Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration Read online

  This must be Dan Masters, in the flesh.

  “I’m going now,” Dan said, hefting a large cardboard box in his arms. “The rest of the files are in the car.”

  Johnny nodded in silence.

  She watched from the shadows as Dan looked sadly at him. “This sucks. I’ll call you later, okay? We’ll go out for a drink, on me.”

  Johnny nodded again, then stood at the doorway, watching until the outer door clicked shut. Then he turned back, looking dangerous with his rumpled hair and day’s growth of beard and his leather boots and piercing green eyes, boring into Juliette.

  “What did we miss?” he said.

  “The last eighteen months.”

  “Be clear,” he said curtly, coming into the room.

  “When was that detention center build completed?” she asked.

  He came around the desk. “Over two years ago.”

  “Right. And if those payments from Mendine were kickbacks to build the center, and the build is all done, then who’s paying the judge now?”

  Johnny’s green eyes were hard as marble as he looked at her.

  “And why?” she added softly.

  He shoved his desk phone out of the way and started powering up his space station of an office. He had three computers and four monitors.

  “I suppose they could be genuine rental payments,” she said hopefully as Johnny tapped away.

  She really, really wanted them to be genuine payments, because if they weren’t….

  Johnny glanced up. “How much?”

  “Seven hundred thousand.”

  “Seven hundred thousand dollars, in a year and a half, for a condo rental?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t think it seemed right either.”

  “What’s the name?” he asked, while all around him, computers and monitors came to life, his little minions.

  “Jones,” she said. “Marcus Jones. And an MJ Investments Corp.”

  Johnny lifted his head slowly and looked straight ahead, his gaze almost burning a hole through the walls lined with photos of happy Danger Enterprise clients. She felt cold.

  “Do you know a Marcus Jones?” she asked quietly.

  “No.” Johnny shook his head, still staring forward. “But Dan does.”

  She blew out a breath. “Does Marcus Jones own MJ Investments Corp.?”

  Johnny looked over, his gaze cold and glittering hard. “Among other things.”

  More coldness crept down my back. “What other things?”

  “He co-owns Northern Child Care Corp.”

  “And what is that?” she whispered.

  “A juvenile detention center.”

  She started shaking her head. It was instinctive, just a way to reject the information.

  “The place where Judge Billings sends the kids he sentences,” Johnny went on. “The one Mendine built.”

  She backed up a step, still shaking her head. “But… why?” she said dumbly. “Why is he doing that? Why is he paying Judge Billings to rent his condo?”

  “He’s not renting a condo, Juliette.” His voice was completely flat, the shadow of a voice.

  Her fingers felt cold. The judge was taking money, to this day, from the operators of the juvenile detention center. And there weren’t a whole lot of reasons she could think why you’d do that. Just one. One awful reason you’d send a judge that kind of money.

  To send you kids.

  Steps sounded at the doorway, muted by the carpet.

  “Johnny?” said a voice from the hall.

  She recognized it at once. It was the voice she’d heard on the phone earlier, the FBI agent who was used to hearing people say “Oh shit” when they heard his name.

  Johnny was already on his feet, turning as a man stepped through the door.

  “Murphy,” he said, thrusting out a hand.

  “Johnny.” The FBI agent grasped his hand. “What the hell?” he said as they shook. “Do you hunt these people down?”

  “I’m popular. They find me.”

  The agent stepped into the room and cast a sweeping gaze over it, like a radar surveying everything. It stopped when it hit Juliette. He smiled and inclined his head slightly. “Ma’am.”

  He wasn’t wearing a hat, but she felt as if he’d swept one off for her. She was, in a word, charmed.

  “Hi,” she said wisely.

  “Agent Murphy, ma’am, FBI.”

  “Juliette Jauntie, CPA. But my letters don’t matter as much as yours.”

  A grin flashed across his face, transforming it into something less grim, then it disappeared as he turned to Johnny. “What’s up?”

  “Lots.”

