Disclaimer: So guy and dolls, here it is. I got no claim to any part of Numb3rs or any of the Numb3rs characters. I'm saying so cause I ain't lookin' to get rubbed out by the lawyers. Know what I mean?
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"Charles, missing? No, no, that makes no sense at all. Charles is very devoted to his students and to his work. To think he would just walk away from either is completely illogical. No, no, no." Dr. Larry Fleinhardt , Professor Eppes friend and colleague at the California Institute of Science, (CalSci), tut tutted fretfully.
Colby Granger and David Sinclair, on the CalSci campus trying to pick up a lead to Charlie Eppes's whereabouts, started their search by interviewing his closest friend and colleague. According to Amita Ramanujan, that person was Larry Fleinhardt.
Watching the eccentric Professor move about his cluttered office, dividing his time between two different blackboards and Granger and Sinclair, Colby couldn't help but smile. Fleinhardt was absolutely an odd duck. A brilliant theoretical physicist and cosmologist (Colby had to look that last one up), Larry Fleinhardt seemed to be the definition of an absentminded professor.
"Are you certain he's not attending a conference or on university business elsewhere?" Fleinhardt questioned. The furrows in his brow were deep enough to plant in, Colby observed.
"Dr. Fleinhardt, you're his closest pal. Wouldn't he have told you if he was going to be attending a conference or symposium?" David asked.
"Well" Larry countered, embarrassment very obvious, "It…actually it's possible that he did and I've forgotten. Let me think for a moment." Then he did just that, eyes closed, right hand cupping his chin, forefinger tapping his lips.
"No, no…I'm quite certain Charles said nothing to me regarding any plans to be away, quite certain. Have you spoken to his family?"
"We haven't had a chance to do that yet, Dr. Fleinhardt" Colby answered. "Sir, how much do you know about Professor Eppes personal life?" Maybe the quirky scientist could shed some light on the missing man's possible movements.
"Charles is a very private person. He doesn't speak much about his life away from CalSci. Although, in recent months, his behavior has altered somewhat. I believe there may be a young lady involved. If so, I've never met her and don't even know her name, but it is a distinct possibility. I'm sure there must be some very simple explanation. I'm positive Charles would never simply abandon his responsibilities." He stopped speaking, the unfocused look in his eyes growing. Picking up a piece of chalk, he returned his attention to the two separate formulas he'd been scribbling at when Sinclair and Granger had arrived. Ultimately throwing up his hands and then steepling his fingers, he turned to David and Colby with an exasperated sigh. Helplessly, he asked, "Do either of you young gentlemen remember which of these equations I was working on?"
Granger chose at random. "Uh, I think the one on the left, Doc."
"Really?!" Fleinhardt appeared even more confused. "Hmmm." Larry stared hard at the indicated board.
The two PI's left completely unnoticed.
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Borrowing Charles Eppes spare office key from Larry Fleinhardt, C & D's next stop was the missing professor's own private CalSci space. Leafing thru the stacks of student papers and lesson plans amid the indecipherable equations on Eppes's own cluster of chalk filled blackboards, Colby commented to David.
"Dr. Fleinhardt, he's, uh, some kinda case for the head doctors, huh?"
"Yeah, he's different alright. Why do I get the feeling, though, that he fits in around here just fine?" Sinclair answered.
Colby nodded. Both he and David had taken a liking to the flaky little man.
The office they were in now was as overrun with papers and belongings as the one they'd just left. Surveying the mess, Granger hoped Charlie Eppes was a heck of a mathematician. It took him and David almost ten minutes of pawing thru the prof's written world to merely scratch the surface. Work submitted from the students in Eppes's classes, (by some of the comments scribbled in the margins, Colby could tell a few of Dr. Eppes students might be repeating the course) mingled with proposals from co-workers and official notices from the head of the mathematics department. The two searchers worked in silence, chipping away at the paper mountain.
Suddenly, David Sinclair inhaled sharply. He stood, holding an eight by ten photo in his hand. Looking at Granger he asked "are we being used for a couple of patsy's here?" He handed the picture over.
"What do you mean?" Colby accepted it. He studied it, understanding once he saw, what had provoked the other's reaction.
