time.
“Take the rest of the night off, Tara,” he said to her in what he hoped was a joking manner. “I can manage without you until morning.”
She countered with “Cheating on the little wife tonight, Dan?” in her most joking manner, grabbed her purse, and with an “I’m out of here,” left him to himself, and Dan found himself thinking strongly of “his green-eyed Cheri.”
Dan sat there for some time contemplating the meeting with Arnie. He was rapidly becoming nervous, and he considered not even going. Curiosity finally won out over trepidation, and he picked up his briefcase and headed out.
As he reached the street, he heard the boom of thunder and the crackling of lightning. A summer thunderstorm was in the making, and just as he hailed a cab, the deluge started.
I hope this isn’t some kind of omen, he thought, but I won’t turn back now.
The rain poured steadily and hard, and the streets were running deep in water. Dan had seen this kind of rain many times in Nevada, and he began to wonder if they would make it to Louie’s.
But the driver, too, had experienced these storms, and they pulled up to the restaurant only slightly late.
The maître d’ escorted him to the booth where Arnie was, and drew the drapes. Dan introduced himself, somehow feeling awkward, still feeling apprehensive about this clandestine meeting.
“Okay,” said Dan, “let’s hear it.”
“Well,” said Arnie, “you may recall several years ago when Senator Vincent was accused of accepting a bribe to vote no on a proposed tax bill to increase corporate income taxes on the casinos? What you don’t know is that although Senator Vincent did vote no on the proposed bill, he did not take any bribe, but it was rigged with enough evidence to make it look that way. Vincent did some investigating on his own and had found out that Senator Patrick, then only a congressman, was the one who had set him up, and Vincent evidently had some good proof of that. I can tell this as fact because I was aware of all of this. When Senator Patrick became aware of the proof that Vincent had, and further knew that Vincent was going to go public with that information, I was called in to ‘take care’ of the matter.”
My lord, Dan thought, he doesn’t realize I am married to Vincent’s daughter.
“Before we go any further,” Dan said, “it sounds to me you are about to confess to murder. Be sure you know what you are doing here.”
“I am sure,” Arnie whispered, “my whole life depends on you helping me.”
“You want then to tell me just how you ‘took care’ of it?”
“Well, everyone knew that the Vincents were avid horse riders. It didn’t take much effort to find out their riding schedules and to give their horses enough drugs at the right time to make them go completely crazy—and they did, with a little help from me, and that ‘took care of the matter.’ The community wept, but no one even suggested a blood test on the horses for drugs. I got paid handsomely. Congressman Patrick threw his hat in the ring for the open spot for senator and, of course, won hands down.”
“This is the charge you want me to defend you on?” asked Dan. “Why is this being brought up now? If you haven’t been charged with this after all these years, why are you telling me this? What are you leaving out? I need to know it all, Arnie, or I won’t be able to defend you.”
Arnie began to sweat profusely.
God, thought Dan, do I really want to know?
“The governor knows,” said Arnie. “Don’t ask me how, but he knows, and he plans to use it when he starts campaigning against Patrick.”
“Where does that leave you, Arnie?” asked Dan.
Again, Arnie began to sweat profusely. “You’ve got to know, Dan, what I am expected to do now. I have a second job. I have to ‘take care of the matter’ again. He’s got to be a dead man, Dan, and soon.”
“You are talking about for Jenesen, aren’t you?” Dan asked as his heart began hammering louder and louder.
Arnie nodded vigorously, and he began babbling almost incoherently.
“Slow down,” Dan said to him, “I can’t understand you.”
“I just can’t do it,” Arnie babbled on. “I just can’t do it. They will kill me too. This is not an ordinary hit. I’m up to my eyeballs in this one. If I do it, they’ll get me because I would stop Jenesen, but I wouldn’t be safe to leave around for Patrick’s campaign. If I don’t do it, they will figure I know too much to live.”
“Then how come they let you live after Vincent’s death?”
“Because at that time, I didn’t make the connection with Patrick. I was just paid a good contract price and did it. But certain things have since been said and done for me to make that connection, and obviously some kind of convincing evidence was obtained by Governor Jenesen for him to let it be known it was going in his campaign.”
“Just what is it, Arnie, that you expect I could do for you?”
“I need some protection. Set me up in the witness protection program so I could start a new life. I know I would have to face a murder charge on Vincent, but I could testify against Patrick, and maybe get some kind of amnesty, and at least be jailed where, hopefully, they couldn’t get to me.”
“You’re asking a lot, even if it would save the governor’s life. I am not sure what, if anything, I can do. Can you tell me who hired you for the hit and just how they planned you should do this?”
“You know that governors’ conference that is going to be held next month on the Caribbean? That’s the place. I am to use my own method of doing so, but he is to literally be ‘thrown to the sharks.’”
“Arnie,” Dan pressed, “if I am to have any luck at all in helping you, I need to know who is behind this. I can’t do anything unless I know all the details.”
“I’m running scared, Dan, and I don’t know who I can or can’t trust. I just hope it is you. Can you meet me again tomorrow and let me know just what to do next?”
“You’re not answering my question, Arnie,” said Dan.
“Tomorrow—tomorrow night here at the same time—I’ll bring money, and if you’re here, I will tell you more,” Arnie said as he once again wiped his brow and hurriedly walked away.
Oh my god, thought Dan, I knew I should never have come to this meeting. I am ethically bound to report this on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is privileged information.
Dan grabbed his coat and headed out the restaurant. As he stepped through the revolving door, he saw Arnie starting to crawl into a cab. As he did so, a very large black limo sped by, spraying bullets everywhere. Arnie never made it inside the cab.
Waves of panic swept through Dan.
Get out of here now. Stay out of sight. Don’t let them know you were talking to Arnie, he thought, and then he realized, They must already know. Otherwise, how would they know where Arnie would be so they could take him out?
Dan kept on revolving with the door and reentered the restaurant and quietly left through the back entrance. The wail of sirens was already piercing the night, and the rain had begun to pour again. Dan tried to hail a cab, but none of the cabs were stopping amid the confusion, so he kept on walking, ducking in and out of storefronts, trying to stay dry long enough to make some kind of decision where to go until he could think this thing through. After walking several blocks, he was finally able to get a cab, and he headed back to his office.
He signed in at security and took the elevator that opened into to the private offices of his law firm. He quickly went to his office and locked the door behind him.
God, I am scared, he thought, and not even very bright. A little lock is not going to stop them