“Well, tough shit. Because you’re here, and we are talking about this.”
“All signs point to Hugo focusing on business as usual.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I’m watching him. The FBI is watching him. His enemies are probably watching him to see if they can take advantage. It would be incredibly stupid of him to make a move right now. And Anthony Hugo might be many things, but he isn’t stupid. Nash, Lina, Naomi, Waylay, they’re all safe.”
I crossed my arms. “Are they all safe because Nash and Knox are taking precautions that the rest of us aren’t aware of?” Naomi and Lina would not be pleased when I told them. Of course, telling them would require me confessing to the worst first date of my entire life.
Lucian raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know why I bother asking you to trust me to handle this. You’ve never done anything I wanted you to do before.”
He was baiting me, distracting me. Trying to guide me away from my pointed questions with a pat on the head and a “look at something shiny” redirection.
“I just don’t understand what you can do that a law enforcement agency can’t.”
“I have the budget and resources and technology the government wishes it had. I’m simply sharing some of my toys. By the way,” he said, buttering a piece of bread, “you’ll need to drive me home since I loaned my car and driver to your date.”
“Did you at least bring your wallet?” I asked, picking up my fork again.
17
Too Close for Comfort
Lucian
Duncan Hugo looked significantly the worse for wear since I’d last seen him being led in handcuffs to a police cruiser. The hair he’d died an earthy brown was showing a full inch of natural red root. He’d lost some weight, and the hunch of his shoulders hinted that his time behind bars had relieved him of some of his arrogance. The dark circles under his eyes almost made up for the fact that this was my second prison visit in two days.
This prison was in better shape than yesterday’s, I noted. It wasn’t winning any design awards, but the furniture wasn’t disintegrating, the paint wasn’t lead-based, and there was a faint scent of industrial cleaner throughout the facility. It still made my skin crawl, my tie feel too tight against my throat.
I focused on Nolan, who leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets.
He hadn’t managed to run my business into the ground yesterday, so when he’d insisted on joining me for this little field trip, I hadn’t said no.
I faced Duncan across the table in the interview room the FBI had arranged.
It could have been me, I thought as I studied him. If it weren’t for the Waltons, I could easily have been the one on the opposite side of the table.
Duncan hadn’t had a Simon or a Karen or a Sloane. He’d had a father like mine. That was why I was here.
“I said I wanted to talk to the feds, not some stuck-up dick in a suit,” Duncan said, slumping in his chair like a six-year-old on the verge of a temper tantrum. His baggy orange jumpsuit accentuated the red in his hair and scraggly beard.
“I’m an ex-fed. Does that count?” Nolan asked.
“Didn’t I shoot you?” Duncan asked.
“You missed, shithead. Your pal Dilton got lucky.”
Duncan grunted. “Don’t know which was worse. His aim or his personality.”
I cleared my throat. “Do you know who I am?” I asked Duncan.
His mouth pinched, but he nodded. “Yeah, I know who the fuck you are.”
“Then you can probably piece it together from there. You’ve already talked to the feds on several occasions. Yet you remain essentially useless.”
“So they send Lucian Rollins in here to do what? Break my fucking kneecaps?” He picked up one of the loose cigarettes on the table and lit a match.
Watching Duncan’s thin lips wrap around the filter was enough to make me consider skipping today’s cigarette.
“I’m here to dig into the space between your ears to see if there’s anything useful squirreled away.”
“What the hell else do you assholes want? I gave you drop locations. I gave you names. It’s not my fault if you’re not doing shit about it.”
“The information you provided was street-level. Any gutter rat would know it. It’s almost like you’re holding out or your father didn’t trust you.”
Duncan pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. A tic appeared in his jaw. “What the fuck does it matter? I’m stuck in this shithole for a fuck ton of years.”
“Felix Metzer,” I said.
“Already told that FBI bitch that’s who I bought the list off of.”
“Did she mention that his body was fished out of the Potomac yesterday? The two slugs in his brain indicate it wasn’t a boating accident.”
He held up his palms. “Hey, man. Don’t look at me. My ass was in here.”
From his position against the wall, Nolan rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Someone was cleaning up their mess. I’m curious who that would be,” I said.
“Felix was into shit with every fucking one. What makes you think him gettin’ whacked had anything to do with me?”
“He was last seen the day before you were arrested for trying to kill my friends.”
“Look, man. It was nothing personal.”
“You weren’t even man enough to pull the trigger the first time around.”
Duncan scoffed. “It’s called delegating. Bosses don’t do the dirty work.”
“They do if they want to earn that title.” I’d done my share of dirty work as I climbed the ladder of success. I’d earned the respect and the fear.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “This chat has been real nice and all, but I’m over it.”
“What else do you have to do? Go back and stare at four walls?”
“Better than listening to this bullshit.”
“If you had two brain cells in that dumbass head of yours, you’d be all ears,” Nolan warned him.
“Your father doesn’t see you as a threat,” I said to Duncan. “Maybe you should make him reconsider that. Remind him who you are and that you’re still dangerous to him.”
Duncan shoved a hand through his hair. “Look, man, I tried. I lost. He won. That’s the way it always goes.”
Did we all have this wound from our fathers? Was it necessary for every son to challenge his father to become a man? Was there always a winner and a loser, or was there a different rite of passage, a different path to respect?
“There’s still time to change that,” I told him.
“He didn’t fucking tell me shit, okay? He thought I was a fuckup. A loser.” Duncan tapped the ash off his cigarette into the ashtray.
“So you wanted to show him that you were more,” I prompted.
“Yeah, and I fucked that up too.”
The woe-is-me, defeated criminal routine set my teeth on edge. “You realize if you don’t give the feds something to work with, they’ll transfer you out of this place to a federal facility. The kind where you’re in a cell twenty-three hours a day.”
I caught the nervous shift of his eyes. “They say where?” he asked, trying and failing to sound disinterested.
“I heard Lucrum. That’s maximum security. It makes this place look like a day care center. I saw its sister facility, Fraus. It wasn’t pretty.”
The feet of Duncan’s chair hit the floor. “I can’t go there.”
“You won’t have a choice,” I pointed out.
“I can’t go to Lucrum. I won’t last a fucking day.”
“You should have thought of that before you tried to kill a law enforcement officer, kidnapped a civilian, and then turned out to be an absolute waste of time for the FBI.”
“You don’t understand. He’s got guys on the inside there. No enemy of Anthony Fucking Hugo survives a week in that hellhole,” he insisted.
I leaned forward. “Then give me something I can use. Tell me what you know about Felix. Why did your father commission the list from him?”