The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller (18 page)

L
ast night I tore several pages out of the Hugh Grant playbook and went to Alice’s house to deploy some world-class groveling. I did just about everything but get down on my knees in the pouring rain, and believe me, if there had been pouring rain, that’s exactly what I would have done. I brought her some mediocre flowers to add an extra touch of charm to the performance. Of course I know flowers very well and could have easily gotten her a bouquet of rare saffron crocus, but that is not in keeping with my persona and would have aroused suspicion. Plus, the guys that win the girl in romantic comedies almost always have some kind of pathetic flower to represent the ragged soul that they need a woman to cultivate. Suffice it to say that Alice was moved by my performance and I won my way back into her good graces. And her bed, incidentally.

To really cure the meat, I’m taking her to a fancy lunch that she’ll feel outwardly guilty about because of my pay grade, but inwardly ecstatic about because I’m willing to throw down for her, even if my persona would realistically be living at poverty level. Ain’t love grand? It is, if I can get her to agree to help me get an in with Locke.

“You’re really pouring it on, John. You didn’t have to do this.”

It’s like magic, right?

“I actually want to talk to you about something.”

“You’re pregnant?”

She grins. “Try to be serious at least until the salads get here.”

“Okay. What’s up?”

“You may have heard a rumor about our boss recently.”

She smiles. Of course she knows about the wild west show that took place out at Bendini’s house the other night because I’m sure she has him under 24/7 surveillance.

“Watercooler chatter says he might be teeing off with the wrong foursome,” she whispers. “One of them tried to whack him over the weekend.”

“I was there,” I whisper back.

She’s legitimately surprised. Good. She didn’t know I was there.

“What the fuck? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I haven’t told a soul. I was taking him the Foster files we’ve been working on. He wanted me to bring them to the house because I was out of the office. When I got there it was like a fucking war zone. The whole thing scared me shitless. But what scared me more was Bendini. He didn’t actually say this in so many words, but I feel like he implied, very kindly mind you, that I should keep my mouth shut about this or I might piss off the wrong people.”

“Oh my God.”

“And now I’ve told you, so you better keep your trap shut.”

She’s feigning sympathy, but I can tell she’s charged up. This is huge for her case and it’s great for me because it will keep her sights trained on Bendini, so there’s no chance her investigation will fuck with my new orders to kill Locke. She’s dying for details.

“What did Bendini actually say?”

“All he said was that he has enemies. And thanked me for saving his life.”

“You saved his life?!”

My eyes dart nervously.

“Keep it down.”

“Relax. What do you think this is,
Three Days of the Condor
?”

“That is your first good movie reference since I met you. And yes, like in
Condor
I feel like it’s possible that there are eyes and ears everywhere. How do I know that the person who tried to kill Bendini doesn’t know who I am and want to whack me now as a witness?”

“You watch way too many movies, John. Jesus.”

“What makes you an expert?”

She starts to make a point but pulls back, catching herself. She is getting too comfortable with me.

“I thought about this a lot and I think I would feel more comfortable working for someone else in the firm.”

“I don’t blame you. Who, though?”

“Litigation interests me quite a bit. Maybe I could see about getting a post with Locke’s crew.”

“The dragon slayer? Are you a glutton for punishment?”

“I’ve heard he’s the best.” Spoken like a true bumpkin.

“He’s definitely the best, but his people are miserable. They look like zombies. The joke around the office is that they never take lunch because they’d just eat each other.”

“Sounds perfect. Can you get my foot in the door?”

“Maybe. A girl I know from law school works in his department.”

This makes me laugh because Alice is trying to get me to climb aboard her own version of the Bullshit Express.

“But you do realize you will piss off Bendini to no end if you do this, right?” she warns.

“Yeah. I just want to get on the right path for my career.”

That really sounded like a nervous white yuppie. I am scoring regular guy points like a son of a bitch.

“Makes sense. I’ll see what I can do.”

A
fter lunch, I walk into my windowless closet of an office and it’s completely empty. The place was wall-to-wall files when I left it. Now it’s just white walls. My computer is gone as well, along with all of my personal stuff. I take a breath and try to process this. I know I’m a total fucking plebe, but this is ridiculous.

While I’m standing there with my dick in my hand, my door shuts and locks behind me. I reach for the knob. There is just a keyhole. Presumably, the person on the other side has the key that was never issued to me. But that is neither here nor there because the person on the other side more than likely is planning to kill me. If you think about it, this room is a perfect death trap. I am on the second floor, which has a handful of these types of offices but mostly serves as a giant storage floor for office furniture and file archives. So it’s quiet and I rarely see other people here. Also, there are no escape routes. Unlike the other floors, this floor only has one stairwell access door and one elevator—the service elevator. You literally have to use the fucking service elevator to get to this floor. Which is why they love putting interns here because it’s dark, lonely, and reminds you every moment that you’re lower than a boiler room roach in the firm’s food chain.

