Danny said, “You gotta listen to me.” Urgently, imploring, his hand on her arm, begging her to believe him.
“I am listening,” Meghan said, stuffing more pizza in her mouth than it could really hold as she sat cross-legged on the bed. Being with Danny brought out the boy in her. She chased the pizza with a large gulp of cold beer. Danny watched, unimpressed, then commented, “You’re even more disgusting than I am,” and moved the pizza box out of reach.
Meghan wiped her fingers on the paper towel he’d thoughtfully provided, swallowed, and said, “All right. Why are you here?” Here being a rundown motor court in Jersey, and not his co-op in Chelsea.
The motor court in Jersey was something of an improvement over his co-op in Chelsea, but she recognized it for what it was, a sign of fear and desperation. Because she recognized the fear and desperation, she’d agreed to talk with him, even if it meant ignoring the several cell phone messages from Marcus asking her to call him back. If Danny had any doubt about her friendship, there was the proof right there.
With a disgruntled glance in her direction, Danny got to his feet and went to the window, which overlooked the parking lot. Earlier, she’d noted that he’d cleverly parked his car in a spot not directly in front of his door. She didn’t own a car, so he’d had to pick her up at a mutually agreed location and drive her back here, an arrangement she found faintly ridiculous.
Now he shifted the curtain aside a mere inch and peered into the bright afternoon. She suspected he’d see exactly what she’d seen, a mostly empty parking lot that hadn’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration, with the occasional car driving by on the frontage road that paralleled the highway and led to this motel and a nearby greasy spoon that appeared to be about as popular as syphilis.
When Danny was done acting like the spy who came in from the cold, he settled himself on the armchair across from her. It creaked forlornly under his not inconsiderable weight. As if in answer, the bedsprings in the room next door creaked. She was positive she heard a “Yes, baby!” before Danny leaned over and snapped on the television, turning the volume up high. Not, she knew, to drown out the sounds coming from the bed next door, but to keep anyone from overhearing the conversation the two of them were about to have. Danny’s counter-surveillance techniques dated from the Second World War. A good sound technician could catch what they had to say despite background noise. The best way not to be overheard, in Meghan’s experience, was simply to shut the hell up.
But Danny was about to burst, so she said, “I haven’t got all day. Spill it.”
He leaned forward. “My friend, the one who works for Ekaterina’s company?”
Meghan repressed a sigh. Not that Danny could have heard it over the sound of the television. She also refrained from rolling her eyes, snorting in derision or otherwise conveying disdain for what he was about to say. She hoped he appreciated the self-control.
“Yeah. Ricardo, right? You mentioned him.”
“He was asking about Marcus, and he sent that message — ‘not safe for work.’”
“Yes, you told me all that.”
Danny bounced to his feet. Or rather, given his size, surged to his feet, his various body parts bouncing a little thereafter. He dragged his hand through his hair, then patted the top of it as if to assure himself it was still in place, a weird habit he had considering his hair always looked like he’d just stepped out of a high wind. Then he said, “My buddy disappeared right after that.”
“Disappeared?” She straightened and said, “And you didn’t mention that to me because?”
“Because I was trying to find out what happened to him. Because you were with Marcus at the time, and I didn’t really want to talk about him behind his back when he was standing right there.”
That obviously made sense to Danny, so she pretended it made sense to her. “Okay. So?”
“Well, Ricardo turned up again this morning. He was really pissed at me.”
If he was pissed, she thought philosophically, he couldn’t be dead, and that was what she always feared when people went missing. So, hey, a happy ending. “Why was he pissed at you?”
“For asking him for the favor in the first place. See, right after he sent me the NSFW message, he was yanked out of his work unit. His boss tells him he’s been temporarily reassigned to some hush-hush project in BFE — ” He gave her a glance and interpreted, “Bum fuck Egypt,” in case she was born yesterday, and continued, “So it’s wheels up — ” Another sidelong glance.
“I know what that means. Feel free to proceed without interruption. I’ll stop you if I’m too stupid to understand anything you’re saying.”
