Thursday, February 8th:
Wilson Fisk prided himself on being a careful man. With rare exceptions, he never made a move without planning way ahead, and a bunch of advisors who would give him information on the best course of action. He always took realistic stock of his situations, calculated odds, and unlike the heads of other organizations, he actually made his plans have contingencies to ensure that they'd go off without a hitch. Seldom was he ever thrown off-balance by the unexpected, since his contingencies usually contingencies of their own.
A perfect example of this had been when Daredevil was going after his various allies. Fisk and Wesley had initially decided to take a very hands-off approach, wherein they'd let the Ranskahov brothers deal with taking out the masked man since their organization was the one he was focused on. Fisk would only step up if the Russians couldn't handle him. Except Anatoly had had the nerve to interrupt Fisk's dinner with Vanessa after another setback involving some nurse named Claire Temple. While Fisk was aware he hadn't been thinking straight when he removed Anatoly's head with his car door, he and Wesley found a way to spin the setback to his advantage. He had to prevent Vladimir from retaliating and he needed Daredevil gone. So he'd had the men who delivered Anatoly's carcass to Vladimir plant a black mask on it. End result, Vladimir and Daredevil would end up fighting one another and both would be so occupied that neither was prepared for Fisk to set off the bombs that destroyed the Ranskahovs' bases. And just to be absolutely sure that the Ranskahov syndicate was eradicated, he had the corrupt NYPD officers on his payroll go into the buildings and shoot any survivors. The only things that Fisk hadn't been able to account for that night had been Daredevil finding out about Detectives Blake and Hoffman murdering that stooge in custody, stealing Blake's phone and using that to locate Vladimir, Blake surviving getting shot by the sniper, and Owlsley subsequently scooping up Hoffman as a bargaining chip after he'd finished what the ESU sniper had started.
The same could be said for his multilayered trap for Matt Murdock. It couldn't have been simpler. The nurse was supposed to inject Murdock with a needle, drugging him. The sedatives wouldn't take effect right away, but Murdock would then stumble into a riot orchestrated by the guards and inmates in Fisk's pocket and get shanked in the confusion. It would be a perfect cover for the death of a blind man. But Murdock proved he was more than just an ordinary blind man. He managed to avoid getting drugged, and fought off Fisk's hit squad like no man he'd ever seen before. And he'd managed to make it out of the prison intact. While Fisk hadn't considered it likely that Murdock would make it out, he'd had a backup plan readied on the off-chance that he did escape. While Murdock had been getting information from Vic Jusufi in the prison, Casey had forced Murdock's cab driver to drink two bottles of cheap whiskey at gunpoint, then bludgeoned him to death and stuffed his body into the passenger's seat well. Then, upon Murdock's exit from the prison, Casey drove the cab into the river.
To an untrained eye, it would seem that poor Matt Murdock had a very bad streak of luck that morning: he'd gotten caught in a prison riot, escaped, only to end up in a cab driven by an intoxicated cabbie who took a few wrong turns and drove into the Hudson. People might ask questions for a few days, but they'd eventually move on.
And Casey had succeeded. Murdock was finished. Now it was time to attend to his allies who were working with him to take down Fisk. There was his reporter girlfriend/partner-in-crime Karen Page, who had been with him poking around at Fisk's security looking for weak spots. There was also his former law partner Franklin Nelson and his girlfriend Marci Stahl. They seemed to be making moves of their own against him. With one threat to his business out of the way, it was time to take swift action to eradicate Murdock's allies.
That was on Fisk's mind as he made his way down to his secret war room at 7:15 that morning for a meeting with Felix Manning.
"Good morning, sir," Felix said, nodding as Fisk entered the room.
Fisk nodded, imperceptibly. "How are we with the Izqueda matter?"
"Yes, sir," Felix nodded, "Izqueda has been left exactly where we offed him. We had to shoot two of his men for trying to draw on us, but...the surviving two have been told to spread the word of what you'll do to those who say no."
The message will ring very clear. "And the Carbone deal?"
