by JD Ruskin
“Wow, that’s… creative,” said Brandt, as he worked the strategy over in his mind. If what Drake had described was true, this whole case had just come apart.
“But enough about business,” said Bigg, somewhat impatiently. “Is lunch here yet?”
“I’ll check with Nick,” said Drake, reaching for the phone.
“Ask him to join us,” Bigg said, in a voice that struck Brandt as somewhat carefully casual.
Drake’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, it’s time, don’t you think?” Bigg replied, less casually than before.
“I suppose you’re right,” Drake answered. Then, into the phone, “Nick, is the food here yet? Uh-huh. Okay. Can you take it to the back patio and set it up? Great. And then, Nick—” he paused here to exchange a glance with Bigg. “Please join us for lunch. Right. Thanks.”
He hung up the phone.
“He’ll have it ready in ten minutes,” he said to Bigg.
“Excellent. Now, Jason, while we wait, how about you tell us a little about yourself?”
Brandt’s mind was racing to try to figure out how Nick fit into all of this, so it took a second for him to shift gears into his back story. Luckily, he had worked all of the details out when he first got the assignment, so he could fill ten minutes with effortless dissimulation.
Things were not going effortlessly back in the truck. Under Donnelly’s impatient glare, the techs were a blur, chasing down the leads Brandt had delivered to them. Barry Bigg turned out to be a local businessman of no great magnitude. He had run a small business until about two years ago—a pool cleaning service with customers in most of the suburbs and small-to-medium towns around the region. No smoking gun there.
Drake’s account of the hosting situation seemed to be on the up-and-up as well. The techs traced back the IP address of the hosting provider for the web site, and it was indeed located in Springfield. Maloney made a couple of calls and found that not only was the business registered there, but the board of revenue confirmed that Bigg had made every tax payment on time since the site went live.
“Well, as tax evasion schemes go, this one’s a bust,” muttered Donnelly. “First I’ve ever seen where people went out of their way to pay more tax.”
Maloney was hanging up his phone.
“We’re toast, gentlemen,” he said to the group. “There’s nothing here. Aside from the fact that the whole operation is a digital smut shop”—he shuddered a bit at this—“we got nothing I can go to a judge with.”
Donnelly nodded, then picked up his phone and dialed.
“Chief Gordon’s office,” a voice answered immediately.
“Margaret, it’s Gabriel.”
“Oh hey, Gabriel,” she replied, her voice lowering a bit. She was one of the women in the office who could testify to Donnelly’s skill with his tongue. They had dated a few times, but Donnelly’s heart just hadn’t been in it.
He closed his eyes, wishing anyone else were the Chief’s admin.
“I need to speak to the Chief, right now. Urgent.”
Margaret’s tone changed immediately.
“I’ll put you right through,” she said, and in two clicks the Chief was on the line.
Donnelly explained what they had learned, and where it left them. The Chief asked to talk with Maloney, whom he trusted from long experience. Maloney confirmed the unraveling of the case and then handed the phone back to Donnelly.
“Tell Brandt we’re done. Get the team back here for a debrief with the DA,” the Chief growled, frustration in his voice. Donnelly could tell the attorney general would be getting an earful about the goose chase he had sent an entire team on.
“Got it,” Donnelly replied and hung up.
“Let’s move, people,” he said to the group in the truck. “This one is closed.” He typed out a quick text to Brandt, and then buckled in for the ride back to headquarters.
Brandt’s phone buzzed just as they were walking to the patio for lunch. He caught a quick glance at the message: “Dad says the trip is off. Meet us back at home when you’re done.” He stumbled in the hallway for a second, but recovered quickly. As he had suspected, Drake’s story must have proved correct. It was really over.
“Hey, I need to stop off for a sec,” Brandt said as they passed by a bathroom. “I’ll catch up.”
He stepped into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. He had done all of this for nothing—there was no case, no reason for him to have humiliated himself, no justification for what he had been through. Fuck.
He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head. He reached under his shirt and disconnected the microphone from the transmitter—he was no longer a wired hooker. He smoothed his shirt down, ran his fingers through his hair. It was this last bit, the fingers in the hair, that suddenly reminded him of Donnelly. Without all of this, he wouldn’t have that. The investigation had been pointless, but it had brought him something greater than he could ever have imagined. He smiled at the bizarre economy of the universe, bringing him something so good out of something so bad. He left the bathroom and jogged out to the patio. Might as well enjoy lunch—the shit would be hitting the fan back at work, and he’d actually rather be here while that happened there.
DRAKE AND Bigg were settled in chairs by the pool, and Brandt sat down across from Bigg. That left a chair for Nick, who wasn’t here at the moment. The table was piled with Thai food in tidy containers.
“This is a new restaurant that opened up nearby,” said Drake, passing a plate of spring rolls. “It’s quickly become a favorite here.”
It was at that moment that Nick appeared; he stood for a moment behind the remaining chair, and Brandt saw him jolt when he looked at Bigg. Brandt remembered Nick saying that no one had ever seen the owner of the house, but this look gave away more than just the thrill of meeting the boss—this was recognition.
“Barry?” he said, in a quiet voice.
