by Jamie Quaid
I thought I saw him standing in his window when I drove away. Lonely didn’t cover how either of us was feeling.
• • •
I drove the freeway to Towson with no traffic or monsters stopping me, only a few lumbering semis to dodge. And I could have sworn I saw another soldier in camouflage strolling down a lane with a screaming infant, but that could have been wishful thinking. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men . . . Lovely dream. I needed to focus on Andre.
I was only a newbie lawyer. Despite my license, I’d never worked the courthouse, and the only police action I’d seen had been from the wrong side of the bars. By the time I arrived at the precinct, figured out the Byzantine jail system, and sprang Andre, it was pushing midnight. As we emerged from the building and walked to the nearly empty parking lot, I noticed he had turned pretty gray around the edges. After all the warnings, I worried about him.
“You’re not looking so good, Boss,” I said. “Do we need to stop for anything before heading out?” We were still a good half hour’s drive from the Zone.
“It’s nothing, Clancy. Just take me home. How is everyone holding up?” He sank down into the passenger seat without fighting me for the keys, so I knew he was done in.
“Sarah is back. The bomb shelter is good, but you’ll need a new secret tunnel. I have a lead on getting rid of one of our patients. Nancy Rose probably has insurance, so we could send her to a local hospital if you think Acme will back off now that the witch is dead. Still working on the others.”
“Gloria was my godmother,” Andre said without inflection. “She was a good person once.”
We both sat silently thinking about how power corrupts. Or that’s what I was thinking about. I wasn’t sure what Andre was doing—until he spoke again.
“I’m not going to make it back. Just park in the alley and call my father. He’ll know what to do. Stay on Snodgrass’s good side if you know what’s good for you.”
He leaned the seat back and just like that, he conked out. No warning, just out like a light.
Like our comatose patients.
17
I’d been counting on Andre to carry his share of the load, and now he was as useless as the homeless guys in the bomb shelter. I knew this wasn’t any ordinary sleep. A strong man like Andre checking out like that gave me cold chills. Being left out here alone with no backup had me pondering Seattle again. But I couldn’t desert a friend, and whatever else he was, Andre was a friend.
Just to give me heart failure and to prove the Zone wasn’t on my side, the road beneath my wheels began to rumble as I hit Edgewater. Streetlights swayed and one of the gargoyles took flight. Andre didn’t stir. It was the wee hours of Monday and even Chesty’s was closed, so no one ran screaming into the streets. Fatalistically, I waited for the road to open and swallow us.
The rumble stopped before I drove up the hill. I had to wonder if the pink particles were eating their way to hell and creating chasms beneath our feet. Or maybe the Zone had just sneezed. Maybe instead of worrying about rescuing Bill, I should be thinking about evacuating the area.
Thanks to Andre’s comatose state, I had no one with whom to share my fears. I punched his arm. Hard. He didn’t stir.
I tried erasing worry with grumbling as I parked in the alley and trekked upstairs to wake Julius. I’d gotten myself all tarted up and contemplated surrendering my nonexistent virtue to a schizophrenic senator to save Andre’s sorry ass for what? And didn’t it just figure that the first time I relied on a man, he conked out.
I started remembering the other times I’d counted on Andre and he’d disappeared. Maybe he had sleeping sickness. Maybe I should have one of the baby docs examine him. No telling what kind of disease he’d picked up overseas. I was back to fretting by the time I reached his father’s apartment.
Julius only nodded sadly when I pounded on his door and woke him up. He thanked me for everything I’d done, assured me that Andre would be just fine, that I should go home and get some sleep. I hated that. I wanted to make things better. Stupid.
Too tired and shaken to argue, I went back to my place, hoping I wouldn’t have a dead body in my car when I went to work in a few hours.
I needed anger to cover the pain, a trick I’d discovered in the course of my misspent youth. If I stayed angry long enough, it obliterated all softer emotions. Sometimes anger even crushed the fear, but that’s when I got stupid. I was trying to avoid stupid these days.
