by Ty Patterson
Darrell didn’t.
He remained inside when it turned dark and was still at home when a dark figure came up the street, climbed the steps to the building tiredly and went inside.
Cutter watched her shadow move in the apartment. Another silhouette appeared on the curtain. They hugged, and then the room turned dark.
He was driving in Manhattan when his phone rang. He thumbed it and put it on speaker.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
‘For what, ma’am?’
‘For whatever you did. He was home when I returned.’
‘I didn’t do anything, ma’am.’
‘I knew that’s what you would say,’ she scoffed. Her voice dropped. ‘What was he involved in?’
He stared blindly ahead as a red light approached. Slowed to a stop. She was his client, but he had promised Darrell.
‘I’m still working on it, ma’am,’ he evaded her question. ‘It’s going to be a long, hard journey. Today is not indicative.’
‘I know,’ she sniffed, ‘you are not going to tell me, are you?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘I knew it.’ She sighed. ‘How bad is it?’
‘Ma’am. Your son’s at home?’
‘Darrell’s sleeping.’
‘Go look at him and then go to bed yourself. He’s with you. That’s all you need to know for now.’
‘Your fees?’
‘Later.’
This isn’t over yet.
He rolled down the window when she hung up and let the night air swirl inside.
Darrell must have heard of Davis’s death. Is that why he was ignoring Manuel? He’s now finding out gang life isn’t glamorous?
Time would tell.
In the meantime, he had a visit to Florence ADMAX to arrange.
22
Doug Mease sat in his robe the next morning and read the morning newspapers.
Kevin Rubin had held a big rally in upstate New York the previous night. Well-attended. Many cops had cheered when he declared the police forces needed more support. A huge roar from the crowd when he said he would make the country safer.
No policy details. His campaign was based on popularity and rhetoric. Candidates from both major parties opposed him, but that didn’t seem to dent his polling. The Veep, whom the president was backing, was still ahead with a double-digit-point lead over him, but commentators said Rubin could narrow the lead soon.
Mease folded the papers carefully and placed them on his breakfast table. Adjusted the edges so that they were parallel to the table’s. Perfection mattered.
Went to his bedroom and dressed. Blue shirt, striped tie, dark trousers, dark jacket. A briefcase in his hand. He opened it and checked his files were present. He brought out a burner phone and dialed a number. It bounced through several proxies and rang at an assistant chief’s desk. A white nationalist who had sworn allegiance to the Lions once he had known Gunner was alive.
‘It’s me,’ he introduced himself. No names were necessary. The officer hung up wordlessly. Mease knew he would go to a secluded area, their security protocol. He called after ten minutes.
‘Tell me about those cops.’ He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. The man would know he was calling about the 73rd Precinct.
‘I told all this to … our mutual friend.’
Gunner.
‘I want to know as well.’
‘He doesn’t update you?’
‘Tell me,’ he retorted.
‘Investigation’s still underway. The officers are on administrative leave.’
‘Complications?
‘Martinelli’s likely to face disciplinary action. He was too close to the cage.’
Cage. Old-school cops still used the term for the cells.
‘Will he snitch?’
The assistant chief lowered his voice. ‘I’ve personally reminded him of his oath.’
Mease grunted. He didn’t say what steps would have to be taken if the cop turned informant. Action would be quick and brutal.
‘Keep us in the loop.’
‘Will do.’
He pocketed the phone and glanced at his watch. At precisely ten am, he left his apartment in Queens. He had a family, a wife and two kids, but they were back in Texas. Work had brought him to the city, where he lived alone.
He walked two blocks, hailed a cab, and gave the driver an address on Fifth Avenue.
‘That’s the Frick Collection.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Should have said the name to start with,’ the driver grumbled as he joined the traffic.
Mease put on his shades and looked out of the window as the city slid past. He paid in cash at his destination and entered the art museum. Broke away from the line and pretended to take a call. Left the building and strode briskly towards East 79th. He slowed as he approached a grey stone building three blocks from the Frick.
He went to a side entrance on 74th and pressed the buzzer to a law firm. Went in when the door opened. Nodded politely when he joined a bunch of people in the elevator. Exited his floor. Took the fire stairs, climbed two floors, and pressed the buzzer to the hallway door.
Two hard-faced men faced him when it opened. Both with weapons in their hands. One frisked him while the other watched. He went on into the thickly carpeted corridor, his shoes sinking in the softness.
Chandeliers and walnut paneling. Two elevators, both of them manned by more armed men. A large door with a knocker. He didn’t approach it. He went down the hallway, to another entrance meant for the help. He placed his palm against a screen and it unlocked. He entered a reception area manned by another security guard, who checked him out, and went past a door, another hallway, the kitchen where white-aproned staff bustled about, not one of them looking at him. Another carpeted hallway. More rooms on each side that looked like they could have been featured in style magazines. They had.
A suited man standing at a door nodded at him.
Mease knocked on the door and entered.
