Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Boudiette was a hit man.

  Boudiette had been after Remington, meaning Remington was somehow connected to Boudiette, meaning he might be connected to Tessa Blake—maybe directly, maybe indirectly, which is the main reason Teffinger wanted to search Remington’s house.

  But the search had turned up nothing. Teffinger would press forensics to get into Remington’s computers first thing tomorrow morning but was already bracing himself for the fact that it would probably be a bust.

  In the meantime he was back to square one, with another day slipping away.

  55

  Day Seven—June 17

  Sunday Afternoon

  JEKKER HAD SO MUCH TO DO in such a short period of time that he hardly knew where to start. He needed to kill the blackmailer and get the photographs back. He needed to kill some stranger named Porter Potter. He needed to kill Tessa Blake. He needed to have a heart-to-heart with Bethany’s stalker. Somewhere down the road, he needed to figure out why the Frenchman had been after him, and deal with the root source of that problem to be sure it didn’t happen again. And he had to do it all without making any further messes.

  How did everything get so complicated all of a sudden?

  The most pressing problem was the blackmailer.

  He needed to address that first.

  He stuffed Tessa Blake back in the boxcar, to her dismay, and waited for the call, which didn’t come until early afternoon. Jekker explained that he couldn’t get the money until tomorrow when the banks opened. The blackmailer said, “Tomorrow’s your last chance,” and hung up.

  PORTER POTTER, a 45-year-old who rode a desk for a living and wore a spare tire around his gut to prove it, lived alone in a nice house on the 11th hole of the Denver Country Club.

  Jekker, wearing one of his many disguises, drove past the house several times in the afternoon and then took a leisurely walk behind it on the cart path.

  The plan solidified, the perfect plan.

  That evening after dark, shortly before ten, Jekker snuck through the fairway under a moonless Colorado night. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, an even blacker sweatshirt and latex gloves. His persuader—the .357 SIG—was holstered under the sweatshirt.

  The pudgy man was still awake.

  The colored lights of a TV flickered in the upstairs bedroom.

  Good.

  Jekker muscled up the redwood deck to the upper level and snuck towards the target on cat feet. The sliding glass door was ajar and sitcom sounds squeezed through the opening. The screen portion of the door was closed. Jekker tested it, ever so slightly, to see if it was locked.

  It wasn’t.

  The fat man was in a chair with his back to the door watching a Cheers rerun.

  With the gun in hand, Jekker slid the screen door open with a quick motion and stepped inside.

  HIS TARGET TURNED, more curious than frightened, as if to confirm that he really hadn’t heard anything. Jekker closed the gap with three quick steps and had the gun jammed against the back of the man’s head before the jerk even got twisted all the way around.

  He had a half-drained glass of whiskey in his hand and smelled like a bar.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Jekker said.

  A pause.

  “Okay.”

  Jekker surveyed the room.

  It had no ceiling lights.

  The floor had carpeting.

  “Don’t move,” Jekker said.

  “Okay.”

  Jekker stepped into the master bathroom and flicked on the lights. The space looked like something out of a magazine, with double sinks nestled in a granite countertop, an enclosed steam shower, a Jacuzzi tub, tile flooring and rich textured towels. What grabbed his attention, though, were the two light fixtures above the sinks, particularly the left one, the one with one of the four bulbs burned out.

  “Where are your replacement bulbs for this thing?” Jekker asked.

  “What thing?”

  “Get your ass in here!”

  The fat man obeyed.

  “That,” Jekker said. “Where are your replacement bulbs?”

  Confusion filled the man’s face.

  “I think I have some spares in the linen closet. I don’t understand—”

  “Shut up and show me!”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER THE FAT MAN had a tragic accident while changing the light bulb in the bathroom before going to bed. It seems he had been standing on the sink and slipped off, probably because of the whiskey.

  The poor man hit his head on the tile floor and cracked his skull wide open.

  56

  Day Eight—June 18

  Monday Morning

  LONDON AND HER CLIENT Venta Devenelle arrived at Vesper & Bennett at 9:15 a.m. without an appointment, and requested a meeting with Thomas Fog. Now, a full hour later, they still waited in the reception area.

  Venta kept her face stuffed in one magazine after another, not talking, with her legs crossed, rocking her right foot up and down, obviously stressed.

  London was equally frazzled but also equally determined to not let it show. For the most part, she kept her focus on the upcoming meeting, trying to anticipate Fog’s reactions and possible moves. But something more sinister tugged at her; namely the fact that the meeting would take the case from the chest-beating level to the full-combat level. There might well be an attempt on either her life, or Venta’s, or both.

  One other thing crept into her thoughts.

  The money.

  She had the case on a one-third contingency fee.

  If the case was as big as they believed it to be, it could mean millions. She could be on the verge of putting her one-bedroom apartment—and her one-bedroom life—in the rearview mirror forever.

