by S. D. Thames
Without thinking, David yelled, “Stop!”
The linebacker looked back momentarily before opening his car door. He glanced back at David again, got in the car, and closed the door.
“Wait up,” David yelled. He sprinted to the Acura and arrived just as the motor started humming. David knocked on the window a few times. The window rolled down and the man looked out and calmly assessed the situation.
“Can we talk?” David said.
Without warning, the door swung open. David stumbled on the curb as he tried to avoid getting hit. Before he knew what was happening, the man swept David off the sidewalk and against the hard brick wall of an abandoned store.
“I don’t want any trouble,” David said.
The man pushed David tight against the wall and put his hand around his throat, just tight enough to get his attention. “For someone who doesn’t want any trouble, you’re pretty stupid.”
“Who are you?” David said, trying to catch his breath.
“What’s it matter to you?”
“I saw you snooping around the Towers before the fire. I just want to know who you are.”
He glanced to his left and right, then at David. “You can call me Samson if that makes you feel better.”
“Who do you work for?”
Samson snickered. “A better question, Friedman, is who do you work for?”
David didn’t like that this guy knew his name. His breathing accelerated.
“Surprised I know your name?”
David quickly slapped the man’s hand away and ducked. He started to run, but Samson swept his feet and knocked him to the ground.
David rolled over, looked up, and braced himself, ready to block whatever blows were on the way. “I said I don’t want any trouble. I just want to know the truth.”
Samson laughed. “A lawyer who cares about the truth? Give me a break.” He pulled David to his feet, took a step back, and took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one without speaking.
“What do you know about Katherine?” David asked.
“Katherine Hawkins? She’s dead. Ain’t that enough?”
David took a step closer. “Do you work for them? The investor?”
Samson feigned surprise. “Which investor?”
David didn’t know what to say to that.
“Sounds to me like you ask some dangerous questions,” Samson said.
“And what does Ruiz have to do with this?”
“Why don’t you just ask your boss?”
David took a few easy steps away from Samson.
Samson followed. “Oh, he won’t tell you?” He laughed again. “You have no idea what you’re tied up with—do you, you stupid little shit? Do you even know who your boss is?”
David was still backtracking, and Samson was following him every step of the way, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake. When David reached the end of the street, he glanced at the corner behind him and found the courthouse. Across the intersection, Beth was descending the courthouse steps.
“Now be a good boy and run back to your prosecutor friend.” Samson was grinning now.
David turned and ran toward the courthouse.
“And be careful where you go digging around,” Samson yelled after him. “Or the truth might catch up with you.”
David sprinted across the street and slowed as soon as Beth spotted him. Her face radiated in the sunlight. He glanced behind him. There was no sign of Samson.
“I was going to bill you for shipping,” she said as she handed him the BlackBerry.
“You couldn’t drop it off tonight?” He was still catching his breath.
“Your dream, remember?”
David took the BlackBerry and held it along with Beth’s hand. “Is that really why you can’t see me?”
Beth removed her hand and nodded toward the courthouse, apologetically. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this.”
“You don’t need to say anything.”
“Be careful, David.”
He wanted to kiss her, and cursed himself for not kissing her the nights he’d had a chance. The night he first saw her at the Hilton, when he walked her to her car, before this all started. The night they went to Judge Cox’s reception. The night they went to dinner on the beach—the last night he could have, before everything changed. But he knew the most he could get from her now was information. So he asked, “Who was that guy being sentenced today?”
“Which one?”
“The last one. Ruiz.”
“Nick Ruiz.” She averted his gaze. This was clearly becoming unnerving for her. “Pleaded out for mortgage fraud. It’s all public record now. Anything else you need to know?”
He paused. This could be his last chance. “When will I see you again?”
She stared at him for a moment. He could tell she wasn’t going to say what she really wanted to say, and definitely not what he wanted her to say. “I’ll see you around, David.” Before she turned the corner, she glanced back at him with a look of regret and determination.
David’s BlackBerry, still clutched in his grip, began to ring. It was Frank.
“Where the hell are you?” Frank asked.
“Since when do you care what happens in court?”
“Since I get a call like the one I just got.”
David glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Who called you?”
“The investor.”
That didn’t take long, David thought. “What did they say?”
Frank breathed heavily over the phone. “They want you dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
David pulled into the driveway at the safe house. The garage door was open, and Robbie’s truck was parked inside. David smelled weed burning the instant he set foot in the garage.
The door to the mudroom swung open, and Robbie peeked out.
David fanned the pungent smell. “I know this neighborhood is deserted, but you can smell the reefer down the street.”
Robbie nodded behind him. “He’s had a bad day. Don’t listen to anything he says.”
“What happened?”
“We just got back from the doctor. He’s not handling the news or the drugs well.”
“So you get him high?”
“He said it’s the only thing that helps.”
David honed in on Robbie’s glazed eyes. “So what’s your excuse?”
