Chapter 7 - The Criminal Indictment
The Grand Havana Room on North Canon Drive was one of the most exclusive private cigar clubs in Beverly Hills.
Membership required a fifty-thousand-dollar initiation fee and the sponsorship of two sitting board members. It was the kind of place where studio heads, real estate billionaires, and foreign dignitaries met in quiet leather booths to carve up the city over vintage port and pre-embargo Cuban cigars.
At 2:30 PM, Rodrigo Sanders strode through the heavy oak doors, trying desperately to project an air of unbothered arrogance.
He had managed to shower at an expensive gym where his biometric guest pass hadn't yet been deactivated. He had purchased a fresh linen shirt with the five hundred dollars in cash he had scrounged from his golf bag, and his hair was slicked back with pomade.
Beside him walked Arthur Pendelton, a second-rate Beverly Hills defense attorney whose fees were usually paid by desperate reality stars and DUI offenders.
“Listen to me, Arthur,” Rodrigo muttered out of the corner of his mouth as they approached the leather-paneled lounge. “Harrison Vance, the real estate developer sitting in the corner booth, is an old friend of my father’s. If I can get him to bridge us three million dollars for thirty days against the downtown terminal contract, we can stabilize the payroll and counter-sue Clara for illegal eviction.”
“Rodrigo, you’re not listening to me,” Arthur hissed nervously, glancing at the other patrons who were already staring at them. “The footage of you hitting her has ninety million views globally. Every sponsor, every bank, every municipal board is running from you like you’re radioactive. You can’t raise capital right now!”
“Watch me,” Rodrigo snarled. “Harrison hates powerful women. He’ll love this.”
Rodrigo stepped toward the corner booth where Harrison Vance—a distant cousin of my father’s branch, though Rodrigo had never understood the family tree—sat with two business associates.
“Harrison!” Rodrigo boomed, plastering on his trademark million-dollar smile, extending his hand. “Good to see you, my friend. What a crazy morning, huh? The media will twist anything these days—”
Harrison didn't take Rodrigo’s hand.
He didn't even look up from his financial papers.
“Get away from my table, Rodrigo,” Harrison said, his voice flat and disgusted.
Rodrigo’s hand hung in the air, his smile freezing into a grotesque mask. “Harrison... come on, man. You know how these women get. Clara had an episode. We had an argument. It was a domestic dispute, blown out of proportion by her PR team—”
“I saw the video,” Harrison said, cutting him off with the sharpness of a scalpel. He looked up, his eyes filled with pure contempt. “You struck Clara. You let your vulgar, leech of a mother insult the memory of a dead child. In my world, Rodrigo, a man who hits a woman is garbage. But a man who hits Clara Vance is suicidal.”
“She’s a fraud!” Rodrigo yelled, his voice rising, drawing the horrified stares of thirty wealthy patrons around the lounge. “I made her! I gave her a name! I gave her this town!”
The heavy double doors of the Grand Havana Room swung open with a resounding bang.
Four uniformed Beverly Hills police officers strode into the humidor room, followed by two plainclothes detectives wearing golden shields on their belts, and two federal agents in dark suits with FBI windbreakers.
The room went dead silent. The hum of conversation and the clink of crystal glasses stopped instantly.
“Rodrigo Sanders?” Detective Miller of the BHPD robbery-homicide division announced, his voice echoing through the vaulted lounge.
Rodrigo spun around, his face draining of all blood until he was the color of skim milk. “What... what is this? Arthur, do something!”
Arthur took three steps back, raising his hands in the air. “I am not representing him in this matter! I was merely conferring as an acquaintance!”
Detective Miller didn't hesitate. He closed the distance, grabbed Rodrigo’s right arm, and twisted it behind his back with practiced, brutal efficiency.
“Rodrigo Sanders, you are under arrest for felony domestic battery causing corporal injury, felony grand larceny, and federal wire fraud pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Central District of California,” Detective Miller recited, shoving Rodrigo chest-first against the nearest mahogany table, sending three crystal ashtrays crashing to the floor.
*Click. Click.*
The cold steel handcuffs snapped tight around Rodrigo’s wrists.
“Get your hands off me!” Rodrigo shrieked, writhing against the table, his face pressed into a puddle of spilled bourbon. “Do you know who I am? I am Rodrigo Sanders! Call the mayor! Call my mother!”
“Your mother has already been taken into custody at the Van Nuys motel, Mr. Sanders,” the lead FBI agent said calmly, stepping forward and flashing his credentials. “Special agents recovered seventy-five thousand dollars in stolen heirloom jewelry and sixty thousand dollars in unauthorized bearer bonds from her luggage twenty minutes ago. She’s currently being transported to the metropolitan detention center.”
“No! No! It’s Clara! Clara set us up!” Rodrigo screamed, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, pathetic sob as the officers hauled him to his feet.
The patrons of the Grand Havana Room—the very men whose respect Rodrigo had craved his entire adult life—pulled out their phones, recording every second of his humiliation.
As the officers dragged Rodrigo toward the exit, his polished leather shoes squeaking pathetically against the oak floor, he caught a glimpse of the street outside through the plate-glass window.
Parked directly across North Canon Drive was my black Maybach.
The rear window rolled down two inches.
Behind the dark tint, my eyes met his.
I didn't smile. I didn't gloat. I simply looked at him the way an exterminator looks at a trapped roach.
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Rodrigo opened his mouth to scream another curse, but Officer Jenkins shoved him into the back of the patrol unit, slamming the door shut with a final, heavy thud that cut off his cries forever.
***