  She shook the thought out of her head.

  Stay focused.

  Don’t count the chickens.

  A half hour later, Fog’s personal assistant walked into the reception area and said, “Mr. Fog is sorry you’ve had to wait so long, but he’s had clients. He can see you now.”

  They stood up and looked at each other, then followed Fog’s assistant into the same conference room as before.

  THOMAS FOG SHOWED UP TWO MINUTES LATER wearing gray pinstriped pants, a crisp white shirt and a blue silk tie pulled loose around the neck. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “This has been the day from hell.” He took a deep breath as if to calm himself. “So what’s on your mind?”

  London had prepared for this moment twenty times and now went blank.

  Venta, who had been looking at Fog, turned her head, then nudged London.

  “You’re up,” she said.

  “Right,” she said. Then to Fog, “You remember what we talked about before, about how Ms. Devenelle had been hired by a law firm to follow a man to Bangkok.”

  He nodded.

  “You thought the firm could be ours,” he said. “Even though I checked and found no evidence of any such thing.”

  London swallowed.

  “Right,” she said. “What we didn’t tell you about the last time we were here is what happened to Ms. Devenelle after she arrived in Bangkok.”

  He looked puzzled and held his hands out in confusion.

  “Okay,” he said. “So what happened?”

  “We’ll tell you,” London said. “I’m treating this meeting as a Rule 408 settlement negotiation. I assume you’re doing the same.”

  That meant that neither party could use anything said by the other party as evidence in court. It’s as if the meeting never happened.

  He shrugged.

  “Sure. I have no problem with that.”

  London looked at Venta and asked, “Do you want to tell him the story or do you want me to?”

  Venta looked calmer now; in fact, defiant.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  WITH THAT, THEY TOLD HIM EVERYTHING. How Venta had followed the target, Bob Copeland, into a BJ bar where her drink got spiked. She ended up in sexual slavery
where inhumane acts were perpetrated upon her on a daily basis. She was eventually purchased for a snuff but gained her freedom following a freak traffic accident.

  “When did this happen?” Fog asked.

  Venta searched her memory. “I got there on April 11th and escaped about a month later.”

  “When exactly?”

  Venta went deep and then said, “May 10th.”

  OTHER FEMALE PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS were also lured to Bangkok where they disappeared.

  “Who?” Fog questioned.

  “We’re not saying at this point,” London said.

  “Why?”

  “In case they’re still alive.”

  “What does that mean?” Fog questioned.

  London leaned across the table. “It means we don’t want them disappearing.”

  Fog scowled at her.

  She didn’t flinch.

  “One of the men who paid a visit to Ms. Devenelle is an attorney from this law firm,” she said.

  Fog looked flabbergasted.

  “Who?”

  “Mark Remington.”

  “Mark Remington?”

  London nodded.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I wish we were,” she said. “Here’s the bottom line. This law firm is, at a minimum, engaged in the illegal trafficking of women for sexual slavery.”

  Fog looked dumbfounded.

  “Honey,” he said. “We’re the biggest law firm in the world. Why in the hell would we do anything as stupid as that?”

  “Because you’re the biggest law firm in the world,” she said. “And therefore you think you can. We’ll see you in court.”

  They stood up.

  Fog shook his head in bewilderment and motioned them back into their seats.

  “Here’s what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll talk to Mark Remington and check into this.”

  “Today,” London said.

  He nodded.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m a hundred percent positive that I’m going to find out that this law firm is not involved in anything like this, not in a million years. If it turns out that Mark Remington is as dirty as you make him out to be, then be warned in advance that he was doing it all on his own, without the knowledge or consent of this law firm. I can see dollar signs bouncing around in your eyes. My advice to you is to get them out. Even if all your wild theories are true, which they’re not, you end up with a case against a rogue lawyer acting outside the scope of his employment but not a case against this law firm. I repeat—not against this law firm.”

  London stood up.

  But so did Thomas Fog.

  “THERE’S ONE MORE THING you should be crystal clear about before you leave this room,” he said. “I consider your allegations to be defamatory. If you go public with them, then you are both going to get slapped with a slander suit so fast and so big and so heavy that you’ll never recover from it. Not in ten lifetimes. Mark my words.”

  London leaned across the table and stared him in the eyes.

  “Here are our demands,” she said. “We want the name of every single woman who has been lured to Bangkok. We want every single one of them released and returned to the United States immediately. We want every person involved in this to voluntarily surrender themselves to the police and to confess to their crimes. And we want full financial redress for all of the pain and suffering and injuries and losses sustained by each and every one of the victims and the families of the victims who have been subjected to these horrible acts.”

  Fog looked flabbergasted.

  “And we want an apology too,” she added. “Either get it done yourself or we’ll get a judge and jury to get it done for you.”