A moment later David passed through the kitchen, following the smell of the weed to the living room, where a muted TV played a newscast on FOX news, a story about Barack Obama’s rise in the polls and the upcoming election in November. Across the room, Frank was sitting upright in a worn recliner. His eyes were bandaged with white gauze that glistened with the sheen of ointment and blood.
“Frank?” was all David could say.
“Here.” Frank didn’t budge.
David stepped closer.
“Are we going to win this case?” Frank moaned, his volume oblivious to David’s proximity.
David leaned over him. “I’m going to do everything I can to win this case.”
“They’ll kill me if you don’t. They’ll kill you too.”
David glanced at Robbie, who was shaking his head to discount Frank.
“Did you really get a call from the investor this afternoon?” David asked Frank.
“They’ll kill us, David. Just like they did Katherine.” Frank began to sob. A stream of snot dripped from his nose onto the stubble of his upper lip.
“Don’t listen to him,” Robbie whispered. “He’s not all there right now.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Frank moaned in a low voice. “Lord is with you.”
“I didn’t know he was Catholic,” David said.
Robbie shook his head. “He’s not.”
“What do you know about a Nick Ruiz?” David asked Robbie.
“Why do you ask?”
“I saw him in court today.”
Robbie seemed disturbed by this news. �
�Nick Ruiz worked with WMC Brokers. I think he closed the loans on a few of our sales.”
“A few?” David asked.
“That’s what I said. He was probably skimming some money. It happened to the best of them when times were good.” Robbie shrugged. “The temptation.”
“Ruiz took the fall for us,” Frank gasped. “And he’ll die too.”
“What does he mean, he took the fall?” David asked.
“Don’t listen to him,” Robbie said. “What’s next?”
David took a deep breath. “We go to trial.” He stared at Frank, whose prayer was growing louder. “He gonna be okay to testify?”
Robbie nodded. “He’ll sleep it off. Be back to himself tomorrow.”
“Will he be able to see?”
Robbie shook his head and shrugged. “They don’t know yet.”
Frank turned his head toward the ceiling and whispered, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the time of our death.”
That evening, David reviewed the trial exhibits in his office. Everything was in order. Everything made sense—too much sense. The fire was an accident caused by a gas line that had been under repair for several weeks. Vasquez’s only evidence that the fire was not accidental was an overpaid expert who would testify that this fire could not have been caused by the alleged fault with the gas line. As long as Ashcroft and his investigators didn’t change their tune and pin this on Frank, David had nothing to worry about, at least concerning the arson claim.
The misrepresentation claim, on the other hand, had kept David awake the past few nights. He couldn’t get Xerxes Capital out of his mind. If Frank had lied during his deposition about Xerxes Capital—and if Xerxes Capital turned out to be an investor in the company—then the jury could deny the claim and void the policy for that reason alone. One material lie was all it would take. And something about the Xerxes Capital issue didn’t sit well with David, especially in light of Frank’s hallucinatory ranting at the safe house. But if that was the case, then Vasquez had to have evidence to show Frank was not telling the truth. So David pored over Vasquez’s exhibits, trying to find anything that might contradict Frank’s testimony about the escrow money. If Vasquez had proof that Frank had lied, then he hadn’t turned it over to David. David wondered whether he was missing something or chasing windmills—or both.
The next day, when David should have been practicing his opening statement and reviewing his trial exhibits for the fortieth time that week, he instead found himself staring at a lime-green brick wall inside a cafeteria at the Federal Corrections Institution in Miami. A low-level security prison that housed crooked pencil pushers, this was where Nick Ruiz would serve his twenty-seven-month sentence.
At the opposite end of the cafeteria, David watched inmates exit through a steel door. As they exited, they all tried to act tough despite the fact that they’d just been strip-searched. David hadn’t recognized any of them. He didn’t recognize the next guy at first either, but he took a closer look when the man stared around the cafeteria as if he had no idea who he was meeting. He’d grown a full beard and bloated about ten pounds, but David realized that this guy was Nick Ruiz.
David stood and waved at him. He looked David up and down a few times before walking toward him. David extended his hand to shake, but Ruiz ignored it. He just turned a chair at the table backwards and sat on it. He crossed his arms and stared at the table.
David took a seat facing him. “You can call me Justin.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Ruiz didn’t flinch.
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t like you.” Ruiz spit something out the side of his mouth. “Who sent you?”
David leaned closer. “Xerxes.”
“Don’t say that name here,” Ruiz whispered. Then he looked David up and down and rolled his eyes. “You look about like the kind of asshole they’d hire.”
“How they treating you?” David asked.
“No one’s tried to fuck me yet, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He studied David a beat longer. “You sure I don’t know you?”
“All I know is I don’t know you.”
Ruiz shook his head. “What the hell do you know? I been here a month. My wife hasn’t called. She won’t let my daughter call me. I need to know they’re going to be taken care of.”
“We need to know you’re holding up your end. Word is you cut a deal.”
