Breach of Trust

54

At six forty-five the next evening, I unlocked the door to Suite 410. Lee Tucker was reading something on his cell phone. He looked up and held a stare on me.

“Hey.” I nodded to the F-Bird.

“Number twenty-two today,” he said, his voice flat. “Kinion Consulting.”

“Right. You got the text messages?”

“Yeah.” He handed me the F-Bird. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

I grabbed the recording device, slipped it into my suit pocket, and started for the door. Then I stopped and turned back. “Listen, Lee. I realize what you did yesterday. When it was you and me in here. When you asked me if any of the governor’s people had approached me.”

He nodded.

“You were giving me a chance to correct my earlier statement. I’m sure Moody didn’t want you to give me that chance. So, that was nice of you.”

Tucker looked up at the ceiling. “I can get that offer back,” he said. “I know what Chris said, but-I can talk to him. Just say the word.”

I didn’t say any words at all. I just left.

Outside, it was already dark. The temperatures had fallen below freezing again. Charlie was waiting for me curbside in the Porsche. It was just a minute or two after seven.

“Hey,” I said. “Try not to get us killed on the way there.” With the ice this time of the year, riding in the 911 was an adventure.

Charlie didn’t answer. His eyes remained forward. His jaw was set tight. He put the car in gear and motored forward.

“So this is Kinion,” I said. I ran through the details on the guy with whom we were going to have dinner tonight, as well as our plans for tomorrow. “And after tomorrow we’re down to-”

“Why’d you ask me about Starlight the other day?” Charlie kept his eyes forward as he spoke.

“What? Who-who’s Starlight?”

Charlie didn’t respond. His eyes were locked in the forward position. His right hand was in a fist. His left gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were pure ivory.

“Charlie, what-”

“You asked me, the other day. Why they weren’t on our list. Starlight Catering.”

“Oh. Oh, right,” I said. “The company you skipped over on the list. It just stood out. I was just wondering why we were talking to all these other companies but not them.”

We came up to a red light. Charlie didn’t move. “Why so curious all of a sudden?”

“I just told you why.” My internal thermometer had kicked up a few degrees.

The light changed to green. The car moved forward again.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Problem?” Charlie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Why would I have a problem? I don’t have a problem.”

“Whatever,” I said, like I didn’t have a care in the world. But this was going badly. My antennae for all things dangerous and scary were at full attention. But I couldn’t see any sense in pursuing it, in protesting. At least, not yet. I tried to think down the road to what might lie ahead. Maybe this was just a stray comment. Maybe he was just in a bad mood.

I sneezed. It wasn’t a real sneeze but I thought I faked it pretty well. Illness can be helpful in a situation like this. Charlie was having his doubts about me. If so, he’d try to read me. And it’s always harder to read someone when they’re sick. I once interrogated someone on a sexual assault who had the flu. The way the guy was sweating and bobbing his head, I thought I was minutes away from a full confession. Instead, the only thing I got from him was the contents of his lunch all over the table in front of me. Turned out he wasn’t our guy. I’d been wrong, and I wasn’t wrong often.

I couldn’t manufacture vomit, but I could manufacture a sneeze and a head cold. I could fake being sick. It would provide cover.

I sneezed again. I pulled a handkerchief out of my pants pocket. Talia bought me monogrammed handkerchiefs a couple of years ago. During the hay fever season that gave me fits, she got tired of finding tiny balls of Kleenex on the nightstand or in my pants pockets.

I blew my nose with the handkerchief and stuck it into my suit coat pocket next to the F-Bird. “Christ, this cold,” I said, adding some nasal to my voice.

Up ahead on the right was the turn for the interstate heading north. We were still in the left lane. “That’s our turn,” I reminded him.

He stayed in the left lane and drove through the intersection. We’d missed the turn. It was clearly no oversight on Charlie’s part.

Not good.

“Change of plans?” I asked.

“Change of plans. They want us to meet down here.”

He kept driving due west, as the traffic filtered out. He was driving well over the speed limit, taking us past the gentrified loft housing into an area that was heavily industrial.

I faked a sneeze. And another.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“It’s not far.”

He made a hard left turn down a street I didn’t know. I didn’t know this area at all. It wasn’t residential. No bars or boutiques or coffee shops. It was the old-line factories. Many of them abandoned now. Desolate and dark, this time of night. It was a good location for a private conversation. It was a good location for a lot of things.

Charlie was driving recklessly. The city plows didn’t come through here, and there was thick ice. His car wasn’t cut out for it. The rear of the car was fishtailing, the wheels spinning, but he didn’t care. His anger seemed to grow the longer we drove.

“This is where they want to meet?” I said, unsure of the final destination, but wherever it was, it was in a dark, remote pocket of the city if it was in this neighborhood. It made sense to continue to play innocent, as if I really expected that the president of Kinion Consulting would be making this meeting.

He hit the brakes. The Porsche fishtailed a bit. He turned the car into an open space, a garage with a high ceiling that housed a few larger vehicles, construction equipment. Vehicles that hadn’t been in use recently. Charlie killed the engine to the Porsche and sat quietly.

“We’re just going to sit here?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. A few minutes passed. Then I heard the sound of another vehicle crunching over the ice. It drew closer. The next thing I knew, headlights were hitting the wall in front of us and a black SUV pulled up next to us. The driver got out. He didn’t look friendly. He was wearing a long coat, so I couldn’t make out his build; I couldn’t tell if he was fat or muscular or both, but he wasn’t small, and he wasn’t nice.

A door opened, off on one side of the garage. A man in a black leather jacket and jeans stepped out. I recognized him. He was the guy from Charlie’s club the first time I was there. That was back when they tested me. I’d left my clothes in an unlocked locker, and Leather Jacket here walked up to Charlie after we’d played racquetball and told him “everything was fine.” It had been a signal to Charlie that he’d searched my locker, my clothes and possessions, and I was clean. I wasn’t wearing a wire.

But I was wearing one now.

Charlie pushed open his door. “Let’s start that meeting,” he said.