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Authors: John Lescroart
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to naught when the inspectors who’d accompanied Crawford could cite the Golden Dream only for inadequate ventilation, for employees who were improperly attired, for using the business address as a living quarters, and for using a bed instead of a massage table. Since no one had seen money change hands and neither party had talked, the blatant sex act they’d all witnessed couldn’t be charged as prostitution.
A week later, an administrative law judge—Liam Goodman’s wife’s former law partner, Morrie Swindell—declined to revoke Mr. Lo’s permit to operate the massage parlor; and not one woman who worked at Golden Dream, rumored to have been threatened into silence by the owner, would testify against him. By this time, the federal case that had netted the original hundred arrests had foundered as well. The ten massage parlors were still in operation.
In spite of the zero sum change in prostitution in San Francisco,sex trafficking had officially become one of the city’s hot liberal issues. Crawford had claimed it as his own; his concern over the victims of this international humanitarian crisis would translate to hundreds if not thousands of votes from women and Asians as he set his eyes on the state capitol. It was only a matter of time before his task force grew some teeth and started negatively impacting the businesses of Jon Lo and his colleagues.
Liam Goodman wasn’t afraid to be proactive. He knew that the average voter’s span of attention could be measured in seconds, if not less. He also knew that the city’s Vice Squad was strapped for both personnel and money, and if he could siphon off a few officers for other duties, the sex-traffic task force would take that much longer to reach a minimal level of competency. Further, if Crawford got elected to Sacramento next year, the mayor’s office yawned open for someone with sufficient profile and name recognition. Someone just like Goodman, if he could get his name in the news a little bit more often. And once Liam was elected mayor, the task force would be allowed to atrophy and then go away entirely.
He had been reading the paper last week when he came across a very sad article about a drunk teenager who’d run a red light and killed a young couple in town from Boise for their honeymoon.
Underage drinking, he thought. As a bonus, most of the kids in these upscale drinking establishments were middle- and upper-class whites, so he could crack down without the accusation of racism that hampered any effort to interdict the dope traffic in the city’s poorer, mostly minority communities.
Underage drinking. That was the ticket.
G OODMAN FINISHED GIVING his press conference at the top of the grand staircase in San Francisco’s city hall. Present were reporters from the Chronicle and the Courier as well as all the local networks and a few cable and Web-based outlets. He had started off with the unfortunate couple from Boise and managed to include statistics on the increase in traffic problems and other crimes involving minors who had been drinking; on bars that served as distribution centers for drug sales; even down to a few riffs on the proliferation of fake IDs and the threat they posed to national security. “We are a tolerant city,” he had concluded after a robustQ&A, “and rightfully proud of it. But that tolerance cannot extend to premises and people where illegal activity threatens lives and is a danger to individuals and to public health.”
He was feeling good as he turned away from the knot of reporters to walk to his office. When he saw Jon Lo standing in front of his door, Goodman at first thought that his client had come down to congratulate him on a job well done. But there wasn’t any pleasure in Lo’s face, no sign at all of approval.
Goodman rearranged his own expression, a quick smile, then all concern. “Jon,” he said. “Something on your mind?”
“Maybe inside?” Lo replied.
The suite featured two small anterooms
A week later, an administrative law judge—Liam Goodman’s wife’s former law partner, Morrie Swindell—declined to revoke Mr. Lo’s permit to operate the massage parlor; and not one woman who worked at Golden Dream, rumored to have been threatened into silence by the owner, would testify against him. By this time, the federal case that had netted the original hundred arrests had foundered as well. The ten massage parlors were still in operation.
In spite of the zero sum change in prostitution in San Francisco,sex trafficking had officially become one of the city’s hot liberal issues. Crawford had claimed it as his own; his concern over the victims of this international humanitarian crisis would translate to hundreds if not thousands of votes from women and Asians as he set his eyes on the state capitol. It was only a matter of time before his task force grew some teeth and started negatively impacting the businesses of Jon Lo and his colleagues.
Liam Goodman wasn’t afraid to be proactive. He knew that the average voter’s span of attention could be measured in seconds, if not less. He also knew that the city’s Vice Squad was strapped for both personnel and money, and if he could siphon off a few officers for other duties, the sex-traffic task force would take that much longer to reach a minimal level of competency. Further, if Crawford got elected to Sacramento next year, the mayor’s office yawned open for someone with sufficient profile and name recognition. Someone just like Goodman, if he could get his name in the news a little bit more often. And once Liam was elected mayor, the task force would be allowed to atrophy and then go away entirely.
He had been reading the paper last week when he came across a very sad article about a drunk teenager who’d run a red light and killed a young couple in town from Boise for their honeymoon.
Underage drinking, he thought. As a bonus, most of the kids in these upscale drinking establishments were middle- and upper-class whites, so he could crack down without the accusation of racism that hampered any effort to interdict the dope traffic in the city’s poorer, mostly minority communities.
Underage drinking. That was the ticket.
G OODMAN FINISHED GIVING his press conference at the top of the grand staircase in San Francisco’s city hall. Present were reporters from the Chronicle and the Courier as well as all the local networks and a few cable and Web-based outlets. He had started off with the unfortunate couple from Boise and managed to include statistics on the increase in traffic problems and other crimes involving minors who had been drinking; on bars that served as distribution centers for drug sales; even down to a few riffs on the proliferation of fake IDs and the threat they posed to national security. “We are a tolerant city,” he had concluded after a robustQ&A, “and rightfully proud of it. But that tolerance cannot extend to premises and people where illegal activity threatens lives and is a danger to individuals and to public health.”
He was feeling good as he turned away from the knot of reporters to walk to his office. When he saw Jon Lo standing in front of his door, Goodman at first thought that his client had come down to congratulate him on a job well done. But there wasn’t any pleasure in Lo’s face, no sign at all of approval.
Goodman rearranged his own expression, a quick smile, then all concern. “Jon,” he said. “Something on your mind?”
“Maybe inside?” Lo replied.
The suite featured two small anterooms
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