Amita Ramanujan 's description of Charles Eppes made it easy to pick him out of the photograph. A head full of dark, curly hair topped a friendly open face. Dark eyes, a strong nose and a mouth that looked like it did a fair amount of smiling rounded out the description. Obviously taken some years past, this Charlie Eppes was too young to be a college professor. In fact, he looked to be a teenager. An undergrad photo then. Colby could see enough of the background to deduce the location. Princeton University. Professor Eppes was in the center, with a blonde woman to his left and a man to his right. All three were smiling, but Eppes looked a little uncomfortable. It was an ordinary enough picture except for one thing. That thing was what had brought the angry look into David's eyes, he knew. It made Colby's eyes narrow too. Hanging above the heads of the trio, a banner printed in bold lettering proclaimed proudly COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Hold the phone. This didn't just change a lot, it might just change everything.
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"But Pop, Why a fireman? Why do you want to be a fireman so bad?" Eleven year old David Sinclair asked his father, confused. David wanted very much to understand his father's passion. He wanted to understand why his father would be willing to endure the incredible hardship that would come with becoming one of only a handful of Negro firemen hired by the city of New York.
His father explained, "because it's a profession of honor, son. A job a man can hold his head up about. It's been a dream of mine since I was your age. I know it'll be rough. I know most of the white ones won't want me there. Some of 'em will do whatever they think they have to do to keep me out. But it won't work. I'm comin', and there ain't nothin' they can do to stop it." David saw the quiet determination burning in his father's eyes, and his pre-adolescent chest swelled with pride.
Facing hellish odds, the elder Sinclair dealt with every obstacle on the path to his ambition with that same whisper soft resolve. Racism, intimidation tactics, threats, exaggerated requirements, highbinder officials, and even pleas from his frightened wife failed to sway him. Eventually it appeared nothing stood between David's father and his being allowed to don the uniform of a New York City firefighter.
Then the communists started coming around. They wanted to organize the workers in the factory where David's dad worked while he waited to be hired by the city. The party members recognized David's dad as a leader among the labor force and courted his support. Mistrustful of their motives and disagreeing with their politics, he wanted nothing to do with them. He also recognized the danger they represented to his goal of becoming a fireman. Unfortunately, the harder he tried to distance himself, the more persistent they became. Their pursuit of his endorsement didn't go unnoticed. Not by his fellow Negro workers, by the owners of the factory, or by the union busting, anti-communist thugs hired to break up the budding labor movement. By the time a series of bloody street confrontations resulted in ten dead, fifteen wounded, thirteen factory workers, including Sinclair being jailed, and the Party member's banishment from the scene, the damage was done. David's father saw his bid to become a fireman, on delicate ground as it was, ultimately rejected. He blamed the communists. So did David. The boy felt his father never recovered from the blow. When Malcolm Sinclair was killed six years later, after the roof of a burning warehouse collapsed on him as he was trying to rescue a trapped friend, David knew his father's thwarted dream lay at least partially behind the death. He never forgave the communist union organizers for their role.
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From that time on, David Sinclair had no use for Communists. They could all jump in the Atlantic and drown trying to swim to their Russian "worker's paradise" as far as he was concerned.
And here was Professor Charles Eppes, the man C & D's lovely client was so frantic to locate, practically drinking out of the same bottle with the reds. At least it looked that way.
"What do you think?" he asked his partner, still struggling to control his anger.
"I think I didn't almost get myself killed fighting Nazi's to come home and help out the Commie's" Colby answered. After another moment he continued. "I also think there might be an explanation for this picture, and maybe we ought to hear it before we jump to any conclusions. Besides, Eppes ain't our client, remember?"
David nodded, conceding the point. "Yeah, you're right, he's not. I think we need to have another talk with Miss Ramanujan."
"Um hum" Colby locked eyes with the "D" half of the team. "It do appear there are a few details she might have left out. I don't think we're gonna get anything else here anyways." They left, Granger digging out the keys to his green Ford Deluxe.
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Amita Ramanujan lived in a fading part of L.A. Still with a measure of character and class, its residents were a mixture of families, single and couples apartment dwellers and small one owner businesses. It clung tenaciously to its dignity while enduring the slow slide into one of the seedier parts of the city.