"Unlike Izqueda, she happily accepted all of our incentives," Felix said. "A stake in the docks, access to our operatives if she ever needs them, and of course, she'll pay our protection tax to get those, plus our federal immunity."
Good. "How are we with the others?" he asked. Carbone had been scratched off. She was a good start. Without Izqueda, though, Fisk needed a few more organizations paying into the tax to keep the operation feasible.
"Sherry Yang and the new head of the Tigers are scheduled to parlay with me tomorrow night," Felix resumed. "I'm having a hard time getting Hammer, Carter, Zyl, or Starr to consider our offer, so we are probably going to have to ask Hattley to grease them a bit. I'm thinking a coordinated mass kidnapping will be in order…"
Fisk nodded.
"Anything else?"
Felix bit his lip and hesitated. He was unsure how best to break the news to Fisk that Matt Murdock probably was not dead. His contacts in the NYPD had informed him that the taxicab Casey had used to drive Murdock into the Hudson had been recovered just an hour ago, as the sun rose. The original driver's body was found floating inside the car, but Matt Murdock's corpse was nowhere to be found. In Felix's world, one never counted someone as dead unless you had a physical body in front of you. And if Matt Murdock was still out there, odds were that he was going to double down on his attacks against Fisk's organization. That could certainly explain the answering message that Karen Page had left for him at Red Lion Bank last night, asking for an interview with him. Felix had strong suspicions that Matt had been the one to put her up to that. He purposely decided he wouldn't tell Fisk about that, preferring to handle that matter by himself.
Even moreso, Felix had been tipped off by that morning's edition of the New York Bulletin that Foggy Nelson, Matt's former law partner, had decided to join the district attorney race as a write-in candidate. The article mentioned that he was doing so with the explicit purpose of calling to public attention Blake Tower's refusal to indict Fisk at a state level. Felix had a bad feeling Matt was out there and still very much in touch with his allies. The only small comfort was that they had a way to spin this to their advantage. Felix knew everything about what Karen Page had done in Fagan Corners, Vermont, and he also was a participant in the arranged fraud that Finney had tricked Foggy's brother into committing. The former could probably just be discredited, and the latter could easily be used to get Nelson to drop out.
In a perfect scenario, Felix would just break the bad news to Fisk and that would be the end of it. But he knew that Fisk had it in for Matt and everyone who was helping him expose Felix's employer. It was very unlikely that he would just calmly accept that the man who threatened to separate him from Vanessa was still out there. Which it seemed was going to happen as Felix felt Fisk's piercing stare.
"You know, when someone takes this long to answer, it's not usually a good indicator that they're about to tell me good news," Fisk said coldly.
Felix's mind was blanking on any possible excuses he could come up with to delay telling Fisk this little hiccup.
"We may have a problem," he finally said, lamely.
"A problem?" Fisk raised his eyebrows. Just cut to the chase, goddamnit.
Felix bit his lip and shifted his feet. "Our friends in the NYPD say that the automotive conveyance by which Mr. Williamson was able to discard Matthew Murdock was fished out of the Hudson about two hours ago," he said.
"Is Murdock dead?" Fisk asked, sounding hopeful. If the blind man was dead, he'd be one happy guy. One less person who could get between him and Vanessa. He turned away from Felix and stared at the monitor displaying his feed of the FBI's surveillance room. It was just Dex and Lim on duty right now.
It might have been a little too soon to get his hopes up, given what Felix said next. "There is no corpse," Felix said, shaking his head.
Fisk's relief was quickly replaced with frustration. Matt Murdock isn't dead?! He curled his hands into fists and clenched his teeth. Matt Murdock was still alive. And probably coming for him.
There is no corpse. That irritant blind-but-maybe-not lawyer was still out there. It shouldn't matter. Fisk figured that while he might not have succeeded at literally killing Murdock, he hopefully had succeeded metaphorically. Murdock had to know now, that he and his girlfriend and his associates were in way over their heads. But with him managing to escape the cab, Fisk knew better. Murdock wasn't like an annoying itch you're trying to not scratch, he was more than that. And now, Fisk felt his apprehension increase, realizing that Murdock was less a man without hope...and more a man without fear. But alas, Murdock hadn't yet shown his face again. Which means plenty of time to take down his associates.
