A Devil's Bargain Read online

  Luther leaned in, folding his arms in front of him on the table. He had the Senator’s attention again, so he dropped the placid amicability he’d been serving the old man thus far. Seamlessly and without effort, Luther shifted from indulging an important client to telling pragmatic truths.

  “Senator, the Fletcher Group will do whatever needs done for the Chalmers family. But you have to be willing to confide in me now the same way you have in the past. I salvaged your son from an exquisite doom the last time you came to me. There’s no reason in the world to think it can’t be done again. So let’s get it out in the air now so I can get to work for you.”

  Senator Chalmers drew in a long, ragged breath. He nodded his head once.

  “I don’t know that he’s done anything, Luther. One of my assistants receives regular updates from the man we’ve hired to watch over Reggie. The latest update was troubling.”

  “Who do you have watching Reggie?” Luther asked.

  “Hmm? Oh. Krane, I think is his name. I don’t deal with him personally. Honestly, I haven’t had any personal contact with Reggie since you rescued him from his own sickness. Seeing him after that, after what he did...well, I just don’t think I could look him in the eyes. So I had my people find a man we thought was right for the job of keeping constant tabs on him. That’s what this Krane fellow does. He lives in the Birmingham Hills property with Reggie and keeps my people updated on anything of concern.”

  “And this last update was a concern,” Luther prodded.

  “Yes. We’d...well, we gave the boy a little leash. Authorized Krane to let Reggie take field trips here and there. Maybe half an hour to go get himself a meal. Or an hour or two to catch a movie in a cinema. He’s chipped. Twice, actually, one in his arm and another in his foot. If he gets too far away, Krane would know it immediately and he’d go on out and fetch Reggie back home. That was the deal. So what’s the harm in that, if letting him go get ice cream on his own helps him feel a little less like a caged animal?”

  Luther felt himself growing rigid and knew he couldn’t hide his dismay in time. The Senator had seen it.

  “I suppose you’re going to point out that I’ve violated the terms of our understanding,” Senator Chalmers said and grew a grin that, on a younger version of himself, would have looked sheepish. Now, decrepit and sagging, it only served to make him look more unsettling, a leering ghoul.

  “Total isolation,” Luther said. “That was what you promised in return for the Fletcher Group’s help, Reginald. Not ice cream field trips or excursions to the theater. Total and absolute isolation.”

  Senator Chalmers’s unsettling smile melted away and his upper lip curled in annoyance.

  “Oh, so it’s Reginald now?”

  “We had an agreement.”

  “And I altered it as I saw fit. He isn’t the same now, anyway.”

  “I guarantee you he is, Senator.”

  “No, no. Not inside. Of course he’s still...whatever he is. But on the outside he’s utterly unrecognizable. It doesn’t matter. I don’t feel the need to justify myself, Luther. Do you really think your firm would ever have the final word on decisions I make about my own blood?”

  Luther didn’t answer. Of course the Senator had altered their arrangement. The man had been a titan of Beltway power for over thirty years. With his family’s vast industrial wealth added to that fact, Reginald Chalmers the Second was as close to royalty as America would allow. That his heir was unfit to ever take up the crown only meant that the line of succession would pass to a niece or a nephew. The name Chalmers would persist in power and sway.

  And as long as it did, those who bore the name would have need of the Fletcher Group and its services. That in mind, Luther swallowed his disquiet over Reggie’s being allowed to wander freely.

  “What did he do?” he asked.

  “I told you, I don’t know that he’s done anything.”

  “Then why are we sitting here, Senator?”

  “Our security is tight. Three days ago, this man Krane was alerted that someone just outside the grounds was searching the internet for Reggie. That was enough to get Krane on the ball. Nobody is supposed to know where Reggie is living. Krane did the right thing. He took it as a threat.”

  “What is he?” Luther said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Krane. What are his qualifications?”