Colby and David pulled up to the building where she kept an apartment, taking a gander before getting out of the car. It didn't look like the type of neighborhood where a man could end up with a roscoe in the face, but neither was in the mood for surprises, so they were careful.
Granger opened the door and had one foot on the bricks when he and David witnessed the beautiful woman who'd hired them coming out of her building unexpectedly. She wasn't alone. A pair of goons accompanied her, showing her what looked like an awkward kind of respect. One of 'em actually opened the back door of the Cadillac parked in front, closing it behind her like he was some swell's chauffer. Mystified, Sinclair and Colby followed as the big car took off.
Fifteen minutes driving found the PI's parked a block away, watching as the gleaming black automobile pulled into a private garage. Once more affording the lady the same peculiar respect Colby was pretty sure these galoots had never shown before to a dame in their lives, one of them extended a hand, assisting Amita out of the back seat. The Ramanujan woman and her unlikely escort crossed the street to their destination.
Cruising slowly past where the woman and two men entered in, Colby swore softly, while David's clenched jaw and grim expression spoke for him. What had they gotten into when he accepted this case, the young former army lieutenant wondered? Amita Ramanujan and the two thugs with her had gone thru the front entrance of the Sterling Room, a ritzy nightspot owned by Lou Morelli, a stone killer and the most powerful mobster in California.
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Every time Amita stepped thru the door of Lou Morelli's office, she wondered if it might be the last time she was seen alive by anyone other than Lou or his henchmen. If she might not end up getting taken for a ride because her usefulness to the gangster had finally come to an end. For her sake, but more importantly, that of her parents, she held on, trying not to dwell on the precariousness of her position in the Morelli organization.
The Sterling Room had needed a singer and Amita, the Los Angeles born and raised daughter of Indian immigrant parents needed a job to earn money for graduate school. Peddling her fabulous pipes and exotic beauty, she'd wandered into the Sterling not knowing the pedigree of its proprietor, and become trapped like a fly in a spider's web.
She'd thought her worst problem was fending off Lou's unwanted advances. Until the night she met Charlie Eppes. Recently hired as the youngest professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Science, (CalSci, he'd informed her shyly) Charlie was lonely, adorable and ripe for the plucking.
Morelli discoved Charles Eppes government connections , and the ruthless gangster pounced. Ordering his torch singer to cozy up to the vulnerable, relationship innocent professor, Lou Morelli intended to exploit the liaison in as many ways possible. Once he'd wrung the sucker dry, Amita's fear was that she and Charlie would both get the long good night. Afraid for not only herself and the man she had fallen in love with, Amita also trembled for the fate of her parents, held captive by Morelli to ensure her compliance.
Charlie's disappearance had enraged the mobster and worried the lovely singer for many reasons. Her desperation to find him led her to the door of C & D Private Investigations. The two PI's had to find Charlie. They just had to. And soon. She wasn't sure how long Morelli's patience was, but she knew it was running out.
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"Knuckles" Lamone, frowned, chomping down on the stub of his well chewed cigar. With nothing else to do until they got further orders from Lou, four of Morelli's bone breakers passed the time cheating each other at poker. Knuckles was a Brooklyn transplant. He'd called it quits with school at around the 6th grade. About the only book he'd bothered to crack in his brief academic career said something about young men headin' West. He thought that sounded good, so, he had. Eventually, he'd wound up working for Lou Morelli. He wasn't allowed to light his rope in the club. He wanted to, so bad he could almost smell the smoke. He liked this type of stogies. He thought they was easy to get and economicable. But no, the boss said they stank up the joint and the songbird insisted they irritated her throat. Knuckles eyed his dwindling pile of cash and pouted. The game was suddenly interrupted.
"Wheeehoo!" the drunk hurtled into the nearly deserted nightclub, careening into one of the white linen covered tables full force, knocking its high quality crystal stemware and silver place settings askew.