"There's. No. Corpse," Felix repeated, thinking Fisk was zoning out.
"I heard you," Fisk snapped, annoyed at Felix for interrupting his train of thought. He turned around to face his fixer. "Need I remind you, Felix, that I do not tolerate loose ends." The only reason I'm not asking anyone else to "step up" and take your place is because you're the only person I trust with protecting Vanessa.
"Yes, sir," Felix answered meekly. Fisk could tell that his consigliere was as stunned as he was by the events that had unfolded at the prison. Felix took a deep breath, and decided to try softening the blow. "…But the body was probably just swept away in the current," he tried suggesting, "Even if Murdock somehow escaped from the cab, how does a blind man swim to shore?"
"Does this look like a blind man to you?" Fisk asked. He directed Mrs. Shelby to pull up the security tapes in the exam room on the big wall of monitors, and played back the footage of his loyal inmates and guards getting their asses kicked by Matt. "That looks like the Devil of Hell's Kitchen."
Earlier that night, Fisk had come downstairs to the secret command center and played back the footage from the prison riot. Watching it on a loop, Fisk thought something was familiar about the way Murdock fought. It seemed eerily reminiscent of Daredevil's fighting style. On a hunch, he'd had Mrs. Shelby pull up the security camera footage of Daredevil beating up Officer Corbin and his colleagues after the bombings, and put it up side by side with the prison footage. He saw Murdock and Daredevil executing very similar moves. There seemed to be an awful lot of traditional boxing in both men's fighting styles, but there was also a bit of various martial arts forms mixed in there too. Between the two videos, and recalling what he witnessed himself when Daredevil was fighting Nobu at the docks, Fisk had come to a shocking conclusion: Matt Murdock and Daredevil were one and the same.
It was kind of obvious when you stopped and thought about it. Daredevil's masks were designed in such a way as to completely obscure his eyes, meaning that the average joe would not realize that the wearer was blind. The timing of Matt Murdock and Daredevil disappearing so closely together on the night of Midland Circle's collapse, and both last being seen in the presence of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, suddenly made sense too: he must have been trapped under the rubble and spent the last few months recovering somewhere off-the-grid.
Despite having learned who Daredevil really was, Fisk had opted to keep that information to himself. He figured that it was information that should only be given out on a need-to-know basis. The fewer people who knew, the more he could maintain plausible deniability if necessary. This information was too valuable for anyone else to trust, with the exception of Felix.
"We investigated him thoroughly," Felix insisted, "His associates. Medical and school records all check out. All confirm that Matthew Murdock lost his sight at age nine in a car accident involving a truck carrying toxic chemicals."
"Yes, nevertheless a man capable of that could have survived," Fisk nodded in agreement, "But he's threatened to come between Vanessa and I. And he has that reporter, Karen Page, assisting him." And if he's alive, then he's not going to just give up.
Fisk contemplated his options. Matt Murdock and Karen Page were actively investigating him. They'd poked at his security here at the hotel the other day. And he knew from Donovan's visit two nights ago that the couple had also spoken to Agent Hattley, and she'd told them everything about the deal, about Vanessa. Murdock had gone to the prison to talk to the Albanians. And the fact that he was still alive…Fisk knew better than to not think Murdock had found out about Jasper Evans.
But he could hold off on retiring Jasper. For now, Murdock was missing. Karen Page was presumably going to be preoccupied with finding her lover. It might be a while before they located Jasper. Which left one last person to deal with.
"What about his former law partner?" Fisk asked abruptly. "Franklin Nelson?"
Felix seemed caught off guard by Fisk's change of subject. He sighed, prepared to break this other sprinkling of bad news to his client.
"I'm glad you mentioned that," Felix said, pulling out that morning's copy of the New York Bulletin, which he was carrying under his sleeve. "Take a look at this."
