The Hidden Man (html) by David Ellis

Author:David Ellis [Ellis, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-25T19:43:36+00:00

30

MY BROTHER AND I went straight home. I set the house alarm and left on the lights on both levels of my town house. Pete drank a little more to settle his nerves. Eventually, the terror of the alley receded, replaced with a growing sense of dread for what lay before him in the coming weeks and months. By three A.M., his eyes were crested with dark circles. I coerced him to get some sleep. I don’t know if he was able to do so. As for me, sleep came episodically, twenty-minute pops abruptly terminated by unidentifiable screams between my ears.

It wasn’t panic. I was experiencing the same pregame sensation of utter calm, focus, a sense of purpose. I knew then, if I hadn’t already, that Smith and company had no intention of holding up their end of the bargain—their promise that if I saved Sammy, they’d save Pete. Their subtle coercive methods had devolved into crude, tortuous gestures, an unveiled threat from a prison gangbanger and then an outright attack in an alley. These were people who settled their problems with violence. Even if I won the case for Sammy, Smith and friends would evaluate their position, identify Pete and me as liabilities, and presumably kill us.

I had a few things going for me. First, I was Sammy’s lawyer. For the time being, at least, Smith apparently needed me. Second, for a reason I couldn’t yet pinpoint, time was on my side. Smith demanded that the case go to trial within the next three weeks, without additional continuances or delays, so it was a pressure point I could manipulate.

Third, they needed Pete, too, to serve as the leverage against me. They had no problem roughing him up to punch my buttons, but they couldn’t kill him, not yet. Still, for the time being, secure as he might have been from a violent death, Pete was still a sitting duck for Smith’s thugs. I had to get him out of Dodge. I had to hide him.

It was for the best, anyway, that Pete get lost for a while. I didn’t want him around for what might come next. I wondered about that for a long time, as I sat on my bed, waiting for the sun to come up, fatigue sweeping over me like a heavy coat, my eyes losing focus but the churning of my stomach preventing any attempt at sleep: What was I capable of doing?

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