“All right. So it’s wheels up ASAP. Ricardo didn’t even get to pack a suitcase. It’ll all be provided, they tell him, and if it turns out to be a longer assignment than expected, he’ll have a chance to return home and make arrangements. So he agrees. He’s a contract employee and the economy is sucking bad enough that no one knows where his next contract is coming from, so let’s play along with the boss, right? Until the boss starts getting really unreasonable, like expecting us to actually kill the competition.”
Meghan had encountered a few people who didn’t even draw the line at murder, but Danny knew that story as well as she did.
“So he’s off to BFE with no notice,” she summarized. “And?”
“And he’s in Nairobi or god knows where, with his thumb up his ass. This morning, he’s sent home and the minute he walks into his office, his boss tells him his contract is terminated, effectively immediately, sayonara, good night. A couple of security guards toss him on his ass. That’s all she wrote. He’s planning to kill me.”
“You think all this happened because he asked about Marcus? Did it occur to you that maybe he’s just bad at his job?”
“Then why send him to Nairobi? And the threats of dire consequences if he tells anyone anything that ever happened while he was employed there?”
“Maybe Nairobi was a chance for him to prove himself and he didn’t. And confidentiality agreements are pretty common. Some of these corporations are really strict about maintaining secrecy and not letting a single paragraph of intellectual property out of their sight.”
“He’s a junior level programmer! He doesn’t do anything worth stealing or selling. What he did do was ask about Marcus. Which obviously he shouldn’t have.”
“You think someone was alerted that he was asking about Marcus? I’m assuming he tried to be subtle, right? He wasn’t sending out memos to everyone at Kozlova Group?”
“Right.”
“And this inquiry alarmed the high muckety-mucks, so they took steps to isolate him, determined that he hadn’t learned anything useful, then kicked him the hell out before he could cause any trouble.”
“Exactly.”
“And you’re here.” She gestured at their dismal surroundings. “Because you think Ricardo might have given you up, and they may be on their way to grab you, even as we speak, in order to find out what you know about Marcus and why you’re asking.”
“Exactly.” He beamed at her, his whole body relaxing as he realized she understood the complete picture.
He tensed right back up again when she said, “Are you out of your tiny little mind? Why would anyone at Kozlova Group give a rat’s ass about some employee asking questions about Marcus?”
“Meghan, the people who run these global corporations are not like you and me,” he said.
“Yeah, they’re richer,” she said sourly.
“No,” he said. “Well, yeah. But they’re on a level of corporate and moral corruption so complete it defies description. The ruthlessness it takes for them to get — and stay — where they are makes them not normal, Meghan. They feel threatened by things we take for granted. They will shut down anything or anyone they perceive to be a threat and they will use any means necessary.”
Instinctively Meghan’s hand went to the side of her face. She touched the scars at the corner of her eye, the mechanical one, the reminder of what had happened the last time she’d underestimated a risk. She sighed. “I grant you that maybe many — or even most — of the upper level executives of huge conglomerates are corrupt. But not every single one of them. Besides, Ekaterina Kozlova is a well-known philanthropist and a respected humanitarian.”
“You just say that because she gives money to the ASPCA and the Humane Society,” Danny said darkly. “Of course she does that. Most of them do. Well, maybe not the ASPCA and the Humane Society. But something. It’s a game, Meghan. The rule is, you can’t let anyone see behind the curtain.”
“Okay,” she said. “I know you think — ”
“Meghan, you know the kinds of things I’ve done. You know who hired me to do them.”
It was as close as he’d ever come to talking about the past. In some corner of his mind, he still expected her to break out the handcuffs if he actually admitted to any of the felonies.
She took a deep breath. He had a point. There was no way she would know what Ekaterina Kozlova — or someone in her company — might perceive as a threat. “You’re saying I need to take this more seriously than I am.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m going keep an open mind. But you need to know something.”
Danny smacked his hand on the table. “You don’t even have to say it.”
“I care about this man,” she said anyway. “And maybe there is something unhealthy going on around him, but that doesn’t mean he’s directly involved.”
“Women have been misled by the men they care about since the world began, Meghan.”
“I’m just telling you where I stand.”
“On his side.”
She almost protested against the way he said it. But it was true. She lifted her chin. “Yes, Danny. I’m on his side.”