Wondering if Schwartz was sleeping soundly in his bed across the hall, or if Paddy was up inventing ways to burn down the house, I unlocked my door and hunted for my cat. Milo was always glad to see me, even if he just needed me for a pillow.
A dog might run and jump into my arms and lick my face. Milo merely glanced at me disdainfully and circled his empty bowl. See, me and Milo were soul mates. All we needed was to be fed. I added some dry food to his bowl but didn’t bother feeding myself.
I dropped my clothes on the floor in the dark and was pulling back the covers on the bed when I noticed the rectangular shape of my stolen tablet computer lying on top of them. I didn’t think I’d left it there. I’m rather cautious with expensive machinery.
My nerves already rattled, I glanced around, but the sliding doors were shut and barred. I slipped on an old T-shirt and turned on a light.
Pressing the power button, I opened to a screen that read, Rule #1: Visualization for personal gain will kick you in the butt in direct correlation to the extent of gain.
It was signed, The Fat Chick.
The Fat Chick? The one in the wheelchair?
No e-mail address. The message was a damned wallpaper covering up my screen. Some screwup had hacked my tablet and replaced the background with—a rulebook?
I’d wished for a rulebook. And daddy dearest had provided? No, the Fat Chick. How had she accessed a computer I’d just acquired? And why? Or—horror of horrors—had this come from Acme?
I poked around a little but I was too tired to concentrate and couldn’t see anything else that might actually constitute a real book instead of a modern translation of Themis’s spooky warning. Frustrated, I turned off the light and went to bed. I had exactly five hours left to sleep.
Which is when it struck me—I’d been rewarded after midnight. Usually, my rewards appeared when I got up in the morning. Since I’d not been to bed, I’d received this one a little earlier.
Sending Gloria to hell had only earned me a stupid rule instead of bigger boobs or better brains? I needed to start paying attention to what I wished for. Or maybe since Gloria had already sold her soul, she wasn’t worth much.
• • •
Early Monday morning, I stumbled out of bed when the radio alarm growled. It was supposed to play hard rock. The Zone—or pink ash—was apparently spreading its tentacles, but I didn’t have time to work out this latest mechanical kink. I was nothing if not determined. For the last dozen years of my life I’d been working toward one goal: becoming a lawyer. If eventually having my own office meant serving coffee to Judge Snooty and his minions, so be it.
I also wanted to check on Andre, see how our patients were doing, and if Julius had retrieved the cloud can from Tim. I desperately needed to get in touch with Fat Chick, but all I had time to do was shower and dress. Dane/Max had used his clout to get me this job, and after last night, it was obvious that clout was exceedingly useful. I wanted my share of it.
Rather than disturb Andre if he was still sleeping in my car, I took the Harley to work. Unprofessional, maybe, but it got me through rush-hour traffic in record time, although it also earned me a fair share of middle-finger salutes.
No one at the office acknowledged my existence. It was almost like being back in law school. I scurried from one task to the next, asking only if people wanted cream and sugar, or both criminal and torte law cases. I made phone calls, ran errands, provided copies.
In the courthouse halls, I overheard whispered conversations about the unusual circumstances of the Van
derventer murder case. Apparently, lawyers like discussing gory details. And if they aren’t gory enough, they make up more gruesome ones. The story was taking on a life of its own. And for a change, no one connected me with it at all.
Anonymity had suited me for years while I earned my degree. It didn’t sit so well now that I’d had a taste of what I was capable of doing. I wanted to know what the establishment thought about Andre’s case and Gloria’s behavior and the Vanderventer fortune. I wanted in on those conversations so I could help.
I didn’t need Tim to make me invisible. In here, I already was.
Seething with unhealthy frustration, I poured coffee.
I knew I needed to learn the courthouse ropes, and the judge’s office was the best place to learn. I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that good grades and a few law books would make a lawyer of me, but neither would acting as a glorified secretary.
I kept my ears open, hoping I’d pick up the name of a strong defense attorney for Andre. Instead, all I heard were reasons for giving his case a wide berth. It seemed Andre was rumored to be a psychopathic nut job his father was protecting.
