by Ellis, T. W.
‘Messer said you had enough information to bring down the entire cartel.’
‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Hopefully. I mean, I don’t know for sure. It’s impossible to know what is enough. But I’ve tried. I’ve done what I could.’
‘Wilks and Messer had FBI badges,’ I say. ‘The police chief, Rusty, thought they were the real deal. Later, she told me they were National Security. How can that be the case?’
‘They work for the government. They’re connected to more powerful people in the pockets of the cartel, people who could be exposed by the evidence I have. It’s not inconceivable that they could supply credentials of the kind of quality that could fool a small-town police chief.’
‘Then who is Carlson?’ I ask Leo.
A deep groove appears between his eyebrows. ‘I’m confused. Why are you talking about someone named Carlson?’
‘Because Carlson called me this morning a few minutes after Wilks and Messer showed up. He tried to warn me. Then again later when I went to see the police. He said he knew you. He’s the one who told me you were an informant for the FBI. He said you worked for him. He … he saved me when Wilks and Messer were going to kill me. We escaped together, but he had a photograph of you in his glovebox. It freaked me out. I couldn’t trust him then. That’s when me and Trevor came here.’
Leo is quiet. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name.’
I feel the familiar coolness in my face. Like all the blood has been pulled out of the skin.
My eyes feel dry.
The earth tilts one way, and then the other.
It rotates.
Faster and faster.
Everything becomes a blur because everything is spinning. I reach out with my arms in a desperate attempt to keep my balance. I wobble. I stumble.
‘Oh God …’
I sink down to my knees. I press my palms against my eyes to blind myself so I don’t have to watch the world spin faster and faster around my axis. The dizziness does not go away. I can’t see but I’m still nauseous because of course the earth is not spinning around me. It’s a symptom of my anxiety. My screwed-up brain is trying to cope with the stress of the day and it’s failing.
Leo rushes to comfort me but I wave my hand in his general direction to tell him no.
There’s nothing he can do.
I don’t know how long the vertigo lasts but I’m drenched with sweat when I’m finally brave enough to open my eyes again.
I’m deathly pale. Weak. Tired.
Angry.
Leo says, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course I’m not okay.’
1:34 a.m.
I walk away. Out of Leo’s office and through the larger office space and down the stairs to the dark warehouse floor. Trevor and Leo follow. I don’t know what I’m doing but my emotions are all over the place because I should be so pleased to see him, to be near him, yet I can’t forget how hurt I am, how angry and betrayed. Should I let it go? For now, at least.
No, I decide. I refuse to do so.
‘How could you live this double life and I had no idea?’
Leo says, ‘Because I had to. The less you knew about my work, the safer you’d be. I lied to protect you.’
‘Great job with that,’ Trevor says.
‘I did everything I could to keep you safe, Jem. If you believe nothing else, believe that. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. You must know that.’
I do. But, ‘How could you have lied to me about who you are all this time?’
‘I lied, yes, but about what I do for a living. I lied about one thing. That’s it. That’s all.’
‘That’s enough,’ I tell him. ‘That’s too much. Any lie is too much.’
‘I never lied about who I am.’
‘But you did,’ I insist. ‘Even if that’s the only lie you told me, you lied about who you are. Because the Leo I thought I knew would never lie to me. That Leo was a lie.’
He says nothing. What can he say? Nothing is going to change that fact. I either have to accept my husband isn’t who I thought he was, or …
I can’t think of the ‘or’ right now. It’s too much even to consider.
He hugs me. He kisses me. I don’t respond.
I feel cold. I feel alone.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says behind me. ‘I’m so sorry. Once this is over, I’m through. I thought I could do this and have a normal life. I thought the two never had to cross. I was wrong. I made a mistake. I’m not going to make another, so I’m out. I’ll quit.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I care about my work but it’s nothing compared to you.’
His words make me feel better. Just a little, but I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever positivity I can get at this moment.