"I telled Junior this here place was the cat's meow and we oughta git ourselves a eyeful afore's we go back home! I telled him, but (hic) he was 'fraid to come in and take hisself a look see! He gon' be powerful (hic) sorry he missed (hic) his chance, yessiree bob! HIC!" The unsteady fellow grinned crookedly, giving the surprised foursome a liquor exaggerated wink, as if letting them in on the joke. He fell into another table, upsetting it as well.
"We ain't open. Get outta here! Go on, beat it!" Knuckles rumbled irritably, getting to his feet. He prepared to toss the lush back out on to the street before the whole club got destroyed. His calloused fists, the last thing many of his victims saw before lights out, backed him up.
"Come on, plur, poup, po', (hic) give a thirsty fella some (hic) relief, why doncha!?" The soused gatecrasher bellowed, pounding the top of the table, from the looks of him, the only thing holding him upright. Spying an advertisement of the Sterling Room's attractions, he became even more animated.
"Hey, is that pretty little (hic) filly there a gonna be singin'? Cause I'd purely admire to hear that, (hic) I'll be tellin' ya! I surely would! Trot 'er on out and let's git a tune goin' right now!" the loud, unwelcome visitor demanded, whacking the table again.
"I said go climb up your thumb, hayseed!" Knuckles punctuated his statement by grabbing a handful of the drunk's collar and jacket in one hand and a chunk of belt and pants in the other. Hefting the irritant towards the front door, he heaved the man out of the club with one thrust of his massive muscles. To drive his point home, he gave the object of his wrath a kick to the ribs as the man lay dazed on the concrete.
Howling in outraged pain, the would-be patron balanced shakily on hands and knees, watching the hefty goon's retreat to the building's interior. Once alone, however, the man's impaired state miraculously dissolved. He got to his feet with athletic grace. Without a trace of his prior fumbling around, he made his way to the alley behind the nightclub to his parked car. One hand did a quick check of his abused rib cage.
About the same time, David Sinclair returned from his own foray to the Sterling's backrooms. He slammed the cracked trunk lid shut and tossed the crow bar he'd extracted from it and used to pry open the storeroom's door into the automobile's backseat. With Morelli and his goons involved, he might need to get to it quick.
"So, what's the dope on Ramanujan?" he asked.
"Would ya believe she's the canary?" Colby answered, wry twist to his mouth. He started the car and put it in gear.
Inside the club, the commotion had attracted the attention of none other than Lou Morelli himself.
"What's goin' on out here!? I 'm in the middle of something! I expect you to keep it quiet!" he thundered. Behind him, Amita Ramanujan, looking distressed, sat shaking.
"Nothin' boss" Knuckles responded hastily. "Just some drunken bum. I took care of it! He ain't gonna be back."
"He better not be" Morelli responded, his voice dripping with ominous promise all around should Knuckles be wrong. Going back into his office he slammed the door.
The four thugs traded an uneasy glance and resumed their game, Knuckles still losing.
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Granger's Deluxe hummed to a stop on the quiet street where Professor Charles Eppes lived with his widowed, semi-retired city planner father Alan. The ride over had been silent as a church. Their client, Amita Ramanujan worked for Lou Morelli. C & D was jammed up. Until they could figure a way out, they'd keep working the case, trying to think of an angle that could give them the bulge on the powerful mob man.
"You think all she does for Morelli is sing?" Sinclair asked his partner as they looked over the house, making sure no one was home and considering the easiest way in.
Colby shrugged. "Who knows? I mean she acted real concerned for the Professor, like she was genuinely worried or something. It could have been a put on, but if it was, she oughta be in Hollywood, making pictures." He nodded for David to follow him around to the home's more secluded rear. The back door of the Craftsman style home proved to be but a slight impediment, and the two were soon inside.
"You take upstairs, I'll look around down here" David suggested. Granger indicated his agreement and started up the carved stairs. The missing Charles Eppes had to have left a clue to his whereabouts somewhere.
If anything, Colby was thinking fifteen minutes later, the office the professor kept in his home was more disheveled than the one at CalSci. Stacks of student work, past and present, plus more of the mathematics genius's own theories and calculations were everywhere. The doc's university office must have been the despair of the cleaning staff. Colby doubted Eppess and his father had a housekeeper. Any self respecting cleaning woman would have taken one look at this chaos and run screaming into the night, never to return.
