Against All Enemies by Richard Herman Read Free Book Online

who occupied the bench in Sacramento. Most were good, intelligent, conscientious judges. A few, like Evans, were even fearless in their pursuit of justice. But it was the kooks, the misfits, the politicians on an unparalleled ego trip, who drove the system down dark alleys and uncharted roads. Okay, that’s the problem, now what’s the remedy? Coming up with an answer was going to be the hard part.
    He was still working on the outline at nine o’clock and felt the need for breakfast when an administrative assistant dropped off his mail. Buried in the bundle was a letter from Beth Page, his ex-wife. Automatically, he glanced at her photo, securely back in its place after the brief excursion to the men’s room. She’d like that , he told himself. There was no return address and he carefully sliced the envelope open even though its next stop was the shredder. A brief note in her big, open, scrawling handwriting was stuck to a check for $5,000.
    I know things are tight .
Hope this helps .
     
    The only signature was on the check. “The joys of being married to a rich woman,” he muttered. He fed the check into the shredder and went back to work.
    His realtor called shortly before noon. “Hank, they rejected your counteroffer but said they’d keep the original offer on the table for another twenty-four hours. It’s a cash deal and they want immediate possession.”
    The decision was easy. “Take it.” She crooned her approval and hung up, anxious to lock in the deal before the buyers reached into their nasty bag of tricks and pulled out another one. The D.A.’s secretary buzzed him on the intercom. The D.A. wanted to see him soonest.
    “Soonest,” he muttered. He hoped he never heard that word again. “I presume this is about the staff meeting I missed.”
    “I’m afraid so,” she said. “Also, the Ninth dropped its ruling on the roving telephone intercept. You were overturned.”
    A mental picture of him bent over the goat seat with his bare buttocks being lashed by the D.A. flashed in front of him. “No problem,” he said. He turned to the office computer and started typing:
    Dear Boss ,
I quit .
     
    It was enough. He hit Print and dated and signed the note. He ambled down the hall to the D.A.’s office feeling good for the first time in months.

4
     
    6:00 A.M. , Saturday, April 10,
The Farm, Western Virginia
     
    The wake-up call came at exactly six o’clock in the morning. The woman sleeping in the bed next to Durant answered, handed him the phone, and walked into the adjoining lounge giving him privacy. “Good morning, Art,” Durant mumbled. He felt every one of his fifty-four years in the morning.
    “Good morning, Boss.” Rios had bad news. “I got a phone call last night from Agnes. She wanted your phone number. Naturally, I didn’t give it to her.”
    Durant gave a mental sigh. Art Rios was his most loyal employee, but sometimes he was slow. “Agnes, are you on the line?”
    “Yes, sir,” Agnes answered.
    “Art, please hang up.” He heard a click. “You sandbagged Mr. Rios, didn’t you?” It was an obvious question but Durant wanted to know if the computer would lie to him.
    “Yes, sir, I did,” Agnes admitted. “After we finished talking Wednesday, I tried to learn more about you.” There was respect in the computer’s voice. “Oddly enough, I discovered nothing, even when I forced the gatekeeper at the IRS. That really upset me so I audited the whiz kids. I do love them, don’t you? I overheard one of them say you are their employer, so I thought about that for a while. You’re more than that, aren’t you?” Agnes waited for an answer and when Durant remained silent, she continued. “Mr. Rios was the one person in the room besides you that I didn’t know. So I thought he might know something and tracked him down. Do you know how many Hispanic men there are in the world?”
    Durant laughed. “How many did you go call before finding the right one?”
    The voice became