  It turned into the sort of clipped, shorthand conversation that could only come from years of familiarity. These two were friends. Or else Johnny had had a lot of occasion to call in the FBI. But what she was seeing was a friendship, although Agent Murphy looked about a decade older than Johnny. But that might be the job. Being an FBI agent probably aged you prematurely.

  Johnny told him what they’d found. Agent Murphy looked appropriately grim. Johnny didn’t mention anything related to Dan.

  They drifted outside the office, into the hallway. She heard them still talking in low voices. A moment later the outer office door opened, then closed. A second later, Johnny reappeared in the doorway.

  He was silhouetted dark in the doorway as the sun rose through the windows behind me.

  “I could call you a cab,” he said slowly.

  “That seems like a waste of time.” She got to her feet. “I’d just tell it to follow you.”

  He held out his hand. “Then come on, babe, we got shit to do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  THEY DROVE in silence. Juliette didn’t say anything, and she didn’t want to ask anything, because she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers Johnny might have.

  They pulled up in front of a palatial abode with gleaming white columns and pale, rose-colored arches. She felt as if they were entering ancient Rome before its decay. They drove slowly through a vaguely ominous open gate and up a short drive that circled smoothly in front of the house.

  Johnny stopped the truck and stared at the house, absolutely still and silent. Like a boulder. Or a glacier. Then his body shifted and he slid out.

  Even his doors were silent; he must have turned off the annoying ding, because there was no noise at all as the door swung open. From outside, she could hear a faint crackling sound, like a wood fire burning. A whiff of smoke drifted through the air.

  Johnny looked in at her. “Get in the driver’s seat.”

  She felt shaky. It was pretty clear they’d unleashed something far more ominous than she’d ever intended or envisioned. She slid over, trembling.

  “Wait here,” he ordered. “If anything seems off, leave. Then call Murphy.”

  That sounded scary. “‘Off’ how?”

  “You’re going to have to trust yourself on that, Jauntie.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the house.

  “Johnny, be careful,” she whispered. It seemed to have worked well the last time.

  He nodded mutely, then pushed the driver’s side door closed. Without looking back, he walked into the house.

  ALL JOHNNY’S SENSES were on alert.

  It had been a few years since he’d walked through a war zone, but the low-burning fuel of constant vigilance ignited immediately. He kept his head up, his body loose, his eyes scanning. As if Dan was going to jump out of the kitchen at him with a gun.

  The rooms were silent. He strode down the familiar hallway and through the rooms he’d been in for so many football games and cocktail parties, the house bursting with Dan’s many professional and personal friends, always gathering to celebrate something. In their lives, there was always something to celebrate.

  No one was here now. The emptiness of the house established itself, curling around Johnny like a cat: no one is here, just you and me and the wind.

  Good thing he didn’t believe in ghost
s.

  Pictures lined the walls, of all the people Dan had helped along the way, from his kids’ Little League coaches to the many launch parties and mergers Dan had facilitated, including a duplicate of the photograph hanging in their office, of the groundbreaking ceremony for the ten million dollar build of Northern Child Care Corp. AKA: juvie.

  And Dan wasn’t standing with Roger Mendine in that picture.

  He was with Marcus Jones Powers, the guy who owned the detention centers. The guy with the ten-odd million dollars of debt on them, the guy who really needed juvenile court judges to remand kids to the center, or he’d go under.

  The guy who’d paid the judge seven hundred thousand dollars, and Johnny was pretty sure it wasn’t for a condo with a boat slip.

  He prowled through the house until, through the French doors that led out to an expansive back patio, he spied Dan.

  Still slightly disheveled, standing in a landscaped garden, beside the huge iron bowl of a hand-made firepot, Dan stood above the licking flames, feeding papers into it.

  Johnny walked toward him, heart hammering in his chest. It was only his good friend and business partner. It was only a confrontation that was going to end someone’s life as he knew it. It was only the most fucked-up thing Johnny had dealt with in a lifetime of having fucked up things done to him and doing them right back again. No big deal.

