He went to the website and read the copious research, becoming more alarmed as he progressed. It nearly mirrored the allegations in the manuscript, but lacked some of the purported proof of links between the U.S. government and a who’s who of international criminal syndicates.
But what was shaping up was a scenario where the manuscript’s allegations were verifiable enough for Michael to believe that there were groups that would do anything to silence them. That was the worst possible news for him, given that he was directly in the line of fire for anyone looking into Abe’s final twenty-four hours.
He debated what to do next, and then realized he hadn’t had any calls most of the day because he’d taken his cell phone out of play. He called his own number from the internet phone, and then when his message played hit a series of keystrokes, allowing him to remotely access his messages. Michael listened intently — there were two calls from prospective new clients and one from Ken. At this point, the clients weren’t a priority. But Ken was. He looked at his watch. It was already approaching ten o’clock. He’d burned a lot of time with his research, he realized.
Michael dialed Ken’s number, surprised at how quick he picked up.
“Where the hell have you been? I called you seven hours ago!” Ken started.
“I’m sorry, Ken. I got tied up, and my cell phone’s out of commission. But I’m here now. What’s going on?”
“I’m on my way home from your buddy Abe’s office. I need your ass sitting at my desk first thing in the morning for a sworn statement. This investigation has already taken a turn for the worse, and it only just started this morning,” Ken stated.
This was the demand he’d been dreading, but he’d already thought through how to respond.
“Ken, I’m out of town for a few days, traveling on business. I swear I’ll come in the second I get back into the city. In the meantime, what happened? Why are you so fired up?” Michael asked.
“Shit. Where do I start? Well, first off, there are no bugs in Abe’s offices. None. So if there were ever any there, whoever planted them retrieved them last night, which is obviously bad because it tells me they had free access to the premises pretty much to do as they pleased,” Ken told him.
“Ken, the bugs were there. We can get a sworn statement from Jim if you need it,” Michael protested. Ken knew Jim, so he’d take his testimony seriously.
“What’s the point? At least for now, we have no leads on a perp, so the bugs mean nothing, or less than nothing. Oh, and you’ll love this. Someone showed up this morning and interviewed Abe’s staff, claiming to be NYPD. Only they were there before we even had this as anything but a routine natural death, and the names they used were fake. That tells me that a pretty sophisticated effort is under way by whoever killed your friend, and that they’re not only brazen, but very believable. Everyone who talked to them thought they were cops.”
“That’s…well…have you ever heard of anything like that happening?” Michael asked.
“Never. In almost twenty years of doing this. And here’s the really strange part. They seemed really interested in finding out the whereabouts of some manuscript, that nobody working there had any idea about. Which brings me to my big question, tough guy: do you have any idea what’s in the manuscript the mystery men are looking for, or where it is?” Ken framed the question carefully and was obviously listening with trained ears for the response.
“Ken, I…look, I didn’t think it was important. Abe…he asked me to check because his e-mail attachment had gone missing, which we did. We didn’t find anything. While we were at it, he told me about some of the allegations the manuscript they’re looking for contained, which was directed at the government and its involvement with hit squads in Central America thirty years ago, and a bunch of other drug trafficking-related stuff. Best as I can tell, that’s what it has in it, but that doesn’t really help you much on this investigation, now does it?” Michael reasoned.
“Well, it’s goddamned well important if people start dropping from having read it. And right now, it looks like Abe’s cause of death was knowing too much about the manuscript’s contents, so that makes it pretty dangerous. So the second part of my question, which you never answered. Do you know where it is?” Ken demanded.
“Ken, I have no idea what Abe did with it.” Michael hated to lie to his friend but self-preservation was arguing against full disclosure.
Ken didn’t say anything for a few beats. Finally, he loosed a tired, exasperated sigh.
Ken shifted topics. “Michael, when will you be back in New York?”
“I’m hoping in three days, tops,” Michael hedged.
“Where are you?”
“Meetings in the Midwest. You’d love it if steak and big-boned girls are your thing,” Michael said, trying to keep the lies light. That was the problem with lying. Once you started, you got in deeper every time you opened your mouth.
“Michael, we’ve known each other for how long? Ten years? Long enough for me to accept what you’re telling me at face value. So I’ll play along. You’re in some nebulous, nameless area of the country and you can’t make it home for an indeterminate period of time. Fine. I’ll accept that as the truth, and I won’t call bullshit, which is what it sounds like to me. But what I will tell you is that you’d better watch your back, if my hunch is correct and you know more than you’re letting on, because this has the stink of very bad shit on it. Call me when you get back, Michael.”
And then he was listening to a dial tone instead of Ken’s voice.
So Ken knew it was all BS. He heard lies every day, from every perp who insisted it was all a big mistake and that they were innocent — so of course he’d recognize the sound of it from Michael. But Ken was also cutting him some major slack by allowing Michael to lie. Ken wasn’t a stupid man, so he’d correctly guessed that if Michael was inventing out of town trips to stay away from police headquarters, there was probably a good reason. Michael just hoped that he hadn’t irreparably damaged the relationship. Ken was a good friend and an important asset, but Michael simply couldn’t risk telling him the truth until he knew more.
Koshi was sitting with a group of friends at a loud sushi bar, where drunken karaoke battled with the din of diners laughing and chattering over the cacophony of off-key singing. His party was by far one of the rowdier. A host of bottles littered the table top amidst the plates and cups. He felt his phone vibrate and fished it out of his shirt pocket, and stared at the screen before answering it.
“Speak.”
“Koshi. It’s Michael. Can you talk? It sounds like you’re backstage at a rock concert.”
“Yeah. Hang on a second. Let me get somewhere I can hear you. Give me a minute,” Koshi shouted into the phone, before waving at his group and pointing to the phone. He got up and weaved his way over to the bathrooms, where the tipsy roar dulled to a muted buzz.
“All right, I can hear you now. What’s up?” Koshi asked.
“I wanted to bring you up to speed. The situations we were discussing earlier? It’s looking worse as more info comes in,” Michael said. He went on to describe the events of the day, including the fake cops and his belief that Abe’s death was related to the mystery manuscript.
“Dude, I hear you, but what am I supposed to do? I haven’t seen any signs of trouble, and all I did was check the guy’s computer. I don’t know anything. I can’t tell anyone anything if I don’t know it,” Koshi argued.