PMadriani 12.5 - The Second Man

by Steve Martini

  “You’re not telling me that’s the charge they’ll bring, criminal homicide?”

  “No! Absolutely not!”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve never shot anybody with their hands up unless they were holding a detonator and wearing a suicide vest.”

  “We ought to be able to do something for him,” says Herman.

  I check my watch.

  “I hope I’m not keeping you from another appointment?” says Akers.

  “Sorry. My better half is due any minute. She’s in the area for a meeting. I told her I’d take her out for a drink when she was done.”

  “I’ve overstayed my welcome.” Akers starts to get up from the chair. “I can pay you. I don’t have much, but I can raise three, maybe four thousand . . .”

  “I don’t want to take your money unless we can do something for you,” I tell him.

  “I understand. You don’t want to take the case,” he says.

  “If all you’re worried about are the security leaks, there may not be a case. Why don’t you wait and see if they bring any charges? Maybe they won’t.”

  “In the meantime, I can’t find a job. I’m thinking maybe they’ll go away if I’m lawyered up,” he says. “The FBI might get off my case if they know I have somebody who can complain at high enough levels to have it heard.”

  “Why don’t we check with Harry,” says Herman. “See what he says. He’s in his office. Run it by him.”

  Herman is grasping at straws. Knowing Harry, he’ll drive a stake through it. Better him than me. “If you want, I can talk to my partner.”

  Herman looks at Akers. He shrugs. One last appeal. Why not? “Can you do it while I wait?” says Akers. “I’d like to know before I leave the office.”

  “Sure.”

  Chapter 2

  AKERS AND HERMAN wait in my office as I corner Harry, who is down the hall sitting behind his desk. I close the door but don’t bother to take a seat. This won’t take long. I fill him in, the rough details given to me by Akers. I’m down to the bare essentials, the retainer he’s offered, when Harry finally puts his pen down and looks up at me.

  “The problem is that he had to borrow money, a few thousand dollars from family and friends. For the moment, it’s all he has,” I tell him. “I don’t want to take his last dollar. I doubt that we can help him in any event.”

  “You’re worried about his last dollar? In case you haven’t looked at the books lately, we’re broke. We can make payroll one more month maybe, assuming you and I don’t take a draw.”

  Times have been tough. On and off over the past two years, our practice has been shut down for the reason that Harry, Herman, and I had been forced into hiding. A Mexican killer named Liquida, with connections to one of the drug cartels across the border, had been haunting and hunting us. By the time we came up for air, our clientele had disappeared, and our bank account was drained.

  Harry is worried that if we take Akers on with a light retainer, we’ll buy into the case and never see another dime. “You say he doesn’t have a job?”

  “And few prospects if what he says is true.” Just as I say it, the door behind me opens. I turn to see Joselyn’s smiling face, stylish, pixie haircut, and sparkling blue eyes as they peer at me from around the edge of the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  I nod. “Gimme a sec.”

  Joselyn slips her slender body through the partially open door and closes it behind her.

  “He may be a hero, but we can’t help him,” says Harry. “Tell Herman no!”

  “My thoughts exactly.” For once, Harry and I are on the same page.

  Joselyn pecks me on the cheek, and says: “Who’s a hero?”

  “Man down the hall,” I say. “Navy SEAL says he was on the Abbottabad raid.”

  “Was he?”

  “Apparently,” I say.

  “I’d love to meet him.”

  “No!” says Harry.

  “Why not?” She turns and looks at him.

  “Because we’re not taking his case! Right?” Harry looks at me.

  “Right.”

  “There’s no reason we can’t buy the man a drink,” says Joselyn.

  “That’s awkward,” says Harry.

  “You are taking me to the Brigantine for a cocktail?” Joselyn ignores Harry and looks at me.

  “Soon as I finish up here.”

  “Good, then the three of us can get a drink, you, me, and the hero. What’s his name?”

  “No!” says Harry.

  “You weren’t invited,” says Joselyn.

  Harry shoots me a frustrated expression, then drops his pen on the desk, his body language saying we’ve just stepped in it.

  Chapter 3

  SHE LOOKS UP at the waitress, and asks: “What’s your recipe for Sex on the Beach?”

  “I know what mine is,” says Akers. “Usually starts by getting the lady drunk.”

  Joselyn laughs. “I wasn’t asking you.” She glances back at the waitress, a shapely blonde with a ponytail, packed into a shimmering black micromini dress.

  We are sitting at one of the large tables at the Brigantine: Harry, Herman, Joss, Cam Akers, and I. Harry came along to protect his interests.

  Akers reaches back, puts his arm around the young girl’s waist, and says: “Sorry sweetheart, I couldn’t resist. They don’t usually let me in classy places like this.”

  “Now we know why,” Harry whispers under his breath.

  “Easy,” says Herman. “Cut the man some slack.”

  “Give the poor girl a break,” says Joselyn.

  “I’d love to. From the look of the ring on her finger, she’s already engaged to some worthless dude.” Akers looks up and back down at the young waitress, smiling as if he’s doing an appraisal, then says: “And whoever he is, he’s clearly undeserving. So why don’t you just give me his name, sweetheart, and I’ll go break his neck for you.”

