J is for Judgement

about Gordon Titus? Does he know about this?"
    "You let me worry about Titus. This thing with Wendell has been sticking in my craw ever since it happened. I want to see it settled before I leave CF. Half a million dollars is nothing to sniff at. Seems like it'd be a nice way to close out my career."
    "If it's true," I said.
    "I've never known Dick Mills to make a mistake. Will you do it?"
    "I'd have to make sure I can clear my schedule here. Can I call you in an hour and give you an answer then?"
    "Well, sure. That's no problem." Mac checked his watch and stood up, placing a thick packet on the corner of my desk. "I wouldn't take much more time if I were you. You're on a flight leaves at one for Los Angeles. Connecting flight's at five. Tickets and itinerary are in there," he said.
    I started laughing. California Fidelity and I were back in business.
    2 ONCE MY COMMUTER flight landed at LAX, I had a three-hour delay before the Mexicana flight took off for Cabo San Lucas. Mac had given me a folder full of newspaper articles about Jaffe's disappearance and its aftermath. I settled myself in one of the airport cocktail lounges, sorting through the clippings to educate myself while I sipped a margarita. Might as well get into the spirit of the thing. At my feet I had a hastily packed duffel bag, including my 35-millimeter camera, my binoculars, and the video recorder I'd given myself as a thirty-fourth birthday present. I loved the impromptu nature of this trip, and I was already feeling that heightened sense of self-awareness that traveling engenders. My friend Vera and I were currently enrolled in a beginning Spanish class through Santa Teresa's adult education program. So far, we were confined to the present tense, short, mostly declarative statements of little known use -- unless, of course, there were some black cats in the trees, in which case Vera and I were prepared I to point and make remarks. �Muchos gatos negros est�en Los arboles, s�S�muchos gatos. I saw the trip as an opportunity to test my language skills, if nothing else.
    Along with the clippings, Mac had included several eight-by-eleven black-and-white shots of Jaffe at various public functions: art openings, political fund-raisers, charity auctions. Judging by the events he attended, he was certainly one of the select: handsome, well dressed, a central part of any group. Often, his was the one blurred face, as if he'd pulled back or turned away just as the camera shutter clicked. I wondered if even then he was consciously avoiding being photographed. He was in his mid-fifties and big. Silver hair, high cheekbones, jutting chin, his nose prominent. He seemed calm and self-possessed, a man who didn't care much what other people thought.
    In a curious way, I felt a fleeting bond with the man as I tried on the idea of changing identities. Being a liar by nature, I've always been attracted to the possibility. There's a certain romance in the notion of walking out of one life and into another, like an actor passing from one character role to the next. Not that long ago I'd handled a case in which a fellow, convicted of murder, had walked away from a prison work crew and had managed to create a whole new persona for himself. In the process, he'd shed not only his past, but the taint of I the homicide conviction. He'd acquired a new family and a good job. He was respected in his new community. He might have continued pulling off the deception except for an error in a bench warrant that resulted in a fluke arrest some seventeen years later. The past has a way of catching up with all of us.
    I checked my watch and saw that it was time to go. t I packed away the clippings and grabbed my duffel bag. I moved through the main terminal, cleared security, and began the long trek down the concourse to my posted gate. One immutable law of travel is that one's arrival or departure gate is always at the extreme outer limit of the terminal, especially if your bag is heavy or your shoes have just begun to pinch. I sat in the boarding area and rubbed one foot while my fellow passengers assembled, waiting for the gate agent to call our flight.
    Once I was seated on the plane with my duffel stowed in the bin above, I pulled out the glossy hotel brochure Mac had enclosed with the tickets. In addition to my flights, he'd booked accommodations for me at the same resort where Wendell Jaffe had been seen. I wasn't convinced the guy would still be in residence, but who was I