“How are you, Nick?” Bigg replied, rising to take Nick’s hand.
“I’m… but you… wow, it’s you?” Nick mumbled, though Brandt noticed that there was a smile forming—perhaps this was a pleasant surprise?
“Yes, it’s me,” Bigg replied. “Now, please have a seat, and let’s get caught up.”
Nick sat, shaking his head as if trying to figure out what had happened. Brandt was impatient to find out what was going on—if anything was going to affect his (now apparently defunct) investigation, he preferred to know it sooner rather than later.
“So,” he began, “you two know each other?”
Bigg nodded, smiling. “We do. Nick here is the reason this entire operation exists.”
Nick dropped his fork. “What? What does that mean?”
Bigg took a sip of his Thai iced tea and explained.
“Nick worked for me a couple of years ago when I ran a pool cleaning business. He was one of my best employees, mainly due to his popularity among wealthy older gentlemen. They liked to watch him work.” Bigg chuckled. “I mean, who wouldn’t, right? I’d always tended to choose attractive young men to work for me because, well, why not? But Nick was a wonder. We started to get requests for him to return to particular houses more and more frequently, and it became clear to me what was going on. Essentially, we were sending him out as a performer, not as a pool cleaner.”
Brandt looked to see if Nick would object to this characterization, but he was caught up in the reminiscence, smiling to hear the story told.
“But one evening,” Bigg continued, “Nick was cleaning a pool for the entertainment of a group of men, and he apparently took an offer from one of them to go with him in his car for a more personal performance. Unfortunately, a policeman noticed the car parked in a remote lot at a park on the edge of town and came to investigate. Nick was charged with indecent behavior, while the man who had purchased his time—what was his name? Trevor? Tyler? Yes, that was it, Tyler Banks—was charged with a more serious offense.”
&nbs
p; “I got community service,” Nick said. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“All the same,” Bigg went on, “I felt terrible. And responsible. And I took a long hard look at my role in the ordeal, and I realized that I had let Nick endanger himself. What if this Tyler Banks had been a murderer instead of just an unlucky lecher? I resolved to find a way to help young men like Nick make a living while keeping them safe. And the result,” he gestured around him, “you see here.”
Nick’s jaw dropped. “You did this, all of this, because of me?”
Bigg nodded. “I did. Well,” he said, looking at Drake, “we did.”
“But why didn’t you tell me you were behind it?”
“I didn’t want you to feel obligated to work here. That would have been exploitive. I wanted to give you the opportunity to come work here of your own accord. And it has worked out, if I do say so myself, quite well.”
Nick shook his head in disbelief.
Brandt, though, wanted to probe a bit more.
“So, you arranged it so that guys expose themselves for money online. How do you figure that’s better?”
Bigg laughed. “I know it must seem strange, Jason. But think about it. Here there is an unbreakable wall between the service provider and the client. It keeps both sides safe.”
Brandt wasn’t buying it, and his face showed it.
“Jason,” Drake interjected. “How many of the thousands upon thousands of fans who have seen your video in the last ten days have tried to reach you? How many offers of sexual contact have you received?”
“None,” Brandt scoffed in return. “Not one.”
“Wrong,” Drake replied. “You have received hundreds of such messages. Some have sent offers of considerable sums of money for a night or a weekend with you. Some have offered more creative compensation for a range of activities that would make your hair curl. But we have screened all of those messages out. All you would see in your fan account right now would be the messages telling you how hot you are, and how much they enjoyed watching you. All of the risky stuff has been filtered out, and that’s how we keep you safe.”
Brandt was genuinely impressed.
“Wow,” he said, finally. “You guys really have this all thought out.”
“We’ve tried to, anyway,” said Bigg. “The best part is working with people like you and Nick, who teach us new things all the time. That’s why we hope you’ll join us, Jason. You and Nick would be an unbeatable talent development team.”
Nick, who obviously hadn’t known about the job offer, looked excitedly at Brandt.
“That would be awesome!” he cried. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
“I’m thinking about it,” replied Brandt. It was only after the words left his mouth that he realized he was really thinking about it. Which was, of course, ridiculous. He already had a job.
AFTER LUNCH, and after promising to consider the job offer, Brandt made his way back to headquarters in Donnelly’s car. He was trying to sort everything out, but he needed information from Donnelly to complete the picture. He parked and ran into the building. Donnelly was waiting for him in their office.
“Must have been a good lunch,” Donnelly groused when Brandt appeared in the doorway.
“Wanted to see if there was anything else I could get to fill in the picture, that’s all. So, Maloney pulled the plug on the warrant?”
“Oh yeah. He dropped that like a hot rock once we confirmed what Drake and Bigg told you about the business. The whole deal’s on the up and up, apparently. We’re done.”
Brandt nodded, then shrugged. “That’s how it goes sometimes.”
“Did you get anything else interesting over lunch?”
“Not really. Found out how the whole thing started, which was kind of weird. Apparently Bigg ran a pool company that Nick worked for, and Nick ended up getting arrested for parking with some guy who paid him to get naked.”
Donnelly frowned at this bit of information. “How does that work?”
