Blindman’s Bluff. Faye Kellerman

are the principal players in Kaffey Industries.” Wang handed him a separate folder. “Mace has a son named Sean who’s working at one of the big brokerage firms. I don’t know why he’s not in the family business—maybe he’s an independent kind of guy—but as the oddball, he attracted my attention.”

      “Oddballs deserve a second look.” Decker nodded. “Thanks. This is a start. Send two copies to Strapp. What are you up to now?”

      “Back to my Mac.” Wang stretched. “No matter how ergonomic the setup is, I still leave with a sore back from sitting incorrectly, burning wrists from all the typing, and tired eyes from peering at a computer screen. Man was not meant to work a desk job.”

      “Tell me about it. Most of my last six years as lieutenant have been spent with my butt glued to a chair. But I’m not complaining.”

      “Neither am I. It’s been a long time since I was in the line of fire. Sometimes I think I miss it, but I betcha I really don’t.”

      Decker said, “When I actually get to do some genuine police work, it feels really good. Then I get shot or shot at and it cures me for a while.”

      “Yeah, the last one was a close one. What happened to the nutcase guy?”

      “He’s at Patton State.”

      “He took out the guy behind you, right?”

      “He did. He meant to get the guy behind me. The man was definitely mental, but lucky for me, his aim was true.”

      COFFEE CUP IN hand, Decker sat down at his desk and picked up Lee Wang’s summaries, making notes in the margins in his illegible scrawl.

      Guy Allen Kaffey’s date of birth put him at sixty. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to immigrant parents who had long been deceased. A terrible student, Guy had dropped out of high school at sixteen with no marketable skills. But as he told Business Acumen Monthly, “I could keep up a steady patter better than anyone on the planet. That meant I could be a disc jockey or a salesman.”

      He chose real estate. Flat broke, he began peddling houses shortly after leaving high school and within a year, he had amassed enough cash to start his own real estate firm. As he told the magazine, “My first employee was my sixteen-year-old brother, Mace. Like me, he was flunking high school, but when he dropped out, at least he had instant employment. Still, my parents couldn’t figure out where they went wrong. It was more like where they went right.”

      Five years later, Guy Kaffey picked up from the Midwest and moved his operation to the Land of Opportunity, switching from residential to commercial real estate. At twenty-two, Guy had his first million in the bank. Three years later, he qualified as a multimillionaire. Forbes listed Kaffey as a first-time billionaire when he reached the advanced age of thirty.

      At thirty-one, he met his wife, Jill Sultie, at the craps table in Vegas after asking the beautiful woman next to him to blow on his dice. That evening, he had walked away with a hundred grand in profit and asked if the beautiful woman would like to celebrate by joining him for dinner. Sparks flew that night. The affair was intense and four months later, they were married.