by Newbiel
"Michael Cain, Isla Fisher, Marc Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg" Finished Maggie with a smug smile.
"Maggie, I told you to stop smiling, it is too creepy on you. Just be stern and cold please." Say Nathaniel with mirth.
"You know I could kick your ass, right?" She threatened.
"That looks like child abuse, I should report that to social services." He answered with a smile. Stopping himself to engage in their usual banter, he got back the conversation on the subject.
"I know next to nothing about magic or card tricks for that matter." He said truthfully.
"It's not that important. We have someone who could teach you on set and the most difficult things would be made with special effect. One more thing. I don't propose you the job. I just put you in the list to try out. After that, the decision will be made by the director. You have nothing to lose to go to the audition and everything to gain." She offered.
Nodding his head, Nathaniel started thinking about it. He was confident in himself to pull it out if it was a much more humble film but with so many stars that would be very difficult. But she was right, he had nothing to lose if he took the audition and he has nothing better to do in the coming weeks so that could be fun.
"What is your opinion Maggie?" He asked.
"You should go to the audition. You have literally no chance to land the role but you could make an acquaintance of two in the process, that would be useful in the future." She responded non pulse, making him smile bitterly.
"Thanks for that. Seems we are good Jillian. When the audition is planned to take place?"
"In a week. That's okay for you?"
"Yes, exempt for a couple of interviews in NY tomorrow we are good for the foreseeable future." Respond to Maggie without looking at her calendar. Nathaniel was only a small Youtube celebrity so far but that would quickly change as many radio stations called to pass his song on the air.
"Can you send me the script so that I can browse through it before the audition?" Ask Nathaniel.
"Of course. Give me your email and I would send it right away. Give moi your phone number while we are at it. I would certainly need it. Plus I would like to keep in touch if you don't mind." She asked.
"As long as you talk about business with me first, that would be okay." Say Maggie, then add after seeing the frown on Nathaniel's face. "This is for your sake trust me."
"She's right. It's better to have an agent to filter business calls for you and you are lucky enough to have one of the best with you." She said, nodding. They never were close to one another but she never denied that Maggie was talented in her work.
Nathaniel gave her what she asked for. After playing with Olivia for a while and saying their goodbye, Maggie and him needed to get back. Their flight home was taking off soon and they could not miss it because they had an interview scheduled not long after it. Along the way back to the airport, Maggie and Nathaniel kept talking.
"Maggie, why did you leave the movie industry?" He asked.
"Why do you care?" She asked back, somewhat aggressively.
"Based on what I heard, you are good at your job, even the best. So I'm wondering why you suddenly choose to give all that away, go into a different field and move from California to New York with your daughter. I just don't understand Maggie."
"And how is that your problem exactly?" She asked with hostility.
"This is my problem because we are now working together and I want to be able to trust you. Whatever the reason is, I'm sure it was important, you would never have taken your daughter away from her friends if it wasn't." Nathaniel said, don't bother by her tone.
Maggie kept looking at him with animosity while he just looked her in the eyes calmly. The silence between them kept stretching until she finally sighed.
"Before I left for New York, I had a few clients here in LA. All renowned actors and I were scheduled to meet one of them in his home that day. The house was opened and announced myself but it seemed that nobody was home until I heard a noise coming from one of the rooms. I knocked on it and the man in question opened, he had put a bathrobe in hurry but I knew what was happening so I was going to excuse myself when I saw the person still in the bed."
She took a breath before continuing her story.
"It was a child Nathaniel, she was almost the same age as my daughter. I was working in Hollywood for twenty years but that day, I lost it. He had crossed my bottom line so I took the girl with me and got away. I brought the girl to the cop and they arrested him. A week after that, we were leaving the city, I didn't want my daughter to stay a second later in that cursed place. I have some money on the side so I took my daughter to the other side of the country." Maggie finished her story, her voice emotional but stopping herself from crying.
"I understand why now. Why are you asking me to do an audition then? Don't you want to leave this city now and never come back?"
"It was the case at the time but now he's in jail and enough time has passed. Now my daughter is having a good life in New York, she has new friends and getting a nice education away from here, this is the principale. Me, I can handle coming here but don't kid yourself, there is still no way that you are getting the part." She said, her snarky self coming back.
"I really love your support and your faith in me." Nathaniel laughed.
Chapter 28: :
New York. DA office. 19/06/2012. 14:54.
Karine Lyndon was having a very bad day. Sitting at her desk, she was looking at the file in front of her with a frown. For the last two month, she had tried repeatedly to make a case against Piotr Droski but nothing could stick in court. Piotr Droski was a russian mob lord who controlled everything from drug dealing to assassination in the west of New York. Basically everything that was illegal and could make money, Droski had a hand in it. The second witness that she had managed to convince to testify was found dead this morning along with his girlfriend. The official verdict was a gas leak in their apartment but that did not fool her even for a second.
