When The Devil Whistles

by Rick Acker

  Frank noticed the phone call. “You’re a popular guy tonight, Connor.” Genial male laughter. “Do you need to get that?”

  Connor looked back at his companions and dropped the phone back into his pocket. “No, no. I’m sure it’s nothing. Sorry, Frank, I didn’t mean to interrupt your story. So, you were in New Orleans for the Vikings-Saints playoff game and you met Zygi Wilf in a karaoke bar on Bourbon Street.”

  “Right. He’d obviously had a few and he was singing ‘Born to Run’ as loud as he possibly could.” Connor nodded and laughed as his guest told a rambling ten-minute anecdote, the main point of which appeared to be that he knew the owner of the Minnesota Vikings.

  Connor didn’t mind. Phoebus was a plum client, with billings worth millions per year. If he could land them, he could write himself a one-way, non-stop ticket from the firm’s doghouse to its penthouse. Nothing encourages law firm forgiveness quite like a fat book of business. Profitability is next to godliness in the Big Law world. Actually, it beats godliness cold—as Connor knew through personal experience.

  Connor’s phone buzzed again. Frank and Bill discovered that they shared a love of Buster Keaton movies and were busy quoting favorite scenes to each other, so Connor risked a quick look at his phone. A new text message from Allie. He opened it and read, “trapped @ dp 7 dock. help!!”

  He glanced up quickly. Frank and Bill hadn’t noticed, but Tom was looking at him. Connor showed him the message below table level. Tom frowned and shook his head slightly.

  Connor messaged back, “Call 911.”

  Bill had steered Frank away from movie trivia and back to business. “… and our financial litigation group has had quite a run of success in recent years. We’re also open to alternative billing models, as Connor may already have explained to you.”

  Frank’s eyebrows went up and his martini glass stopped halfway to his lips. He looked at Connor. “Why, no. I’d be very interested in hearing about that.”

  Connor put his elbows on the table and put on his most winning smile. “And I’d be very interested in telling you about it. We—” His pocket buzzed again. “I’m very sorry. I’ve just learned that we have a minor emergency brewing. Could you excuse me for just a moment?”

  Frank swept his martini toward the door, spilling a drop on the table. “Of course.”

  Connor rose and hurried an exit, opening the new message as he went. “already called cops. they stopped @ gate, talked to grds & left. dont know what to do now. bad stuff going on-nkoreans w/ nukes! im scared.”

  “Allie again?”

  Connor turned and saw that Tom had followed him out and was standing behind him on the walkway between the restaurant and the water.

  Connor handed the phone to his friend. “So, what do we do?”

  Tom glanced at the message. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “What do we do? Nothing! Not one blessed thing, you understand?” He shook the cell phone in Connor’s face. “She is trespassing on Deep Seven property and you’re giving her advice! And you’re doing it on your cell phone by text message so that they’ll get every word when they subpoena the phone company!”

  “I’m sorry, Tom, but I didn’t have much choice. She might be in real danger and—”

  Tom bared his teeth and cocked his arm. For a frozen instant, Connor thought he was going to throw a punch. But he pivoted and hurled Connor’s cell phone far out to sea. “Don’t you lie to me! You had a choice and you made it! You chose to shaft me and the firm so that you could keep helping that cute, lying little—” He bit off the last word and took a few seconds to master himself. “Look, you know how bad this’ll look in Deep Seven’s suit against the firm, right? Didn’t we talk about exactly that? And didn’t you agree that you wouldn’t have any contact with her? You’re already hanging by a thread, Connor. You know that. Why are you trying to cut it? If you can’t shut up and do exactly what you’re told, you… are… dead.” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, then nodded toward the door. “All right, let’s go back in there and have dinner. If you can land Phoebus, maybe ExComm will let this go. Maybe.”

  He turned and walked back in. Connor followed him in a daze. Tom had never acted like that toward him. No one had. Or at least no one who inhabited his world. Every now and then, he’d run into a loudmouth at a baseball game or a bar, but you couldn’t expect class from people like that. But from Tom Concannon?

  They crossed the restaurant and found their meals waiting for them. Tom flashed a grin at Frank. “Emergency resolved! Did Bill fill you in on our alternative billing models?”

  “I gave him an overview, but I thought I’d let Connor tell him about a couple of cases where our partial-contingency fee system turned out to be a real win-win for us and our clients.”

  Tom took his seat. “And a lose-lose for our opponents.”

  “That’s how our cases tend to turn out.” Bill picked up his chopsticks and winked at Connor. “Now you talk while I work on this delicious-looking branzino.”

  Connor stood looking down at the table, every detail crowding in on his senses. He saw the exquisitely presented Dungeness crab and cellophane noodles on his plate and the dew-beaded glass of Chardonnay next to it. The click of Bill’s chopsticks and the pleasant murmur of a dozen conversations around them blended into a wistful music in his ears. The bouquet of fresh gourmet food and a hint of sea tang filled his nose with a tempting perfume. He felt three pairs of eyes looking up at him expectantly.