He handed Fisk the paper. Fisk slowly felt his anger surging as he took in what he was seeing. The front page was plastered with a courtroom photograph of Franklin Nelson from an extradition hearing for Luke Cage. The photograph was headlined, "Nelson To City: Indict Fisk."
"Seems that Mr. Nelson is running for District Attorney as a write-in candidate," Felix summarized the article. "Our contacts on the force say that he spoke to an assembled group of officers at their union hall yesterday afternoon."
"Running for District Attorney," Fisk mused. "I never considered Mr. Nelson to be the kind of person who would run in a political race." A thought entered his head: had Nelson ever participated in a campaign before? "…has he?"
Felix shook his head. "No, he hasn't. Not to the best of my knowledge," he said. "I doubt he's ever going to come close to costing Blake Tower the primary." He paused.
"What does he mean by this?" Fisk asked, pointing to the "…indict Fisk" subtitle in the headline.
"He got the NYPD police union to back him by citing how the Feds we own are refusing to break their loyalty," Felix said. Fisk lifted an eyebrow. "…Well," he backpedaled, "Not in those exact words."
"Where is he now? Is he going to be talking to anyone else?"
"He'll be doing interviews at a couple of the local stations today," Felix answered. "Our contacts in the media say he's going be on Thembi Wallace's show this morning, and Christine Everhart's got a bit with him scheduled on WHiH this afternoon."
Fisk couldn't believe his luck. Nelson was naïve. He'd decided to run for District Attorney to unseat him. Boy, that was a pretty boneheaded move. He had a life that could be spun to paint him as a devious criminal. His brother had cooked his books to get a loan to save his butcher shop. His best friend and former law partner was secretly a blind martial artist whose style of fighting suspiciously resembled Daredevil's. His girlfriend Marci Stahl was a former employee of a law firm that was in Fisk's pocket, and his new boss Jeri Hogarth had her skeletons in her closet, if Felix's investigators was to be believed.
It made Fisk realize that now was a perfect time to use his leverage over the ambitious lawyer. The fact that Nelson was doing TV interviews meant no one would think anything was strange. Candidates, especially newcomers like him who'd never run for office even once before, were always subject to more scrutiny. All he'd have to do was whisper some juicy gossip in the right peoples' ears, and Nelson's campaign could be dead in the water. No one would take him seriously.
As Fisk stood there in silence, another idea came into his mind: he could use this leverage he had over Nelson to help advance his other plans. Nadeem was 100% under his control by now, and this would certainly be a nice distraction to keep him out of the way. Fisk had all of the other agents in the hotel working for him, with the exception of Nadeem. This was by design, as the deal needed to be with an agent who had absolutely no blemishes on his record, and this also ensured Nadeem could be the fall guy for any FBI mishaps that inevitably happened. Distracting Nadeem with a snipe hunt would be the only way to ensure that Fisk could focus fulltime on swinging Dex's allegiance to him.
On top of that, Fisk was feeling like the penthouse was kinda sterile. It made him feel very uncomfortable, to the point he wanted to fast-track the return of all his personal possessions from wherever the feds were holding them. While he might not be able to re-obtain "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" from that Esther Falb woman quite yet, he could probably use his dirt on the Nelsons as bargaining power to leverage Nadeem for the return of everything else. That included those fancy three piece white suits that he'd had custom made for him. Before prison, he'd always worn a crisp black suit every day to the point it felt like a uniform. Switching to his white suits in conjunction with the return of his furniture would make this place actually feel like a home and less like a prison.
"Sir?" Felix asked.
Fisk looked up at Felix. "Get me Mr. Donovan and Agent Nadeem," he declared, "It's time to send the Nelsons my regards."
"It'll be done," Felix nodded, "Anything else?"
Fisk nodded. With the impending attacks that the former members of Nelson & Murdock were posing to his affairs, he needed to accelerate his plans for getting Dex into the fake Daredevil costume, in order to discredit them. Given how long Melvin Potter had been making Daredevil's armor, it wouldn't take too much time or effort to fast-track a replica for an imposter. "Inform Mr. Potter to get the suit ready..."
