy sack dance in the foyer. My little cousin Jackie stooped down and patted my head as if I were a golden retriever.

"Brian is a big fat brat, Jack. Are you hurt bad?"

I winked at her and told her I was okay, and she pulled my nose.

"Did you eat, Jack?" Uncle Fred asked, giving me a hand up, then throwing an arm across my shoulders.

"I wouldn't say no to coffee," I said.

"How about coffee and a slice of banana cream pie?"

"Sold."

I grabbed a chair at the dining table, and the kids pelted me with questions-about the earthquake, if I'd nailed any bad guys lately, the fastest I'd ever driven my car.

As soon as I answered one question, they loaded up and fired again.

Normally, I'd have grabbed one kid under each arm, taken them into the media room, and watched a Spider-Man or a Batman movie, but tonight I was thinking of the time, how little of it was left before the Sunday schedule of games, one game in particular.

I caught my uncle's eye and patted my breast pocket. He nodded and said to Lois, "I'm going to steal Jack for a few minutes."

I followed Fred to his study, a beautiful mahogany-paneled room with two walls of trophy cases and a sixty-eight-inch flat-screen hung like a trophy over the fireplace.

"I'm going to drink," Fred said.

"I'll have what you're having."

Fred poured J amp;B over rocks, and I shoved the flash drive into his video setup. I gave him the desk chair so he could have the better angle. Fred Kreutzer was a complicated man. I couldn't guess at how he would react to the unfortunate movie I had to show him.

His high-def screen was first-rate, a perfect match for our NASA-grade cameras.

We began to see images captured from outside the Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, looking in.

A red light winked on a telephone.

A man in a suit, his back to the camera, picked up the receiver, punched in some numbers, and collected a message.

Behind him, Victor Spano took a Heineken out of the fridge and turned on the television.

I took the remote control off Fred's desk and sped the action forward, then slowed it as the man in the suit turned his face for his close-up.

It was Anthony Marzullo, the third-generation boss of the Chicago Mob bearing his family name.

On camera, he said to Spano, "Get the door."

Spano did, and two men walked in: Kenny Owen, referee and crew chief with twenty-five years of experience on the field, and Lance Richter, a sharp young line judge who clearly saw that his financial future lay in queering the game, not playing by the rules.

My uncle Fred drew in a breath, then let out a string of curses.

Onscreen, hands were shaken, and the refs filled seats opposite a man who had taken on the heretofore impossible task of corrupting modern-day pro football.

"There can be no mistakes," said Marzullo. He smiled without moving the top of his face. "As per usual, here's twenty percent down. The rest you get tomorrow night. No more than seventeen points. Understand? If you have to call the game on account of the sun's in your eyes, that's good enough. Whatever it takes to hold the spread."

Richter said, "We understand, and we know what's at stake." He reached for a fat stack of banded hundreds.

"Do you?" Marzullo said, putting his hand over Richter's.

"Yes, sir. It'll happen just like you want. It's not a problem. Whatever it takes."

Owen slapped his packet against his thigh before pocketing the cash.

I stopped the video and turned to my uncle.

The poor guy looked as though he'd taken a wrecking ball to the gut. Actually, I remembered the look from my father's trial, a combination of terrible shame and sadness.

"It's pretty bold," I said. "This isn't just a case of one ambitious mobster and a couple of crooked refs. It's much bigger. The Marzullos are moving in on the Noccias' territory."

"I never thought Kenny Owen would take a nickel that didn't belong to him," said Fred. "I know his wife and I've met his kids. One plays ball at Ohio State."

"The tape is good," I said. "It'll hold up in court."

"I've got some calls to make," Fred said. "I'll get back to you in the morning, let you know what we're going to do. You did a good job for us, Jack."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry, Uncle Fred. I couldn't be sorrier."

"Yeah," Fred said. "Tomorrow'll be worse."