Chapter Forty - Lincoln
I pull into the cave with a wave of dread. I heard the chatter in the department about Atticus missing the shot. Montgomery senior wasn’t killed last night and I’m fuming from the fuckup. That motherfucker was supposed to be dead. Why isn’t he dead?
I throw the car into park and get out, my boots thudding across the concrete floors as I make my way to the wall of monitors. I scan each one, but it’s useless. There is no mention of Atticus or his father.
“What the fuck happened last night?” I turn to Sheila, who is hovering in the middle of the room looking like she’s in the middle of a shrug.
“Everything was going according to plan. Atticus got out of the car, I tracked him inside Blue Corp, everything looked fine. He went behind the closed-circuit cameras where I have no access so I assumed—”
Her words are cut off by my phone. I take it out, recognizing Case’s tone, and say, “Yeah.”
“What the fuck, dude?”
“I don’t know, man, he missed or something.”
“Missed? How the fuck can he miss? If he was in the office like we planned it, then that bastard was less than twenty feet away. No way Atticus missed that fucking shot. And the goddamned Blue Boar just did an interview for Channel Three, Wolves of Wall Street. He looks pretty fucking alive to me. Thomas is gonna be here in thirty minutes and he’s gonna want answers.”
“I just got home, Case. I don’t have answers. I’m still trying to figure it out. I watched Atticus walk into the Blue Castle last night. He was primed and ready. He should’ve fucking pulled that trigger.”
“Did you ask Molly about it?”
“Why the fuck would I ask Molly? We agreed that she wouldn’t be involved.”
“Things change, Lincoln.”
“Well, I’m not asking her. She’s the lead detective on this case and she already knows too much.”
“I disagree,” Case says. “I don’t think she knows nearly enough.”
“Do not threaten me, Case.”
“Threaten? Get a hold of yourself, asshole. This is the endgame and you just fucked it up. The Old Man is still alive. You need to get your ass here and explain this shit to Thomas. Because I’m not gonna take the brunt of the temper tantrum Thomas is gonna throw once he finds out the Blue Boar is still in the game.”
I get the three beeps that signal the call has ended. “Fuck!” I yell.
“I think you need weapons, Lincoln.”
“What?” I turn to Sheila, who is still standing in the middle of the room. “I have my gun, Sheila.”
But her lightshow body shakes its head. “More than that.”
“What do you know?”
“Atticus Montgomery was taken to the Cathedral City Asylum early this morning. He’s been admitted as an inpatient for attempted murder.”
“So he did fuck it up?” I growl.
“Possibly. I’m getting mixed signals from the intake surveillance over at the asylum. And the private room cameras are on a closed circuit. I won’t be able to directly access him until he wanders into view of an exterior one.”
“Shit.” I look at her for a few moments, running all this shit through my mind. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. If I had access to the top floor of Blue Corp, I’d know. But I don’t, so we’re in the dark until Atticus Montgomery lets something slip.”
“Fuck. Well, I gotta go into town and talk to Thomas. He’s not gonna be happy. We have a deadline of Friday for the news conference. I’m taking the bike to avoid traffic. Keep me posted.”
I don’t wait for an answer, just hop on the bike—now repaired, thanks to Sheila’s little bot army—and kick the starter. It growls to life and I take off down the tunnel, the gate lifting at just the right moment to let me pass through without stopping.
I was smart to take the bike because thirty minutes later when I finally make it into town, it’s the lunch rush hour and I have to weave in and out between cars the whole way into the Merchant District. I park the bike in front of M-Street Bar and the door is opening before I even get within ten feet of it.
“Hey, Lincoln.”
I nod to the doorman, but my eyes are on Thomas and Case, both of whom are sitting at the bar drinking. They turn simultaneously as they register my voice and then Thomas turns away as Case says, “Finally.”
I take a seat on the other side of Case, not that Thomas scares me or anything. I just don’t feel like being too close to him right now.
“You wanna explain this monumental fuckup, Lincoln?” Thomas says, his words coming out as a low growl.
“What do you want me to say? Atticus didn’t follow through.”
“Why?” Thomas sneers. “Why the fuck didn’t it work?”
“I don’t know, asshole. I’m not the boss of him.”
Case rolls his eyes. “Lincoln, stop, OK? Just think, man. What happened last night?”
“I watched him go in the building.”
“We know he was in the building, Lincoln,” Thomas says, his voice way too calm for my comfort level. “What we don’t know is why he’s at the fucking Cathedral City Asylum on a judge-ordered psychiatric hold. Now how the fuck are we supposed to complete this job when he’s locked up?”
“We have to assume the worst,” Case says. “We have to assume the Old Man is on to us.”
“Sheila’s inside. She can get info from the system connected to the internet. But the interior cameras are on a closed circuit. She can’t access them.”
“So we just have to wait,” Case says. “We just need to sit tight and be patient until she finds something useful.”
Thomas gets up, gulps the whiskey sitting in front of his stool, then slams the glass down on the bar top so hard, it shatters. “So our whole plan, the one we’ve been discussing for fifteen fucking years, hinges on that sorry motherfucker in the psych ward?”
We don’t answer him, and he doesn’t wait. Just grabs his coat and walks out, slamming the door behind him, because the doorman has made himself scarce.
Case lets off a long breath of air. “He’s pissed.”
“Yup,” I say, catching the whiskey that Mac slides down the bar to me and taking my own gulp. “But we’re stuck until someone makes a move.”
“We’re going down, man.”
“We’re not going down, Case. Jesus, you two are pansies. We’ve got this. We’ve got Sheila, we’ve got me, and we’ve got Molly.”
“You told her?”
“No.” I laugh. “But she’s not stupid. And she’s covering for me. She knows about the others and she didn’t report me. In fact, I spent the night with her.” I get a little lost in that thought.
“You better be careful, man. Because once she figures this all out, she’s not gonna like you very much.”
“That remains to be seen,” I say back. “I can handle Molly.”
“You don’t even know her, dude.”
“Better than you do,” I say, turning my head slowly to eye Case. “So just stay the fuck out of it. We’ve got a good plan, every player is in place, and no matter what, this shit is happening. It might not happen by the book, but in a few days this whole town will be upside down. Thomas will get what he wants and I’m gonna get what I want too.”
Case is silent for a few seconds. And then he picks up his glass of whiskey. “Whatever you say, asshole. Whatever you say.”
I squint my eyes at Case for a moment, but he just downs his drink and then gets up, walks over to the jukebox, and presses the buttons for Social Distortion. The melancholy rockabilly fills the bar at high volume, drowning out everything but the obvious.
We’ve all lost a lot playing this game, but if everything goes right Thomas will have more than he ever dreamed of in a few days. And I’ve got Molly back. That’s a huge win for me.
Case? He’s got nothing so far, and nothing coming either.
He’s not quite along for the ride, but Case was never out for revenge. He’s just in on principle. He needs to know why. But the thing is, the why for Case is not the same as it is for Thomas and me. We know why we’re in this fucked-up situation. Case doesn’t. His parents refused to talk about it. They gave him an ultimatum—they would tell him all the things he wanted to know, or they’d let me stay with him after they released us from the psych center.
He chose me over answers. And it’s always pissed me off that his parents knew exactly which buttons to punch on their only son. Because we all know Case ended up in Prodigy because his parents owed those fuckers something.
“It’s gonna work,” I yell, my shout competing with the music. But Case either doesn’t hear me or refuses to. He’s already playing an old standup arcade game in the corner as he pushes down the past and goes into his virtuality.