“You think it’s bugged,” McEvoy said.
“I think we need to assume, given what’s at stake in this case, that the opposition is desperate to know what we’re up to,” I said. “But let’s talk about that in my office. There are a few things I want to go over with you before we get further into anything.”
I held my hand toward the curtain and McEvoy started that way.
“Nice to meet you,” he said to Cisco and Lorna.
“Likewise,” Cisco said sullenly.
It was obvious that Cisco wasn’t convinced we needed McEvoy.
I walked McEvoy back to my office, which had been the dispatch room when the building was the operations center of a taxi company in the 1960s. After that, it was an artists’ co-op for half a century, and I’d bought it in a bankruptcy auction. The small room where I had a desk had an internal window that looked out on the rest of the warehouse, including the cage. It also had an old stand-up Mosler safe that was too heavy ever to be moved and a private bathroom with what appeared to be hundred-year-old fixtures.
I stepped behind the desk and pointed McEvoy to the chair on the other side.
“Have a seat,” I said as I sat down. “You asked about intrusion into the cage. We’re not so worried about that. I think we have that buttoned up pretty good, and one of us takes the external drive home every night. My main concern is bringing someone I can’t trust inside the wire.”
“Meaning me,” McEvoy said.
“Exactly. So I had Cisco spend most of the weekend running you down. I trust him and he’s very good at what he does. He’s been with me a lot of years, and he says you’re clean. He told me you even went to jail once for protecting a source.”
“Sixty-three days.”
“I’ve had days in jail too. Not fun. Anyway, before we go any further, I need you to sign a few documents that will make me feel okay about you being part of this and writing about it down the line.”
“Good. What do you want me to sign?”
I opened a drawer and brought out the three paper-clipped documents I had prepared Sunday while watching the football playoffs. I slid them across the desk.
“I’ve got a nondisclosure that’s pretty basic,” I said. “You can’t reveal anything you see or hear on this case until the trial reaches a conclusion by settlement or verdict.”
“Is settling a consideration?” McEvoy asked. “That would be anticlimactic. For a book, I mean.”
“Well, it’s not really my call. It’s my client’s decision, but she has turned down all offers so far because they don’t include what she wants more than money. She wants what I call a triple-A settlement: accountability, action, and apology.”
“I get two out of three. What action do you — or does she — want?”
“We want them to fix their damn product that got her daughter killed.”
“Right.”
I pointed to the three documents McEvoy had spread out on the desk in front of him.
“Then there is a personal declaration that you are not working in any capacity for Tidalwaiv,” I said.
McEvoy scoffed.
“Are you serious?” he said.
“Deadly serious,” I said. “This is my get-out-of-jail-free card. If it turns out you’re working as a double agent, this will get me a new trial.”
“Okay, fine. What’s the third one?”
“That’s about the book. I want to see the manuscript before you publish it.”
McEvoy was shaking his head before I finished the sentence.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “No journalist shows the subject of a story the story before it’s published. No good journalist, anyway.”
“You’re not a journalist anymore, Jack,” I said. “At least not here. You’re part of the plaintiff’s team now. I’m going to put you to work in the cage, and you will become part of the case. You’re an employee, and as your employer, I can demand access to and approval of work product. If you sign these documents, you will also be bound by attorney-client privilege, which extends beyond the verdict and judgment in this case. Both my client and I want to make sure you don’t violate that privilege.”
“Are you paying me?”
“Not now. When you sell the book, you get paid. Look, I’m not debating this. You want in on this case, sign the docs. If you don’t want to, let’s just shake hands and say it didn’t work out.”
McEvoy stared at the documents on the otherwise empty desk for a long moment.
“Can I have a lawyer look at these?” he finally asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I recommend it. But you’re not going in the cage until I have them signed and in the safe.”
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the Mosler in the corner. I did not tell him that the safe had come with the warehouse and was so old that the combination was lost to time and the locking mechanism was disabled.
“Fuck it,” McEvoy said. “Give me a pen.”
“You sure?” I asked. “You’re not going to be able to say later that I coerced you.”
I pointed up to the corner of the ceiling over the office door. McEvoy turned and looked up at the camera I’d had installed after taking over the space.
“Records sound too,” I said.
“Just give me a pen,” McEvoy said.
I opened a drawer and took out a blue felt-tip pen I used for signing contracts.
“I thought all writers carried pens,” I said.
“Well, I guess I left mine at home,” McEvoy said.
I handed the pen across the desk and watched as McEvoy scanned each page of each document and then signed and initialed where appropriate.
“Sort of ironic, isn’t it?” he said as he was signing.
“What is?” I asked.
“You making me sign an NDA while last week in court you were making NDAs sound like the instruments of corporate devils.”
“Yeah, well, that was in court. I don’t think we’ll ever get to court on this one.”
He finished signing the documents and slid them back across the desk to me. I squared them up in one stack and then swiveled my chair around to the Mosler. After turning the handle and pulling the heavy iron door open, I put them on a shelf that I assumed had once been stacked with cash for cabdrivers to make change with.
After closing the safe, I turned back to McEvoy.
“Welcome to the team,” I said.
McEvoy nodded and spread his arms wide.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“This case is going to be won or lost in discovery,” I said. “I want you in the cage. Work with Lorna. Tidalwaiv is hiding something in the redactions of the documents they turned over, I know it. If we find it, I think we win.”
6
I walked McEvoy back to the cage to leave him with Lorna. He looked at the stacks on the tables, all of them at least six inches high.
“Anyplace in particular you want me to start?” he asked.
“Lorna, which one is training and testing?” I asked.
“That one,” Lorna said. She pointed to the shortest stack.
“Start there,” I said. “Take notes. Look for flaws, look for shortcuts. Figure out what they’re hiding.”
“Sure,” McEvoy said. “Easy enough.”
I noted the sarcasm. McEvoy moved toward the table.
“Cisco, you’re with me,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Where we going?” Cisco asked.
“To see Rikki Patel.”
“You sure you need me?”
“Yes, Cisco, let’s go.”
I went through the copper curtain and headed toward the warehouse door. I registered Cisco’s reluctance as concern about leaving Lorna with McEvoy. I didn’t address it until we were outside and at my car. I looked at him across the roof.