It began to occur to Karen that she had some kind of addiction to Matt. She didn't know what exactly was causing it. Was it his natural good looks? That must have been part of it. Foggy had once told her that Matt was always a bit of a lady's man in law school. But she wanted to believe it had more to do with the strengthening of their bond that they'd formed in the last few days, since he'd come back from the dead and they'd teamed up to take down Fisk. Disclosing hard truths to one another may have further helped. Still, that didn't change the fact that since Monday, they'd made love four times. Part of her figured that she'd need to rein it in, otherwise she'd probably die before the end of the week.
That part was not the one that was in control right now, as Karen was immersed in riding Matt, small sighs escaping her every now and then. Her hands, still braced on his chest, burned his skin, causing him to groan her name in sweet agony. She rode him like there was no tomorrow, rode him like her life depended on it, rode him until he was drained and completely spent, a hand wrapped around her throat.
As they lay in bed afterwards, basking in the afterglow, Matt stroked her hair, and gently ran one hand up and down her back. Karen had transformed his life. Just weeks ago, he wouldn't have imagined being in this position. He had no hearing in his right ear, he was completely at the end of his rope, he didn't know if he would ever go back to being Daredevil again. Was it, as he'd said to Sister Maggie two days ago, God's gift that the price to pay for regaining his full hearing was Fisk getting released from prison? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact was that he'd made a choice that night at Riverbank Medical Center to reach out to Karen and seek out her help. Judging from how she seemed eager to have sex with him when he first approached her in his apartment—well, their apartment now—he wondered if he should have told her sooner that he was alive and well. She seemed to be coping well with the knowledge of what he'd done, and was very forgiving of his choices regarding Elektra. Learning what she had done to her brother and Wesley had helped even more with that; she'd provided him with a third party prospective on how destructive some relationships like the ones he'd had with Stick and with Elektra could be.
Similarly, Karen was watching Matt's face, wondering what exactly he was thinking about. He was softly smiling now, happy and relaxed. Those beautiful sightless eyes might not know what she looked like, but he understood her better than anyone else in her life did. Better than her dad, her brother, than Foggy, than even Frank, Ben or Ellison.
For breakfast that morning, they decided to break from what they'd been doing the last two days. Matt chose to stay behind to make coffee while Karen ran out to grab some chocolate pastries from the bakery down the street, as well as a print copy of the New York Bulletin. When Karen grabbed the paper off the newsstand, she was greeted with a very pleasant sight. There was Foggy's handsome face plastered on the front page. It was accompanied by the catching headline "Nelson To City: INDICT FISK." She couldn't help but smile. I was right, Foggy. You DO look like you belong in a 1920s television show about bootleggers, like that HBO one that had an IRA guy who vaguely resembles Matt.
"Can I ask you something?" Matt asked as they began digging into their pastries.
"Yes, Matt?" Karen looked at him, innocently.
"Did something happen to you last night?" He had been a little bit worried last night by the suddenness with which Karen had pinned him up against the wall and expressed an eager desire to have sex with him. She seemed unusually aggressive. It reminded him a little too much of Elektra and the sparring-turned-sexual-foreplay sessions he'd had with her.
"Last night?" she blushed. "Um, no."
"It's just…" Matt paused, trying to find the right word. "…the instant I came back in, you didn't seem interested at all in hearing what I found out about Felix Manning. And the way you came onto me like that…it was like sex was the only thing on your mind."
"So?" she shrugged. "I like you, Matt."
Matt made a face at her. Her demeanor changed rather abruptly. She sighed, and took another sip of her coffee. "Okay, well, uh…" she bit her lip and glanced at her heels. "…while I was walking from the D train over to my FDIC contact's house, I saw these three guys who were harassing women."
"Harassing?" Matt asked.
"Catcalling," Karen said, "If you want to be technical. I saw them leering at and ogling women, calling them ugly names."
"Did you call the cops?"