“Of course I cut a deal. The deal we discussed.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them what I was supposed to tell them.”
David nodded. “Anything we should be worried about?”
Ruiz rubbed his fingers through his beard. “Everything’s copacetic.”
“They ask anything about Frank O’Reilly?”
“As planned. They think the buck stops with him. I’m surprised they haven’t arrested him yet.”
“Why?” David asked.
“They seemed close. But what do I know.” Ruiz took another look at David, like he was growing weary of him.
“You’re sure of that?”
“As sure as I can be.” Ruiz squinted. Something about David wasn’t sitting well with him.
“So you need anything?”
Ruiz shook his head. Studied David a beat longer before speaking again. “Aren’t you going to ask about the files?”
“The escrow records?” David asked.
Ruiz nodded. “I knew they’d want them back.”
David felt a thin layer of ice cracking under his feet with each question and answer. “I’ll pass it on. Where are they?”
“In the storage warehouse back in Fort Gaspar. Off 39th Avenue. Unit sixteen. You can get in there without being noticed at night.”
“You left the key there?” David asked.
Ruiz rolled his eyes. “Magnus will know the code. You know Magnus, don’t you?”
David knew Ruiz was playing games with him now. “Of course.”
Ruiz rubbed his beard again and nodded. “I do know you. You were at my sentencing.”
David took a quick breath and played it cool. “Of course I was there.”
Nick nodded and grinned. Then he stood. “You know where to go,” he said before he turned and strolled toward the guard who let him out the steel door. “Call Magnus if you need anything,” he whispered before he was out of earshot.
The guard put the cuffs back on Ruiz’s wrists, while Ruiz nodded good-bye to David—a cynical, indifferent gesture. Exactly how David felt.
The storage warehouse Ruiz described was a bland complex of garage doors and empty signs in the middle of a sprawling industrial park north of downtown. David circled the warehouse a few times in the Saab, making sure he wasn’t being followed or watched. He noticed a van parked by one of the units, but it had a flat right tire and looked like it hadn’t seen a highway in years.
David parked a few doors down and made his way to unit sixteen. It was a flimsy fiberglass door about David’s height and five feet wide. He checked the handle. It was locked. The combination was set at 4-5-5. He turned the lock but it wouldn’t budge. But it felt flimsy and weak—everything about the door did.
He returned to the Saab and opened the trunk, where he pushed aside mounds of hearing notebooks, shredded copies of case law, and beer cans that had accumulated over the past eight years. Finally, he found a crowbar he’d been sure was buried somewhere in there. It too felt flimsy and weak, but maybe just strong enough to break the lock.
He slid the teeth of the bar between the door and its track. With an easy turn, the bar tore into the door, gouging a small hole in the fiberglass. He tried to realign the teeth of the bar against the lock and pulled again. Just as it felt like the lock could pop off, he heard what sounded like a car door shutting somewhere in the distance. He lowered the bar to the ground as quietly as he could. He peeked around the corner and saw a car speeding around the opposite end of the warehouse.
; Farther away, a black sedan sat idle. No doubt it was Samson’s Acura. Without warning, the car zoomed away and disappeared.
David realized there likely was nothing inside the warehouse. Ruiz was nervous and had called David’s bluff. But what if he’d told Xerxes that David would be here tonight? At least this confirmed that Samson was connected to Xerxes Capital. Why else would he be here right now? It was time to get the hell out of here and concentrate on the trial.
So he turned the corner to return to his car. But it was nowhere to be seen. He trotted to the next corner, in the direction he thought he had run from earlier. He still couldn’t find the Saab, and now he had no idea where he was in the complex of storage sheds. Either he was lost in the maze of warehouses or someone had stolen his car.
He turned another corner. Thick darkness. Just enough light across the alley to illuminate the Saab at the opposite end of the drive.
And the outline of a man leaning against the wall near the vehicle. His back was to David, and he was peering around a wall. He could be Samson—or maybe not. He was clearly holding something to his side.
The faint shape of a handgun.
David caught his breath. He had nowhere to go. There was no way he could get in the Saab without being seen. He could hide in the darkness, but who knew for how long? Or he could take this guy down now and learn what was really on his mind.
With nothing to lose, David slowly lurched toward the man. He hid under the awning of the garage and started inching his way toward his would-be assailant. Gravel and debris rustled and crunched under his feet. His own breathing, he realized, was strained, his wheezing growing loud enough to give him away.
He finally reached the perpetrator. Only about three feet of heavy air separated them. David lunged low, ready to pounce at the right moment. He felt like his heart was going to explode. He told himself to count to three. Grab him from behind, knock the gun away, and then beat him senseless. A long three count. One, he told himself. Two. Time to go.
Just as he started to spring, he was jarred back by a flood of light behind him. He turned and saw the black Acura thirty feet away, its headlights pointed at David. The man by the Saab turned toward the light, raising his gun. No question now, this guy was not Samson. David didn’t know who he was; he only knew he had never seen him before. And now, he saw David too.