I can hear someone outside the door, but he’s whispering to another person. They are moving quickly, and I occasionally hear
their heavy footfalls on the old wood floors near the elevator. I look around my shit box office. I can easily kick the door down, but that is ill advised, as they will have it covered. Chances are, they sent a scout to make sure I was here and alert the rest of the team to move in. If I’m lucky, I have thirty seconds to move. Door is out. No windows. I know what you’re thinking. Ventilation shaft. Well, guess what,
Mission: Impossible,
there’s a twelve-inch HVAC duct crammed in the corner on the floor. I doubt I’ll be crawling into that to escape CIA headquarters.

Then I notice the tiny space between the bottom of the far wall and the edge of the 1950s-era kitchen carpet. The wall it shares a corner with has the same thing, but it’s harder to see because of the quarter inch of filth piled up on the carpet. These are floating walls, and they were thrown together to make this room private. Of course none of it is up to code, and that is my saving grace. I hear more hushed voices outside moving down the hallway. Got to make a move now. I pull my knife and quietly shove it into the drywall on one of the floaters. It goes in easily, as these walls are paper-thin. I cut a large cross in the lower part of the wall to score it. Voices getting closer. I shove the heavy metal desk as hard as I can into the wall. As expected, it disintegrates as the desk smashes corner-first in the middle of my cross. I hear someone shouting, but my adrenaline is roaring in my ears like a freight train. I don’t have time to pull my ankle piece and I can’t find my knife. Must have fallen out when I picked up the desk. Fuck it. I dive through the ragged hole in the wall and leap to my feet, ready to throw down.

Motherfucker.

It’s not a team, waiting to pump a thousand silent 9-mm rounds into me and wheel my body parts out onto Central Park South in a hot dog cart.

It’s Alice holding a bottle of champagne and two janitors with all of my stuff.

“What the hell is your problem, you freak?”

“Jesus, I . . . what the hell is going on here?”

“You made associate. I came down to help you move your shit. The boys upstairs are waiting to buy you a drink.”

She laughs. The janitors are not amused. I’m amused by the irony, which is now thick enough to qualify for fat camp.

“Sorry. Claustrophobic.” I give them a sheepish grin.

She takes my hand.

“Come on, weirdo.”

We leave the janitors staring at the drywall explosion. Next thing I know I’m sipping champagne in my new office on the fifth floor—with a
window
.

“Of course, you are still my bitch.” Alice smiles.

“Of course.”

Bendini walks in and shakes my hand vigorously.

“One million dollars in back fees? Unheard of. You, my boy, are a one-man wrecking crew.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Everyone else thought you were some kind of goddamned hick. But I knew. I could see it in your eyes. You have the right stuff, kid. Congratulations!”

“I couldn’t be happier, sir. I want you to know that I’ll work hard to live up to—”

“Cut the horseshit, son. Let’s have a drink.”

His troll of an assistant appears out of nowhere with a thick stubby bottle of expensive Scotch and pours us all a glass.

“To this young man’s bright future,” Bendini toasts.

I know this is
The Intern’s Handbook,
but I am no longer an intern. I am a junior associate at one of the biggest law firms in New York. If this weren’t the worst possible thing that could happen to me as a contract killer, I would be pretty damn proud of myself. Conceived in a petri dish of despair, birthed from the loins of a
brain-dead junkie with a third-grade education, raised by vermin abusers, pedophiles, smack dealers, and all manner of welfare system bloodsuckers, and adopted by a homicidal jarhead. By all rights, I should have been dead long ago or at least institutionalized. And look at me now. You’ve come a long way, Dumpster baby.

And you know what? I’m going to enjoy it. Now at least before I end up a corpse or a prisoner, I’ll have a claim to fame that has nothing to do with being responsible for a majority of the high-profile murders that have taken place in Manhattan in the last decade. I’m legit, yo.

After Bendini leaves, Alice settles beside me at the window. I actually have a decent view of the street and the edge of the park. She taps my glass with hers.

“Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.”

“This is your wake-up call, Buddy,” I say with a smile.

“I guess Bendini owed you one.”

“Yep.”

“Still want to try to lick Locke’s tasseled loafers?”

“No, I think I’ll be fine here, thanks.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts, because I’m going to be gunning for you.”

She means what she says, but she’s not saying what she means.
Gunning
is a great choice of words. For the first time, I’m kind of glad she thinks I’m a loose cannon that she can’t seem to put a finger on. It’s making this whole thing more fun all of a sudden. Especially since I’m gleefully chucking the rulebook to the wind. I think it’s fun for her as well. I just moved up a notch from someone earning her casual interest to a potential player. I touch her ass, just to see if she’s going to close up the candy store. She touches mine back. Good. No sense letting work get in the way of a great lay.

That night I decide to pretend all of this is real and enjoy the fruits of my labor. After shopping for new suits with Alice (on Bob, of course), we have dinner at an expensive restaurant that seems
to be perfectly designed to annoy the shit out of me. But I am not annoyed. I am half drunk, somewhat on booze but mostly on power. I have a beautiful woman on my arm. And I can tell that she is fully immersed in her fake self as well. All is right with the world as we slip into the high-thread-count bliss of hotel sex. And as we drift off to sleep, I tell myself to remember this because I’ll need a happy memory when it all blows up and leaves a bloody mess.

United States Department of Justice

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Washington, D.C. 20535

Location: Flatiron Hotel, Manhattan

Subjects: John Lago and Alice (censored).