Upside Down (8 page)

The women burst out laughing as they bucked the wind and headed to their cars.

The clock on the wall of the dojo said it was 3:55.

Harry Wong stood, hands on hips, staring at his new class of recruits straight out of Annapolis. “Listen up, midshipmen! I have been in business for more years than I care to remember, and I can truthfully say you are the sorriest bunch I've ever had the misfortune to have enter my hallowed doors. I expected . . . hell, I don't even know what the word is to describe you miserable human beings. You're a bunch of
wusses
. The only thing I can say for you is you sweat like a bunch of girls. Smelly sweat at that. I train women who, in the blink of an eye, could nail your sorry asses to the wall and not break a sweat. You don't even have the grace to look ashamed or embarrassed. And to think you are going to be the ones possibly running our military someday in the future somehow makes me want to puke.

“I'm stuck with you because I signed a contract with the powers that be, the ones who control your lives, at least for now. By the time you get back to Annapolis in that fancy bus you arrived in, my report will be in the hands of your superiors. You need to think about that on the ride back.” A hand shot in the air. Harry ignored it. Another hand went up.

“Here is my number-one rule: you never speak to me unless I give you permission. Here is rule number two: you never, ever question me. Rule three is you never offer up an excuse. One last thing. When you return here tomorrow, bring a check with you. I'm changing your workout clothes to
pink.
You have to pay for the privilege of wearing pink. You want to act like girls, then you are going to dress like them. You also get to pay for the photo op that will follow you back to your superiors.”

Harry looked at the clock on the wall. He had one minute left. “I am giving permission now for one question if anyone wishes to pose one.” No one did. Harry smiled his special evil smile when he heard someone in the back row say, “I hate your fucking guts, Master whatever the hell your name is. And I'd like to see you deck me out in one of your shitty pink outfits.”

The door opened at the front of the dojo. Ah, private investigator Mike Suliman. Right on time. Harry smiled again. He did so love punctuality, especially punctuality brought on by fear.

“You're dismissed, midshipmen.” It was all Harry could do to keep a straight face as the midshipmen scrambled to form straight lines and bow to Master Wong. At least they'd gotten that part right.

Harry walked out of the training room and up to the front of the dojo, where a nervous-looking Mike Suliman was viewing, with some trepidation, the plaques and pictures on Harry's four walls. His insides started to curdle when Harry motioned him to take a seat. “Tea?”

Suliman hated tea. Cold tea, hot tea, herbal tea, he hated it all. He was a coffee drinker. He was an eight-cups-of-coffee-a-day man. “I'd love a cup of tea, Mr. Wong.”

Harry putzed and puttered with the little pot of tea behind a bamboo partition. His object was to have Suliman nervous and twitchy to the point he would do whatever Harry wanted. Fear was such a strong motivator. He leaned up against the wall as he contemplated his next move, which was to call Jack to see if he had any ideas on how he wanted Suliman handled. But he'd have to go somewhere else to make the call. More stall time for Suliman.

Harry handed over the small cup with no handles to the detective. “Enjoy your tea, Mr. Suliman. I have something I have to attend to. I'll be back in a few moments. As you know, tea is to be savored, to be enjoyed.”

“Uh-huh,” Suliman grunted. He took a cautious sip when Harry left the room. The tea tasted like tree bark, wet dog, and moldy leaves.

While Mike Suliman was gagging over his tea, Harry was hissing and snarling at Jack on the phone. “What? What? Spell it out, Jack. I already scared the shit out of him. You want me to coddle him? How the hell do I know if he's reliable? You want me to make sure he's on our side as a double agent when he leaves here, is that what you're saying?” Harry listened. “How much of a bonus? Yeah, yeah, how many times have I heard you say money talks and bullshit walks? Too many to count. And what did Abner find out about him when he ran his profile?” Harry listened again. “Okay, I got it. I'll call you back when he leaves.” Just as he was about to break the connection, he heard Jack ask about the midshipmen. Harry laughed and then filled Jack in with all the details from his class with the midshipmen.

“That bad, huh? Well, you'll whip them into shape. Pink, huh? Oooh, I like that, Harry. Tell them West Point is sending its graduating class to you for a full month of training in January, then say there will be a dust-off when both sides compete, and Navy has to wear pink unless they perform to your standards. It's that old Army-Navy thing. See ya, Harry.”

Harry was grinning from ear to ear when he finally signed off. Now, why didn't he think of that? Guess that's why Jack earned the big bucks.

Back in the waiting room, Harry eyed the private detective and the empty teacup. “More?”

