CHAPTER 5
“Lawyers, Guns, and Money” —Warren Zevon
“They’re going to come in here with about a hundred people,” Mr. Brauer said to Mike, “Don’t let that intimidate you.”
The first meeting between the two parties had been scheduled for Tuesday morning at the law offices of Bruck, Kadish, Packard and Ulmer, opposing counsel.
The room was well lit and fairly spartan, mostly filled with a very long table. There were chairs at the table as well as along the walls. Mike, Derrick, Brauer, Kennedy, and a female counselor had gotten there first and lined part of one side of the table.
“I’m just gonna be sittin’ here playin’ on my phone the whole time, Mr. Ahuvit,” Mike said. “You gots this. ’Sides, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no law stuff!”
He assumed the room was bugged. He’d have bugged it. In fact, thanks to a brush pass from Gondola he’d bugged it when they were walking in.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later a file of people started entering the room. They were split about four-fifths obvious male/female with the other fifth being various unsure gender. About half took seats at the table. The rest stood behind them ostentatiously holding notepads.
Time slowed nearly to a stop as Wesley Conn entered with the group. Until this very moment, Mike had only seen pictures of the man who’d serially raped his mother before having her hunted and killed. Even though Mike had faced down and captured an MS-13 leader literally named El Cannibale, Conn now ranked as the most evil man Mike had ever met in person.
With a simple thought, Mike could snap the man’s neck and be done with him. In fact, he had dozens of options and none of them would even be traceable.
Patience.
Conn took a seat across from Mike, who looked up and gave him a friendly wave and a smile and went back to looking at his phone. He had earbuds in and was apparently rocking to whatever he was listening to. Conn similarly seemed bored, indifferent, like he didn’t have a care in the world and was wondering why he had to bother meeting with a mere kid.
You are going to suffer for what you did to my mother. He kept his face bland and appeared to be totally engrossed with whatever was on his phone. Just like your SEAL buddy suffered. But worse.
“Alright,” one of the men on the other side said. “Let’s get to some introductions. I am Larry Packard, name partner here at Bruck, Kadish, Packard and Ulmer. Ahuvit, good to see you here! Why don’t you start with your side?”
“Thank you, Larry,” Ahuvit Brauer said, nodding. “For those who don’t know me, I am Ahuvit Brauer, name partner at Adams, Walker, Brauer, Bergman and Bhatt. On my right is Wilder Perrin Kennedy, partner at Adams, Walker, Brauer, Bergman and Bhatt and the lead counsel on this case. To my left is our lucky heir, Michael James Truesdale, then his father, Counselor Derrick Sterrenhunt. To the counselor’s left is one of our associates, Ms. Diane Fisher.”
Fisher was brunette and brown eyed. Five foot nine and about 150 pounds, though she’d probably argue for 120.
“That’s all of our people. Larry? Care to introduce some of your people? Preferably not all.”
“Of course, Ahuvit,” Mr. Packard said, smiling. “To my right is the chief managing trustee of the Follett Trust, Mr. Wesley Conn. To his right is the chief counsel for the Follett Trust, Counselor Dion Bafundo. To my left is Rich Lowe, primary counsel for this matter. I think we can leave off the various other legal professionals.”
Lowe was a wispy little weasel of a man. Mike imagined a villain origin story where Lowe had gotten beaten up a lot as kid and became a lawyer to get revenge.
“Alright,” Ahuvit said, clasping his hands together and looking to his right. “Let’s get to it. Plaintiff normally starts. Counselor Kennedy?”
Wilder gave a respectful nod and swept his gaze across the opposing side.
“My client wishes me to thank the Follett Trust on his behalf for its excellent work over the years in managing his funds,” Wilder said. “But given Counselor Sterrenhunt’s written and sworn statement that the only woman he had sexual relations with during the time frame where Mr. Truesdale could have been conceived is Annabelle Follett, along with the positive DNA test, this meeting really should be a discussion of how we are going to manage handover of the assets. Should we just begin there?”
“That’s distinctly premature, Counselor,” Rich Lowe snapped. “Right now, we’ve got some DNA that was supposedly tested in a questionable lab that has association with the plaintiff’s father and, no offense to the Honorable Counsel, but we’re talking about a billion dollars here. We’re not going to just hand it over on his say-so . . .”
The arguments went back and forth and remained precisely the same. The Trust should just turn over the dooley and Mike and his father should crawl back under what rock they’d come out from under. They never directly insulted Counselor Sterrenhunt or accused him of just making it all up. But they came close several times. Conn was particularly supercilious. Though doing his best to hide it, Mike could tell he was sweating.
Mike wrote off everyone on Conn’s side as lap dogs except for Conn himself, Packard, and one unnamed female associate. She never spoke, but she took in everything with cold, calculating eyes.
“So, what do you think of all this, young man?” Packard said at a point when it had gotten heated. Every time Conn or Bafundo got involved it got heated.
“Man, I don’t gots no idea ’bouts law,” Mike said in his best ghetto slang. “It a billion dollas! That more money ye gots! Where I’s come from, folk kill you for a dolla! A billion dollas? Gonna needs a billion bodyguards!”
