Bad Men

“You’ll be due for parole in eight to ten. Testifying will help your case.”

“I don’t plan to spend another decade in jail, Mr. Braden.”

Braden shrugged and leaned back. “Your call. I’ll be in the hallway during the proceedings. You can ask for time out as soon as you discover where their questions are leading. If in doubt, take the Fifth.”

Moloch looked down at the table before he spoke again. “They have something,” he said. “They don’t want Verso, they want me. I’m the target.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” said Braden.

“Yes,” said Moloch. “I do.” He placed his hands together, palm against palm. “I pay you well, Mr. Braden. You were engaged because you were smart, but don’t believe for one moment that you’re smarter than I am. I know where you live. I know your family’s movements. I know the name of the boy your daughter-”

“You better stop-”

“-your daughter fucks in your basement while you’re watching The West Wing. I know these things, Mr. Braden, and you, in turn, know me. I suspect that the commonwealth of Virginia has no intention of ever seeing me released. In fact, I believe that the commonwealth of Virginia has high hopes of executing me and freeing up my cell for someone else. They want capital charges. This grand-jury hearing is a trap, nothing more.”

“I have no evidence-”

“I don’t care about evidence. Tell me your instincts, your gut instincts. Tell me I’m wrong.”

But Braden said nothing.

“So there’s been talk.”

“Rumors, suspicions,” Braden said. “Nothing more.”

“That Verso is not the target.”

“That Verso is not the target,” Braden echoed.

“Have you spoken to the prosecutor?”

“He wouldn’t agree to a meeting.”

“If Verso was the target, he would have met with you. You could have negotiated immunity from prosecution for me. You better believe that any true bill that comes out of this will have my name on it.”

Braden spread his hands. “I’m doing what I can.”

Moloch wondered if Braden might be secretly happy were he to be found guilty of capital crimes. He shouldn’t have threatened the lawyer. The man was frightened enough of him already.

Moloch leaned in closer to his counsel. “Listen to me, Mr. Braden. I want you to remember a telephone number. Don’t write it down, just remember it.”

Carefully and clearly, Moloch whispered the seven digits to the younger man.

“When the details of the hearing are confirmed, I want you to call that number and pass them on. Do not call from your office. Do not call from your home. Do not use your cell phone. If you’re wise, you’ll take a day trip, maybe into Maryland, and you will make the call from there. Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“You do this right and you’ll be free of me.”

Braden rose and knocked on the door of the meeting room.

“Guard,” he called, “we’re all done here.”

He left without looking back at his client.

Now the preparations were in place. Moloch had received a message, passed in code during an apparently innocuous telephone conversation. They were moving. Progress was being made. All would be ready when the time came.

He closed his eyes and thought of vengeance.

The gray-haired man sat in the Rue de la Course on North Peter, sipping coffee and reading the local throwaway. Groups of young men passed by the windows of the coffeehouse, heading for the depths of the French Quarter. He could hear a thumping bass beat coming from the Coyote Ugly bar close by, battling the light jazz being played on the sound system behind his head. He liked the Rue de la Course, preferring it to the Café du Monde, where, earlier, he had eaten beignets and listened to the street musicians trying to hustle a buck. At the Café du Monde, coffee came either black or au lait, and the gray-haired man didn’t care much for it either way. He liked it black, but with a little cold milk on the side. The Asian waitress at the Café du Monde wasn’t prepared to accommodate him, so he had been forced to take his business elsewhere. The Rue de la Course had been a fortuitous discovery. In a way, it had been recommended to him by somebody else.