“Well, Bigg felt bad about Nick putting himself at risk like that, so he set up the web deal to keep Nick out of the clutches of baddies like that Tyler Banks guy.”
“Huh.” Donnelly grabbed his keyboard and starting typing. “That was Banks, right?”
“Yeah,” Brandt replied. “Why?”
“Just a hunch. Hang on.” He typed more, and then looked at the results on the screen. “Well, that’s odd.”
“What did you find?” asked Brandt, coming around to Donnelly’s side of the desk.
“Well, here’s the arrest report on Mr. Banks, and the charges filed, but there’s no record of a hearing.”
“Wait, what? How can that be?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. Hold on… look at this.” Donnelly pointed to the final entry in the record.
“What am I looking at?”
“The name of the ADA handling the charges.”
“Mona Sullivan.” Brandt read. “So what?”
“Remember when I said that Tim Drake’s sexual assault charges against his former boss had just disappeared? It was Mona Sullivan who made them disappear.”
“Wasn’t she going to call you with information on that today?”
“Yep,” Donnelly answered. “What do you want to bet that we’re not going to hear from her?”
Donnelly looked up at Brandt, who was pondering this new information.
“How about we pay her a little visit? Says here she’s at the judicial wing over on 8th.”
“Let’s roll, Officer Brandt.”
“Fuck yeah, Officer Donnelly.”
IN FIFTEEN minutes they were sitting in the waiting room outside a group of ADA offices. One upside to having a law-and-order attorney general was that there was plenty of work for prosecutors.
“Officers Brandt and Donnelly?”
They glanced up to see a harried-looking yet professional woman in her forties standing in the doorway to her office.
“Please come in,” she said and gestured for them to enter her office. They took seats in front of her desk.
“Now, how can I help you today?” she asked, her hands folded together on the desk.
“We’d like to talk with you about a couple of cases that look a little funny,” Brandt said lightly.
Ms. Sullivan did not give the impression of being someone who thought her job was funny, not in the slightest. She frowned.
“Specifically,” Brandt continued, undaunted, “We’re interested in a sexual assault claim filed four years ago by a Timothy Drake, and solicitation and indecency charges against a Tyler Banks two years ago.”
Ms. Sullivan shook her head dismissively. “I have a huge caseload, Officer Brandt. You surely don’t expect me to—”
“Both cases were dropped, Ms. Sullivan,” interrupted Donnelly. “There’s no notation as to why. And in both cases your name is the last one on the file. Now, that seems unusual to me.”
The ADA stood suddenly and walked to the door. She shut it quietly, then returned to her seat.
“Are you suggesting, officers,” she hissed, clearly shaken by the inquiries, “that there is something improper in the way that these cases were handled?”
“Not at all,” blurted Brandt. “We were just tying up some loose ends.”
Ms. Sullivan sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Well, it was improper,” she said quietly.
“Excuse me?” asked Donnelly, leaning closer.
“I said it was improper. And I’m actually relieved that you asked about them. I disagreed with the decision to drop them, but I was overruled.”
“Overruled? By whom?” Brandt asked.
“The attorney general himself,” she replied, in a voice that was almost a whisper.
Brandt and Donnelly exchanged a look.
“Why?” they asked together.
“Well, the Drake case was pretty clear. The accused was a college buddy of the AG, and he called in a favor. Guy was a total creep—trophy wife and three kids, making p
asses at male associates on the side. But he’s untouchable.”
Brandt and Donnelly both moved as if to ask more questions, but she raised her hand and continued.
“Now, Tyler Banks, that was a bit of a mystery. I dug a bit on that one. Turns out that Mr. Banks is the nephew of the AG himself. Apparently his mom, the AG’s sister, was a druggie who OD’ed a while back. Father was never in the picture at all. Now, he’s managed to keep it quiet that they’re related, because the kid’s pretty messed up. Looks bad on the campaign trail, if you know what I mean? So I think he hushed that one up to protect himself.”
Ms. Sullivan, having unburdened herself, was clearly relieved. She smiled for the first time since their meeting began.
“Wow, that’s… a lot,” Brandt finally got out. “But why do nothing and then dump this all on us? Shouldn’t you have made some kind of ethics case out of it?”
Ms. Sullivan laughed a somewhat unhinged laugh. “You don’t cross the AG. He has ways of getting even. But this is my last day at this crap job—next week I start in private practice in Arizona, so I don’t care now. Feel free to do what you want with the information—you are welcome to it.”
“Thank you, Ms. Sullivan,” Brandt said, rising. “Best of luck on your new career.”
On the way back to headquarters, Brandt said suddenly, “I’ve got to get back to the house.”
“Why? Did you forget something this morning?”
“No, not our house. The frat house.”
Donnelly turned to look at Brandt. “Did you just say ‘our house’?”
“Sorry, your house.”
“No, it’s not that. I just… well, that sounded nice. Our house. Heh.” Donnelly’s goofy grin shone brightly.
“You are completely nuts, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know. And I’m all yours, so that’s awesome for you, right?”
Brandt leaned over and kissed Donnelly on the cheek.
“All kinds of awesome.”
“Aww, you’re going to make me crash into a pole with that kind of talk.”