The PHD's desk yielded an interesting fact, albeit one Granger wasn't sure what to make of yet. A manila folder lay at the bottom of a drawer that should have been locked but was not. Inside the folder were schematics for some kind of elaborate security system. Hand scribbled calculations crowded in and around the designs made it difficult to know what the blueprints were for. Whatever it was, there were a lot of them. The file was nearly an inch thick. Leafing thru the documents, Colby found some of the pages bore a U.S. government seal. The professor was involved with the government? That didn't go with the photo he and David had seen earlier. This case was getting crazier by the second. Maybe C & D oughta fade before they ended up get blipped off. Nah, he let the thought die a quick death. They'd taken the case now they had to see it thru to the finish. He replaced the file and went on to one of the bedrooms. Nothin' doin' there or in the other one either. Maybe David was having better luck. He started back downstairs.
"Not much up here to go on, although I did find something interesting. I'm not sure what it means yet but it could help." Colby listened for Sinclair's reply but heard nothing. The house wasn't that big, he knew David heard him, why didn't he say anything?
"David, did you hear what I said? Hey man, where are you? You still here?"
He reached the end of the hallway and started down the steps, curious at his partner's non responsiveness. Halfway down, he stopped, finally understanding Sinclair's silence.
An angry looking dark haired man motioned him down the rest of the way with a gun. Granger moved slowly. Whoever the mystery man was, he knew how to handle a heater. The firearm didn't waver.
At the bottom of the stairs, the gunman grabbed Colby by the scruff of his jacket, slamming him face first against the wall, rattling pictures.
"Sorry, they were on me before I could warn you" David Sinclair apologized. A second armed man had David spread eagled on the floor, the man's foot pinning Sinclair's head to the rug covered wooden floor.
"Did I say you could talk?" David's captor snarled, pressing down slightly. David grunted in pain.
Colby felt the gun in his back shift to his ear.
"Who are you? The dark haired man hissed. "Where's my brother? What are you two doing in his house?"
What?! The professor had a brother? Ramanujan hadn't mentioned a brother, just a father.
Granger's attempt to turn his head to answer displeased his questioner. With a forearm the man banged Colby's face into the plaster. Seeing stars, the PI could taste the salty tang of his own blood.
"Don't make me ask you again!" The gun cocked.
"I'm trying to answer you!" Colby rasped thru clenched teeth. "Me and my partner, we're private investigators. We don't know where your brother is! We were hired to find him! I got, aaauuggh!" he winced as his arm was twisted, "I got ID in my pocket!"
Throwing him to the floor beside Sinclair, his attacker indicated for the second man to move back slightly and cover both intruders. Bending over Colby, the man claiming to be Charles Eppes's brother proceeded to go thru the investigator's pockets until he located Granger's wallet.
"Hired, by who?! By who?!" the Eppes brother demanded.
"By your brother's girlfriend" David answered instead of Colby. "Amita Ramanujan. She hired us to find him. She's worried, hasn't seen or heard from him in a few days!"
"You're lying! Charlie doesn't have a girlfriend. He's too wrapped up in his math and theories and teaching to get involved with anyone!"
Swell, Granger thought. This belligerent and furious man didn't believe them.
"It's the truth! We ain't stringin' you along. We're just doing the job we were hired for, trying to find your brother. His lady friend, she's a singer in a club!" Colby didn't think it would be a good idea to mention which one with the business end of a gun staring him in the face.
"So you're gonna keep lying to me, huh?! We'll see how long that lasts. Get up, both of you!" the professor's brother ordered, stepping back far enough to allow Colby and David to get to their feet.
"Where to, Don, back to headquarters?" Eppes's backup asked.
"Yeah, Coop, we're taking 'em in. Let's see if they still want to keep playing this little game once we get a chance to grill 'em good." Don Eppes smiled coldly, extracting a pair of handcuffs from his belt.
As he pulled back his coat, Colby could see a gold badge clipped to the man's belt. On it were the words Federal Bureau of Investigation. Granger groaned under his breath.
