by Anthology
“Full disclosure and trust it is,” Ledbetter acquiesced, tossing the folder down onto his desk. He buzzed for his assistant. It didn’t take her more than thirty seconds to present herself in his office. “Yes Mr. Ledbetter?”
“Erin, get the standard forms of representation, attorney-client privilege, NDA and rate schedule. Once we get these executed, Mr. Gunner becomes my client. Make up a client folder, and then enter him into our system.”
“Whoa, hold up there, Lloyd,” I barked, causing both of them to turn quickly to gape at me. “Nothing goes into the computer. It’s all on paper. That’s the way I work.”
Lloyd clasped his hands together on the top of his desk. I presumed he was irked at my demand, but that was non-negotiable and I had my reasons. I didn’t nor would I ever start leaving any type of digital footprint. It was prudent not to do so. That had always been my policy and it sure as fuck wasn’t going to change now with the shit-storm brewing. How the hell did Lloyd think I had stayed under the radar for so long?
“Just bring the forms in, Erin. No input into the system. Thanks.”
“Sure,” she replied, exiting his office.
“Care to explain your reluctance in coming into the 20th century, Mr. Gunner? People started using personal computers back in the 1970’s and the Internet, well, I’m sure you know its roots as well. We’re now fifteen years into the 21st century, so enlighten me on your idiosyncrasy here -- not that I don’t have a few of my own.”
“It’s Luke, now that I’m your client. It’s Luke. And you’re to address me as such. I will be addressing you as Lloyd. I like the way it rolls off my tongue, by the way. As far as your question about my reluctance, it’s a valid question, so I will explain. Actually, it’s quite simple: the information highway leaves footprints -- and handprints for that matter. Everyone who has half a brain can surf, hack, spam or worm their way into one’s personal business. I happen to embrace keeping my business private. Call it one of my idiosyncrasies, Lloyd.”
“Tell me then, Luke, how are you able to conduct your...business without benefit of electronic systems?”
“Well, Lloyd, owning a DVD rental shop in Syracuse doesn’t require all that much technology -- know what I mean? I have a printed inventory list that has a serialization listing for the titles, and we process by pen and paper inventory going out and inventory coming back in. I do make use of a cash register, of course, but it doesn’t have any online features,” I finished, giving him a sexy wink. “My business is called ‘Gunner’s Rentals.’ I’m sure it’s all there in the dossier you’ve pulled up on me, am I right?”
Lloyd was getting impatient, and he made no bones about it.
“We’re not talking about your front, and I think you know that. We’re talking about your lucrative business and I’m not the fucking IRS, Gunner, so let’s not play cat and mouse here. If you want my help, you need to answer my questions honestly.”
I shifted back in my chair, locking my hands behind my neck, and studied Lloyd for a moment. Damn if he couldn’t be strict when the job required it. This just might have some sort of a silver lining after all.
“Look, I get what you’re saying,” I replied, “but I can’t really separate the two if you catch my drift. How do you think I’ve managed to stay on the outside? I don’t leave digital trails on my shit. I don’t allow Big Brother to peek into my activities. You read my files, right? Did you see any computer forensic expert testimony? Did you see any confiscated hardware or software? I don’t own a computer, Lloyd. Because I don’t need one.”
“I see,” he replied, a sardonic twist graced his full sensual lips. “What’s your secret, Luke?”
I leaned back in the leather chair, and allowed my legs to spread out in front of me. His eyes immediately darted to my crotch for about the fifth time today. I chuckled. “My transactions are non-electronic. They are maps encased in simple code that I understand, and my customers understand, because it’s all up here,” I answered, my index finger tapping at my right temple. “Photographic memory. Can’t be subpoenaed. Ain’t it great? Plus the fact that I practice KISS -- that’s ‘Keep It Simple Stupid,’ my customers only need to know a set number of codes based on the movie selection I offer them to rent. So, all of the bookkeeping? Yeah, it’s all done in my head. All of the details of the currency amounts my customers need help with? Yeah, that’s in my head as well. So even you, Lloyd, have to appreciate the beauty of this system, right?”