Karen rolled her eyes. She'd known better than to think that the cops would be able to do anything about a bunch of guys loitering out on a stoop throwing insults at women. They'd probably just lie about what they were doing, and there'd be no proof of what they were doing in the absence of video evidence. The only way anyone of them would have gotten locked up would be if one of them had gotten physical with someone and that person had pressed charges. "I decided to test to see if they were scared of .38 caliber lead," she said in an unusually calm voice. She cringed at how formal she sounded, like she was talking about purchasing something at the supermarket and not getting aggressive towards a bunch of people who weren't even hurting her.
Matt looked at her alarmed. "You did what?"
"I didn't shoot them!" she said, getting defensive. "I did cold cock their leader across the face twice with the butt end of my gun, though. He'll live."
Matt relaxed. Good, Karen didn't just go out and kill three people for hurting her feelings.
"Did you get to talk to your contact with the FDIC?" he asked, changing the subject.
Karen blinked. "Oh! As a matter of fact, yes! Yes, I did!" she said, brightly.
Matt smiled. "And?"
"Felix Manning isn't just Fisk's right hand man," she explained, "He's also his money launderer at Red Lion National Bank."
Matt sat there, letting that sink in. Felix Manning was clearly even more of a weak link than he'd expected. It would've one thing if he was simply a underboss who relayed orders from Fisk to his capos and the button men underneath them. But this guy was handling his money, too. Fisk was clearly putting a lot of trust in having one man serve the joint roles of being his underboss and a co-consigliere. Though, knowing the man's tendency to have spares on hand, Matt also knew it was wrong to think Fisk was trusting just one man with so many important responsibilities, and didn't have others who could replace Felix if he got compromised in any form.
"He's…managing Fisk's money?" Matt asked.
"Yup," Karen said, "That's all my contact was willing to tell me."
"You didn't bother asking her more?"
"I would've asked more, but she was kinda irritated at me showing up at her place uninvited like that," she grimaced.
"Oh."
"He's not doing it alone, either," Karen added. "He's got another guy aiding him, a man named Stewart Finney."
"Really?" Matt brightened.
"Even better," she said, smiling, "He's a former inmate who did time with Fisk."
Matt nodded. They had the name of someone besides Jasper Evans who had done time with Fisk, who could maybe testify to the sorts of crimes that Fisk had been involved in.
"Tell me more."
Karen filled him in on what she'd found on Stewart Finney. From his youth in suburban Pennsylvania to to his time at Harvard, he showed signs of being a very talented kid. He took advantage of every scholarship that came his way, securing the best education possible, and then some more. He was a mortgage analyst at Manhattan Trust while still in his twenties. But then he made a deal that crossed someone whose brother was in a very influential position in the Justice Department, and he ended up locked up in Rikers in 2011, where he met Fisk in 2015.
Matt knew that Fisk had an eye for talent and those who would be loyal to him whether through bribery and/or intimidation. And he found one with Stewart Finney, arranging his release from prison and getting him a job at Red Lion Bank, securing his loyalty.
"Any family?" Matt asked.
"None," Karen shook her head, "Just his live-in girlfriend, a lawyer by the name of Kendra Byrnes. She's an associate at Donovan's firm."
"And now he is handling Fisk's money," Matt said, "And living like a king, or as much of a king as living in Brooklyn can get you."
"That's about it," Karen said, "I doubt he's going to give up his lifestyle without a fight, especially if Fisk is using his girlfriend to keep him in line. We have to push him or find something on him that makes him willing to give Fisk up. Given he trusts Fisk, and they met in prison, I doubt he has plans to go back there."
She sighed. Time to let Matt speak. "What about you? How did your spying on Felix go last night?"
Matt lightened up, relieved to now have a chance to discuss what he'd learned. "I think I know what Fisk is planning here," he said.
"Really?" Karen brightened. If they knew what Fisk was planning, they could reformulate their strategy towards derailing him. "What is this plan?"
"He's running a protection racket," Matt said, "With the help of FBI and federal prosecutors on his payroll, Fisk seeks to become the sole source of government protection for all criminals in the city."
