Chapter 4
They sat down in the firm's cafeteria. Gunn was digging into his fettuccine with gusto. Wes ate his tofu pasta a little slower, commenting on Gunn's ideas about the Bradford case. They had been meaning to get together all week to discuss it.
When Gunn looked up and took a drink, he said "I'm glad you called me to have lunch. I thought this was never going to get done."
Wesley froze. "You called my secretary. She said you wanted to have lunch today. I didn't call you."
"I have your message on my machine, Wes. You called me."
Wes was up and running before Gunn finished his statement. He ran to the elevator banks, pushing a few people out of the way to get on. He barely contained himself while waiting to get to his office. When the elevator doors opened, he ran down the hall and flung the office doors open.
He was out of breath, his heat was racing. There was no one save himself in his office. He turned when he thought he heard something, but no one was in the hall. Going to his secretary's desk, he slammed his hands down in front of her. She jumped and looked at him with wide eyes.
"Who called to set up lunch with Charles?"
"Mr. Benson did. He said it was on Mr. Gunn's behalf. I…"
"Why didn't you tell me that?" He was yelling, attracting the attention of everyone in the hall. People were poking their heads of their offices to stare at him. "What are we paying you people for?" His voice boomed down the hallway and everyone promptly went into offices and shut their doors.
Wesley took the stairs to Will's office, two floors above his own. He didn't have the patience to wait for an elevator. He didn't knock.
Will looked peaceful, a little surprised at Wesley's intrusion. "What can I do you for, Wes?"
"What were you doing in my office?"
"Going through your personal files." He leaned back in his chair and gently put his hands on the arm rests. Wesley looked as if he didn't know whether to be shocked or furious at Will's honesty. He looked like he was going to lean towards furious.
"What the hell were you doing?"
"What the hell kind of spell took three witches, combined, that long to perform? I wonder what that was." The last statement was laced with sarcasm; he knew exactly what Wes had hired those witches for. He stood, now, his own anger rising. "What were you thinking? Wes, you could have…"
"Shut up, Will! I know the consequences! I would have done anything at that point, don't you understand? And I would do it all again."
"You're a fool. Now we have to fix this. Not just you, Wes, oh no. This is my problem now too. I'm not leaving you alone on this; you'll fuck it up even more. You've got no faith, that's your problem."
"Faith in what, William?" His anger had turned to grief quickly. Will understood what Wes had done and why, but he didn't approve in the least.
"We're going to fix this. Tonight. Tell Fred you're working late." He took a seat at his desk again and went back to papers in front of him.
Wesley was not used to being dismissed. He wasn't used to people breaking into office either. He suddenly knew what the employees Xander went after felt like. His anger was rising again. How dare Will order him around like that, he thought. He did he think he was? Wesley's superior, technically. Wes didn't fully admit that to himself, though. He didn't think of Angel as his boss either. He was an entity that operated out of Wolfram and Hart. He didn't answer to anyone.
Except Will, it seemed. And Will seemed awfully sure Wes could not handle this on his own. Wesley rebelled at that. Everything inside of him rebelled at that. Will did not know that he couldn't handle it. Suddenly feeling as if the world was turning against him and he was the only sane man left alive, he left the building. He was going to take care of this now, without that annoying ex-vampire.
He made his way to the elevator banks at the same time Will grabbed his things and ran to Angel's private elevator. Will hoped he would get to the ground floor before Wesley did. The elevator was nonstop, though, and the one Wesley was on was not.
Will watched Wes leave. He was standing a few feet away from the security desk, at the coffee stand. His back was to the doors, but he smelled Wesley passed him by. He knew he would do this. All the better, Will though, he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
Wes followed Will outside and got into a car he had at the curb. He watched Wes pull out of the garage and pulled out to follow him. He stayed a decent distance away. There were half a dozen cars in between him and Wesley, but with his superior vision, it was going be hard for Wes to lose him. He followed the ex-watcher North on Route 5, through Burbank. Wesley was sticking to the highway, which made Will's job of following him easier. He still kept a respectful distance, at times even switching lanes to make sure Wes wouldn't get suspicious.
Will continued to follow him onto 118. When Wes took an exit, Will continued to the next one. He pulled into the direction Wes would have to be and drove through the side streets. Wes's car was parked three blocks away from where Will was. He stayed in the shade, his sun glasses on. Throwing his jacket into the car, he rolled his sleeves up and started up the side walk. This was a suburban area in Ventura County. This was not where Will thought a trio of witches that had sustained a spell for almost a year would live.
He sniffed the air. Wes was on the other side of the street. He caught his scent on the wind, and followed it to a nondescript house on the corner. Wes was definitely in that house. Sneaking through the gate at the side of the house, he went to the side window. He could hear Wesley speaking with someone who was definitely not a woman.
The next sound he heard was a swishing sound. It was quick, harsh, like a zip sound but not. Will jumped when it happened. He knew what that was. He was around to the back of the house and through the door in an instant.
Wesley was standing over a body of an old man. The gun in his hand was still smoking. Will looked at the scene and knew Wes had just screwed up. The man's body was slowly changing into its natural form. A gnarled and grayish scaly skin replaced the pale white wrinkles.