  One of the Senator’s spidery hands reached out and plucked a cold ring of calamari out of the bowl between them. He nibbled at it, crumbs of breading dotting his collar, joining the flecks of meat and spots of wine that had already accumulated there.

  “He’s a military man,” he said once the calamari was consumed. “Very good at that sort of thing. He got a little too enthusiastic about his job during his last tour. Some locals wound up dead in a roadside ditch with bullets in the back of their heads. Execution style? Is that the term? I think it is. Regardless, they were getting ready to run a court martial when my people delivered him from jeopardy. He’s been minding Reggie ever since.”

  Luther stalled the approaching waiter with a shallow shake of his head and said to the Senator, “What did your man Krane find out?”

  “Not a thing, I’m afraid. We still don’t know who the man is that ran my son’s name through a search engine, or what his interests are. He had no identification. The car he drove has Michigan plates but no registration. His laptop and phone have proven impregnable, so far. All we know is he sent out an encoded message into the ether moments after searching for my son on the internet. A search and then a text message none of my people can crack open. We don’t know anything.”

  “You know he’s a man and not a woman, or is that just an assumption?”

  Now the Senator’s grin was appreciative.

  “Yes. Yes indeed. As I said, Krane is competent. He took possession of the man who sent the text. He’s been pressing him for information. Pressing him hard.”

  “You mean torturing him.”

  The Senator shrugged his bony shoulders and dismissed the question with a slight wave of one hand.

  “He won’t talk. Not a word. Well, that isn’t true. He speaks plenty, according to the reports I’ve received. All of it the most colorful and imaginative insults I’ve ever heard. Some of them were quite funny, to be honest. Do you want to hear my favorite?”

  “So Krane has the man at the same estate where you’ve kept your son? In Bloomfield Hills?”

  “Buddy, I like the kinky shit, too. But how about you put on some lipstick and a pair of heels, `cause I can’t squint hard enough to make you pretty.”

  Luther stared.

  “That was the one that made me laugh,” the Senator continued and made a sound that was half belch and half chuckle. “Whoever he is, Krane’s methods just seem to make him more eager to offend. So I thought of you. If anyone has the resources to break the encryption on that message, the Fletcher Group does. We need to know who this man is. His motives for searching for my son. We need to know if he is alone or if he has masters.”

  Luther waited a beat in silence. He didn’t want to seem over eager.

  “Well? What do you say?”

  Luther smiled politely and answered, “We’ll need to take custody of the man Krane has been pressing. And your people will need to deliver the encrypted message to us. We’ll do both at the same time. I don’t think transmitting the message is in anyone’s interest. Our people will collect the man from your property in Bloomfield Hills and Krane can hand over whatever computer drive he used to snare the encrypted message. My firm has men who can work to break the encryption here, in a secure facility. That’s what I can offer. Give the entire affair over to us and let us solve it for you.”

  Senator Chalmers did not hesitate. His swollen head was bobbing up and down in agreement before Luther had finished sp
eaking.

  “Exactly what I’d hoped to hear. Though, I’ll admit my personal assistant was none too pleased to find out I was meeting with you today. He receives regular updates from Krane, and he still believes he can get answers. And maybe he could, but the fact of the matter is that you and your firm have done right by my family, every time we’ve needed it. I’d have felt disloyal if I didn’t put this in your hands.”

  Luther did his best to look pleased, though he knew there was no fondness between the two of them. Senator Chalmers regarded Luther as a particularly competent servant, and men of Chalmers’s character had no sense of loyalty for the servant class.

  As for Luther, he felt that the Senator’s repulsive look of decay had finally allowed his exterior self to accurately reflect his scabrous interior. Time, and perhaps disease, had inflicted some measure of honesty upon Reginald Chalmers the Second.

  “There can be no mistakes,” the Senator said, and his tone turned utterly serious. “If my son is a black spot upon the family name, he is still a Chalmers, Luther. Whoever has invaded his privacy, my privacy, can be given no quarter whatsoever. You will deal with them accordingly.”