Then he’d studiously gone back to playing on his phone and trying very hard not to give anything away.
His father had given a master class in appearing to be the hick from the sticks. They knew that the Trust knew who they were. That his father was, in fact, quite smart. But every time he spoke, he took on precise legal diction but talked very . . . slowly . . . to the point that Mike really had to tune him out. People who talked that slowly drove him nuts. He also used a slight speech impediment that made him sound just a little like Gomer Pyle or Forrest Gump.
Mike could tell that intellectually the other side knew he wasn’t a moron. But he was giving such a convincing imitation of someone who never should have been able to pass the bar that they were increasingly dismissing him.
After four hours, they came to the conclusion that there was no conclusion. The Trust had offered a small cash settlement to get him to go away. It had been rejected. Finally, both parties agreed to bring the sample to New York and have it tested in a to-be-determined, mutually accepted fashion. The army of associates and paralegals filed out of the room.
“So, Ahuvit,” Larry said as the main parties were leaving. “See you at the club this weekend?”
“Should be,” Ahuvit said.
“Looking forward to it!” Larry said. “Until then.”
“This is what your American special operations call ‘feet wet,’” Ahuvit said when they’d entered the limousine.
It was roomy enough for everyone to stretch out a little. Mike and Derrick sat along the rear seat, with Ahuvit in the middle and Wilder and Fisher near the front. Wilder passed bottles of ice-cold water around.
“Are we sure?” Derrick said, holding up his phone.
“That’s covered,” Mike said, still concentrating on his. “Can’t vouch for anything else.”
Though still looking with his eyes at the phone, he stretched his Sight out to watch for tails or, worse, physical threats. Seeing at cars was difficult as he couldn’t see metal, but there were plenty of other elements to track as well as the drivers themselves.
“Edgar?” Ahuvit said.
“No one got in the car, sir,” the driver said. “And it was swept this morning. I’ve had my eye on it the whole time.”
“You gave a master class in the country bumpkin, Counselor,” Ahuvit said.
Fisher rolled her eyes and gasped in exasperation.
“If I had to wait for one more long pause . . .” Wilder said, chuckling.
“Oh, it was going right up Conn’s nose every single time,” Mike said. “Mine as well, to be honest. God, how do you do that? I was getting ready to strangle you. Just finish the sentence!”
“Years of practice in patience,” Counselor Sterrenhunt said. “It even drives me a bit nuts.”
“And everyone in the room winced every time it was your turn to speak,” Ahuvit said with a chuckle.
“Based on microexpressions,” Mike said, “they started off seeing us as a serious threat and by the time we were done pretty much everyone was sure we were just a couple of morons from the sticks. Except unnamed senior associate number four to the left from Conn. She saw right through it.”
“How were you reading microexpressions?” Diane said. “You never looked up from your phone.”
“Peripheral vision,” Derrick said. “I noticed her, too. She wasn’t falling for it.”
“She also wasn’t particularly well regarded by them,” Mike said. “There was no real interaction with the principals. And that’s a tell, since there was some subtle body language with some of the other associates. But on the way in and out the non-principals around her were dismissive. She’s not a fair-haired girl in the firm. But she is very bright.”
“You could tell all that from peripheral vision?” Diane asked.
“Yes,” Mike said.
“Concur,” Derrick said. “I’m going out on a limb that she’d make a good pickup for you after this is over.”
Mike nodded absently and Derrick gave him a brief, questioning look. Mike had identified a small sedan that had remained roughly behind them through their first major turn. A tail was fine, just so long as it wasn’t ensuring they followed a route into an ambush. The driver was under orders to take a long, circuitous route to Brauer’s office, but that didn’t mean a planned hit couldn’t adjust—especially if they had eyes on. He kept his attention divided behind possible tails behind them and possible traps ahead of them.
“What did you notice, Diane?” Ahuvit asked.
“They know Mike’s the heir,” Diane said, shifting in her seat. “And is Truesdale your real name?”
“You caught that,” Ahuvit said. “Bafundo kept starting to refer to him as Edwards.”
“Which means they know I’m from Baltimore,” Mike said. “And about Stone Tactical and about all the accusations. The judge has put a gag order on this but next week, probably, the Herald will start talking about it. They’re ignoring it for now. It’s harder to decide which narrative to craft these days. It’s a committee instead of Eisenberg making the rules.”
The tail car turned away at an intersection, so Mike looked around to check for possible hand-off vehicles.
“So, they’ll have anonymous sources close to the discussions bring up that they’re not sure that Mike Truesdale is a real person. Or have a reporter investigate Michael Truesdale of Schenectady and determine that he does not exist. They may not reveal my name just yet. But it will be revealed. And there will be questions about my identity implying that I’m some sort of a con artist same for my father.
“The defense will call for an emergency hearing. The judge will want to know what my real name is. How do we handle that?”
“Give him your real name?” Wilder suggested.
“My real name is Michael Truesdale,” Mike said. “The name I was born with doesn’t exist anymore. There isn’t a birth certificate by that name. There is no Social Security number tied to it. It is history, biology. It’s gone.