He cleared his throat, and the doubt was evident. “Are you seriously telling me you have nothing to hand over to me right now? You are at the top of some Federal Prosecutor’s list as the perp behind Hastings’ disappearance!”
“It’s why I booked two hours, Lloyd. I can access anything you need to get started. Now what say you hand me a fresh legal pad and a pen and tell me what to access first?”
Lloyd sighed and got to his feet. He grabbed a legal pad from the stack on top of a file cabinet, and pulled a pen from the holder on his desk, handing them over to me. Erin knocked on the door and entered, handing her boss a new file folder and stack of forms.
“Thanks Erin,” he said. “Can you bring a carafe of coffee in please? We’re going to be here for a while.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lloyd turned back to me. “Since you’ve never met Hastings, you must have some idea as to why you’ve become the central focus in his disappearance, at least within the prosecutor’s office in Albany. So, please, spill it.”
“I’ve had nothing to do but mull that very thing over the past several days. I’m being set up. I know it. It has to be one of my past customers.”
“What would be their motive? What, you failed to deliver, Luke?”
I gave him a lazy smile.“Oh, I always deliver Lloyd. But understand this: my clientele is diverse. They all have their own specific reasons for hiding their money, and the means by which they received the money is just as diverse. The problem is, I don’t know the minute details of the source of their monetary windfalls. I know just enough to select the appropriate shelters or channels to ensure anonymity and security in disbursement. Now, I’m just betting you have a top-notch, trust-with-your-own-life PI on your payroll. We’re gonna need him -- or her, whatever the case may be.”
“Even the most talented PI needs something to start with, Luke…“
I stopped him right there. “How far back do you want me to go?”
“Pardon me?”
“I presume you want my client list. How far back to you want me to go?”
He rubbed his hand over his perfect chin. “Let’s start with the last twelve months. How long will it take you?”
“I’m working on it now. My client list for the past year. Let’s see if you can’t get that coffee in here while I start.” I flashed Lloyd a smile, and tossed him a wink. And then I did what I do best. I accessed my photographic mind, and I started writing.
***
Fifteen minutes and two cups of coffee later, I ripped the top page of paper from the legal pad, and shoved it across the desk to Lloyd. I sat back, my arms crossed against my chest and waited for him to review it.
Lloyd’s eyes perused the list and then he raised his eyes to mine. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I never kid when my sweet ass is on the line, Counselor. That’s my client list for the past twelve months. Most of them are repeat business.”
“Tony the Torch?”
“It’s code. Anthony Taranovo. Lives in East Orange, New Jersey. Loves to play with matches, but only on insured warehouses with faulty sprinkler systems in and around Newark and Philly.”
“An arsonist. That’s rich.”
“Different strokes for different folks, Lloyd. Surely you embrace diversity.”
“Let’s move on,” he said, lowering his eyes from mine. “Sonny the Snitch?”
“Ah, yes. Dwight Lawson. Small time dealer that got tired of being small. Ingratiated himself with some major gangbangers in Detroit. He cut out the
middlemen by narking them out to local authorities. Now he is the middleman, and he got a huge bonus for saving the big guys money by taking less royalties. But, you see, he makes up for it in volume. He cuts the shit with fillers, if you know what I mean, so a pound becomes twenty ounces and so on.”
“Johnny Four Fingers?”
“John Bateman. A whiz at cooking the books at a major corporation. Lost a finger in an industrial accident he purposely caused in order to collect a payout through his employer’s Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance. Then the employer gave him a desk job where he continues to skim profits for a lucrative retirement.”
“Wiley Coyote?”
“Runs guns from the U.S. to Mexico. He’s connected seven ways from Sunday to some top militant groups in South America. Has connections internally, too. That’s all I know, because I didn’t want to know anything more than that.”
“I can imagine,” Lloyd scoffed, “your client list doesn’t exactly read like a Country Club membership roster. Ann Tique?”