  “You don’t need to say more.”

  “Enemies of mine are expunged.”

  “I know that very well, Senator.”

  The Senator’s eyes narrowed to slits and his lip curled with derision as he said, “Oh, I know you do. We’ve had this discussion before, after all. But that was a long time ago. Memories are fickle things.”

  Luther couldn’t hold the Senator’s cold, imperious stare. It brought back a very specific terror he never wanted to experience again, so he looked away and muttered, “I remember it quite well.”

  “Yes? Good. I’ve said what I need to say. Though I do have one request.”

  “Tell me.”

  The Senator scratched idly at the corner of his mouth.

  “Your best man. Who is the best man in your employ?”

  “Joe Link.”

  “A very competent man?”

  “My best.”

  “Excellent. Put him on this matter for me, won’t you?”

  “Unfortunately, Joe’s not available. He’s...unreachable at the moment.” Senator Chalmers frowned.

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “Don’t be concerned. All of my field men are excellent. As a matter of fact, I have one in Detroit right now.”

  “Oh?”

  “Gil Sharps. I can have him tending to the situation immediately.”

  Senator Chalmers beamed with satisfaction and touched the rim of his wine glass with a long, crooked fingertip.

  “Done and done, Luther. What say we toast our new business with another bottle of that excellent Burgundian? It is all billable, after all.”

  * * *

  Luther stood on the sidewalk and watched the Senator’s driver assist the old man into the back of a limousine. He watched the driver walk around the car and get inside. He watched the sleek black vehicle silently glide away and merge into the congested downtown traffic. He watched until the limo dwindled, then vanished from sight all together.

  Only then, when the poisonous old ghoul was entirely away from him, did Luther discard his professional façade. He let out a long, shuddering breath. His mask fell away. The patient, untroubled and earnest servant was gone. In his place was Luther Fletcher as he truly felt in that moment—an anxious man, a man plagued with urgent concerns.

  He took several more deep breaths and remained rooted on the sidewalk outside the Metropolitan Club’s entrance. If any of the pedestrians passing him by noted his beleaguered state, it didn’t register with him. He felt uniquely alone, isolated, a man with awful decisions to make and no other soul to assist him in making them.

  Gil Sharps, he thought.

  Luther wasn’t alone. Gil Sharps was in Detroit.

  Luther nodded to himself. Yes. It was clear to him now anyway: the urgent business he’d sent Gil to handle in Detroit was already tangled up with the Senator’s problem. They were one and the same. He needed to reach out to Gil and bring him up to speed.

  Three blocks south and another block to the east, Luther Fletcher’s black glass tower loomed. His office was atop the uppermost floor. From there, he could reach out to Gil, safely and without fear that their conversation would be picked up or listened in on by outside parties.

  Chapter Six

  Judge Sherman took the bench fifteen minutes late. Issabella watched him nervously while he called the first case and an inmate was escorted up to the podium. Judge Sherman frowned at his computer screen, and she thought he looked like a pear that had wilted on the tree—brown, shriveled and perpetually irritable at his current lot in life.

  She listened as he read the charges. The defendant had no lawyer present, so Sherman asked all the pertinent questions as to identity and whether or not the defendant understood what was happening to him. It was over in less than five minutes and the defendant was escorted back to the holding cell behind the courtroom.

  It went on like that for an hour and a half, as one inmate after another was led before the judge and asked the same questions. There were no other lawyers present in the courtroom beyond herself and Bob Portidge.

  That was the way it went with arraignments. Most of the inmates hadn’t had time to contact a lawyer yet. Often, if they did make contact before the arraignment, most lawyers weren’t going to drive all the way downtown to hold their client’s hand when they hadn’t yet been paid a dime. For the rest of the recently arrested, the ones who couldn’t afford a lawyer even if they knew one, they wouldn’t see their court appointed counsel until days later, at the first pretrial date.