Okay, so chances were good that Andre was borderline psycho—except Gloria had been the one who’d gone berserk, not Andre. But the Vanderventers were wealthy, and Andre was an unknown factor. Odds were stacking up against him. I’d been the underdog enough to know how that worked.
It didn’t help that Andre had actually produced pics of Gloria, once given access to a computer. It seemed Dane’s glorified asshat of a grandmother had liked displaying her naked plastic assets around the pool boy—where the security cameras could see them. The courthouse gossip was ugly.
My frustration increased. Over lunch, I pulled out case law establishing precedent for Andre’s situation and began preparing a defense outline. Of course, I had more inside info than the average dick, but the case was fairly basic: accidental death. Playing the witnesses was the key. If the witnesses told the truth, they wouldn’t even have a manslaughter charge against Andre.
I could, of course, attempt to visualize the witnesses into honesty. I had no idea if it would work. And since it wasn’t exactly punishment for evil deeds, I figured it would come under personal gain and the payback would be painful. I didn’t want to end up a chimp or in a wheelchair. Caution had its uses.
I preferred sticking to the law. Andre was innocent. I had no reason to believe that justice couldn’t be served legally this time.
I didn’t have time to finish the outline before Reggie-baby demanded that I fetch a file from another office. He only had a year’s experience more than me, and he was a year younger.
I’d had enough practice these past years to bite my sharp tongue and trot obediently off to do his bidding, even though my lunch break wasn’t over. I’d spent a lifetime teaching good behavior to bullies by punching them out. I was an adult now. In this new environment, I had to use subtlety.
I politely delivered both files and coffee. In return, Reggie hugged me and tried to feel me up.
I was willing to put up with a lot, but sexual harassment didn’t happen on my time card. Pretending shock and surprise, I accidentally tipped the mug, and hot coffee steamed his Lauren trousers. And probably his Calvin Klein boxers, but I didn’t hang around long enough to find out. I left him yelling and yanking off his belt.
Giving me a glare that promised vengeance, Jill dashed off to the restroom for paper towels. I took her place at the front desk and answered phones while surreptitiously scanning the logs to see what cases the judge had on his agenda. Maybe I could study up and get ahead of Reggie. My eyebrows soared when I saw Vanderventer and MacNeill on the list.
As if the Universe had decided I needed a reward for scalding Ivy Boy’s balls, the phone rang and caller ID gave me Paddy’s name. Interesting.
Pretending I was snobby Jill, I answered with the office name.
“This is Padraig Vanderventer. I need to speak with Judge Snodgrass,” he said stiffly, probably because he never used a phone. I was totally amazed that he owned one. They didn’t work so hot in the Zone, so he was probably with Julius.
“The judge is in a meeting, Mr. Vanderventer,” I said with a completely straight face. “If I may ask what this is in reference to, I can pull the files and have them waiting on his desk when he returns your call.”
“Tina, is that you?” he asked with a heavy dose of ill humor. “Is that what they have you doing, answering phones?”
“Ah, what gave me away? And I was trying so very hard, too.” So maybe it hadn’t been Dane/Max who’d got me this job. Maybe Paddy had. Or Julius. They all apparently knew the old goat.
“No one in that office is ever that efficient,” he said with irritation. “Snodgrass was my mother’s attorney back in the days when she bothered to consult with anyone besides herself. She should have a will. The MacNeills are already talking to Acme management. I’d like to let them have the cesspool, but I need to keep my access to that building. Can you find the file?”
Jill and Reginald were standing over me, glaring. I admired the dark stain on Reggie’s trousers, tapped a pencil on the log, and nodded briskly. “Yes, sir, of course, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
I hung up, brushed past them as if they were obstacles to be hurdled, and, without offering a word of explanation, proceeded to the file vault. Really, I could play the silly game of one-upmanship. I’m not much of a team player, but my competitive instincts are strong. I knew how to whip Reggie’s ass. If he’d been smarter, he’d have learned to work with me instead of against me.