Karen felt her breath hitch. "So the FBI are working for Fisk," she said, "Whoop-de-freaking-do." The fact that Matt had found evidence Fisk was paying people in the FBI was not a promising sign, as it meant that he had the influence to easily target his enemies as he saw fit. Which was a frightening prospect for Matt and Karen, given that Fisk now knew or at least suspected that Matt was Daredevil. The FBI were pretty relentless at what they did, and they were probably less fond of Daredevil than the NYPD were. It also did explain why no one in the FBI was questioning the decision to place Fisk in a hotel that he secretly owned.
"Yes," he said, lowering his head. "It's like he just traded one law enforcement entity for another."
"…So who was he meeting with?" she asked, filing away the "corrupt FBI" bit. Let's deal with finding agents willing to speak out against Fisk later.
"Felix is meeting with various gangs from all over town," Matt said, "I heard him mention that he's having a summit with the Tigers and the Hatchets on Saturday night."
"You should give Danny a call," Karen suggested, "He's dealt with them before." She still had fresh memories of the entire case surrounding Danny and Colleen's involvement in stopping the triad war just the other month.
"Danny doesn't know shit about Fisk," Matt countered, "As for who Felix was meeting last night, he was negotiating with Rosalie Carbone. She's a crime boss from Harlem."
"Carbone." The name tickled Karen's memory. Why does that name sound familiar? Wait…Karen snapped her fingers. "Hang on a second," she said. Matt listened as she began rifling through Ben's old research files that she'd brought home with her from the office on Tuesday night.
"She's the daughter of Julius Carbone, I think. That's one of the mafiosos that was in Ben's files," Matt added.
"It was." Karen dug up the file containing the research on Julius Carbone. "Wait, it wasn't in this...oh wait! Here it is. Julius Carbone was the founder of the Carbone crime family back in the 70s," she flipped through the contents, "Originally started as a capo in Rigoletto's crew and was responsible for recruiting Fisk, like Silvio said. Then he took over Harlem by brute force. He was locked up in the same FBI sweep that caught Rigoletto and Mazzuchelli and all those other bosses."
"How exactly did he die?" Matt asked. "SIlvio said he was hit by a train."
Karen quickly flipped to the newspaper clipping regarding the elderly Carbone's death. "Says here he died by falling in front of a 3 train on Lenox Avenue in October 2012, a week before Hurricane Sandy. Probably why no one gave it much attention."
"He fell in front of a train?" Karen could tell from his tone that Matt didn't buy the official story.
"That's what it says here," she said, turning around to face Matt. "Of course, knowing this guy and his sources of revenue, it's more likely he was pushed."
Matt nodded.
"You think Fisk was behind it?"
"I think he was," he answered, "Probably for the same reason Rigoletto was taken out. He knew about Fisk's secrets. And that's a good thing because we have an opening to disrupt Fisk's operation."
"How?"
"We get her to turn against Fisk," he explained.
"You think we're going to get a grown mafia princess like Carbone to flip on Fisk?" Karen asked, in disbelief. "I doubt that's ever going to happen. She's hardly going to violate omerta."
"I know," Matt said, casting a grim smile, "I tried that last night, when I spoke to her. Attempted to convince her Fisk would cut her off eventually. Didn't work out. So I had a different idea." Sensing Karen staring at him, he took a deep breath. "We get word to Rosalie Carbone that her father was murdered on the orders of Fisk. Rosalie may be pragmatic, but I think if she hears that her father did not accidentally fall in front of a train, heads could roll. I think that sort of action is mandated by omerta as well."
"Break up the Carbone-Fisk alliance," Karen realized. "Cost him a major client."
"Pretty much," Matt said. "It gets even better: she's got some Russian partners in Brighton Beach she wants to bring into the scheme. She'll be meeting with them tonight at a place called the Heart of Gold. I'm not sure if that's a club or something."
"So that's three parties that could be persuaded to turn against Fisk," she said.
"Exactly."
"But," Karen said. Matt could tell there had been a 'but' coming. "Matt, these are full on gangsters with lots of access to high-power weapons and muscle."