  When an inmate at the podium faltered in his answers to the Judge’s questions, Issabella stood up beside him and helped him confirm what the judge needed to know. Yes, he was the person named in the case. No, he did not currently have a job. Yes, he had a permanent residence. Yes, he did now understand the charges since she took a moment and helped explain them to him. Not guilty, Your Honor. Yes, he understood that he would not be getting out of jail without first putting up ten thousand dollars.

  A whispered, “Thank you. You sure helped me out, lady.”

  She took her seat again without bothering to tell him that she hadn’t been helping him out at all. His flustered, noncommittal answers had been pissing off the judge, and she needed Judge Sherman as close to reasonable as possible.

  Two more unfortunates came and went before Judge Sherman looked at his computer screen, read a case number aloud, and said, “State of Michigan versus Theresa Winkle.”

  She stood at the podium again while the court’s bailiff led Theresa out from the holding cell. Issabella forced herself to remain outwardly calm as Theresa came to a stop at her shoulder. The spectacle of her friend making that short journey with her hands cuffed in front of her made Issabella want to reach out and hug the woman and make more promises she couldn’t professionally offer.

  Theresa must have seen through the attempt at a brave face, because she leaned in and whispered, “Chin up, Izzy.”

  “Miss Bright?”

  Issabella took a deep breath to calm herself down and looked up at the judge.

  “Issabella Bright appearing on behalf of Defendant Theresa Winkle, who is present in the courtroom beside me.”

  “I was wondering why you’ve been haunting my courtroom all morning. Do you have something for me?”

  “I do,” she said and plucked a sheet of paper out of her briefcase. “Notice of Appearance, Judge.”

  The bailiff took the notice from her and passed it to the judge’s assistant. The assistant handed the bailiff a second sheet of paper and the bailiff put it in Issabella’s hands. She didn’t bother to look at it. She knew what it was. She put a pen in Theresa’s
hand and whispered, “This tells you your Constitutional rights. Read it and sign it.”

  She watched as Theresa scanned the page and signed it.

  “Your Honor, my client has read the Advice of Rights form, has signed it, and I am returning it to the Court’s officer now,” Issabella said and handed the sheet to the bailiff.

  Judge Sherman nodded, seemingly satisfied that the formal dance was going along without a stumble, and turned his gaze on Theresa.

  “Miss Winkle, the People of the State of Michigan have charged you with the criminal offense of murder in the second degree, contrary to Michigan Criminal Law 750.317, which is a felony punishable upon conviction of up to incarceration for life in a State prison. Do you understand?”

  Theresa looked at Issabella and Issabella nodded.

  “I get it,” Theresa said.

  Judge Sherman scowled.

  “Yes or no,” Issabella whispered.

  “Oh. Yes. I understand.”

  “How does the defendant plead?”

  “I didn’t kill that dude,” Theresa said.

  “Not guilty,” Issabella said louder.

  Judge Sherman nodded and tapped some keys. He scanned the computer monitor and tapped some more keys. Someone in the gallery of pews behind Issabella sneezed and whispered, “Excuse me.” Bob Portidge drummed his fingers softly at the prosecutor’s desk and looked bored.

  “So, this is really happening,” Theresa whispered with a dawning horror in her voice.

  Of course, Issabella thought. This was the first time Theresa had heard the formal charge and its formal consequence. It was real now. It was suddenly, awfully real.

  “We’ll get through it,” she whispered back. “They’ve made a mistake is all.”

  “Well it’s a helluva mistake, Izzy!” Theresa hissed and her face went sickly pale. “Aw cripes, I’m getting dizzy.”

  Issabella saw Theresa grab hold of the podium’s corner and realized she looked ready to faint. Issabella reached her left arm around the woman and held her steady on her feet while she whispered, “If you faint on me, I will never let you live it down.”