A Devil's Bargain

by Jonathan Watkins

  Darren hesitated and he realized that part of him did not want to make the call he was contemplating because that part of him didn’t want to know the answers to his questions. That part of him still recoiled from the truth the rest of him knew: he no longer had a brother.

  Somewhere in their different paths through life, they had become estranged. That estrangement had boiled into outright animosity the moment Darren had learned that the Fletcher Group was responsible for the killing of a man who had been Darren’s client. Still, he had never entertained the thoughts that, only half-formed and indistinct, were nevertheless beginning to form in his mind.

  He had never wanted his brother dead.

  “Maybe he’s helping,” Theresa said and Darren looked up at her.

  “What?”

  “Maybe he found out about Reggie being around somehow. He’s a powerful guy, your brother, right?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Theresa scratched at her chin and said, “Well, maybe he sent this Gil guy out here to find Reggie for you. Maybe he was looking out for you because he knows Reggie’s been driving you nuts with those tooth envelopes ever since that case went bad on you. And maybe Reggie killed Gil because Gil was following him. Maybe it was Reggie that was trying to break into the bar. Gil steps in and Reggie stabs him in the neck. You see what I mean?”

  He did. He listened to her and saw it all play out as if it were happening in a movie and instantly wanted it to be true.

  The bell above the front door jangled and he turned to see Issabella walk in. She strode right up to him, her mouth set in a determined line, and she said, “Okay. I’ve made up my mind. This is all horrible but we can’t run away from it. I love you and we’re going to get through this together.”

  “I love you, too. Made up your mind about what?”

  “Calling the cops,” she said and took his untouched drink off the bar. She sipped it once, wrinkled her nose in distaste, and said, “Now talk me out of it.”

  Darren looked at the phone in his hand.

  “You were already going to call them?” she said. “I thought we agreed to talk it over first.”

  “Not the cops.” He hit Send.

  On the third ring he heard his brother’s voice. The interior of the bar dimmed around him, shrank in and grew black, until the only thing in the world that existed beyond him was that familiar voice, so similar to his own.

  “This conversation will wait,” Luther said. He was speaking in a hush and Darren could hear a vibrating chord of tension in his voice.

  “Gil Sharps,” Darren said, biting the words off.

  “Darren, this has to wait.”

  “Gil’s steel suitcase. Gil’s opened steel suitcase, Luther. James Klodd. James Klodd and Reggie and Gil Sharps dead in my friend’s backyard. This conversation will not wait.”

  A pause. Darren felt the thrum of his heart in his ears. He waited.

  “I need time,” Luther insisted, still hushed and sounding as harried as Darren himself felt.

  He wondered, only briefly, what trouble his brother was navigating. Darren knew he had intruded on something serious, if his brother’s strained and whispered plea was any indication.

  The moment passed and Darren made up his mind.

  “Time? You’re out of time,” he said. “I’m going to the cops.”

  He turned his phone off and put it back in his pocket. He looked at Issabella. The bar had returned and he was no longer alone with the sound of Luther’s voice. He took a deep breath and managed to smile at her.

  “I’m not talking you out of anything, kid. Come on. We’re taking all of this straight to the cops.”

  Issabella didn’t move and Darren saw that she was looking at him with naked consternation, as if he’d grown a third eye while on the phone.

  “Reggie?” she said. “Who is Reggie? Why did you say Reggie?”

  “Apparently, that’s what James Klodd is calling himself these days.”

  “I don’t understand, Darren.”

  Darren repeated to her what Theresa had told him about the two times James Klodd, his hair dyed and his beard shaven, had come to her bar and called himself Reggie. When he was done, Issabella’s confusion had not lessened.

  “Reginald is James Klodd,” she said.