“And if we use that name, even with a justification, it gives the judge another reason to be biased. In addition, it means that the defense now officially knows that name and will leak it to the press. My recommendation is don’t give an inch. ‘Michael Truesdale is his legal name, Your Honor.’ Which it is.”
Though he Saw a couple potential tails, none were obvious and none lasted long. Either the tails knew what they were doing, or there weren’t any. Prudence dictated it was the former, so he stayed sharp.
“If His Honor presses, suggest he take it up with the US Marshals. The defense will still know my real name but if they leak it, there’s no secondary source. That name is gone except as news articles. And my face has changed enough that’s hard to connect. Let His Honor try to prise things out of the marshals. What do we do when the DNA sample disappears?”
“You really think it will,” Wilder said in more of a statement than question.
“Let’s say it’s a ninety percent probability it’s already gone,” Mike said. “What then?”
“How would it disappear?” Diane asked.
“It will,” Mike said. “What then?”
“We’ll have to look at that when the time comes,” Ahuvit said.
“Roger,” Mike said.
“You ever considered studying law?” Wilder said.
“I used to be eligible for the bar, but I lost my eligibility,” Mike said, his face long.
“How?” Diane asked.
“I found out who my father was.”
The legal proceedings, as expected, progressed slower than most glaciers, leaving Mike with a great deal of free time. He was up in the geologically diverse Inwood Hill Park checking out Inwood Marble traces when his phone pinged. Wilder was calling him on video.
“Hello, Mr. Kennedy,” Mike said. “To what do I owe the honor of a call?”
“I really hate you,” Wilder said with a sigh that overloaded the phone’s speaker. His disgruntled expression said he might not be joking.
“That’s a common refrain,” Mike said. “Many people have tried to kill me over that very fact. What am I hated for this time?”
“The FBI picked up the sample in Washington state,” Wilder said. “That’s not actually disappeared but it’s close.”
“Did they have a reason?” Mike said. He casually glanced around but studiously avoided looking in two specific directions. Instead, he watched some of the wonderfully fit women in tight, skimpy clothes with excellent running form. “Or did they just steal it for shits and giggles?”
“It’s important to the ongoing Annabelle Follett investigation,” Wilder said, clearly skeptical. “I’m starting to believe some of the crazier aspects of this case.”
“Believe,” Mike said. “The Truth is Out There. It will disappear from evidence. But go ahead and get a subpoena for a sample. There’s no reason they have to have every last drop. If the judge will give you one.”
“What do we do if it has disappeared?” Wilder said. “I know you’ve got a backup.”
“That’s not something to discuss over this link,” Mike said. “I take it you’ve told my dad?”
“I have,” Wilder said.
“Just subpoena a sample from the FBI,” Mike said. “I’d like to get them on record as having lost it. Then we’ll proceed to the next phase. I won’t even say next plan. We’re still on Plan A.
“First, send a request to the judge. Despite this setback we still consider me to be the legitimate heir, slug all the reasons, and staying in New York is expensive. We’d like to be able to use one of the properties as lodging. Either the townhome or the apartment.”
“I doubt he’ll go for that,” Wilder said.
“Keeps them on their toes,” Mike said. “And I want to see what their response is. At the very least a tour and meet the help.”
“I’ll enter the motion,” Wilder said.
Two young mothers pushed baby strollers past while chatting up a storm. He couldn’t help but stare at the strollers. As far as he knew, he’d never been in a stroller, and had definitely never been pushed around a park if he had.
“Second, subpoena a DNA test from my maternal grandfather, Carmen Lukessi,” Mike said. “Dela Follett was not cremated. If we get her disinterred and a DNA sample and I’m the grandson of Lukessi and the grandson of Dela, game, set, match. In the meantime, I’m going to keep studying geology. Anything else?”
“Didn’t you mention telling your attorney everything?” Wilder said.
“We’ll set up a meeting in a secure location,” Mike said. “Talk to my dad about that.”
“Will do.”
“Out here.”
Mike continued to study the metamorphosed limestone while using Sight to keep a check on his surroundings as he always did.
The tail was still there. Tails. Two of them—one male, one female—both armed, he’d marked as Society. The third was a Gondola asset. He’d warned Gondola about the others so as not to have the asset burned by the Society.
He’d gotten used to lookouts in Central Park and assorted watchers keeping tabs on him and the others, but this was the first time he’d been actively followed. So, he led them on a merry chase as he wandered around New York City from rock formation to rock formation.
It was something to pass the time until the assassins showed up. Then it would get fun.
“Thank you for your time, Under Commandant,” the distorted voice said.
“Always good to hear from you, Omega.”
Jeremy Kackley was the deputy director of the US Marshals Service. As such he was the primary point of contact for Omega. Given how many tips they’d gotten to affect child rescues and felony warrants from the volunteer force, he was always willing to pick up the phone.
“We need a favor this time,” Omega said.
“I think we owe you all the favors,” Kackley said. “What’s the favor?”
“We need a sample of DNA moved from Washington state to New York City and held under the marshals’ protection. And we even have a reason for you to do so . . .”