Since Jill thought I was working under the judge’s orders, she let me alone. Assuming Gloria had dropped the firm after she’d inherited Acme, I hunted through the pre-computer files from that decade. I located a Vanderventer file, but it contained no will. I quickly scanned documents for anything interesting, but they mostly related to Paddy’s father. He hadn’t left a will, apparently, but everything he owned had Gloria’s name on it. She got the lot. Bad estate planning. The taxes had probably sucked the Gucci right out of her purse.
I entered the file number into the computer to see if there was anything more recent, but as Paddy had said, Gloria went her own way once she had the estate in her hands. Notations of a few phone calls, several discussions and notes about a new will, stock exchanges, and land sales. There should have been a draft, at least, but there wasn’t.
Control issues was my bet. She could have been given a draft, asked that it be stricken from her file, and never returned for a final to keep snoops like me out of her business. A bank could have had the documents witnessed and notarized without contacting a law office. If she had stored the final copy in a bank box, my assessment of the lady’s intelligence would drop by fifteen IQ points.
As I’d promised Paddy, I placed copies of the appropriate files on the judge’s desk along with Paddy’s message, or the message he would have left had I not cut him off so abruptly. Jill and Reggie would pry, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.
As a bonus, Reggie didn’t ask me for any more coffee. I returned to filing until almost closing time, when Jill came back to my cubbyhole with a peculiar expression on her face.
“Senator Vanderventer wishes to speak with you,” she announced.
I didn’t say a word or blink an eyelash. Nodding as if senators regularly called me, I picked up the extension and waited pointedly for Jill to get her ass away from my closet. With a scowl, she did, although I noticed she left the door partially open.
“Senator, how good to hear from you so soon,” I said in my best professional voice, before I got up and closed the door tightly.
“You didn’t answer your cell,” Max said with irritation. “What is this crap about Gloria getting it on with the pool boy? I’ll kill Andre myself.”
“I can’t take personal calls while on the job,” I chirped. “So this had better be business. If I were you, I’d delete the footage from the security cameras around the pool. Othe
rwise, did you want Gloria’s will, too?”
“Have you taken up mind reading? No, don’t answer that,” he said hastily. “Has the judge found it?”
“The judge wouldn’t know where to look if you shoved it up his ass. I scoured the files. There isn’t a will or any record of one being filed. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one somewhere else, just not here. I’m waiting for him to return. Want me to ask what he knows?”
“Yeah, or the next media blitz will be about the two families going at each other with axes, with me caught in the middle. Although I’m willing to cut Andre’s throat, too, if pressed. My father and sister are already moving in over there. They seem to think the place is theirs, since anything I inherit goes in the trust. When did Paddy come back to his senses?”
“When Gloria died would be the best answer.” Especially since I didn’t know if the gas attack had anything to do with it. “The man’s no fool, just not willing to fight his own mother or the forces of evil. Be careful, Max. It may be hard to believe, but I’m thinking the devil walks this earth, and Acme is his playground.”
“That’s almost ridiculous enough to believe. Talk to Snodgrass. Have him call me. I can’t believe I have to fight my father and Dane’s at the same time. I really don’t need this right now.”
Technically speaking, Max’s grandmother, Ida Vanderventer, had inherited most of her husband’s share of Acme. Apparently Ida had been letting her son-in-law sit on the board in her place. Ex-senator Michael MacNeill loved throwing his considerable weight around, and he and Gloria had apparently worked hand in glove. Paddy and MacNeill? Probably not so much.
MacNeill could be right. Gloria might have left her shares to him instead of Paddy. Or not.
I could hear phones ringing and voices in the background while Max waited for my reply. Senators were busy men. I sighed with regret. Talking on the phone, where I couldn’t see his Dane disguise, was almost like having the old Max back.
“I’ll do what I can,” I promised. “I hope you have someone guarding Granny’s house, because you’ll have your family all over it shortly.”