Kevin Rubin greeted him. ‘You saw the polls?’
23
‘Yeah. You got a great reception.’
‘Scott says I need a big wave to come close to the Veep.’
Scott Farley, Rubin’s campaign manager.
‘He got any ideas?’
‘He’s thinking of a few. He’s testing them out with the data scientists and the behavioral people.’
‘What about Brad?’
Brad Parsons, chief of staff.
‘You know what he’s like. He’s digging, seeing if there’s any dirt on the others.’
‘You rejected that.’
‘I did. But no harm in seeing what comes out.’ Rubin went to a side table and poured them coffees. Brought them back on a silver tray and served Mease. The personal touch, because the two men went a long way back.
* * *
They had met in Otisville, the white-collar prison eighty miles north of the city.
The federal institution was minimum security, had no perimeter fence or barbed wire. It had lockers for personal belongings, microwaves, ice machines to keep cool, and was once dubbed one of the cushiest prisons in the country. It was one of many such low-security facilities where Wall Street convicts—lawyers, accountants—served time.
Mease, a partner in an accounting firm, had been convicted of tax fraud and had met Rubin while serving his time.
His first sentence to the other man was: ‘I’m a registered member.’
‘Of what?’
‘Your club.’ Mease lowered his voice.
They had bonded over prison life. Had found they had similarities; both strongly believed that they were born to rule and those from other ethnicities were to be ruled. Both were razor-sharp smart and ambitious. They complemented each other. Rubin was a big-picture man, while Mease was into details. The former was an extrovert, while the latter was reserved and hid his ego deep.
It was in the third month that Mease brought up the idea
.
‘You’re wasting your life,’ he said over lunch. Roast beef, potatoes, taco salad.
‘How so?’ Rubin chewed his food.
‘What will you do when you get out? Go back to your family? Preach on the radio?’
‘Pretty much. I’ll get back into investing. Back startups.’
‘You’re capable of much more.’
The celebrity stopped eating. Gave him all his attention.
‘Politics. You’re a natural. Look how you’ve drawn people to you here. We’ve already got a few converts.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding. Politics? With my background?’
‘You’ve got to distance yourself from it, of course. Reject it outright.’
Rubin stared at him.
‘You’re serious?’
‘No one ever elected a white supremacist,’ Mease replied drily.
He didn’t push. He let the idea take root. Gave time for Rubin to think about it and broke into a grin when the man approached him a week later.
‘What you were saying the other day …’
So, the disgraced celebrity’s transformation began.
The two men made a list of their most trusted confidantes. All of them in high positions in government, law enforcement and business. Used code to communicate. There was cautious support from several quarters.
‘Financing, that’s where you’ll stall,’ said one doubter, a mayor in one of the country’s largest cities. ‘No one will back you.’
‘I don’t need it,’ Rubin scoffed. ‘Have you heard of my family? How much I’ve inherited?’
Everyone they reached out to said they wanted to know more. They wanted details.
That was something Mease excelled at. They got working. Rubin on a five-year, high-level plan, the accountant on the minutiae that would catapult the heir into the most powerful role in the world.
‘Worst case,’ Rubin flashed his trademark brilliant smile, ‘we’ll have become national figures.’
‘That will give us power to influence,’ Mease agreed.
And that was what they were after.
Power.
24
Their plan accelerated once they got out.
Rubin began a carefully orchestrated series of media appearances. He renounced his white supremacy beliefs. Said he had been ignorant and a fool. That prison had opened his eyes. He declared he would be an ethical investor and set up a fund, to which he was a major contributor.
A few TV channels commented that he seemed to back only white male founders. He laughed, shrugged apologetically and said that was how the technology sector was. There was a preponderance of such people in that sector. He didn’t decide who founded companies; that wasn’t in his control. He promised to back minorities, too, however, and made a big show of women-founded companies. In the hype that followed, the fact the women were white too was barely noticed.
Mease put together the plans. The funding required, the TV ads, the prominent backers they could go to, the PACs, Political Action Committees and Super PACs that their supporters could form. The swing states, the poll leads, this was what he was good at.
Several meetings followed thereafter. With high-net-worth individuals who secretly shared their beliefs. Corporation CEOs, wealthy families, politicians, government and law enforcement officers. All conducted in secret, security organized by Mease, who personally vetted every guard.
And then they met Jeff ‘Gunner’ Sheller.
They had heard of the Rising Lions and their founder while in prison. There was quite some distance between ADX and Otisville, and the two institutions were radically different. However, inmates had a way of communicating; news and gossip had a way of spreading, like jungle drums. There were a few Lion tattoos even in the white-collar camp.
Sheller shared their philosophy, and while there were many such prison gangs, they felt his outfit was unique.
It was Gunner who made the gang different from other white nationalist ones. From what they had heard, the founder was as smart as they were.
Mease confirmed that for himself when they got out of Otisville. On a whim, he set up a meeting with the Lions’ founder in ADX. He posed as a distant cousin and pulled a few strings with high-level contacts, and that gained him face time.