First their client is in the employ of the state's most notorious gangster, then the prof might be a commie, and now his older brother, his really angry, suspicious, worried older brother turns out to be a G-man. Next time a good looking broad walked thru the door of C & D, Colby was gonna toss her out on her keister.
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No matter how he turned his head, the blinding lights of the interrogation room followed Colby Granger's eyes like blowflies on a stiff. He'd always supposed the buzzers "sweating" a confession under hot lights was something the movies made up. Wrong again. Six hours of unrelenting pressure by FBI Special Agent Don Eppes had shown Colby he could be wrong about a lot of things. Little things like being not guilty of doing anything criminal actually making a difference. Especially when the person demanding answers was the brother of the guy you were hired to find. And that brother was a federal flatfoot to whom you were a total stranger. A total stranger that federal flatfoot had caught rummaging thru said brother's house. After you'd broken in. Yep, Granger could see how all that might add up badly for him and David.
Colby guiltily considered his partner's predicament. David was trapped in another interrogation room, experiencing the tender mercies of Agent William Cooper. Periodically, Granger could hear shouting and banging coming from next door. It was his fault Sinclair was in the soup. He should have given Amita Ramanujan back her century note and told her to beat it. Pretty little kitten like that, he shoulda known she was trouble.
Don Eppes hammering the table with the flat of his hand brought Colby's attention back to the present.
"You've been sticking to the same lame story since I laid eyes on you! When are you going to start telling me the truth?! Huh! When?! I'm going to find my brother and I know you can help me do that! This weak line about being hired by some non- existent lady friend of his wore itself out hours ago! Shackled to a chair, Colby could only flinch as the FBI agent put a foot in his subject's chest and pushed the chair over backward. Colby's head hit the concrete floor.
"Ow! Ah!" the PI yelped painfully, the air knocked out of him. Eppes wasn't finished. Getting down to Colby's level, the agent leaned on Granger's chest with a knee.
"You know we checked on this Ramanujan woman. She works for Lou Morelli! You expect me to believe my brother would be involved with a woman who works for that gangster! Charlie wouldn't even know where the Sterling Room is! I know you and your buddy in there are trying to shine me on and I'm sure you got some kind of connection to Morelli! You better start being straight with me!"
"We… are…. being… straight… with you! Have been… all along!" Colby insisted angrily, fighting to breathe. The combination of hitting the floor and having one hundred fifty pounds resting on his lungs compounded the problem. "We're just private investigators hired to do a job! We got no ties with Lou Morelli. David and I, we only just found out Ramanujan sings in his club! We only went to the house looking for a lead! That's it, that's all there is! I can't tell ya anymore 'cause there's nothing else to tell!"
The door to the interrogation room opened before Don Eppes could react to the statement. Cooper motioned Don out into the corridor. Waiting with Cooper were David Sinclair, looking somewhat the worse for wear, and a man Don Eppes loathed on sight. Otto Ramsey, Lou Morelli's star mouthpiece.
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At a hundred dollars an hour, Otto Ramsey was one of the most expensive attorney's Morelli dirty money could buy. Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Police department and the FBI, he was also effective. Despite their best efforts, neither law enforcement agency was ever able to pin anything concrete on the mobster. Every time charges were brought against him, Ramsey's legal expertise would have Morelli walking out of custody, sneering at the cops, Cuban cigar clenched in his teeth. Of course, the newsies were always there to record the law's latest humiliation.
"Gentlemen" Ramsey oily voice was laced with condescension. "This inappropriate badgering of my clients is at an end. You've kept them here for hours, illegally, I might add, against their will. You've yet to charge them with anything. You've spent hours brutally browbeating them. They've done nothing wrong. Committed no crime. I've made arrangements for their release. Effective immediately. I want Mr. Granger unchained from that chair so that he can accompany myself and Mr. Sinclair" Ramsey indicated David with a nod of his head. The lawyer withdrew papers from his briefcase, pushing them into Don's face with a flourish.