  “Reginald? We’re formalizing his lie now? Reggie is a made-up name, Izzy. There is no Reggie or Reginald. James Klodd is in Michigan, or he was three nights ago. And my brother knows something about that. Gil Sharps knew something about it, and that means my brother does, too. What we have to do is get all of this to the cops. Or the feds. The feds. That’s where we’re going.”

  He stuffed all the papers and the photo of James Klodd back into the file folder and walked over to the suitcase. He slapped the folder down on top of the envelopes and pushed the lid shut.

  “We’re not equipped to chase this any further,” he insisted without turning to look at her. “And I can’t fail her twice, Izzy. Shoshanna deserves better than me. She always did.”

  “Darren.”

  “Is Isaac Schultz still with the Detroit field office? We’ll call him and hand everything over to the feds.”

  “Darren.”

  He turned and she was right beside him. One hand was in her purse, and when she brought it out she was holding a pile of folded sheets of yellow legal paper. She held them out to him.

  “What’s this?”

  “Not Reggie,” she said. “Reginald. Reginald Chalmers. And his address, Darren.”

  Darren snatched the papers out of her hand and unfolded them. There were three pages. The first contained a hand-written column of numbers.

  “I double checked the number of digits,” Issabella said. “I think those are bank accounts and routing numbers. The column next to them appears to be dollar amounts deposited.”

  Darren slipped the first page to the back and stared at the second page.

  Scrawled in the same looping handwriting was a phone number, the initials “J.L.” and the words “Old Victorian Hotel. Room 121,” followed by a Detroit address. Beneath that, and written in a different colored ink, was Darren’s apartment address. Beneath that was the address to the Canton apartment Issabella still owned but no longer lived in. Finally, at the end of the list, was the address to Winkle’s Tavern.

  “J.L.,” Darren whispered.

  “Yeah, I have no clue on that.”

  “Joe Link,” he answered.

  “Who is Joe Link?”

  Darren flipped to the third page.

  “Darren, who is Joe Link?”

  “Someone who works for Luther. Someone like Gil. A guy who does things that involves carrying a gun.”

  The third page had been torn in half. Still, Darren was staring at a list of names.

  “Izzy...”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Izzy, these are the names of officials involved with all my attempts to get Luther charged in court. Judge Holder. She’s the one who tossed out the wrongful death action I tried to pin on him for the death of Chief Fish last year.”

  “I know.”

  “This is a list of people Luther has bent,” he said, and pointed at the suitcase. “The bank accounts and routing numbers. The cash. Izzy, this is everything. This is enough. We’ve got him. We’ve got enough right here to get the feds to start an investigation. They can pull the histories on the accounts. Bribery. It’s bribery on a breathtaking level.”

  He was convinced of it. He felt a mixture of awe and outrage. Awe that his brother’s reach was so absolute, and outrage that his worst suspicions about that truth were now born out in the looping swooshes of a dead man’s notes.

  “The accounts mean there were payments already made,” he said. “The cash, though...for what? Why bundle
cash together when you could just transfer more bribe money into these people’s bank accounts? It doesn’t matter. It’s a conspiracy and we have real proof.”

  She nodded and said, “I agree. That’s what it is. It’s a conspiracy of corruption I never would have thought possible. Multiple agencies. A federal judge. An Ohio police lieutenant. A Department of Justice chief attorney. I ran them all through a search on my phone while I was outside. Some of the names didn’t come back, but the FBI would be able to figure out who they are faster than we can. You’re right about that. We could take it all to Schultz right now and forget about it.”

  Her face was set in stony resolve. Issabella, he realized, already knew what they were going to do.

  “Or...?” he said.

  “Or you can turn the last page over.”

  The ominous note in her voice made his fingers unsteady. A slight tremor ran through him as he turned the page over in his hands.

  The name Reginald was written there with yet a third pen’s ink, this one red. And beneath it, an address in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Darren couldn’t pull his eyes away from it. But he could sense Issabella take a step closer to him. She was peering right up at him, her arms folded across her chest.