  “I bet you could.”

  “That’s a bet you’d win.”

  She can smell the male hormones coming off him.

  “Pull up a chair,” he tells her.

  “Love to, but I’m working,” she says.

  “Don’t let that stop you.” He tightens his hold on her. His large hand slides easily against the shimmering fabric of her dress, down toward the curve of her ass, no wasted time or motion. A move that, if most men did, it they’d get smacked seven ways from Sunday. But she just stands there weaving back and forth, smiling as if he had shot her up with morphine.

  “Aren’t you married,” says Harry.

  “Oh, ruin my day.” Akers removes his arm from around the girl and sits up straight in the chair. “Just trying to have some fun.”

  “With two kids,” says Harry.

  “Now that’s hitting below the belt,” says Akers. “That’ll cost you another shot. Make it a double, with a chaser,” he says. “Make sure it’s Jameson.” He leans into the waitress and puts his arm around her again. “If I can’t have you, then only the best will do.” He glances at Harry and laughs. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Damn right,” says Harry. “The fleet’s in town. Anybody with a daughter better lock ’em up.”

  AKERS IS OUT ahead of the rest of us, working on his third drink, the last two with chasers. He seems to have a hollow leg; it has little or no effect on him.

  “The question, if I remember right, was about sex on the beach,” he says.

  “Not tonight,” says Joselyn. “Let the poor girl go.”

  “The question was to you,” he says.

  “Me?”

  “Remember? You were ordering.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Joselyn giggles, tries to collect herself. “They can make it straight up with vodka or use peach schnapps, as I recall.”

  “Peach schnapps? You don’t want peach schnapps,” says Akers.

  “Why not?”

  He leans over in his chair puts both arms around Joselyn so that she seems to disap
pear into his embrace, dancing dragons up to her breasts. “You want some advice?”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid to ask.” Joselyn looks across the table at me, wide-eyed.

  “Take it straight up. Vodka. Grey Goose if they have it.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  He says it in her ear, sensuous, his tongue nearly reaching out to touch her, just loud enough so that we can all hear him say: “A drink is like everything else in a woman’s life. She wants to make sure that when she gets it—it’s stiff.” He glances at me, glinting even white teeth, a wicked grin behind a dark five o’clock shadow. Shades of The Shining, Nicholson at his most wicked. This seems to be mostly for my benefit as Joselyn ignores him. I suspect he might be reading my mind, that Harry and I have decided to decline the case though we haven’t yet told him.

  “I don’t know . . . I was sort of leaning toward the schnapps.”

  “Trust me,” he says.

  “OK. I’ll take the vodka.”

  “Grey Goose,” says Akers. He completes the order for her.

  The waitress seems reluctant to leave but finally tears herself away to get the drinks.

  Akers’s face is still up close to the nape of Joselyn’s neck as he asks: “Are you two married?” He’s an alpha male out of his cage.

  At the moment, I’d like to kick him in the groin. But my leg isn’t long enough to reach all the way across under the table. If I did, he’d probably break my foot.

  Joselyn finally comes to her senses. She unpeels his arms from around her body. “I think perhaps you’ve been away in the Navy too long,” she tells him.

  “Me too,” he says. “Look what I’ve been missing.”

  “Joselyn and I have been together for five years if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Really? Has it been that long?” she says.

  “And she’s also a lawyer.”

  “If that’s intended to scare me away, it won’t work,” he says.

  “I don’t practice any longer,” she tells him.

  “There, you see? So here I am swimming in a sea of lawyers, and I can’t catch one.” Akers tilts the business end of his bottle of brew, sucks a little into his mouth, and winks at her. “All things considered, I’d much rather hire you,” he tells her.

  “That’s enough!” I tell him.

  “Oh, shit, now I’ve stepped in it. Pissed you off. I guess that means you’re not taking my case?” says Akers.

  “That’s not what he’s saying.” Joselyn moves around in her chair, straightening her cashmere sweater.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Maybe we should call it a night,” I tell her.

  “Night?” he says. Akers checks his watch. “Not even seven bells yet. It’s happy hour.”

  “It’s late for me,” says Harry. “I have to be in court in the morning.”

  “I don’t have to be anywhere. Remember? I don’t have a job.”

  “Maybe you should start looking again,” says Harry.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Herman leans in and, under his breath, tells Akers maybe he should go a little easier on the juice.

  “I’m not drunk. Do you think I’m drunk?” He looks at Joselyn, who doesn’t answer, just smiles. “There, you see? She doesn’t think I’m drunk.”

  “Didn’t say that,” says Herman. “Just want you to take it easy. That’s all.”

  “Tell you what. Let’s have a contest. See who can walk the line—blindfolded. Get some vermouth, we start a line of fire on the floor on each side, see who falls in it.”

  “I think we should go,” I tell Joselyn.

  “We just ordered drinks. Besides, you heard the man. It’s not even seven bells.”

  “Yes, but by eight, if things keep going the way they are, he’ll probably burn the place down.”