‘How do we end this?’ I ask, eager to do just that. ‘Drive to FBI headquarters and hand in the SD card?’
‘I wish it was so simple. The whole reason I haven’t done so already is because that’s putting it back in the path of the people like Wilks and Messer and those far higher up. Once it’s in the system, the evidence is out of my hands. Things get lost. Things get changed. What was once proof can end up inconclusive, inaccurate, falsified. What then? The traitors go free and I’ve put my life on the line for nothing.’ He gestures to me, to the scrapes on my arm and the scabs on my face. ‘All this is for nothing.’
‘You can analyse the reports yourself?’ Trevor asks. ‘You can identify the dirty agents from what’s on that little plastic square?’
Leo nods. ‘I can.’
‘Then why haven’t you? Why has it been sitting on your desk like a worm wriggling on a hook all this time?’
‘That’s an oversimplification. It’s not a case of reading a spreadsheet and looking for whose name is filled in under the “bad guy” heading. I’ve had to investigate. I’ve had to research. I’ve been working on this for a long time now. I’m sorry if I haven’t worked fast enough for your liking, sir. I’ve been doing my best.’
Trevor mutters to himself.
‘Feel free to take a step back, friend,’ Leo continues. ‘As I said: I appreciate what you’ve done for my wife, but maybe it’s time for you to go home to your own.’
‘I don’t have a wife.’
‘My point is, this is where we part ways.’
Trevor is silent for a moment. ‘I’ll be on my way if Jem here wants me to be. Not because her two-face of a husband tells me to go.’
I say, ‘I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Trevor. I really am. You’re maybe the nicest person I’ve ever known in my life. I haven’t even known you a day, yet you’ve risked your life to help me. I don’t have the first idea how to thank you for that.’
‘You’ve thanked me plenty,’ he says. ‘Don’t need to do it again.’
Leo says, ‘We really need to get out of here. I was hoping you’d come, hoping I could find you. If I can think of this, so can they. We need to make a move before anyone else gets here.’
‘Too late,’ Wilks says from behind us.
1:38 a.m.
She’s waiting in the shadows in the darkness. How long she’s been there, I don’t know. Long enough for us to let our guards down, at least. When she steps forward into a swathe of moonlight the bruising and discolouration on her scalp are obvious. Little strips of medical tape keep the wound closed. It must hurt like hell.
Good. I want her to hurt. I want her to suffer.
She’s holding a gun. Could be the same one she held before or it could be a new one. Regardless, it glimmers in the moonlight, held steady in Wilks’ iron-firm grip.
Her face is serious and determined. Intense.
I freeze. Leo and Trevor are either side of me.
The muzzle is a hole of pure black pointed our way.
‘Good to see you again, Leo. You’re looking well, as always.’
Leo says nothing in response.
I glance at him. ‘You know each other?’
Wilks feigns surprise. ‘I guess he forgot to mention that part.’
Leo is silent.
Trevor says, ‘Why don’t you put that firearm away. You point it long enough it’s bound to go off.’
‘What a tragedy that would be.’
Trevor nods. ‘I’m guessing it would be else why haven’t you shot us all yet? You still want that information, don’t you? And you’ve been through far too much today trying to get it for your efforts to amount to nothing should a negligent discharge occur and put an end to your chances of finding it.’
Wilks considers.
‘I’m not saying for you to put it away. I’m suggesting you point it at the floor until you decide to use it or not. That’s all. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘I’d try and be quiet if I were you.’ Wilks aims the gun at Trevor. ‘Because right now you don’t know a thing about what’s going on here and you should really try and keep it that way for your own sake. Don’t force me to think of you as more than just a poor old fool in the wrong time at the wrong place.’
‘I beg to differ, ma’am.’
‘How so?’
‘Maybe I’m exactly where I need to be exactly when I need to be there.’
‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ Wilks says. ‘I don’t want to have to hurt you, so keep your mouth shut and maybe you get out of here alive. You can go back to your miserable existence.’