  “If Reginald is James Klodd,” she said. “Then I think we know where to find him, Darren. Are you listening?”

  He forced himself to look at her. Her stern mask of resolve was still in place. But in her unblinking eyes, he could see something else: a bottomless compassion for him.

  “I’m listening,” he whispered.

  “Good. Because this is important.”

  “Izzy, what are you trying to tell me?”

  “You get to decide. He took a little girl and he tormented you for doing your job. So you decide. We go to the cops. Or we go somewhere else. You tell me, Darren. Where are we going?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We have a new problem.”

  Luther set his phone on the desk and stared at his three employees. He realized they had all been staring at him the entire time he’d been on the phone with his brother. Dick and Carmen both loitered near the door to the hallway, and their expressions were nearly identical. They were looking at him with open skepticism, waiting for what he knew they needed: information. He had hardly fed them any. Just enough to get them to understand that they needed to extricate Joe Link from his predicament here at the Chalmers Estate. Beyond that, they were in the dark. As each moment ticked by, they looked more and more resentful about that fact.

  Joe, slumped in a chair against the wall to Luther’s left, appeared utterly serene. Despite his pronounced limp and the bruises that mottled his face, the only person in the room who seemed untroubled was the one who had been held and tormented for the past three days.

  Joe saw him looking his way and a smirk spread over his face.

  “How can you be so calm?” Luther asked.

  “I’m a man about to get satisfaction,” Joe assured him with a wink.

  “Joe...”

  “You shoulda told me about Klodd before you sent me out here to watch your little brother, boss. If I’d known he was off limits, this whole shit show never would of started.”

  “Who’s Klodd?” Dick said.

  Luther leaned forward in his chair and tented his fingers together under his chin.

  “This is not the time or place for that conversation.”

  Joe barked an ugly laugh into the air and shifted in his chair so he was facing Luther. He was a short man, but as wide and thick as a hairless gorilla. His smirk had turned into a big, teeth-baring sneer.

  “That’s the same thing you just told your brother, ain’t it?” he said. “I’m guessing he didn’t like hearing that any more than me. Luther, you know I’m a loyal old dog. Always have been. Pride myself on it. But loyalty has limits. And I’m telling you right now, you need to convince me there’s a solid-gold, no-bullshit, ironclad reason why I shouldn’t beat this Krane to fucking death as soon as he strolls back in here.”

  Luther sniffed and said, “You hardly appear to be in a condition to accomplish that particular feat, Joe.”

  Joe’s thick brows lowered, turning his meaty face savage. He clenched and unclenched his hands, as if to prove they could still be useful even with his wrists bound.

  “I don’t need to be,” he answered in a low growl. “What do you think my pal Dick over there’s going to do if Krane gets the better of me? You think he’ll let him pull that gun he’s got stashed in his waistband and blow my brains all over these fancy books? Or do you think my pal Dick will just go ahead and pull his own pistola and turn that fucker’s lights out for me? Either way, Krane’s going to be room temperature by the time you figure out this is all your own damn fault, Luther.”

  Luther watched Dick. Usually the first to speak up, the retired cop remained stone-faced as he stared back at Luther. He was confirming nothing about Joe’s violent prediction. But he wasn’t disputing it, either.

  With no help there, Luther looked to Carmen. She pursed her lips and looked uncomfortable, but finally opened her mouth.

  “Operationally, we need answers,” she said, before hastily adding, “sir.”

  Luther saw that it was true. Joe Link was a not a man who made idle threats. He was too dangerous to ever need to bother with braggadocio. It was one of the qualities that had made him Luther’s most valuable investigator. When Luther’s powers of persuasion exhausted themselves, Joe was who he relied on to apply a blunt, visceral solution to a problem.

  If he couldn’t convince Joe that Krane was still off-limits then there was every likelihood that Joe would attack Krane.

  Luther looked at the ceiling and sorted his thoughts.

