Doug Corfe looked at Michelle across the desk in her office in the John Sloane Building in downtown Seattle. His decision to come here midway through Friday morning had been prompted more by desperation at the nearness of the weekend than by any clear intentions thought carefully through. Now that he had committed himself, it was important to go for the opportunity that the holiday presented; to pass up on it now would risk the appearance of fobbing Kevin off and of never having been sincere at all, which was something Corfe couldn't permit. After yesterday's experience, he hadn't been willing to just call and risk being asked to leave another message. This was something that he needed to put to Michelle face to face. That was about as far as he had taken things in his own mind. The rest, he'd more-or-less assumed, would fall into place once Michelle had the picture.
However, he could tell from her expression even before he had finished speaking that either he was putting the case badly or had picked the wrong timeor maybe the idea was just dumb. Whatever the reason, it clearly wasn't going over well. He stopped it at that point for a reaction.
Michelle spread her hands and looked from side to side, as if searching for words, then shook her head. "Doug, you can't be serious. It's just not on. We can't go breaking into another lawyer's office. I mean . . . it's just not something you can do. We'd be the ones who'd end up on criminal charges, with Garsten doing the filing. Then how would we ever be able to put a case of any kind together from that position? We wouldn't. Is that what you want?"
"What kind of case do we look like putting together as things stand?" Corfe answered. "You said there was no way to move without some kind of evidence of what these people are up to. Well, here's a practical way we might get someif any exists to be got."
"It's not practical. It's totally impractical."
"Well, I haven't heard too many suggestions from any other direction," Corfe said hotly. He knew as he blurted the words out that it was the wrong thing to say.
Michelle contained herself with a visible effort. "Excuse me, but I do have other clients . . ."
"And I have a close friend who stands to be killed. You don't seem to understand. That's what doesn't seem to get through."
"Doug." Michelle's tone was sharp. "You just show up here unannounced. I've had to shoe-horn you in between appointmentsthere's one waiting in reception right now. Why on earth didn't you call?"
"It's Friday, and this is the holiday weekend. If we're going to do it, this is the time. I left messages all day yesterday. . . ."
"I was out working on this very thing yesterday. Yes, I understand perfectly well how you feel, Doug. Do you imagine I don't feel it too? As a matter of fact, I've put a hell of a lot of time in on it this week, despite having a full schedule to begin with. Do you realize how complicated this is? I'm a business attorney. I deal in contracts. We're probably going to have to call a criminal lawyer in on this, to build a case against somebody's family lawyer. That isn't the kind of thing that lawyers take to easily. And the client in question that we're trying to protect isn't even being what you'd call a hundred percent cooperative."
This time it was Corfe's turn to be hit the wrong way. He heard it as if Michelle were trying to blame Eric. "Have you shown him the tape?" he asked challengingly.
"No, not yet."
"Why not? Tell him the whole story. Don't you think that might help make him more cooperative?"
"And don't you think that maybe he's going through enough at the moment as it is? Look, I had lunch with him on Wednesday with a view to broaching precisely this subject. But I hadn't realized how dependent he is psychologically on Vanessa. It just didn't strike me as the moment to go kicking that prop away too, after everything else that's been going on this week."
Corfe shook his head stolidly. "We're not in a situation where we can afford luxuries like that. He's got to find out eventuallyor not at all if we're too late."
"Of course he has," Michelle agreed. "But I'd rather it be at a time when he's in some mood to be receptive instead of showing every sign of being ready to start a fight over it. It was you who came to me and asked for help with this, Doug. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me handle it in my own way."
Corfe exhaled heavily and sat back. He was still prickly and far from satisfied, but it was equally clear that Michelle was not about to change her mind about anything just at the moment. Clearly, his coming here on impulse had done nothing to improve matters. But it had been something he'd needed to do at the time, as a safety valve. Michelle could very likely see that, but she wasn't showing it. The thought crossed his mind of how satisfying it would be if he went ahead anyway on his own, with Kevin, and they did manage to come up with something valuable.
