Page 40 of Pro Bono

“Yes,” Talbert said. He held up a plastic pharmacy bag. Then he pushed it under his seat.

“Okay. I just wanted to be sure you understood. I didn’t want to be too explicit. I knew nobody was close enough to hear me, but I couldn’t tell what your situation was.”

“What happened today, anyway?” Talbert said.

“The guys I hired to keep an eye on Vesper Ellis and her lawyer followed the lawyer along Olympic Boulevard to the Great Oceana Monetary administrative office. It wasn’t the client financial services officewhere I work. It was the building with the unseen stuff—the head offices for the investment division, the staff for the overseas trading that goes on all night, the legal division. He had to be meeting with them.”

“You never saw him do anything, right? How do you know what—”

“The lawyer’s name is Charles Warren. He had sent a letter to the company about discrepancies in his client’s accounts. Naturally the inquiry was shunted over to my office. I figured that as long as my office—meaning me personally—was handling the complaint, things could be kept under control in the usual ways. Take a little money from other accounts to ‘correct the mistake’ and the complaint fades away. This time I played it safer. I started an account in her name with money of my own, called it an investment subaccount, and pretended to move it back into her main account. And I also took the precaution of hiring these guys to keep an eye on the client and her lawyer.”

“So what’s the problem?’

“My guys saw Warren leave his office alone around noon today. They called me and asked if I knew what he was doing, so I said, ‘What I want to do is make him more cautious—slow him down—so maybe it’s time to ask him. If that intimidates him, fine.’ They tried, he resisted, knocked one of these guys down, and drove off. The guy hit his head, lost his temper, and took a shot at Warren. They saw where he went, and it was the Great Oceana building I told you about—the legal division.”

“That’s why you dragged me out of my house on a weeknight, making Fran wonder what the hell I’m doing, and probably my kids, and the neighbors too?”

Ollonsun began to drive a little faster now that they were in the dark and anonymity of Valley Vista. People drove too fast on this street anyway because the mild curves and low hills along the north side made it kind of fun. “Yes and no. What happened today is that we learned hewas going full-on into legal action. He’s essentially moved our problem out of my office into the legal division. That means he’s going to do the same at Founding Fathers Vested. I hope you’ve done what you can to make what you diverted from her accounts reappear—something like what I did, and then make all the levers and pulleys disappear.”

“I’ve done that already.”

“Good, good, good,” Ollonsun said. “That’s all you need for the moment.”

Talbert said, “I’ve been waiting for a while now to hear what the cash is for.”

“I’m sorry. Before we got into that, I wanted to be sure that you had taken the situation we’re in seriously. The money is for a couple things. We have some help keeping a strong, steady hand on this thing right now. I owe them a few days’ fees, which I plan to pay myself. One of the guys got hurt when Warren surprised him and hit his head on the concrete.”

“Are you kidding? You’re paying him extra because the guy he wanted to scare made him fall down and hurt himself?”

Ollonsun said, “Yes. And I’ll tell you why that’s a very smart move that only a guy who has been around would think to do. Guys like them, who have worn some uniform or other and seen some blood, have already been naive volunteers, and then fought their guts out and got nothing for it. The people in charge never hesitate to put guys like them in unnecessary danger. So now they work on contract. They don’t have any illusions, and they don’t hesitate to make it hurt if you don’t live up to your agreement. The trick is to get them to see that you understand, that you’re somebody who sees things the way they do. If you can do that, you own them. I figure that for an extra few thousand tonight, we’ll get a hundred thousand in loyalty.”

Talbert said, “How do you even know these guys?”

“I’ve had a client for years.” He paused. “His friends call him Binky. He’s somebody who makes a lot of money, and invests it mostly in municipal bonds to avert the tax liability. That helps keep one part of his life looking obvious and dull to make up for the secret, exciting parts. I asked him if he knew anybody who did this kind of work, and he did. I’ve hired them a couple times.”

“And that’s how you know all about their lives and their psychology and everything?”

Ollonsun looked at him, irritated. “Do you really think that question deserves an answer?”

“Look,” Talbert said. “I’m out. I don’t think it makes sense to get involved with people like that in the first place, and paying them money just to maintain good relations seems crazy. Whatever money we’ve got should be going to good lawyers.”

They drove in silence for a hundred yards, each of them staring straight ahead. Then Ollonsun made a left turn onto Madelia Avenue, and Talbert assumed he was going to turn around and take him home. He didn’t seem to find a wide enough part to turn around, and then he made a right onto Lacota Place.

As they passed a parked car, it pulled out and followed. “Too late,” Ollonsun said. “That’s them.”

Talbert said, “I thought I was just bringing you some money because you were short. You didn’t say we were meeting them here. I don’t want to meet people like that. I don’t want to know them, and I certainly don’t want them to know me.”

Ollonsun turned to him with his teeth clenched, then looked in the rearview mirror to be sure they were following. “Well, it seems you’re going to. They had to know you were involved, because they had to know there was enough cash to pay them, and they had to know everyonewho knew about them. You think they’re going to be the muscle for an anonymous employer?”

“You hid this from me,” Talbert said. “I would never have—”

“Look, Ron. Since you were married, I’ve been propping up your incompetence, teaching you things you should have known how to do, and trying to help you grow into the life you lucked into by marrying my wife’s sister. At this moment I’m getting sick of the complaints. You’ve got about thirty seconds to pull yourself together. Do not let these guys see that you’re weak. After that, you can make whatever decision you want.”

He turned left onto Round Valley Drive and kept going until he reached a lot that had been cleared of a house that had been on it for an unknown number of decades. It was evident that someone had leveled the lot’s surface with a bulldozer, and there was some chain-link fence in a cylindrical shape that hadn’t yet been unrolled to define the construction site.

Ollonsun pulled off the road onto the remains of the narrow driveway and turned off the engine and lights. The car that had been following pulled in behind it and went dark. The doors opened and two men got out and walked up on opposite sides of Ollonsun’s car.

They were both big, both in their late thirties or early forties, with dark hair and short facial hair of the sort that Talbert didn’t quite think of as a beard. The one who leaned into Ollonsun’s window had a mustache, and he was wearing a knitted cap. He said, “What’s the matter? Get out of the car.”

---