I chuckled. “That chick is like a modern day Robin Hood. Except that she steals from the rich, to give to herself. Mostly conducts heists at antique and fine art showings. Poses as an aristocratic old lady. I bet she’s all of thirty-five.”
“Lenny the Shark?”
“Oh, yeah. Leonard Nettleman. Big loan shark on the East Coast. He loans at a high interest rate, but throws in some extra services, too. His client list includes some high profile lobbyists -- mostly international, that he helps by tossing in fake identification. Social security cards, birth certificates, that type of shit.”
“Trish the Dish?”
“Ah, Patricia Dishman. Lovely lady with a penchant for marrying wealth…old wealth. She outlives them all, mostly because they’re past eighty when they say their nuptials. She funnels shit out before they kick the bucket; heirlooms, cash, coin collections, crystal, jewelry, fine art. Basically stuff that her husbands’ surviving children can’t pinpoint to her.”
“And, thankfully, that brings us to “Freddie the Fence.”
“Yeah, you know Trish the Dish referred Fred Applegate to me? He lives in East Hampton. Well, I think his code name says it all, right? That dude fences everything except humans. Now that’s where I draw the line. Human trafficking? No fucking way.”
“I’m relieved to know that. Now, the question is, do any of these particular clients strike you as having some motive for setting you up, if in fact, it is one of them?”
“Here’s the thing you need to consider, Lloyd. These clients aren’t exactly the crème de la crème of society. So, in effect, those that they consort with are no better, and quite possibly even shadier, catch my drift? That’s why your private dick is going to help unravel this quagmire for us. It’s got to be teamwork, Lloyd. Now, how about I fill out these forms, dot the i’s and cross the t’s all prim and proper, and then we grab something to eat and head back to your place.”
Lloyd was clearly taken aback by my last statement. I knew he would be, but damn if I didn’t enjoy yanking his chain.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I need a crash pad. I’m in hiding until this gets cleared up. You haven’t made any calls yet, Lloyd. I’m a sitting duck out here. Besides, I don’t take up that much room, dude. You do have your own place, right? I mean, shit, you don’t look like you’re doing half bad for yourself with these office digs and all. Tell me, you don’t still live with your mother do you? Because that would seriously cramp my style.”
Chapter 5
SOMEHOW, IN THE span of thirty minutes, I had gone from my neat little litigations world to a bad remake of The Sopranos...on crack.
Never in my life would I have considered myself naïve in any way, shape or form but sitting there reading down a list of cartoon mafia names, I realized how little I actually knew about the underground goings on. Surprisingly, that revelation was not the reason my mind went completely blank with shock. No. It was the blatant self-professed invitation of one sexy, arrogant and seriously criminally involved Luke Gunner. I had to admit, the whole photographic memory episode was a complete turn on. They say "Size isn't everything," but I beg to differ. The bigger the IQ, the harder I got.
But...
There was no way in high hell or water I going to invite the scum of the streets to my pristine Manhattan apartment in guise of "helping" him run from the Feds. Jesus, the guy must have been high on something. Pot? Meth? Glue? Wait, glue wasn't a drug. At least, that was what I had told my parents when I was fifteen and trying to be "cool" with the Junior Varsity football players.
Not that I was actually interested in playing. Watching was good enough for me, even back then.
Focus, Lloyd.
"Ah, Mr. Gun...I mean Luke," I had to stay professional, refuse politely and give him another safe option. My place was completely and utterly out of the fucking question. "How about we try other options before we jump to my apartment?" Be firm, Lloyd. Be. Firm.
"Nope. That part was non-negotiable. You do understand the word, right Counselor?"
I was far from being an advocate for violence but, in the moment where he insulted my intelligence, I was ready to strike. Of course, I didn't. The last time I had tried to get all MMA with another man was with that crazy, unfit for society, Troy Babilonia. I still had the plastic surgeon's bill to testify for that little adventure. In the end, I had still lost the love of my life, Larson Blackburn.