  Fog slammed his hand on the table.

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” he said.

  “Then we’re even.”

  THEY HUFFED OUT OF THE CONFERENCE ROOM, down the hall and into the reception area, where something happened that London didn’t expect.

  The rock star Michael Montana came through the space.

  So preoccupied with a file that he actually bumped into her.

  Totally shocked.

  “What—?” he started to ask.

  She pushed him away, ran towards the door and said over her shoulder, “Don’t call me.”

  “London!”

  “You heard me!”

  57

  Day Eight—June 18

  Monday Noon

  PAUL KUBIAK COPIED MARK REMINGTON’S hard drives Monday morning. Teffinger jumped into them with lots of caffeine-laden enthusiasm, but after hours of plodding through the mundane, his altitude and attitude dropped.

  Venta called and asked if he had time for lunch.

  She sounded stressed.

  He looked at the oversized industrial clock on the wall.

  11:29.

  Ouch.

  Where did the morning go?

  “Okay,” he said. “But it’ll need to be somewhere close and quick.” He thought about it and said, “Meet me at Wong’s on Court Street, high noon.”

  “I know why you like that place,” she said. “All the waitresses have a crush on you.”

  “I tip ’em,” he said. “That’s all.”

  He got there ten minutes late and spotted Venta in a booth.

  Something was wrong.

  He could tell, even at a distance.

  He slid in and said, “Something’s wrong.”

  She nodded.

  “It’s time for full disclosure,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that the car you thought was new actually has a lot of miles on the odometer,” she said.

  “Huh?” He took her hand and said, “Talk to me.”

  WITH THAT SHE TOLD HIM A STORY ABOUT BANGKOK, and sexual slavery, and horrible things that had been done to her. She studied his eyes the entire time, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “I couldn’t tell you before because I didn’t know how you’d react,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, most men wouldn’t want a woman who has been through all that.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  “Why would it matter?” he asked. “You were a victim. I’m not going to think less of you because of something that happened to you beyond your control.”

  She cried.

  Silently.

  Barely detectible, but with tears.

  “Do you still want me?”

  He came around to her side of the table and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Of course I still want you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m embarrassing you.”

  “Never.”

  AS THEY ATE, SHE TOLD HIM MORE. She had retained an attorney by the name of London Vaughn. Their investigation traced the initial Bangkok assignment as coming from Vesper & Bennett.

  “Vesper & Bennett?” Teffinger asked.

  She nodded.

  “That’s not possible.”

  She disagreed.

  “We had a kick-’em-in-the-balls meeting with the head of the firm this morning, a guy named Thomas Fog,” she said. “We told him everything we knew and demanded lots of stuff. They won’t comply—I already know that—which means we’ll be filing a lawsuit within the next couple of days. It’s all about to hit the fan. That’s why I’m telling you now. You’re going to find out about it in a day or two, and I’d rather you hear it from me.”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “What?” she questioned.

  “They’ll throw an army at the case,” he said. “They’ll take your deposition for days just to screw with you. Your life is about to be a living hell.”

  “I think you underestimate them,” Venta said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that for someone’s life to be a living hell, first they have to have a life.”

  Teffinger didn’t follow.

  “Think about it,” she sai
d. “What if I wasn’t alive to testify?”

  “What do you mean, not alive? Are you trying to suggest that they’d actually kill you?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s insane,” he said. “Law firms don’t kill people.”

  She ignored the words, then looked directly into his eyes.

  “It’ll look like an accident,” she said.

  58

  Day Eight—June 18

  Monday Morning

  WITH PORTER POTTER DEAD, Jekker was now free to kill Tessa Blake. He almost did it when he got home last night from the scene of Potter’s unfortunate accident. Then he changed his mind. It would be better to deal with the blackmailer first because if the guy did go to the police, Jekker would rather be charged with the abduction of Tessa Blake as opposed to her murder.

  The contact called Jekker shortly before noon and sounded like he just stepped off a roller coaster.

  “Whatever you do, don’t kill Porter Potter yet,” the man said.

  “Why?”

  “Something came up this morning,” the man said.

  “Your timing sucks,” Jekker said.

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s already a done deal.”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Tessa Blake’s still alive,” Jekker added.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about her,” the man said.

  “So you don’t care if I complete the plan?”

  “No. In fact it would probably be even better that way.” The man paused as if in thought and then added, “In fact, do it quick. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have another job for you and I’m going to want your full attention on it.”

  Another job meant another pile of money.

  “Not a problem,” Jekker said. “When?”

  “Maybe as early as tonight. I have to think it through.”

  THE BLACKMAILER CALLED TEN MINUTES LATER. “Today’s the day,” he said. “Don’t tell me that you don’t have the money, because if you tell me you don’t have the money, I’m going to find myself in a very bad mood.”