It was a meeting of minds in terms of shared beliefs, and while it was brief, he came away convinced that Gunner was no ordinary thug.
They hadn’t thought of integrating the Lions into their plans, however. Not initially. It was just shared beliefs. Mease had quickly dampened Rubin’s interest in getting inked.
‘Not now, or ever. The world is watching. Your tattoo will ruin everything we’re aiming for,’ he warned, and that had convinced the wealthy heir.
* * *
It was the gang leader who reached out once he left prison.
Seen you a lot on TV. He sent a message through a courier. I know you haven’t changed.
‘You think he’s blackmailing us?’ Rubin showed the note to Mease.
The strategist, which was what the candidate called the accountant, frowned and inspected it. Written neatly, all in caps. Black ink.
‘How did you get it?’
‘There was a crush of people at the last rally. Ricky found it in his pocket. Someone must have slipped it to him. He knew it was meant for me when he read it.’
Ricky Schillum was the head of security. Former special operations forces, a trusted man. He had been with Rubin for years. Mease didn’t blindly take on that relationship, however. He subjected the man to the same screening everyone in the inner circle underwent.
Background checks, psychological interviews, lie-detector tests, which were repeated every few months. They had to not only believe in white supremacy but also renounce those views publicly.
Mease fingered the note as he paced. What if Sheller exposed them?
‘He’s got nothing. No proof,’ he thought out loud. ‘The people we met, they won’t snitch. They’ve got as much as us to lose. Their reputations, lives, families, businesses, jobs—they’ll lose everything if they leak. Nope, I don’t think he wants to finger us.’
‘You met him when he was inside.’
‘A brief meeting. It didn’t mean anything. Let’s hear him out.’
Mease organized it in Florida. A dinner in a restaurant outside Miami. He booked the entire venue and got Schillum to mount security.
The Lions’ man arrived with four companions. All of them hard-eyed and ex-cons, judging by their looks and the ink on their bodies. They submitted themselves to the pat down. Their guns and phones were taken away, and they were wanded to check for recording devices. The four men waited outside with Schillum while their leader proceeded inside.
Sheller seemed to fill the dining room with his size. The tattoos on his bare arms—serpents, dragons, crosses—writhed whenever he moved, and his biceps filled out his shirt. The lion on his neck rippled when he drank or swallowed.
Mease was struck again by his presence, by the feeling that he was capable of immense violence. It wasn’t the first time that Rubin had met hard-core criminals, but he could sense the candidate was impressed, too.
‘Long time, Mease,’ the Lions’ founder said softly. His smile was a mere twist of his lips. ‘Call me Gunner.’ He nodded at Rubin.
‘That note.’ The strategist cut to the chase. His previous meeting with the Lions’ founder had been so brief that there was nothing to catch up on. ‘What did you mean?’
‘What I wrote. I can see through you. Both of you. I know what you’re doing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Power grab. If Rubin wins the elections, and that’s a big if, you can change this country.’
‘How?’
Gunner looked at the bar, where photographs of the staff were mounted on the wall. Many of them African Americans, a few of Asian and Hispanic origin.
He didn’t say a word. His cold smile conveyed what he meant.
‘Relax,’ he rumbled
after a moment. ‘I’m not here to out you. And save your protests.’ He held up a palm the size of a shovel when Rubin made to protest. ‘Finch, in Arizona, he told me about both of you.’
Mease considered his words. The man Gunner had mentioned was a multimillionaire who owned a chain of retail stores. He was one of their secretive backers.
‘How do you know him?’
‘Let’s say my people helped him out with a problem. Something the cops couldn’t do.’
The strategist played with his fork absently as his thoughts raced. Rubin was still, silent, at his side, but he knew the candidate was also thinking hard.
If Finch had told Gunner about the meeting it meant he knew the Lions’ man well. And trusted him.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want in. When everything shakes out, I want to be at the dining table with you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know at this stage, and neither do you. The size of the meal’—he grinned mirthlessly—‘depends on how the elections turn out. We can work out the details then.’
‘I don’t think—’ Rubin broke his silence.
‘You need me.’
Mease looked at the gangbanger as if seeing him for the first time. There was more to the man, much more than his appearance suggested.
‘Explain.’
‘I can help,’ Gunner replied simply. ‘I have fifty thousand people in my gang across the country. Some of them in prison, many of them out.’
‘Yours is a criminal outfit,’ Mease retorted. ‘We’ve distanced ourselves from our past. We can’t afford to be linked to gangs.’
‘I didn’t say we need to parade our alliance. No one needs to know about it.’
‘I’m waiting for that explanation. How you can help us.’
‘You need the muscle we can provide. You need our activities.’
‘How so?’
Gunner wrapped his fingers around his glass and drank his wine. He wiped his lips with a paper towel and threw it on the table.
‘You need a platform. We can provide it.’
‘Be specific.’ Rubin shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’
