Free The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) by Jack Thompson

Lavender
Mafia.”
    “Anyone that connects directly to Randy Hope?”
    “You wish it would be that easy. Not a one so
far. Although, I did have trouble ID’ing some of the pictures.”
Vinny swept her hand over the display, and a collage of shots of
ample cleavage appeared on the screen.
    “Camera must have slipped on those,”
said Raja, feigning innocence.
    “The cameras were positioned to follow
wherever you look, Raj. And I’ll bet you could identify the
owner of every pair of those smart bombs.”
    “I do try to be thorough. But why smart
bombs?”
    “When breasts come out, men get stupid.”
    “I’m offended.”
    Vinny gave up and rolled her eyes. “I
cross-checked everyone at the party with Clarice, as well. Nothing
there, either.”
    “What about the foreign nationals?”
    “The owner of a major Australian engineering
firm, and a couple Chinese investors seem remote, although I’m
still checking them out. The problem is not knowing what I’m
looking for.”
    “I almost forgot. This was in Jennifer Gowan’s
hand at her apartment.” He pulled out the matches from the
Hillcrest Country Club in Century City. “There was no sign of
her being a smoker. I think she was trying to tell us something.”
He looked at the time line. “We haven’t got to the
beginning of this mess yet. Have you tried your Venn diagram
program?”
    Vinny had customized a mathematics algorithm to be
used in their investigations. It often showed with uncanny accuracy
what direction they should take to solve a case. “Of course. I
don’t have enough data for that to be of any help yet.”
She pushed some data around and several circles formed, mostly
unconnected.
    “I see what you mean. I guess we go with
intuition. That brings me back to the matchbook.”
    Vinny switched back to the time line view. “I
can get you the membership list for the Hillcrest, if that helps.”
    “Remind me never to try to hide anything from
you.”
    Vinny had done well. A study of the member list for
the Hillcrest Country Club revealed a who’s who of Los Angeles,
with a heavy dose of entertainment industry executives, performers
and politicians. The problem was too many choices. Sometimes too much
information was a bad thing. Raja decided to stick with the names he
had already run across. There was Judge Griggsby. His penchant for
boys and his connection to two dead bodies on the case were three
strikes against him, as Raja saw it. “I want you to concentrate
on the judge and his connections. And find him, will you? He hasn’t
shown up yet.”
    “Pretty whack, if you ask me,” said
Vinny.
    Raja stared at her.
    “I mean him not showing up—with his wife
dead, and all.”
    Still the stare from Raja.
    “Whack means bad or wrong,” explained
Vinny.
    “Of course it does.”
    “I’ll scope the judge’s scene.”
    “Yes, please do scope. The other name that
interests me is Governor Black. Maybe you could look for a connection
between those two. And I’m going to need to get into the
country club. Any ideas?”
    “No problemo,” said Vinny. “You
have been a dues-paying non-resident member since 2002.”
    “Is that right?” Raja didn’t
remember having ever joined.
    “A VIP, in fact. A major donor.”
    “How generous of me.”
    “I thought it was a nice touch.” What
made Vinny’s computer skills so impressive was her ability to
hack into any system and remain undetected.
    “Do I need a card to get in?”
    “No, no. Your name will be quite enough.”
    “Then, I’m off to the club.”
    The Hillcrest Country Club was an old and exclusive
club that included a full golf course smack in the middle of Los
Angeles. It was technically in Century City, but LA had long ago
swallowed up that and many other municipalities, rendering any
separateness meaningless and making most of LA County and beyond one
humongous city. The Hillcrest Country Club had been opened for Jewish
members at a time when Jews were unacceptable elsewhere, and