  Joselyn ignores me. She is enjoying herself. I can tell. Perhaps I haven’t been paying enough attention to her lately. Tonight, she is reveling. Akers is just close enough to the edge to keep her entertained, while at the same time, she is safe. That and the fact that I suspect she enjoys watching my reaction. Male friction is like fireworks—exciting. It’s the thing about edgy men and their volatile disposition. It attracts all women some of the time, and some women all the time. They either want to mother them, and a few even tolerate being beaten by them. They can’t decide which, and nothing in between will satisfy. But I never thought this would attract Joselyn.

  Harry calls it a night. He gets up, leans over the table, and says in my ear: “You know my answer.” He slaps me on the back, bids everyone good evening, looks at Akers, and says: “Good luck with your life!”

  “That sounds pretty final,” says Akers.

  Harry turns and walks.

  Without missing a beat, Akers turns to Joselyn, and asks: “What type of work do you do?”

  “I work for the Gideon Foundation.”

  “Gideon who?”

  “Named after Gideon van Ry, a Dutch friend who died trying to defuse a dirty nuclear device.”

  “Really? For real?” Suddenly, he’s serious. “Must have been quite a guy.”

  “He was.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I did. But that was in another life, some years before I met Paul.”

  “You have quite a lady here,” he tells me.

  “I know. That’s what I keep telling you.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just kidding around.”

  I’m not sure I buy it.

  “I’ve heard of the foundation,” he tells her. “They’re into nonproliferation. NGO right? Nongovernmental organization?”

  Joselyn and I have been living together for about a year. I met her after she was already working for the Gideon Foundation. It is a nonprofit group that seeks to limit weapons of mass destruction as well as the latest high-tech killing machines. To Joselyn and her people, today’s high-tech war toy is tomorrow’s surplus war weapon, available to anyone who can pay. The aerial drones are her latest obsession. To her, they are becoming tools of assassination that may one day be unleashed on political leaders around the world.

  “That’s correct; we’re an NGO.”

  “Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time or the last that fissionable materials got loose.”

  She looks at him. “No, there have been others. I take it you have some personal knowledge?” she says.

  He smiles at her. “That,” he says, “would be classified.”

  “Of course it would,” says Joselyn.

  “So your foundation, what are they into? WMDs, mass destruction only, or do they range into other things?”

  “We’re into everything,” she says.

  “That’s what I like. A lady who’s into everything.” He looks at me and grins as he says it.

  “At the present time, my area of responsibility is the new generation of UAVs, the aerial drones.”

  “Why would you want to put a stop to those?”

  “That or control them,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Land mines were once high-tech. Now they’re buried in farm fields around the world, killing children.”

  “But aerial drones require infrastructure and maintenance and people who are trained to fly them. They are weapons of discrimination. You don’t just bury them and forget them. Besides, they kill the bad guys.”

  “That depends on one’s perception of who the bad guy is, which is what leads to war in the first place.”

  “It looks like you and I are gonna tangle,” he says.

  “One day, antiquated aerial drones will be flown by subnational terrorists and mercenaries. And they’ll be striking targets in Western cities. You can count on it,” she says. “Then what do we do?”

  “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” says Akers.

  “You can try.”

  “So you would put people like me out of work?”

  “You mean the SEALs?”

  He nods.

&
nbsp; “That’s not likely to happen,” says Joselyn. “With the world going asymmetrical, small, highly trained tactical units are likely to remain. Whether we like it or not, you’re actually part of a major growth industry.”

  “Was,” he says. “I’m obsolete. Though I still have a few connections. Have you heard about the new generation of Tritons, the Navy’s UAV?”

  “I’m aware they’re making changes.”

  “More like a whole new weapons system,” he says. “How would you like to see it up close?”

  Joselyn’s head whips around to look at him. This is like fishing with dynamite. She would kill for the chance.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some friends up north,” he says. “Research being done.”

  “What kind of research?”

  He looks at me, then leans over into her ear and whispers something.

  “Really?” she says. “Where?”

  “DARPA. Hunter Liggett,” he says.

  “You have connections there?”

  Akers nods.

  “I’d love to. You think they’d let me in?”

  “I think they could be convinced.”

  “Love to what?” I ask.

  She looks over, shakes her head, smiles, and turns back to Akers.

  Our drinks come. Herman and I glance at each other. He leans toward me and whispers: “You gonna take the case or not?”

  “There is no case.” But with the bonding going on at the other side of the table, things don’t look good. Harry’s answer may be “no,” but he doesn’t have to go home with Joselyn tonight and weather her lobbying.

  With one ear to their conversation, I hear her say: “Stanford research grant from the Defense Department, as I recall.”

  “That’s where it started,” he says. “But there are still some things going on there.”

  “Really?”

  “What started?” I ask.

  “Shop talk,” says Joselyn. “Don’t mind us.” She turns back to him and continues the conversation, this time at a lower volume, whispering up close into his ear, so I can’t hear.

  She’s not just looking for a few war stories, I suspect, but levels of detail that might surprise Akers if they get deeper into the conversation. I know Joselyn well enough. This is not just a social outing. The minute she heard about Akers, she was on a mission. I’m not worried. It has to do with work. At least that’s what I tell myself.