Chapter 47 - Favors

Chapter 47: Chapter 47 - Favors

Jesse signed the check, tore it out and slid it across the desk.

Ben Pruitt picked it up, glanced at the amount and folded it once without changing expression. Then he stood and offered his hand across the stacks of files.

"I’ll file for the stay this afternoon," he said. "My office will call you the moment it’s granted. In the meantime, don’t talk to your uncles, don’t talk to their lawyers and don’t sign anything anyone puts in front of you."

"Understood."

Ben’s grip was firm and dry. He held on a second longer than necessary, his dark eyes studying Jesse over the top of his glasses.

"Your mother kept very good books, Mr. Byrne," he said. "Let’s make sure they count for something."

It was 10:30 when Jesse walked out onto Broadway.

He got into the Porsche, set the empty folder on the passenger seat and sat there for a moment with his hands on the wheel, watching people stream past on the sidewalk toward the courthouses.

One war down for the morning. The other one was still sitting in his head where he’d left it last night.

Angus Dent.

Nolan could find whatever lived online. Addresses, social media and old court records were his specialty. But Angus lived in the parts of the city that didn’t show up on a screen: back rooms, cash deals, men who owed him and men he owed. To get at those, Jesse needed someone who knew how that world worked.

And only one person came to mind. Dean Monroe.

Jesse pulled out his phone and dialed.

It rang four times. He was about to hang up when the line clicked.

"Jesse." Dean’s soft, precise voice. "It’s ten thirty-one on a Thursday. You should be at work."

"I had a meeting with a lawyer my aunt recommended."

"Ben Pruitt."

Jesse paused.

"How did you know?"

"Marie Goldfinch only knows one lawyer worth calling."A faint rustle of paper on Dean’s end. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Well, sort of." Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. "I need a favor."

"What kind of favor?"

Jesse hesitated.

"Uncle Dean, this is a shot in the dark," he said. "And I’m sorry if it comes off as offensive."

"Just get to the favor, Jesse."

He took a breath.

"I want you to help me dig up information on a drug dealer."

The line went quiet. Jesse could hear the faint tick of a clock somewhere in that perfectly symmetrical room.

"And you think I can help you with that?" Dean asked.

The question was mild. Dean didn’t deny anything, and he didn’t sound offended. He simply turned the question back on Jesse and waited to see what he’d say.

Jesse swallowed hard.

"Yes," he said. "Please."

Another pause.

"Why do you want to dig up anything on a drug dealer in the first place?"

Jesse had known that question was coming, and he still didn’t have a clean answer for it.

He couldn’t tell Dean the truth. If he said the beating happened two nights ago, Dean would remember that he’d sat across the desk from Jesse yesterday afternoon, studying his face down to the degree of his crossed eye, and found no bruise, cut or swelling anywhere on it. Dean would want to know how, and Jesse had no answer he could give.

So he bent the truth just enough.

"I got beaten to a pulp by him a couple of months ago," he said. "He had a honeypot lure me out of a bar and into a dark alley, and then he beat the shit out of me and cleaned out my bank account." He gripped the wheel a little tighter. "I’ve found out since then that it’s what he does. He’s done it to other people, and he’s going to keep doing it. I want to stop him. And I want him to pay."

Dean said nothing.

The silence stretched long enough that Jesse checked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

"What is this miscreant’s name?" Dean asked at last. His voice had gone a shade colder.

"Angus Dent."

"Angus Dent," Dean repeated slowly, as if he were filing the name in a cabinet. "I’ll have Duncan look into him."

Jesse let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. "Thank you."

"Jesse." Dean’s voice sharpened. "Listen to me carefully. Whatever Duncan finds, whatever you decide to do with it, it has to be legal. Every step. You don’t put your own hands on this man. You don’t pay anyone to put their hands on him. You let the proper channels do the work, and you keep yourself far enough back that nothing can ever be traced to you." He paused. "Your name already draws attention you can’t afford. Don’t give anyone like Percy Bonham a reason to look harder. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Say it back to me."

Jesse almost smiled. It was the same thing Dean used to make him do with multiplication tables at the kitchen table.

"Everything will be legal. My hands stay clean. Nothing traces back to me."

"Good." The clock ticked on Dean’s end. "Duncan will call you when he has something."

The line went dead.

Jesse lowered the phone and sat back in his seat.

Dean hadn’t once asked why Jesse thought he’d be able to help. He’d simply said Duncan’s name, as if digging into a drug dealer’s life were an ordinary errand for the man who guarded his door.

Jesse filed that away next to the "ten years" Dean had let slip yesterday, started the engine and pulled out into traffic.