“Ah . . . no thanks. Can we just get to it, Wong.”

“I like that, a man who likes to get to the point, as long as it's my point.” Harry straddled a straight-backed chair and focused on the detective. “Okay, Mr. Suliman, this is what I
know.
You're thirty-two years old, never married. You have women falling all over you because you like to wine and dine and party with them. That takes a lot of money. You live in a crappy garden apartment and make the rent, which is quite reasonable, by the skin of your teeth. You drive a muscle car, payments up to date. You work out at Gold's Gym, which is a high-dollar place to get fit. You wear Brooks Brothers suits, but you do have one Armani that you haul out for special occasions. You have monogrammed cuffs on your shirts. You take a Caribbean vacation twice a year that you can't afford, and your credit cards are about maxed out. How'm I doing so far?”

Suliman grunted.

“Okay, you wear boxers and like bold . . . um . . . patterns. You save the tidy whities for your dates to show off your muscular legs. You have a six-pack of designer beer in your refrigerator, twenty-seven bags of Ramen noodles, and your brown eggs expired last month. You need to throw them out, Mr. Suliman. You whiten your teeth, use Crest for cavities, and have a variety of manly colognes.”

“You son of a bitch; you invaded my space!” the detective exploded.

“How does it feel, you piece of shit? Okay, now that we have leveled the playing field, we're starting from square one. You on board or not?”

“Yeah, I'm on board. Spell it out, Wong.”

“Okay, I want to know everything your fellow dicks find out about my colleagues. Daily. You screw up, and you will regret it. I will tell you what you report to Miss Spritzer, so we will have a standing six o'clock appointment daily. How you ferret out the reports from your colleagues is up to you, but I want detailed information. As a reward, you will be paid one thousand dollars a week. In cash. Under the table. No paper trail. You following me here?”

All Suliman heard was $1,000 a week in cash. Man, this weirdo was truly saving his ass. He nodded because he felt too giddy to speak.

“Do we have a deal, Suliman?”

The detective finally got his tongue to work. “We have a deal.”

Harry nodded. “I have a class coming to the dojo in fifteen minutes. I want you to sit here and compile your first report. Be as creative as you wish. I'll be grading you. I'm going to help you out here, so that you can talk to your fellow workers. My colleagues will be filtering in here one by one, starting at six o'clock, at which point you will be outside in the cold watching this dojo. You can all convene outside the dojo, talk it to death, but lead them to believe this dojo is where all the action takes place. Secret meetings, telephone calls, strange goings-on. Like I said, be creative. I want you to fax me a copy of your daily report by nine this evening. Before you report to Spritzer. In case I need to make any changes.”

“You're trying to screw this Spritzer babe, is that it?”

“That's a rather crude way of putting it, Mr. Suliman, but yes, we want to come out on top. With your help. By the way, when this is all over, and you've complied with all I asked you to do, I'm authorized to tell you there is a bonus of ten thousand dollars on the table.”

Suliman barely heard the words; his mind was already on possibly relocating to one of the high-rises in Crystal City and turning his life around. Maybe this psycho kung fu artist was his savior. Well, damn.

Harry favored Suliman with his evil smile, narrowed his eyes, then turned and padded away.

When his heartbeat returned to normal, Mike Suliman took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Well, damn!

Nikki Quinn shoved her shoulder against the door and held it for Alexis to barrel through. Both women were gasping, breathless from the run across the parking lot to the warmth of the lobby.

Panting, Nikki yanked at the scarf around her throat as she steered Alexis down the hall and around a corner to the building's coffee shop. “We need to talk.”

“That we do,” Alexis said, following Nikki into the steamy warmth of the little coffee shop, which had four small tables and one secluded booth in the rear. Nikki headed for the booth. Lunch hour was over, so the place was virtually empty.

The women ordered the restaurant's specialty, tuna on rye and black coffee.

“That was a fiasco if ever there was one,” Alexis said, referring to the sisters' luncheon as she squirmed out of her down jacket. “But that's not why you want to talk, is it, Nikki?”

Nikki looked down at the watch on her wrist, a birthday gift from Jack several years ago. She let loose with a long, drawn-out sigh. It seemed as if her entire life was scheduled in minutes. Six minutes to do this, nine minutes to do that, fifteen minutes to do something else. At the end of the day, every day, to her own chagrin, she simply ran out of minutes.

“No, it isn't. I just want to give you a heads-up. You're my friend, my employee, an associate at the firm.”