Yanking the pages out of Ramsey's manicured hand, Don saw a writ for the release of both Granger and Sinclair. He couldn't let that happen! No way were these two walking out of here, pricey shyster or not. It wasn't happening! They were the best clue he'd had to Charlie's whereabouts in almost a week. They had to know something and he believed they were on Morelli's payroll. They wouldn't be the first private dicks to do work on the side for some criminal scum. They had to be lying about the woman. He and Charlie had a sometimes prickly relationship. His brother didn't always tell him everything, but if Charlie had a girlfriend, a torch singer in a nightclub, Don told himself he'd have known about it. Wouldn't he? The two men he and Billy had spent the last few hours trying to yank the truth out of had to know something! And he was close to it! He had to be! He didn't have anything else to go on, and their dad, Alan was frantic to find his youngest son! So was Don. He and Charlie might have their differences, but he loved his little brother. If anything had happened to him… He couldn't just let these two walk out! Ramsey was the proof that they were working for Morelli, no matter how much both denied it! He couldn't just let them go! He crumpled the writ in his fist.
"They're not going anywhere!" He yelled in Ramsey's face, nose to nose with the barrister.
"I afraid they are, agent!" Ramsey responded, taking two steps backward, with a supercilious expression. "That document you're holding says they are. There's not a thing you can do to prevent it."
Eppes tossed the paper to the floor. "You think I care about some piece of paper from one of Morelli's pet judges …" He didn't get the chance to go on. William Cooper interposed himself between Don and Ramsey.
"Don, we don't have a choice, partner! We gotta spring 'em, at least for now! We don't have a choice!" he physically backed the other agent away from Otto Ramsey until Don's back was touching the opposite wall of the hallway. "I know you want to find Charlie. I want to find him too, but getting on the wrong side of a judge ain't the way to do it, pal! Come on, trust me! I've never steered you wrong before have I? We'll find Charlie! He's gonna be okay when we do, but right now we have to let 'em go. Trust me, Okay!?" Cooper knew how to handle his explosive partner. How to calm him down.
Don hung his head, chest heaving, trying to get control of himself. He knew Coop was right but… "Yeah, it just…I…they… never mind. Taking a key from his pocket, he freed Colby Granger's hands and feet.
Climbing stiffly to his feet, Colby gave the federal agent a look that was part hostility and part challenge.
"We're telling you the truth. David and I are just trying to find your brother, and we don't work for Lou Morelli. That's the straight dope!"
"Yeah, sure it is!" Don replied sarcastically. "That's why Morelli's number one shark just swam up and chewed thru your restraints! Get outta my sight before I forget myself! Go on, scram, both of you! I'll be seeing you again soon enough!" He turned his back.
Colby waved his hand in Eppes direction with disgust. Stupid fed. He looked to David.
"You alright?" He noted the bruises Sinclair now sported. He supposed he didn't look much better. And his chest was sore.
"I'll live. I've been hit harder by my sister" he told Colby, casting a contemptuous glance at William Cooper.
"Ummhumm" Ramsey cleared his throat, getting their attention. "Gentlemen, Please, come with me. We can collect your belongings and be on our way."
The man's toothy smile reminded Colby of a satisfied crocodile.
"Not so fast." David spoke up. "We're not your clients. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we can go, but we didn't hire you. Why should we go anywhere with you? 'Specially seeing as how your real client is somebody we'd rather avoid"
"Please, Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Granger. I assure you all your questions will be answered in very short order. But for now, we really should go. Please, follow me." Ramsey was quietly insistent.
"Let's get out of here! We can sort it all out later" Granger said. They claimed their valuables and were soon standing on the stone steps leading to and from the federal building. At its base, on the street, sat the same long, black Cadillac Amita Ramanujan had ridden in earlier. Two of Lou Morelli's thugs stood next to it, one holding the door open.
"Allow me to offer you a ride, gentlemen." Otto Ramsey gestured towards the car's interior.
"I don't imagine we have a choice" Colby answered, eyeing Morelli's killers warily.
Ramsey's crocodile grin only expanded. He said nothing more, indicating the car once more.
With a shrug Granger and Sinclair climbed in, followed by Ramsey and Morelli's men. The car zoomed off.
Don Eppes and William Cooper came out of the building in time to witness Colby and David's departure. Colby turned as the limo pulled away, looking out of the car's rear window. He saw Don Eppes malevolent glare following them. It wasn't over with the feds. Not by a long shot.
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