Looking at the file in front of her, she was desperately trying to find something or she would have to drop the case all together. Her boss has even urged her to drop the case as they were already swamp with work as it was. She knew time was working against her but that has never stopped her before and it would not stop her again this time. If there was something to be found in there, she would find it. At that moment, she hears someone knocking on her door.
"Enter." She said without looking up. "If this is the file I requested, put them on my desk Ethan."
Ethan was her assistant for the last two years since she was assigned to the criminal division. He was a twenty five years old hard working young man who has graduated from a community college nearby.
"Do I look like an Ethan?" Ask a voice that makes her immediately look up and smile.
"Sweetiie!" Karine squeal.
Getting up, she launched herself in the arms of her smiling son. If her colleague could see her like that with a man, they would think they were dreaming. Karine was a very serious and terrifying woman at work and seeing her squeal like a little girl would blow their mind for sure.
"Hi mom. I miss you too." He said while hugging her.
"Why didn't you call to let me know that you would come? Wait a minute, why did the receptionist not call me? How did you enter the building?" She asked.
The DA office was a gouvernemental building. You needed to have an appointment or have credentials to pass the security screenings downstairs.
"I did what you teach me mom, I act like I belong there and then charm my way in. When I finished with the girl in the hall, she was almost drooling." He said laughing.
"I create a monster." Said Karine while shaking her head. The smile that she had and the look in her eye did not hide her pride or her joy.
"How are you? Mom said that you have a difficult case on your hand." He asked.
Hearing that, the shoulder of Karine slump a little and fatigue start to creep in. Looking at her, Natha
niel starts to frown. His mom was a very tenacious woman, to see her exhausted like that showed him that what she was working on was not a regular case.
"I'm good, just this case is very tiring. My boss put pressure on me to drop it so I need to find something tomorrow or I would be forced to drop it and take a new case. We are already swamp as it is, I can't take more time from other cases but this guy is evil. I can't let him walk or it would be next to impossible to make another trial against him." Karine said, her voice breaking a little at the end.
"Let me help." Nathaniel proposes instantly which makes her smile bitterly.
"Baby, I know that you want to help but this is a very hard case with a lot of dead bodies. I can't let you go through it. Plus, it is illegal to show you private files."
"Come on Mom, I read your file since I'm like nine and you know it. Let me help, maybe with another perspective and a pair of fresh eyes, you could come up with another angle to tackle this case."
"Nothing that I could say will make you drop it, am I right?" She sighed, she knew very well how much he could be stubborn. He was like her in that aspect.
"Nope." He said with a winning smile.
"Okay, take the chair and wipe that silly smile off your face. We have work to do." She order sternly.
"Yes, mom." He said, doing what he was told.
Four hours later they were still at it. Looking through the files in front of him, Nathaniel was getting angrier by the second. That guy was a gigantic piece of shit. Extorsion, tax evasion, drug dealing, loan shark, assassination… that guy was involved in everything. He was operating in NY for the last five years and his business was thriving. He was ruthless and cunning, the only thing that saved him from getting jail. His criminal record was two pages long but nothing ever stuck.
The first witness that her mom found was a small time employee in an accounting firm. He was leaving late from work when he saw Piotr Droski kill in cold blood a store owner who did not want to pay 'protection' money anymore. Two days after missing the trials, his head was found on a dumpster near the DA office. He was sending a strong message to everyone who wanted to testify against him. 'Not even the DA can protect you from me' as of today, the rest of his body had not been found.
Nathaniel knew now why her mother didn't want him to help her. That was a very grim case. Looking through his financial files, Nathaniel was seeing something irregular albeit not illegal. His money transfer had no pattern that he could discern and that was bothering him. Everything had a pattern and that was why his intuition was telling him something was wrong here. Sighing, he was going to take a break when his entire body froze. He was looking at the file when his eyes wandered on the bottom right corner of the page.
Every printer in America when printing a page puts a serial number on the right corner. This number was designating the serial number of the printer and the number of the page printed. If the entire file was printed from the same printer, the number at the end would follow themselves. Jolting awake, he hurriedly collected all the pages from the financial files and then classified them by date. Once done, he starts to peruse the file printer number of all the pages.
The suddain activity on the other side of the table soon gathered the attention of Karine.
"What is it sweetie? Did you find something?"
"I think so. Mom, how many printers do you have on this floor?"
"What? Why do you ask?" Karine asked, surprised. She did not expect a question that trivial.
"Please answer me first." He pleaded.
"Two or three."
"Not more?"
"No, budget cut. What is it sweetie?" She asked, thoroughly troubled now.
"Here look." He said getting to his feet and going to her side of the desk. "Look at the printing code at the bottom of the page. None of this number follow the last one."
"This doesn't mean anything sweetie, maybe the printer was jammed and they changed it. It happens, we have crappy material here." Karine said. She could not help to be disappointed. She knew that her son was a genius but he was still too young to help her.