"Okay, if you don't want to get involved, that's fine," he said. "Then I'm only going to ask you for one thing. Pretend I never talked to you, and just look the other way. If anything turns up that I think you ought to know about, you'll know about it. Is that acceptable?"
Michelle looked at him uncertainly for a moment or two. "You don't mean you're still going to do it?"
"I already told you, a very good friend of mine's looking to get killed. I'm not going to just sit around and do nothing. Nobody else is coming up with any ideas. We'll be okay. You enjoy your holiday." Corfe started to rise.
"We?" Michelle repeated. "You mean to include Kevin in this?"
"It was his idea, for heaven's sakehis and Taki's. How can I leave him out? Anyhow, it'll need at least two operators. Some parts will probably need a couple of mecs working together."
Michelle closed her eyes momentarily and sighed. "He's smart and a lot more mature than average, but he's still a kid, Doug. Do I really have to tell you that you can't go involving him in something like this?"
"He won't even need to be in the city. He can play his part from a remote coupler," Corfe replied obstinately. "Don't worry about it. We've already agreed, this isn't anything to do with you anymore."
"You do understand that what you're talking about is totally illegal?" Michelle said. "Even if you did come up with something, you'd rule out any chance of ever being able to use it in court. It would never be admissible as evidence."
Corfe paused at the door. "You're missing the point. This isn't for any court case. It's for Eric. We've both tried to make him take this seriously, but it doesn't do any good. Well, if it's going to need something like this to convince him, then okay, I'll risk it. Suppose something eventually did happen to him, and we still hadn't done anything. How would I be supposed to feel about that?" Corfe looked back, but Michelle couldn't answer. He left the office, closing the door behind him.
He crossed the outer room where a girl was typing at a screen while another took notes over a phone. Wendy, the receptionist, gave him a smile on his way out. A woman in a green coat and turban-shaped hat, looking impatient, was already rising to her feet as he passed through the waiting area. He came out of the main door of the Prettis & Lang offices and followed the corridor back to the elevators.
Well, he'd had to try, he told himself. He was still too charged with headiness and irked by the way the meeting with Michelle had gone to have any regrets. In fact, just the opposite: For the first time in days he felt resolved and purposeful. After almost a week of indecision and a debilitating sense of powerlessness, it came as a relief.
Compared to days gone by, people these days had become too passive, he decided. There had been a time when men stood up for their rights and took steps to protect themselves when they felt threatened. But somewhere along the line they had let themselves be turned into sheep, conditioned to dependence on impersonal authorities who as often as not were as impotent as they were indifferent. The thought of himself as somebody able to rise above such a situation was stimulating and invigorating. As he rode the car back to the ground floor, he felt a touch of the maverick quality that he sometimes sensed Kevin projecting into him. Good for you, for once, Doug Corfe, he told himself. Sometimes a man just has to do . . .
The day was gusty with squalls of rain sweeping the streets when he came out onto Fourth Avenue. He tightened his coat about him and walked a block to where he had parkedhe had borrowed Eric's van again, in preparation for the weekend. It was a restricted loading-unloading zone only for that time of morning, but he had escaped getting a ticket. He got in quickly, half expecting a uniformed figure to leap from one of the doorways before he could start the motor. Just as he was about to pull away, his personal phone rang. He put the van back into "Park" and fished the unit from his pocket.
"Hello?"
"Doug?"
"Yes."
"This is Michelle."
"Oh. . . . Hi again."
There was a short pause. Then a sigh came through audibly. "You two guys aren't going to have a clue what to look for in there. . . . Look, if there's absolutely no way I can talk you out of this insanity, then we'd better try and give it the best chance of coming up with something. You're absolutely certain there'll be no question of anybody going into the building in person?"
Corfe's brow furrowed, then lifted as he realized what she was saying. "Does this mean you're in with us?"
"You're going to need help. . . . Look, I can't talk now; I've got somebody waiting. Can you find that place called Chancey's, that we went to with Kevin?"
"Sure, I think so."
"I'll meet you there. Can you give me, say, forty minutes?"
"Okay . . . and thanks. But you're right. There's absolutely no way I'm gonna change my mind about this."