******

He reached McQuise Hospital at 11:40, twenty minutes before Dr. Ramsey had asked him to arrive.

He’d eaten a big breakfast at six, before the eight o’clock cutoff, and his stomach was already starting to complain about it.

Marcus spotted him the moment he came through the revolving doors. The big security guard’s face split into a wide grin, and he crossed the lobby in four long strides.

"Boss!" He grabbed Jesse’s hand and shook it with both of his. "Good to see you, man. Real good. I told my wife about yesterday, and she thought I was making it up until I showed her my phone. Then she cried. My daughter’s getting her braces fitted next Tuesday." He shook his head. "Anything you need today, anything at all, you tell me."

"I appreciate that, Marcus," Jesse said, and he meant it. "Tell your daughter good luck."

Over Marcus’s shoulder, Kimberly was walking past the front desk with a stack of folders hugged to her chest. She saw Jesse. Her mouth tightened into a hard line, and she shot him a scowl that could have peeled paint.

Jesse looked right through her and went back to talking with Marcus about orthodontists.

Kimberly’s heels clicked away down the hallway, noticeably faster than before.

A few minutes later, Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Kessler came out of the elevator together. Ramsey was in navy scrubs with her silver hair tucked under a surgical cap and a tablet under her arm. Kessler wore a crisp white coat over his scrubs, his tan looking even deeper under the lobby lights.

"Mr. Byrne," Dr. Ramsey said. "You’re early. Good. How are you feeling? Did you eat after eight?"

"I didn’t. I’m fine."

"Excellent. We’ll get you up to pre-op and start—"

"Before we do," Jesse said, "could I talk to both of you somewhere private?"

The two doctors exchanged a glance.

"My office is on the third floor," Dr. Kessler said.

Kessler’s office looked like a magazine spread. White walls, white leather chairs and a glass desk with nothing on it except a sleek monitor and a small sculpture of a human skull made of polished silver. Before-and-after photos of anonymous faces lined one wall in matching black frames.

Jesse waited until the door clicked shut.

"I want this whole procedure kept secret," he said. "Completely."

Dr. Ramsey nodded patiently. "Of course. All of your medical information is confidential. Federal privacy law is very strict about that, and McQuise is stricter still. Nobody outside your care team will have access to your records."

"I understand that. But I mean something more than that." Jesse looked from one to the other. "I don’t want my name on the records at all. I don’t want my name on the surgical schedule, on the chart, on the billing system or anywhere someone could stumble across it. I want it wiped. Use a different name. As far as this hospital’s computers are concerned, Jesse Byrne was never here."

The room went quiet.

Kessler leaned back against the edge of his glass desk and folded his arms. "That’s an unusual request, Mr. Byrne."

"Is it?" Jesse glanced at the wall of anonymous faces. "You’ve rebuilt the noses of movie stars and fighters. I’m guessing none of them showed up on your schedule under their real names."

Kessler’s mouth twitched at the corner. He looked at Ramsey.

Ramsey was frowning, but she was thinking. "We do have a protocol for high-profile patients," she admitted slowly. "An alias in the system. Restricted access to the real file. Only the surgical team and one administrator would know who you are." She tapped her tablet against her palm. "But we’d still need your legal name on the consent forms, and those would be sealed. That part’s non-negotiable."

"That’s fine," Jesse said. "As long as they stay sealed."

"They will."

Kessler shrugged. "Then pick a name."

Jesse thought for a second.

"Harold Temple," he said. It was a name he just came up with on a whim.

Ramsey typed it into her tablet. "Harold Temple. Done." She looked up at him over her glasses. "One more thing, and this one isn’t negotiable either. We will not discharge you to drive yourself home or take a cab alone. After two rounds of anesthesia, you’ll be groggy for hours, and with your eyes and nose bandaged, you’ll barely be able to see. Someone has to come and pick you up."

"And it has to be someone you trust," Kessler added. "Who knows where you are and what you’re having done. Given what you just asked for, I’m assuming that’s a very short list."

Jesse opened his mouth.

He hadn’t thought about that at all.

He ran through the list in his head. Aunt Marie would ask too many questions and tell him he should have asked her first. Nolan would show up in sweatpants and a headset and probably tell everyone in the building. Buster would want to know why his new VP was getting a nose job on a Thursday afternoon. Dean would come if Jesse asked, but he’d hate every minute of the hospital, and sending Duncan would draw more eyes than it saved.

Then a face came to him easily

It belonged to the same woman who’d dragged him half a mile to a hospital two nights ago, when she could have walked away and let him die.

Jesse smiled.

"I’ve got someone," he said.

Carrie.