‘Leave him alone,’ I say.
Wilks turns her attention to me. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mrs Talhoffer. How have you been?’
‘Truth be told I’ve not had the best day.’
She nods. ‘I bet. I’m sorry about that. This whole thing has spiralled out of control. If I could go back and do things differently, I would. But here we are.’
Leo speaks, finally. ‘What do you want?’
‘You know what I want, Leo. You’ve always known. I want what’s mine. You give me the information, I walk away. You and Jem get to walk away. Whoever this old guy is gets to walk away too. Sound like a fair deal?’
‘I don’t have it.’
‘Sure you don’t.’
‘It’s safe,’ Leo says. ‘I can take you to it. Let these two go and we can head there right now.’
‘I think we’ll all head there together. I don’t want to be the one to break up the band.’
‘No,’ Leo insists. ‘Just you and me go.’
‘I’m not a patient woman, Leo. I didn’t want it to come to this. I offered you a fair price. Too fair, probably. I gave you every chance to avoid this and you refused me every time. What did you think was going to be the next step? Did you really think we were going to go away? Did you really think this wouldn’t happen? It’s just business, Leo. It’s not personal. I don’t have a single problem with you or your lovely wife. Had things played out a little differently I could imagine us having a barbecue together, laughing and joking and sipping beer while burgers sizzle.’
I say, ‘I’m having a hard time believing that.’
‘Well,’ Wilks says. ‘Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic about your husband’s capacity for friendship.’
‘Who are you?’ I ask. ‘Why do you know Leo?’
‘Oh yeah, in all this excitement I’d forgotten he hasn’t told you. Leo and me, we work together. Worked, I mean. Can’t see us being too cosy after this. Can you?’
‘I know you’re NSA too.’
Wilks laughs a little. A coarse, cruel sound. She looks to Leo. ‘Too? Is that what you told her?’
Leo doesn’t answer.
I say to Wilks, ‘You’re not National Security?’
‘I am,’ she replies. ‘Your husband isn’t.’
‘Not directly,’ I say. ‘He’s an informant. That’s why you know each other.’
Wilks is frowning and glancing between me and Leo. ‘Is that what he told you?’
I don’t answer.
‘Is that what you told her, Leo?’
He doesn’t answer.
Wilks says, ‘I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but your husband is not, and never has been, any kind of informant. What he is is a money launderer. But he’s not only that, are you, Leo? He’s also a thief.’ There’s a glimmer in Wilks’ eyes. She’s enjoying this. ‘But mostly he’s a pathological liar, and I’m thinking you’re starting to work that last part out for yourself by now.’
1:42 a.m.
Leo isn’t an informant working to bring down a drug cartel.
Leo is a liar.
Leo is a thief.
I don’t want to believe it but as I look at Leo he can’t meet my gaze and I know that everything he told me just minutes ago was false. He doesn’t work for the FBI or National Security. There’s no evidence. There are no reports. It was all an elaborate story to cover his actions. Another deception to hide the other deceptions.
Inside, I’m in pieces. Outside, I don’t react. I’m hiding my true reaction so I have the focus of will to say: ‘I don’t believe you.’
Wilks turns down the corners of her mouth. ‘I don’t care what you believe. I’m not interested in convincing you of the truth. I just want the money Leo stole from me.’
‘Money?’ I ask Leo.
He doesn’t want to answer, so Trevor does on his behalf: ‘Your hubby ripped off the cartel, Jem. He stole from them. Maybe once, maybe a thousand times. He hasn’t been compiling evidence against them, he’s been hoarding their money.’
‘Pretty much,’ Wilks says. ‘Except it’s my money too. And Messer’s, the poor bastard.’
Leo finds his voice. ‘I expect you’ll be keeping his share for yourself.’