"No mom, look. Prior to two years ago, all files followed the same code. Then look at the code, for the last two years only one out of ten page follow the same code. The rest was printed with two different printers." He said pointing at the page, showing her the code. Looking at it, Karine could not help to frown.
"What are you saying sweetie?"
"Look at the bank transfer, it does not make any sense. Look here, it said that he made a wire transfer to pay the credit of that car last year." Nathaniel said, his expression grave
"What about it?" Karine asks, her interest picked.
"He sold that car three years ago mom. Here is the line that proves it. That same transfer appears on his bank record but only with the other printer code. Mom all of it is faked! Someone tampered with the evidence!"
"WHAT!?" Karine almost screamed.
Taking the file into her own hand and with the help of her son that shows her the transfer line of every file, the expression of her face was turning angrier by the second. She could not help to see that her son was right, almost every banking file from the last two years had been tampered with.
"That was done in a hurry, that much is obvious. Who could have done it?" He ask.
"NYPD forward us the evidence as it protocole. So anyone there with access to the file could have done it. Or… " She started to say before paling visibly.
"Or?"
"Someone here." She finally said with a dreading voice.
Chapter 29: :
Jolting herself awake, she immediately took the phone on her desk. Pressing a button on the phone, the line got through instantly.
"Security."
"Prosecutor Lyndon on the phone. I initiate a complete lockdown on the thirteenth floor. We have a possible leak, I want every elevator in the building shutdown and an NYPD officer at every exit."
"Will do Prosecutor Lyndon. Lockdown initiated. Hang in there Prosecutor, Officer will be on your floor in five minutes." The man on the other side said before the line went dead.
"Phone, fax and internet is shut down on the entire floor." Karine said before taking her personal phone from her purse and dialing someone.
"Mattews." Said a gruff voice on the other side.
"Robert, it's Prosecutor Lyndon on the line."
"Hi Karine, what's going on?"
"The banking records present in my office on the Droski case have been tampered with. It's safe to say that the other file must have been as well." She explained in a flurry.
"Fu**! Any idea on who did it?" He said, sounding angry.
"No, I initiate complete lockdown on the entire floor in the DA office. I want you to take out off duty every cop who had access to the Droski files and start interrogating them."
"I'm on it. I'm sending you two agents to your office right away too. If he had someone on the inside, he could have many more. I will be more at ease with a couple of my agents guarding your six."
"Thanks Robert, I need to get going. Take care."
"You too Karine." He said before cutting off the communication.
"Who was that?" Ask Nathaniel curious.
"Robert Mattews, old friend of mine from my university days. He was a lawyer until he had a change of heart. He is now the director of the internal affairs of the NYPD. Trust me, he is like a dog with a bone and I just threw a huge bone in front of him. I'm starting to feel bad for all the cops who would be in his claws in fact." She said with a dark chuckle.
Nathaniel was going to ask something else when people started cursing outside of his mom's office. Arching an eyebrow at his mom, she nodded and exited her office followed closely by him. Assistants and paralegal were trying to find out why nothing worked anymore while other prosecutors were cursing loudly from their offices. Climbing on a chair near her door, his mom whistled loudly, gathering the attention of everyone present.
"I just initiated a complete lockdown for
a possible leak in the department. I ask everyone to save their work and turn their personal phone off. You know the drill people. NYPD officers and Internal affair agents are coming as we speak. Cooperate and everything will be fine, let's try to minimize every unpleasant thing that could come our way. I invited every prosecutor to a meeting in my office right now. Thanks guys."
Her speech finished and once making sure that her order was respected, she got back to her office followed closely by her son. Sitting behind her desk, Nathaniel moved away from his chair to rest beside hers. Looking at her, he could not help to smile proudly.
"I almost forgot how badass you are mom." He said, kissing her cheek.
"That's right, your mother is amazing, sweetie. Never forget it." She said with a beautiful smile who disappeared a few moments before several people started entering her office.
At the end 6 people enter her office, five men and one woman. Their age range was thirty to fifty-five years old. Everyone wore serious expressions on their face as they knew the situation was dire. They were surprised to find a man near Karine and start looking critically at him. She was notoriously distant with the man who she was working with, even more with people outside of the service and yet here she was with a man that none of them have seen before.
"John, close the door please." Karine ask.
The man who was the closest to the door, hurriedly closed it. He was around forty years old with black hair and was 5"7 in height. He had an ordinary face and was a little overweight but seemed to belong to the kind type.
"Who is that and why he is here, Lyndon?" Ask the older one with a harsh voice.
"That's my son Bill so mind your tone." She said in a chilling voice.
"My name is William so stop calling me Bill. He needs to leave this room." He demand.
"Nope, I'm not going anywhere. Do you know it's impolite to talk about me like I'm not even here?" Nathaniel finally talked.
"I don't fucking care. You need to leave right now, you do not have the credentials to be here."
"Not going to happen, we have potentially someone in this service working with a russian mob lord. I'm staying with my mother until we leave the building." He said simply looking at the man's eyes without flinching.