  “Aren’t you going to sit down,” Bill asked.

  He almost did. He put his hand on the gray leather chair and started to pull it out. The invitation lay right there in front of him, waiting for him to accept. He would sit down and make his sales pitch to Frank, who would probably accept it. Phoebus would become a Doyle & Brown client, and Connor’s future road with the firm would be wide and smooth.

  But he stopped. Allie had told him once that she couldn’t trust him. It was time to prove her wrong. And to follow his own advice about hard choices.

  For a few seconds, he prayed for the strength to say the necessary words. Then he looked up and smiled. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to bid you all good night. There’s a pressing matter I have to attend to.”

  Tom’s face turned deep red and the muscles of his neck stood out. “What are you doing, Connor?”

  “I’m making a choice. You were right, Tom. It’s wrong for me to endanger the firm’s finances or reputation by my actions. I am therefore resigning my partnership, effective immediately.”

  62

  ALLIE AND THE TWO SWIMMERS (WHOM SHE HAD LEARNED WERE NAMED Mitch and Ed) huddled behind a stack of crates in a warehouse beside Deep Seven’s dock. They had run into the warehouse when brilliant lights came on a few minutes after the two men called the police on Allie’s cell phone. The lights topped lamp posts built into a tall security fence that completely surrounded Deep Seven’s dock and a collection of dockside buildings. The fence looked like something from a maximum-security prison. It was at least ten feet high, topped with razor wire, and had signs inscribed with bright red lightning bolts and skulls.

  The nearest gate—the one Allie had come through—was fifty yards away on the other side of a noon-bright obstacle course of rusted metal and sharp-edged shadows. Worse, the gate had clanged shut when the lights came on. There was a number pad next to the gate, but without the pass code, that wouldn’t do them much good.

  Allie thought about suggesting that they swim to safety as soon as Ed and Mitch had warmed up enough, but then she looked through her night-vision binoculars and saw two men on the ship sweeping the shore with similar binoculars.

  Fear prickled down her back as she noticed something else: what looked like a SWAT team crossing the gangway from ship to shore. They carried assault rifles and wore bulky dark clothing that looked like it covered body armor. Their helmets had complicated eyepieces that she assumed were designed to help them see enemies in dark, cluttered places like the warehouse.


  The helpless, unreasoning panic of a trapped animal seized her. Do something! Do something! it shouted. But what?

  Maybe Connor or Julian had come up with something. She took her cell phone out of her purse and checked her messages, cupping her hands around it to hide the light from the screen.

  “Anything?” asked the taller man, whose name was Mitch.

  She shook her head. “Not since my lawyer—ex-lawyer— told me to call 911. The detective isn’t picking up at all. Don’t know who else to try.”

  “Don’t try anyone,” whispered the short, squat man, whose name Allie had learned was Ed. “Your phone lights up like a little searchlight every time you touch it.”

  “I’m being careful.”

  “Not careful enough.” He pointed to a tiny spot of light dancing on the warehouse wall next to them.

  “It’s not doing us any good anyway.” She snapped her phone shut and shoved it to the bottom of her purse, under wads of receipts and notes, her lipstick, and her pepper spray.

  Pepper spray. She took it out and looked at it in the near darkness. Was there anything she could do with this? She thought for a moment, then rolled her eyes. Yeah, she was going to mace half a dozen commandos. That would work. She’d be better off trying the lipstick. At least that had gotten her someplace with the last male Deep Seven employee she had met.

  Her eyes went wide. Rajiv! Did she still have his cell phone number? She dug through her purse with frantic fingers. There! A crumpled Post-It matted with lint on the gummy strip.

  A metallic screech echoed through the warehouse and a door at the far end opened. One figure peeked in. A second later six men ran through the door, each silhouetted for an instant against the cold merciless glare of the lights on the security fence. Then they vanished into the darkness inside.

  Allie took out her phone and dialed fast, keeping the light as hidden as possible.

  Ed tried to grab it from her. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

  She batted away his hand. “Getting help!”

  One ring and Rajiv’s voice was in her ear. “Hello?”

  “Rajiv, it’s Allie Whitman,” she whispered. “I really need your help.”

  “Ah, certainly, Allie. Of course. What seems to be the problem?”

  “Long story, but I’m trapped in a warehouse on Deep Seven’s dock in Oakland. I need the code for the gate in the security fence.”

  The phone was silent for several seconds. “All right… okay,” he said at last. “I’m not in the office. Let me try accessing the system remotely. This may take a little while.”

  “Please hurry.” She peeked between two crates and glimpsed a dark figure methodically checking possible hiding places about halfway across the warehouse. “I’m, uh, late for something. I’ll be really, um, grateful if you can get me the code fast.”