  “There is no James Klodd,” he said. “He doesn’t exist. You’re chasing a phantom.”

  “Your brother might quibble with that,” Joe said. “Seeing as Klodd’s the kiddie murderer Darren got off with a technicality.”

  “His brother?” Dick said.

  “Oh, sure,” Joe went on, still smiling. “I been tailing the littlest Fletcher boy around ever since he got too close to our business a few months back. Luther says keep tabs on him. See what kind of hijinks he might get up to. So me, being the thorough son of a bitch I am, I check out his background while I’m spending all this quality time in luxurious Detroit. The brother had a big case with a guy kidnapped a little girl. Got him off the hook, too. So the kiddie murderer disappears. Only, not all the way. For some reason, he has to rub it in the lawyer’s nose that he helped get a killer let loose. Keeps mailing the kid’s teeth to Darren in neat little green envelopes.”

  “Jesus,” Carmen whispered. “Is that true?”

  Luther held his hands in the air, a gesture of surrender.

  “This is Joe’s show now, apparently. Unless you two want to tell him this can wait until we’re back on the road.”

  Neither of them spoke up, so Joe nodded and kept on going.

  “Well, a few nights ago I’m sitting outside this little watering hole Darren spends his time in. I figure he might swing by after work and I’ll sit around like I been doing for months. If not, I’ll just roll over to his apartment building and spend my night there. You know, exciting shit. Anyway, Darren never shows. I’m about to leave and go to his apartment. I turn the headlights on and wham! Deer in the headlights. Only it ain’t a deer. It’s a weird little dude who was crossing the street. He stares at me, all surprised. I stare at him. He goes on in the bar. Only, see, I know I know this dude. His eyes are fucked up and mismatched. I seen him before. A minute of running it around in my head and I realize who it is.”

  “The kiddie killer,” Dick said and Luther didn’t care for the way Dick’s eyes slid over to him as he said it.

  “Sure as shit,” Joe agreed before Luther could speak up. “
You can figure out the rest. Soon as James Klodd comes out of the bar, I tail him back here. I search for who owns the place. Comes back as a Reginald Chalmers. So I send out a supersecret text to the boss asking why our biggest, baddest client is harboring the psycho whose been screwing with his brother all these years. Soon as I do that, this weak sister Krane sneaks up and shoots my ass with a rubber bullet. Three days he’s kicking my ribs and slapping me around like he caught me in bed with his daughter.”

  Luther said, “And now you’re feverishly perturbed.”

  “If that means pissed, it don’t hardly get it.”

  “Joe Link, the righteously indignant? That’s a new role, I have to say.”

  Joe’s smile died and his voice got quiet.

  “Fuck you, Luther. I never agreed to hide a kid killer.”

  “Me neither,” Dick agreed. “No way did I sign up for that.”

  “Because you were never given the choice,” Luther said and got to his feet. He pointed around the room at the three of them, noting the judgment that was creeping into their eyes. “None of you were given that choice. Not then. Not now. This isn’t a democracy, friends. None of the papers you signed when you came on gave you the right to balk at the decisions this firm makes—that I make.”

  He turned on Joe and stabbed his finger directly at him.

  “You have qualms now, Joe? Well congratulations on the sudden bout of personal growth. That and your severance papers will get you a job in mall security. Unless that’s your new life plan, nothing has changed. We need the hard drive. When we have it, the three of you are not to utter a word until we’ve driven clear of the front gates. Is there anything remotely unclear about that?”

  If there was, none of them had time to say so.

  John Krane appeared in the doorway, a black metal hard drive in his hands. He walked in and stared down the length of the room at Luther.

  “This is actually heavier than it looks. Who’s carrying it out?”

  Luther opened his mouth and was about to say, “You are, Mister Krane,” but the man didn’t wait for an answer. Krane turned to his left and heaved the hard drive into Dick’s arms. Dick had to scramble to get his hands under it before Krane let go.