"I'll see you, then."
A meter warden came around the corner ahead and approached, peering to see if there was anyone in the van. Corfe shook his head as if to say not this time, smirked, engaged gear, and drove away.
"Kevin won't need to be anywhere near," Corfe said across the booth after the waitress had brought Michelle's coffee and left. "I'll borrow Eric's van and control everything from a block or two away after the mecs go init's fitted out as a complete remote-command center. Kevin can stay back at Neurodyne and couple in from there, using the lab transmitter and a unit in the van as a local relay. In fact, some of the Neurodyne mecs need special software routines that will only run on the firm's machines, so someone would have to be there anyway. The place will be empty tomorrow. I can drop him off there on my way into town."
"And what about Taki?" Michelle asked. "You said something about him being mixed up in this too. I don't like that, Doug."
"No. It was just that he and Kev together came up with this idea of using the mecs."
"So you're not planning on giving him a part in all this tomorrow?"
Corfe shook his head. "Aw, come on. Credit me with some sense, Michelle. This is our affair. I wouldn't go dragging some other family into it."
"But Kevin has already told Taki about it, obviously," Michelle pointed out. "Are you sure it hasn't gone further?"
"Kevin says not, and I believe him. He and Taki have got this special . . . 'thing.' I guess he needed somebody to talk to . . . like we all do sometimes."
Michelle sipped her coffee and ran over in her mind what had been said. "So when is Eric going up to Barrow's Pass?" she asked finally. "The last time I heard, it was still either tonight or tomorrow morning."
"Probably tomorrow, but that's okay. He'll leave by, oh, around ten at the latest. That'll still give me plenty of time to pick Kev up and go on into town."
"You're planning on doing this in the middle of the day, in broad daylight?" Michelle sounded dubious.
"The best time," Corfe replied. "Lots of activity and traffic. People about. Why wait until everything's quiet and risk being conspicuous? And in any case, it might not be so straightforward. We could end up needing the whole weekend for all I know."
Michelle thought it over one last time. Finally she looked up. "So I'd need to be where? In the van with you, I guess."
Corfe stared at her for several seconds. "Am I hearing this right? Are you saying you'll do it?" Despite it being the reason why he had come to her office, now that she had actually said it, he found it difficult to believe.
Michelle released a long sigh that acknowledged she was committed, at the same time shaking her head wearily in a way that seemed to say she couldn't think why. "I'll look at what's on the screens and make suggestions," she said. "I'm not sure I've had enough experience of driving mecs to be any more use than that."
"I understand that. But I wouldn't have asked more, anyway." Corfe laid a hand lightly on her arm as she started to look away. "And look, if anything does mess up, then you're out of it right there. If anybody ever needs to know, I'm acting strictly alone, on my own initiative. Kevin's back in the lab; you're out on the street. Neither of you had anything to do with it." He shook his head before she could say anything. "That's the number-one rule. This is my show this time, and I give the orders. I won't have it any other way."
Michelle started to say something, checked herself, and then nodded.
She picked up her cup again and went quiet as she ran over in her mind what would be entailed, searching for the snags. Corfe waited, saying nothing.
"Is this really going to be as straightforward as you seem to imagine?" she said finally. "For a start, what makes you think that Garsten will have obligingly left what we're looking for there in his computer for us to find? Lawyers are notoriously conservative people, Doug. They use paper and file cabinets a lot as well, you know. How is some little bug-size mec going to deal with things like that?"
"We've got larger mecs tooearlier models," Corfe replied. "You'd be surprised how powerful they can be at low speed. We use them for all kinds of tasks."
"But isn't getting larger ones like that inside going to be more of a problem?"
"How so?"
Michelle shrugged, frowning at the obvious. "You need to find a bigger hole," she said. "Or make one. We're getting closer to talking about breaking in again."
Corfe shook his head. "I don't think so. We've thought of a better way that won't involve anything like that at all. Or rather, Kevin did. For some reason it always seems to take a kid to see an obvious way of doing something. Why go looking for ways of trying to get them inside after the place is closed, when you can take them in while it's open?"