John Locke - Lethal People

Sal jumped to his feet, suddenly excited. “Wait a minute!” he said. “I seen this before! At the movies, right? Weekend at Bernie’s , right?” He pointed at Double X. “You’re the guy! You’re Bernie!”

From his post across the office, Big Bad watched with amused ambivalence.

By contrast, Chris Unger was outraged. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. Unger stood tall, assuming the defiant stance befitting his status of legal heavyweight. His hair was silver and gelled, and he wore it combed straight back. He had on a navy Armani suit, a crisp white broadcloth shirt, and a bright red silk tie.

Those who fear attorneys would have been shaking in their boots at the sight of him, but this was a different crowd. Unable to get the reaction he’d expected, Unger sat back down at his desk, which probably cost more than the house I grew up in. It wasn’t just the desk that was intimidating—everything in his office exuded power, from the dark cherry paneling to the trophy wall littered with photos of Unger posing with presidents past and present, not to mention the Hollywood elite. Clearly, this was a man willing to pay the extra fee at fundraising events to secure the vanity shot.

“I need to speak with your brother,” I said. “It’ll just take a minute.”

Chris Unger opened his mouth to protest, but saw Double X trying to tap out and changed his mind.

Chris obviously spent a lot of time admiring Double X’s fighting ability on the circuit in the quad cage, because he was visibly shaken to see the former baddest man on the planet reduced to his current state.

Double X must have caught a glimpse of the disappointment in his employer’s face, because he tried to form the words “sucker punch.” It sounded more like “suction pump.”

Chris Unger suddenly found his voice. “Garrett, don’t say a word. I’m calling Joe DeMeo.” He reached for the phone.

“Augustus?” I said.

Quinn picked up the unoccupied chair and used it as a battering ram to smash the window. He put the chair down and picked Chris Unger up like a rag doll and carried him to the window.

Garrett Unger jumped to his feet.

“Put him down!” Garrett yelled.

Chris waved his brother off , tried to keep the calm in his voice. “Let’s all just relax,” he said. “Look, gentlemen, we’ve all seen this a hundred times in the movies. You can threaten me all you want, but in the final analysis, we all know you’re bluffng. You have no intention of throwing me out the window, so let’s just sit down and—”

Quinn threw Chris Unger out the window.

CHAPTER 40

Sal raised his eyebrows and said, “Holy shit!”

I addressed Sal while keeping my eyes glued to Big Bad. “Are we going to have a problem with you over this?” I asked.

“Fuck no,” said Sal. “Tell him to toss Bernie, too!”

Double X’s eyes went wide. He stopped gasping and lay perfectly still, trying to make himself as small as possible in the room. I wondered if this type of behavior was acceptable in the quad cage.

Garrett Unger, Greg and Melanie’s former attorney, remained where he stood, ashen-faced, dumbstruck. He grabbed the corner of Chris’s desk for support and stared at the window, his mouth agape. This was a man whose source of power derived from thoughts and words—which might explain why his lips and mouth were moving a hundred miles an hour as he mumbled sentences none of us could understand.

Garrett Unger slowly eased himself down. Though his body quickly conformed to the contours of the chair, I wasn’t convinced his mind was suitably focused.

Quinn turned to face him.

“Wh-wh-what do you want to know?” Garrett asked.

“Think about it,” I said.

“B-But … I c-c-can’t.”

I looked at Quinn. “Augustus?”

Quinn took a photograph out of his pocket and tossed it into Unger’s lap. The picture had yesterday’s date stamped on the lower right-hand corner, along with the time the photo had been taken. It was a simple photograph, depicting a typical family scene: an afternoon lunch at Denny’s, a small boy sitting at the table playing Nintendo DS while his older sister sat beside him, lost in her teenage thoughts, their mother talking to the waitress.

In other words, Garrett Unger’s wife and children.

“Wait!” said Garrett Unger. He’d just lost his older brother, but the photograph helped him understand he was a brother second, a husband and father first. He began collecting himself. He took a couple of deep breaths and said, “This information doesn’t leave the room, okay?”

I don’t know what type of people Unger was used to dealing with, but I hoped to hell they occupied a higher rung on the honesty ladder than Sal, Big Bad, Quinn, and me.

“You have my solemn word.” I said, solemnly.

Big Bad laughed out loud.

Quinn said, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Sal said, “Talk or fly.”

Unger nodded. “Okay, okay. I can give you his name.”

That comment surprised me. “Whose name?” I said.

“Arthur Patelli.”

“Who?”

“The guy who set fire to the house. That’s what you’re after, right?”

I shook my head. “You can’t be this stupid, even for a lawyer. But I don’t have the time to straighten you out right now.”

I looked at Sal. He held up his hands and said, “Lawyers, Christ Almighty. What you gonna do, huh?”

I said, “Garrett, look at me.”

He did.

“You want to save Joe DeMeo or your family?”

“What?”

“DeMeo or your family. Which one?”

He looked down at the picture in his lap. “How can you even ask that question?” he said.

“Well, you’re an attorney.”

He nodded. “I’ll do anything to save my family. Please don’t hurt them. Just tell me what you want.”

Sal said, “Guys, I don’t wanna—whatcha call—eat and run, but you just tossed a law partner out the window, and even if no one in this fancy shithole saw it, someone on the street did.”

I looked at him. “Good point. We’ll take Garrett with us and trust you to come up with a cover story for DeMeo.”

Sal asked, “You brought a car?”

I shook my head. “We’ll take Chris’s car.”

Sal said, “If you had his car keys you could.” He laughed. “Who’s gonna jump out the window and get the keys?”

“My guess, they’re in his desk drawer,” I said. “In my experience, a man who wears an Armani suit doesn’t want bulging pockets.”

Big Bad slid the desk drawer open, fished out the car keys, and dangled them from his ham-sized hand.

“Good call,” Sal said. “Don’t forget the cameras. They get us coming and going.”

“Quinn will take care of the cameras,” I said.

Speaking to Quinn, I said, “Augustus, will you do me a favor and clean this mess up while I get Garrett in the car? I’ll send the elevator back up for you in a minute.”

I grabbed the mumbling Unger, and we followed Sal and Big Bad into the private elevator and down to the partners’ parking garage. Big Bad found Chris’s Mercedes by pressing the remote and following the chirp. He opened the trunk and helped me toss Garrett inside. I scanned the garage for external security cameras and found none. I guessed the partners didn’t want video proof of their meetings with criminals or perhaps dalliances with call girls. I didn’t ask what happened to Chris Unger’s secretary, but I had a feeling Sal’s car had plenty of traction in the back.

Augustus joined us a moment later, and we drove out of the garage and into traffic. I called Beck Building security and said there was a bomb in the building set to go off in two minutes.

“Who are you!” the security guard demanded.