‘Don’t say it like that,’ Wilks says. ‘So, I took a little money? So, I stole from drug dealers? Pocket change to them but not to me. Life’s not fair and it’s expensive too. All I took was enough to get by without worrying all the time. I wasn’t greedy. Not at first. But once you take a little it’s easier to take a little more and a little more. And all those tiny pieces add up to a lot and before you know it you’ve gone too far. When you’re in over your head you can’t back out again. And when you understand that and accept your predicament it’s actually quite liberating. Because then you let go of all the previous restraints you had. Then you understand that you have no limits.’ She pauses. ‘Isn’t that what happened to you, Leo?’
He’s silent.
‘You should be thanking me,’ she says. ‘I could have sent you to prison for the rest of your life but I gave you an opportunity. You carry on doing what you were doing for the cartel and I help keep you free from a nine-by-nine. In return for a small percentage, naturally.’ She says to me: ‘Problem was, I didn’t realise your husband was taking a percentage of his own.’
‘I didn’t steal from you,’ Leo tells her.
‘Doesn’t matter. You got greedy and ruined everything. Thing about a cartel you forget is that even though they’ve trusted you to do something for them it doesn’t mean they trust you. Doesn’t matter how good you are, they’ll assume you’re going to steal because that’s what they’d do in your place. So, sooner or later they’re going to check up on you. They’re going to go through everything you’ve done for them and realise you’ve been stealing from them.’
I say, ‘And now you want to steal it all?’
‘Although I don’t like to think of it as stealing, so much as making better use of idle resources. I can take early retirement in five years. I figure it might be nice to spend that retirement on a big schooner sailing around the South Pacific without a care in the world.’
‘Sounds nice,’ I say without inflection.
‘Oh, it will be. I have the boat already picked out.’ Wilks shrugs. She doesn’t care that she’s a thief or that people know it.
‘You think someone might notice if you suddenly buy a boat you can’t afford on your government pension?’
‘Don’t sweat the details, Jem. I’m going to sit on the money until I’m long gone, until ever
yone who matters has forgotten I ever existed. That was Leo’s plan too, wasn’t it, Leo?’
Leo is silent again. I hope he’s working on a different kind of plan. Some strategy to get us out of this nightmare. Whatever he’s done can wait until there’s no longer a gun pointed at us. Marriage problems, trust issues, kind of take a back seat in such situations.
Trevor says, ‘How is money stored on one of those little hard drives?’
I think I know. ‘Accounts? Investments? Real estate? Stocks? Numbers on spreadsheets?’
Wilks says, ‘Something like that. Come on, Leo. You know you have no choice. Don’t make me hurt the person you care most about in this world.’
‘You so much as breathe on her and you get nothing. I’ll take you to it. Just you and me.’
There’s an intensity in Leo’s tone that demands attention.
Wilks frowns. ‘I think you’re forgetting which of us has the gun. I think you’re also forgetting which of us has a loved one in the room.’ Wilks points the gun at me. ‘I shoot her in the guts and you’ll be begging me to bring her along.’
‘You can have the information,’ Leo continues. ‘Go sell it. Get rich. I don’t care. But if at any point I think, even for a second, that anything has happened to Jem, I will die before I give it up. So, you have to ask yourself: how much do I want it? Because you need to convince me you want it so bad you won’t dare risk pissing me off.’
‘Okay, take it easy,’ Wilks says. ‘This is about priorities, Leo. I have mine. You have yours. They’re not mutually exclusive.’
Leo, without a gun, commands the room.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘That’s what I wanted to hear.’
As confident and powerful as he is in this moment, I have no idea how he’s going to get us out of this. I have the information Wilks wants in my pocket. Leo knows this. Trevor knows this. The only person who doesn’t know this is Wilks. Whatever Leo promises her is moot without the micro SD card in my possession.
There’s a compelling urge inside me to take it out of my pocket and throw it to Wilks. That’s what she wants. If she doesn’t get it, who knows what she might do? I can end this right now.
