The Stickmen Read Free

Steak-Diane-and-lobster-flan
gut actually jiggled at a titter. Lawyers, after all, were just
actors in nice suits. They were good. They made Sir Laurence
Olivier look like high school casting call.
    “Really, Mr. Garrett,” Calabrice assured,
“that’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard, not to mention
its clear potential for several crimes that you may have heard of
called libel and character defamation, and doubly not to mention
that any, um… findings you might publish would hardly have
any credibility amongst what our founding fathers described as the
public trust.”
    Detective Demeter laughed through a hoarse
smoker’s cough that sounded like someone trying to start a faulty
gas-powered weed-whacker. “How do you like this busted loser?
Bet’choo gotta couple of Pulitzers for that fine respectable
journalism of yours, huh? Bet’choo hang out with Woodward and
Bernstein at the friggin’ Capital Hill cocktail parties. Shit,
Garrett, you act like the National Enquirer is the same as
the friggin’ Washington Post . “
    “That’s real funny, Dirty Harry,” Garrett
came back. “And for one thing, half the writers on the Post are on the White House pad, and for another, I don’t write for the Enquirer . I write for legitimate—”
    Calabrice subtly burped; the burped smelled
like Merlot and Duck Confit. “Yes, Mr. Garrett, as you’ve already
been kind enough to enlighten us, you write only for legitimate alternate investigative journals, seven of which you’ve been
fired from for the same infractions that have landed you here.
Nevertheless, the fact remains: you illegally impersonated a
Nevatek employee, you unlawfully entered secured and sensitive
private property, you infiltrated a Nevetek data processing unit,
and you stole confidential corporate files.”
    Demeter stepped closer, blooming his shadow
more broadly across Garrett’s face. “Garrett, these guys have every
right to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law, and I wish
they would. They’d bury you so deep you’d need a mile-long snorkel
just to suck air. Why they’re not going to do that is beyond
me.”
    “I’ll tell you why, Dick Tracy,” Garrett
explained. “They don’t want the public to know they’re testing
electro-magnetic pulse weapons on unsuspecting citizens in Northern
Virginia , and that U.S. tax dollars are paying for it. It’s called
a ‘triple-cloak-scheme,’ same as the pyramid shams that
multi-millionaires use to shelter money in off-shore accounts. The
National Security Counsel uses its own CIA operatives to hire phony
subcontractors who in turn hire high-tech companies like Nevatek to
start up field labs for clandestine research. This stuffed-shirt
here will tell you that all Nevatek does is manufacture plastic and
fiberglass at their well-known production facility in Arlington,
Virginia. But what he won’t tell you is that the Nevatek created a
second production facility in Bowensville, Maryland, where they’ve
got an operational atomic clock, an operational tri-rack cyclotron,
and a dozen one-gigawatt EM-pulse generators. Tell me that, Mr.
Hot-Shot Lawyer? What business does a fucking plastic
factory  have with a billion-dollar cyclotron? ”
    “Do you take narcotics, Mr. Garrett? Are you
delusional?” Calabrice suggested.
    Garrett sniffed. “What’s the smell you keep
burping? I like it. You have lunch at The Occidental or was it
Ruth’s Chris? I’ll bet you were billing your client five hundred
bucks an hour for the whole time you were stuffing your face with a
meal that cost more than most Americans make in a week. Oh, and
then I’ll bet you billed your client for the meal too, huh?”
    Calabrice’s jaw set. “I’d think you’d be a
little more cordial, considering my client’s generosity. Your fine
tally adds up to a minimum of fifteen years in prison. We don’t have to drop charges but have elected to simply in the
interests of saving unnecessary legal costs.”
    Garrett