Hush Money by Chuck Greaves

Author:Chuck Greaves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

14

There were three news vans waiting at the curb, and their doors flew open as I rounded the corner from the parking structure. A familiar face led the charge, with the others in close pursuit.

“Jack! It’s Terina Webb, Channel Nine Action News!”

I kept my head down and ducked into the lobby before they could get a shot. Mo Jackson stood at his desk, his arms folded, watching the show.

I noticed the sweatshirt still hadn’t been claimed.

“They been out there all mornin’,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “Lotta fuss about a false alarm.”

I told him, “If any of them tries to enter the building, shoot to kill.”

When the elevator doors opened on nine, who should I see but Detective Tom Parker, sharing a chummy farewell with Morris Henley. Both reacted like they’d been caught holding hands in the men’s room.

“MacTaggart,” said Morris. “You’re here.”

“You’ve gotta be somewhere.”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his necktie.

“I’d like a word with you in my office, if you don’t mind.”

Margot handed Parker his parking validation, and the big man sauntered past me with a boxer’s glare.

“Oh, Detective,” I said as he stood by the elevators. “Gabe said he left a sweatshirt downstairs in the lobby. He asked if you could pick it up for him.”

* * *

Morris Henley’s corner office may have lacked the mountain views, but it was the largest on the floor by far. And the view wasn’t exactly shabby, looking eastward along Colorado Boulevard. Come New Year’s Day, he’d have the best seat in the house for the Rose Parade. He would, that is, if he took the time to look up from the year-end financials.

The office decor was Man-Cave Revival—heavy mahogany furniture with green leather and brass rivets. And in place of the industrial wall-to-wall that covered the rest of the ninth floor, Morris had installed hardwood flooring, which he’d then smothered with a thick Persian carpet.

His Stanford diploma was framed in mahogany, to match the furniture. Sunlight had faded the sheepskin to the same pale yellow as the legal pads stacked neatly on the corner of a desk that was big enough to land fighter jets. On the wall opposite the desk was a huge oil painting, a plein air landscape of hills and trees in a heavy gilt frame.

If God were a lawyer, I thought, His office would look something like this.

I sat in one of the client chairs, feeling like a middle-school miscreant summoned to the principal’s office. Morris, meanwhile, made a big show of setting aside his work before forming a steeple with his fingers.

“First of all,” he began, “I know you’re probably upset with my decision to appoint Jared to chair the litigation department. Perhaps you thought that you were a more deserving candidate. I want you to know that I’m not insensitive to your feelings in this regard. You and Russ were obviously close, and he was certainly grooming you as his successor.”

He laced his fingers into a sausage ladder that he rested on the edge of the desk.

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