"It's broad daylight. There are neighbors at home down the street. And he wasn't the source of your problems."
"He was the man I went to. He sent me to the sisters. He was going to…"
He grabbed the gun from Wes's hand and shook the man hard with his free hand. "He wasn't the source. And now he can't tell us who was. The note didn't come from here." They had to go. Will suddenly knew with certainty that they had to go. He shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants and pulled his shirt out.
"Go to your car, get in. Follow me. If you don't do as I say this time, I swear I will kill you."
Wesley knew Will was not exaggerating. He did as he was told. Following Will through the back door and over a fence in the yard, he made his way to the car in a round-about way.
Will snuck through empty backyards. When he came to the house that was occupied, he ran through the few feet in between houses and emerged behind a hedge. He walked behind the hedge a few feet, and then slipped through it and walked calmly to his car. He was still wearing his sun glasses. Pulling out of the street, he watched to make sure Wesley was following him. He got on the highway quickly and drove until they hit Glendale.
That was where he got out of the car and basically dragged Wesley into a small office building. They went in through the back door into an abandoned complex. The windows were boarded up and it was in dire need of a new carpet and a fresh coat of paint, but the building did not look like it had been used as a crack building or gang hall yet. It seemed fairly secure. Going into the basement, Will grabbed a black duffel bag and set it on the table. He put a matching bag next to it.
"Strip." He stood there, waiting for Wes to follow his command.
Wesley weighed his options. Will was going to knock him unconscious and strip him if he had to. He chose to stay awake for the day. Stripping to his underwear, he watched as Will put the clothes into a plastic bag and tied it shut.
"Now stay here. Don't move and don't touch anything." He grabbed a rag and a box and went out to the cars. People had seen them. Wesley was so much more careful when he wasn't panicked. The neighbors would identify the unfamiliar cars that had been parked on the street and the two men that had gone towards the same house a man had been murdered in. He wasn't much of a man anymore, but the cops would treat it as a homicide anyway.
Will put on a hat and gloves and pulled everything from the cars, proceeding to wipe them down. He cleaned the trunk inside and out, the tires, under the seats, the inside of the dash board. Everywhere. He wasn't going to make it easy for anyone to tie this to them or the company. After he had cleaned the cars, he went inside and hauled out a vacuum sweeper. He wondered how long he could keep Wesley done their, mostly naked, before the man started putting his prints everywhere.
When he was sure there were no fibers in either vehicle, he moved everything that had been in the cars into a box and took that inside. He made quick work of the plates, switching them to different plates that were registered to the same car makes and models. He would have to make a few phone calls in the morning to make sure those plates would check out.
Taking the box, which had the hat, gloves, old plates, and possessions in it inside, he went back to the basement. To Wes's credit, he hadn't moved the whole time Will had been gone. Opening the duffel bag, he handed him a set of clothing.
"Go home and change the minute we get back. Don't go to the office."
He changed into the clothes in the other duffle bag and pulled his phone out. He made a few calls. The cars would be in chop shops by the end of the hour. He took out a set of keys he kept hidden in a tiny locked box under the work bench and put the duffle bags in the box with the stuff from the car. There was nothing from either vehicle that couldn't be replaced. He dismantled the gun.
They walked outside in silence. A street away was a parking garage and in the lowest level was a navy blue Toyota Corolla. They got in using the key from the lock box and Will starting driving. He stopped at a funeral home on the way and went in with the box, sans gun parts and license plates. Those were in a bag in the backseat. When Will came back out, he didn't have the box.
It's good to have friends, he thought. He had thrown the box and belongings into the incinerator in the mortuary. Carl had looked at him funny, but he knew the undertaker wouldn't say anything. Wolfram and Hart had kept his son out of jail last year.
Will kept driving. They drove right through the city and on into Palos Verdes. Pulling the car over, he walked through the night air to the edge of the sea. He threw a few pieces of the gun that Wesley had used into the ocean. He threw them with all his might, and that meant they went pretty far.
Getting back in the car, they drove up the coast until they got to Redondo Beach. A few more pieces went to the sea there. The last pieces disappeared at Marina Del Ray. The license plates were slipped through a sewer grate on the street.
When Will finally got back into the car, he allowed himself to go off autopilot. He was mad. He was more than mad. He was going to have to save Wesley from himself, and Wesley wasn't going to make it easy.
Turning to his friend, he found that he just wanted to beat the crap out of him. Will would have to rebuild his secret holes, the one in Glendale was no good to him anymore. He would have to ditch the Toyota, too. And find a new parking garage. The list kept elongating and he kept getting angrier. He had never meant to use these reserves for something so stupid.
"Don't tell anyone. Not even Fred. Dunk yourself in whiskey and say you went out with me. If anyone at the office asks, you had business in Huntington Park. Use Roberts' name, he'll back you up. A long meeting about his aging father's will. And don't be stupid anymore."
He drove Wes to a bar in the city Will knew the other man had sometimes visited. "Go in, spill a drink on yourself, and go home. Fred's probably out of her skull."
Wes got out of the car silently and walked into the bar. Will knew this was going to be a long night.