Bastard.
Shaking my head to block out the memories, I narrowed my eyes on Luke Gunner and told him, in no uncertain terms, that...
"Fine. One night."
Wait. What? Frowning, I tried to understand how in the living hell my mouth had said the exact opposite of what my brain had firmly decided. Was I losing my mind? Was this early onset Alzheimer's? Oh shit, was I going senile?
"Excellent, Lloyd. I'm glad to hear we've come to an agreement. Although, you still haven't answered me. You don't live with your parents, do you? I know housing in the City ain't cheap."
"I assure you, Luke, I most certainly do not live with my parents. They are deceased." They weren't but he didn't need to know that.
Booming laughter erupted throughout the room. It was beautiful, rich and viral. Like herpes.
"And why, might I ask, are you laughing at that statement?" The man was without a doubt one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen but looks didn't matter when that man was an asshole.
"Jesus," he said, as he wiped stray tears from his humor-struck eyes, "I hope you lie better in court than you did just now."
My shoulders straightened and my chin rose in defiance. Pressing on the intercom, I summoned Erin to my office.
"Sir?" My invaluable assistant sauntered in with her usual office attire. That meant sleek cream-colored slacks, shoes that cost the equivalent of the GDP of a small African country and a silk blouse that highlighted her perky figure. She was cute, she was efficient and she was all mine. I refused to share her talents with the other associates. They could eat dirt as far as I was concerned. The dirty blonde hair was always neatly combed back with some kind of fancy ruby clip her husband had given her on their fifth anniversary. Judging by her upbeat personality, I was guessing her husband and his prowess in the bedroom was to thank for that.
"I need you to find living accommodations for Mr. Gunner for the next week. Please make sure they know he is paying cash and use a name of your choosing for the room. And no," I said pointedly as the smile spread across her lips, the dreamy gleam in her eyes evident, "you cannot use Adam Levine. He's married and so are you. Get over it." This was an ongoing joke between us. See, I could be funny, too.
Glancing over at Luke, I didn't miss the laser eyes he was spearing at me. That look was why the expression "If looks could kill" existed.
"Darn it, Mr. Ledbetter, you take all the fun out of my fantasies." Turning to our client, she gave him a sweet little smile before turning to the exit and indicating that the room would be booked faster t
han I could say, "Hot tattoos." Why was she still working for me? Oh yeah. Invaluable.
Once Erin had left my office, I looked at my watch and realized our meeting was more than halfway over. We needed to get things moving.
"What the fuck was that, Lloyd? I thought we agreed I was staying with you."
I hadn't seen him move but in two seconds flat, Luke had gone from sitting to standing right in front of me as though he wanted to do bodily harm. Or maybe fuck me from now until next month. With his hands on his hips, resting on the waist of his low-slung jeans, I took a second to run my eyes from his crotch to his eyes, stopping briefly at his pectorals and wondering if those two points were nipple rings. Luke may have been broad and muscular compared to my lithe form but in height, we were practically equals.
"Having doubts already, Luke?" He was so close I only needed to lean forward an inch in order to plunder his mouth with my tongue.
"What the fuck do you think?" Now his breath was bathing me with its masculine scent dipped in poignant anger. A potent mixture that appealed nicely to my cock.
"I think you need to read between the lines. I realize you have always worked with brutes but sometimes finesse goes a long way. That room is a mirage. If anyone is following you or keeping up with your comings and goings, that room will be a smokescreen. Now, do you understand?"
Point one for Lloyd.
Strike out for Luke.
Good thing we were batting for the same team.
Chapter 6
MAYBE I WAS in the wrong business. I made good bank, no complaints there, but Christ Almighty if I made enough to afford this upscale, Midtown Manhattan apartment? I had no doubt that, once inside, I would find that it had a professionally designed interior down to the hand towels in the marble paneled bathrooms. I bet myself fifty bucks. The building came complete with a parking garage and a valet if you so elected to use one.
