“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing, Indro? I’m sitting at my desk. I’m tired and I’m cold and I’m sitting the fuck down.”
“That’s my chair now,” I said. “Whenever I’m in this office, that’s where I sit.”
She stood there, looking at me with some strange combination of boredom and defiance. And then she sat down.
“Whatever you say, boss,” said Sophie, with an edge to her voice. I stood staring at her.
“You’re welcome to sit in the chair across from me,” she said, gesturing towards it.
Fuming a touch, I sat down.
“So?” I said after a moment. “What have you found out? Must be something by now.”
She shook her head at me.
“First of all, I’ve been on this case for about three seconds. Secondly, I have other cases to work. Other clients. I can’t spend every waking moment on this. There are other priorities—”
“Nah,” I said, cutting her off. “You’re wrong about that. There are no other priorities. No other clients. No other fucking cases. This is the only case. Me. I’m your only client.”
“No,” she said, holding my gaze the entire time. “Doesn’t work that way, Indro. And bullying me isn’t going to make me work faster.”
“Yeah?” I said, lowering my eyes. “You sure about that?”
She leaned across the desk, her elbows forming a perfect triangle, leaning her head towards me.
“I’m absolutely, one-hundred percent positive,” she said.
I stared at her a moment, impressed and enraged. She wasn’t a coward, that was for damn sure. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you want your defense attorney to be bold. Boldness wins the day.
I sat back in the chair and laughed.
“You got some balls on you,” I said, chuckling. “I’ll give you that.”
“Damn right I do,” she replied. “Now, are you going to keep acting like a jackass or do you want to hear what I’ve learned so far?”
“I’m all ears,” I said, sitting back, spreading my hands out wide.
“So, after speaking with a contact—”
“Who?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s non-negotiable.”
I looked at her a moment and decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.
“Fine. Go on,” I said.
“Turns out that Father Gilberti has an interesting past. He’s only been a priest for about a year, and how he got there is a bit of a mystery. Word is, someone may be pulling the strings behind the scenes somewhere.”
“Really? Well, then. Let’s go pull on the good father’s strings and see what we can find out.”
She shook her head.
“Not an option.”
“Why? Because he’s a priest? Fuck that. Just ‘cause you wear that collar don’t make you a saint or anything like it.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I don’t care about that. It’s about where he is.”
“Oh yeah? Well, where is he? ‘Cause there ain’t no place that I can’t get to him.”
“Is that right? How about witness protection?”
“What? Are you serious?”
“As serious as the grave.”
“How could that prick be in witness protection already?” I said, standing up suddenly and kicking the chair as I did.
“Hey!” Sophie said. “I get that you’re pissed but don’t take it out on my office furniture, all right? I buy that shit with my own money.”
“Sorry,” I said, straightening the chair. “I just don’t get how he could have possibly made it into witsec already!”
Sophie shrugged at me, shaking her head.
“That tidbit came up in discovery. Witness protection combined with the fast-tracking he did to become a priest suggests to me that he's connected somehow. Got some kind of guardian angel on his side. We just have to find out who. And why.”
“So, what’s the next step then?”
“The next step is I keep looking. See what I can dig up. It’ll be something. Nothing stays hidden forever.”
I looked at her, impressed.
“So it turns out you know your shit,” I said admiringly.
“Just ‘cause I’m pretty doesn’t make me a rookie, know what I’m saying, Indro? You’d do well to remember that.”
Huh. Maybe I really had underestimated who and what Sophie was. I sat back down in the chair, leaning on her desk.
“How about I take you to lunch?” I said, with a little bit of flirtiness behind it. I mean, she was a looker, after all. Shame to let that go to waste.
“Are you asking me on a date, Indro?”
“What if I am?”
“I don’t date clients,” she said. “That’s a general rule of thumb I follow.”
“Well, rules are made to be broken,” I said with a smirk. “Just like thumbs.”
Chapter Eleven
Sophie
Indro took us to a little bistro on the south side of town, called Luciano’s. I had never been there before and, when we walked in, it was clear to me why.
It looked to me (and I could have been completely wrong about this, but I didn’t think so) that the entire restaurant was filled with guys who were connected. Made, as the saying went.
I got glimpses of gun holsters tucked away under sharkskin jackets, resting against silk shirts.
It was hard to believe that stereotypes like this existed, but we had stereotypes for a reason. Everyone in here could have stepped off an extras call for Goodfellas or something like that.
As we entered, almost everyone looked up and greeted Indro, offering a hand or a nod of the head. Indro made it a point to greet everyone in turn. It was like he was running for mayor or something. This was a new experience for me and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
We were seated at a table away from the door. I was about to sit down when Indro stopped me.
“Excuse me,” he said, “we need to switch seats.”
“What?”
“We need to switch seats. I can’t sit there.”
“What? What do you mean, you can’t sit there?”
“I can’t sit with my back to the door.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“So you’re thinking that if someone comes in, guns blazing, they’ll take me out first if my back is to the door?”
Indro laughed at that, a cold sound.
“It sounds awful when you put it that way,” he said, holding out my