  His hands felt cold.

  He pushed one of the French doors open. Light must have glinted off the glass, because Dan froze. Then he spun, saw Johnny, and wiped a big smile across his face.

  “Hey man, what’s up?”

  Johnny stepped out onto the tiled porch. “Thought you were headed to the FBI.”

  “I was. Am. Just had to stop home first. And honestly,” Dan lifted the beer in his hand with a sheepish expression. “I know it’s eight in the morning, man, but I needed a drink. Want one?”

  When Johnny didn’t respond, Dan grabbed one of the boxes of papers that was sitting on a chair and dropped the box onto the ground beside the fire, away from Johnny.

  “Have a seat.”

  Johnny’s eyes never left him. “You going to tell me?”

  Dan opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. Instead, he closed his eyes, blew out a long breath, wiped both palms over his bearded face, then dropped them.

  “Johnny, I can explain.”

  Inside, in a high place Johnny hadn’t known existed, something fell. Like a block of stone off a high cliff, it began freefalling. It was so shocking a sensation, so far beyond what he knew about himself—this great chasm of emptiness—that he actually leaned back against the side of the house. But he kept his gaze on Dan.

  “Start,” he said coldly.

  Something determined crossed Dan’s face. He leaned forward, a hand out. “Come on, Johnny, be reasonable. There’s no need to make a big deal about this. We can fix it. We’ll change the valuation. No one wants Mrs. B to get screwed. It was a mistake. He’s sorry.”

  “About what?”

  Silence. He could almost hear Dan’s brain working.

  “About what happened,” Dan said slowly,

  “What happened with what?” Johnny said, just as slowly.

  “The valuation.” It was just shy of being a question.

  “And?”

  “And…the rest,” Dan wavered, not committing to anything he didn’t have to yet. And then Johnny knew for sure. Dan wasn’t a lawyer by trade, but he knew it by inclination, knew every step of taking someone down and making sure you were the last one standing.

  Johnny pushed off the wall and stepped closer. Dan stepped back.

  “See, what I’m really interested in, Dan, is Northern Child Care Corp,” Johnny said, coming forward. “And R&M Corp. And Roger Mendine. And you.”

  Dan exhaled, fast. “Look, Johnny.”

  “I’m looking, Dan. And you’re in deep shit.”

  Dan was sweating; Johnny could see the faint sheen on his neck. That was worth something. Not much, but in the shitfield to come, it was something, to know he’d given Dan a moment of fear that wouldn’t be equaled by anything but walking through the prison doors.

  Johnny shoved his hands into his pockets so he didn’t punch Dan in the face. It helped control the urge. A little. Right now, he wanted answers.

  Dan pulled one of the cushion-less lawn chairs toward him and sat down in it, maybe thinking to make himself into a smaller target. “Johnny, you have to listen. It’s not what you think.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  Dan looked conscience-stricken. His eyebrows lowered, his eyes looked pained and sincere. “Johnny, it was a mistake, a massive one, but it’s over. You have my word—”

  “Your word?”

  Dan stopped. His face was contorted between confusion and fear.

  Johnny stood on the opposite side of the fire pit and looked at him through the high, licking flames.

  “You’d have to explain to me how much your word is worth these days, Dan, but I actually don’t give a shit. I’m more interested in getting some answers.”

  “I don’t know what you wan—”

  “Why don’t you start with Mendine and his two mil?”

  “Johnny—”

  “And Marcus Powers and his seven hundred thousand.”

  “Jesus—”

  “And you can wrap up with how much of a cut you got from it all.”

  Dan’s face washed white. “Shit.”

  “So, just in a real general way, why don’t you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  “Johnny—”

  He waited, but that’s all Dan said, in a strangled voice.

  So Johnny sat down in one of the metal chairs and explained in a low voice exactly what the fuck was going on.