Alexis held up her hand to stop Nikki's flow of words. “Nik, you don't owe me an explanation of anything. I work for you. I have no intention, ever—that's as in ever—of asking you to make me a partner. I'm happy as a clam with the salary you pay me, which is more than I deserve. I don't want or need any extra responsibility. I don't want for anything, I'm content with what I have. I just hope you are satisfied with my work performance.”

“Alexis, we're soul sisters. When I started the firm years and years ago—and they were lean years, believe me—I had a goal. I reached that goal. Now, my back is to the wall, and my employees are making demands I will not tolerate. The meeting at two-thirty, with Allison, Irene, and Pamela, is not going to go well. I'm going to cut them loose. I've already alerted security to be on standby, and HR knows what is going down.”

“If you're asking me if I approve, the answer is yes. We'll manage without them. I know three lawyers who would jump at the chance to work for you. They're young, fresh out of law school, but that's what you need, Nik, young blood, gung ho, and ready to set the legal world on fire. Georgetown Law will give you a steady flow of young lawyers. You and Jack are both alumni, and they'll bend over backward to help you. You hire more paralegals. We can wind these class-action suits down if we have enough eager bodies willing to work late and weekends. Every young lawyer knows you have to pay your dues before you make the big bucks.”

“You make it sound so easy, Alexis. It isn't. I think I'm a hair away from Jack's asking for a divorce. It's my fault, too. I took on too much. I didn't think it all the way through, then Jack up and left the firm. I was counting on him. I couldn't stand in his way when he said he wanted out. We're a hot mess is what we are at the moment.”

“Kind of like me and Joseph. I hear you, friend.”

Their food arrived, and both women gobbled it down and asked for refills on the coffee.

“Beats that hard-boiled egg I eat every day at my desk,” Alexis said, laughing in a way that indicated a total lack of amusement. “What do you need me to do, Nik?”

“Sit in on the meeting with me. Then, or before if you have time, call around, find me some good lawyers who are willing to come on board. The firm has a healthy bank account, so offer double what the other firms are paying, with a robust bonus when we wrap up these three class-action suits. And, of course, a generous expense account. I want them ready to go to work Monday morning. Make sure they understand we will be working through the holidays, with Christmas Day and New Year's Day our only days off, and make sure you tell them there will be travel involved. Lots of travel.”

Nikki whipped out her company credit card and handed it to the waiter.

Ten minutes later, the two women were in the elevator, heading toward the offices of the Quinn Law Firm, which took up the eighth and ninth floors of the huge office building in Georgetown. Nikki looked down at her watch. She had forty-five minutes to get her ducks in a row. She stopped at reception to ask if HR was on standby and if security was ready to go. Betsy, the grandmotherly receptionist, assured Nikki that everything needed for the aftermath of the upcoming meeting was in place.

“I'll start on my calls. Meet you in the conference room at two-thirty.” Alexis was a whirlwind as she moved down the hall to her office.

Nikki walked down the opposite hall to her own office. She stood in the open doorway, staring at what she called her space. She'd decorated it herself. It had comfortable furniture that stopped just short of being called cozy. She'd picked this particular room when she started her firm because of the real wood-burning fireplace. She did love curling up next to it in the winter, while she wrote briefs and studied depositions. There was greenery, not a lot, but what she had filling the corners was lush and healthy-looking. She tended the plants herself. She looked at her Christmas cactus, which was full of cherry-red blooms. She smiled. Isabelle had given her the plant years ago.

The walls were covered in bookshelves, holding books that she referred to on an almost daily basis. Her walnut desk was covered with files and folders. Her chair was a gift from Myra, who said it had once been her father's. She loved it, and the old cushions on it, which were almost flat from years of use.

The plank floor was covered with colorful hooked rugs she'd picked up at a long-ago flea market. The small fish tank, with beautiful tropical fish, was a gift from Jack five years ago on Christmas. All the fish had names: Teddy, Freddy, and Lettie. She had no idea, and neither did Jack, if the fish were boys or girls. All in all, a very pleasant workplace.

Nikki hung up her coat, stashed her handbag in one of the desk drawers, and walked over to the fireplace to poke at the dying fire. She added another log. Her favorite wing chair, covered in nubby chocolate-brown fabric, beckoned her. This was where she sat to take deep breaths and focus on troubling issues. Staring at the flames somehow seemed to calm her, gave her perspective, and managed to rejuvenate her. She hoped the magic worked today.

At twenty after two, Nikki stood up, smoothed down her jacket, and was nearly overcome by the realization that she'd screwed up her marriage, had overextended herself with the three class-action suits, and was indeed a mess. She took a deep breath, fought the tears burning her eyes, and made a vow to ask Jack for help.

Would he help her?