  “My pleasure, I assure you. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to be free for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Sure. My treat.” She couldn’t see the figure anymore. How soon before one of the searchers reached them? A minute? Five minutes?

  “Nonsense! I insist on paying.”

  “Okay, fine. Do you have the code?”

  “Do you mind if I put down the phone so I can type with both hands?”

  “No, no. Please do.”

  “I don’t wish to be rude.”

  Allie fought back the urge to scream. “Really, it’s totally, completely fine. Put it down now.”

  There was a rattling noise as he put the phone on some hard surface, followed by the intermittent faint clatter of a computer keyboard. She could hear Rajiv muttering to himself and humming a Britney Spears tune.

  Seconds dragged by, each weighted down with unbearable tension. If she knew how to pray, she would.

  A scuffing noise and the sound of footsteps nearby. Ed leaned close to her other ear. “We gotta get outta here!”

  She nodded. There was a door about twenty feet away that stood ajar. The three of them crept toward it, darting from the stack of crates to a row of barrels to a pile of pipe—whatever offered cover.

  They were outside! They stood in the white glare of the naked high-wattage bulbs, exposed and blinded. Allie shielded her eyes and blinked until the painful brilliance began to resolve into recognizable shapes.

  She grabbed Ed’s arm and pointed toward the gate. They ran toward it, squinting and half stumbling.

  She held the phone to her mouth. “Rajiv!” Nothing. They’d be spotted in seconds if she didn’t get that code. “Rajiv! ”

  Clattering noise. “Yes, what is it, Allie?”

  “Do you have the code?”

  “Almost… one moment.”

  They were at the gate now. She stopped and looked back as Ed and Mitch caught up. No pursuit. Yet.

  More humming and typing in her ear, then, “Ah, here we are. The code is 2583. Did you get that?”

  “Yeah, 2583.” She punched in the numbers as she spoke. “Thanks, Rajiv. I owe—”

  A clanging alarm cut her off. It hammered in her ears and in her skull.

  She yanked at the gate, but the rubber-coated handle wouldn’t budge. She punched in the numbers again, hit the pound sign, and pulled the handle a second time.

  Ed cursed and pointed back toward the warehouse. “Here they come!”

  “Rajiv! The gate won’t open! What do I do?”

  He said something she couldn’t hear over the alarm.

  “What? I can’t hear you!”

  “You are going to die. Truly I am sorry.”

  An awful empty space opened in her stomach. “What do you mean?”

  “You asked what happened to Franklin Roh. You’re about to find out.”

  63

  THE WORLD SEEMED SURREAL TO CONNOR AS HE WALKED OUT OF THE Slanted Door. A casual observer might see a man walking out of a restaurant, but in reality he had just walked out of his life. Behind him lay the past seven years—no, more than that. It wasn’t just the time; it was the career as a big firm lawyer, the mold he had chosen to pour himself into when he decided against politics. All that was gone, swept away by a few words spoken over Vietnamese food.

  In front of him lay—what? He looked around at the uncertain night, full of bright, disjointed lights and domed by foreboding black. Streams of people and cars swept past, moving in unison, but not traveling together. They were autumn leaves, carried by a common wind and drifting together, but always separate and alone.

  Where would he go now? What would he do? The future is always hidden in the hand of God, but sometimes that hand is more visible than others. Tonight it was utterly invisible to him.

  He shook himself. His task for the immediate future was clear enough: find a payphone. Amazing how those had virtually vanished from city streets—especially when you needed one.

  After hunting for about ten minutes, he finally found one in a convenience store that had signs in the window advertising Coca-Cola in Chinese and green tea in English. He swiped his credit card and dialed Allie’s cell phone. She didn’t pick up. He tried again—still nothing.

  He hung up and tried Julian’s cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Julian, it’s Connor. Have you heard from Allie?”

  “No, but I haven’t been in the office since about 4:00, and she doesn’t have this number. What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure. She texted me and said she was trapped at Deep Seven’s dock and needed help. She said they’d tried the police, but they just talked to the guards at the gate and left. She also, ah, said there were North Koreans with nukes there.”

  “Wow. That’s… quite a story. Did she give you any details?”

  “No. Just a couple quick texts. I tried calling her just now, but she didn’t pick up.”

  “Sounds like something’s going on. I’ll drive down to the docks and check it out.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Always am. That tracker is staying on a shelf in the garage so they’ll think I’m home th
e whole time. Should I call you back at this number?”

  “No. I’m at a payphone right now. One of my partners—” No time for the whole story right now. “My cell phone fell in the water. I’m going to get a new one now, and I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

  Half an hour later, Connor walked out of the Verizon store on Pine Street, holding a new phone. He dialed Julian’s number as he made for the parking garage.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. You at the docks?”

  “I’m watching through a telephoto lens from about half a mile away. That place is lit up like a Christmas tree. Lots of big guys with crew cuts and guns. Can’t say whether they’re North Korean, but most of them are Asian.”