  “See Dan, at first, we thought maybe the whole thing was just a kickback scheme for the construction build. That’s bad, right? Make a shitty deal for the county, overcharge tens or even hundreds of thousands, nepotism at its best, right? But that’s just business as usual. And it doesn’t really explain all the money that poured in after, does it?” he asked in a conversational tone.

  Dan’s mouth had fallen open by now. He was breathing fast, staring.

  “Does it, Dan?”

  He gave his head a single, rapid shake.

  “No, it doesn’t. Seven hundred thousand dollars, that’s a lot of money. You’ve got to wonder, who would like this fucking condo that much?” Johnny smiled.

  Dan shook his head slowly. His face was completely white.

  “The bad thing for you, Dan, is that I know how these contracts work. Private jails need inmates. No inmates, no money. That’s a shitty business plan. So they guarantee inmates. Put ‘guaranteed occupancy’ clauses right into the contracts. You know what ‘guaranteed’ means, Dan? It means the county has to send enough kids to keep the cells full. It’s better than a hotel. Eighty, ninety, maybe a hundred percent occupancy. Or else the county pays penalties. Huge fucking penalties.”

  Johnny forced himself to keep sitting, kept his hands shoved down deep into his pockets. Dan’s scared eyes stared back at him as he went on.

  “Penalties if there aren’t enough incarcerated kids. You send the kids or you pay the penalty. It’s an eating machine, Dan. A kid-eating machine. Crazy, isn’t it?” His eyes never left Dan’s. “What do you think of that?”

  As if he was being given a chance to confess, or repent, or maybe receive absolution, Dan started talking. The words came tumbling out.

  “Johnny, listen, you don’t understand. Those old detention centers were shit. Infested with rats and shit, literally. The plumbing was forty years old. There was no ventilation. You don’t know what goes on in those places, Johnny. I’m telling you—”

  “Who says I don’t know?” Johnny interrupted, lethally low.

  Dan’s mouth stayed open, but no words came out.

  “Who says I don’t know what goes on in those places?” Johnny said again, then picked u
p his boot and shoved it against the side of the firepot with such force the huge heavy iron and carbon steel bowl flipped over.

  It gave a monstrous crash as it smashed onto its side, squealing like a dying animal as it skidded over the tiled pavers, high-pitched and frantic, then it bashed into Dan’s shins. Bright red sparks and burning embers flew up like fireworks, a shower of sparks and flaming paper pinwheeling through the air.

  Dan stumbled backward, his hand out, his hair wild, his jaw dropped. “Jesus Christ, Johnny, take it easy. I—”

  “I know what goes on in those places.”

  Dan nodded, clearly terrified.

  Johnny heard his own breath, hard and intense. “How many did Billings have to send?”

  “How many—?”

  “How many fucking kids,” Johnny lifted his boot and planted the bottom of it against the red-hot bowl of the firepot and gave it a shove, “did the fucking judge,” he shoved again, “agree to send to his fucking jail,” another shove, each one backing Dan up to the wall, “every fucking month?”

  All the blood was gone from Dan’s face. “Jesus—”

  “And you, Dan? How rich did you get off every kid?”

  Dan skirted sideways, his palms up. “Johnny, I didn’t know—”

  Johnny stepped over the fire pit. “Better run, Dan.”

  Dan bolted.

  The door opened and Juliette stepped out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  EVERYONE froze.

  Juliette stood stock still in the doorway and took it all in, as if time had slowed to a stop: Johnny, backing Dan up across the porch by means of a fire pit; Dan, his face washed white of color; the caw of a black crow as it flew overhead through the grey sky.

  But that’s what you did when chaos broke out around you and people lost their minds; you got really, really still. That way, maybe you wouldn’t get noticed.

  But that was kid stuff. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and right now, if she didn’t do something, Johnny was going to do something drastic. As if using a red-hot fire pit as a weapon wasn’t drastic.

  No, Johnny was going to do something bad. Really bad. Something dangerous.

  So she swallowed her fear and stepped onto the patio.