Matt sighed. "I want her to do something that forces Fisk to instigate a response against her. Then, while he's busy dealing with a little war against his businesses, we seek out and bring in Jasper Evans, get him on record saying he got paid by Fisk to shank him, and boom! We get him on conspiracy to deceive the FBI, and they'll have no choice but to send him back to prison."
Karen thought about it. Matt had a point that offering Fisk a distraction to delay his inevitable elimination of Jasper Evans would be a smart move. She just didn't know if a gang war was the right sort of distraction, given the propensity for innocent victims to get caught in the crossfire. "Are you sure this is the best option, Matt? I mean, we provoke Fisk and Carbone into fighting one another, there will be bodies in the streets. Innocent people will be in danger."
Matt sighed. These are desperate times, and those call for desperate moves. "That's a risk I'm willing to take," he said. "Fisk isn't just a criminal. He's a monster. And after yesterday's events at the prison, that's the only way I think we're going to be able to defeat someone like that."
After a while, Karen said, "Good." Matt knew she'd understand. She'd shot her own drug dealing boyfriend to protect her brother, and she shot Wesley to protect him and Foggy from retaliation by Fisk. And with everything she'd dealt with across the Fisk and Castle cases, she knew the risks.
"You know the funny thing is," Matt spoke suddenly, breaking the silence, "That phone call Fisk made to me before he sic'ed his goons on me yesterday, it reminded me an awful lot of the first time we ever spoke to one another."
"At the art gallery?" she asked, confused.
"No," Matt shook his head, "The night of the bombings."
From the look on his face, Karen realized that the events of that night were not something Matt liked to discuss. When he'd first disclosed his secret to her, he'd given her a rundown on what he'd been doing to investigate Fisk while she had been busy pursuing the Union Allied paper trail. But when it came to the night Fisk blew up the Russians, he seemed very dodgy about the hours he'd spent hiding with Vladimir in that warehouse.
"…What happened?"
"Do you remember Officer Sullivan?" he asked.
Karen bit her lower lip and nodded slowly. She remembered Officer Jamie Sullivan. He was the rookie cop that was found dead inside the warehouse along with Vladimir's body. He'd been handcuffed to a pole and stabbed through the throat with a knife. Matt hadn't even mentioned him when he'd described that night to her, only mentioning that he'd interrogated Vladimir for information on Fisk's allies.
"I told you how that cop tried to kill me and Vladimir," Matt started, "Well, Vladimir and I hid out in that warehouse at 47th and 12th. Claire had to walk me over the phone on how to cauterize his gunshot wound with a road flare."
"Bet she had a lot of fun teaching you to heal the man who ordered her kidnapping," Karen smirked.
Matt chuckled. "It took a little persuasion, but yeah…anyway, Sullivan was walking by the building and…I guess he heard Vladimir's screams from me holding the flare to his leg. Next thing I knew, I hear him calling in a 10-10. When he found us on the second floor, I subdued him and tried to stop him from calling in backup, but he wouldn't listen. I had to knock him out, gag him with duct tape, and handcuff him to a column."
"Jesus," Karen whispered, shocked. That's a little excessive.
"I just needed to keep him quiet until I got what I needed out of Vladimir," he resumed, "The ESU team that showed up, they were working for Fisk. They killed him in cold blood, just because they thought he heard too much. Right after the team's sniper shot Blake and the other cops."
Matt felt sickened, trying to imagine what it had been like for Sullivan. To have the people who are supposed to save your life turn out to have been sent to kill you, and you only find out in those final seconds you have to live. He had been busy guiding Vladimir down into the tunnels, but the horrified and muffled screams Sullivan made as the knife was plunged into his throat still rang clear in his head. Sullivan hadn't deserved to die like that. And he hadn't deserved to be put in that situation by Matt in the first place. With the benefit of hindsight, Matt had realized this mess probably would've been avoided if he'd told Sullivan more specifically that the cops in his precinct were dirty and that calling for help wouldn't guarantee his safety, rather than give him a vague "I'll let you go…eventually."
"…And how was this your first interaction with Fisk?" Karen broke the silence.
Matt cleared his throat. "Fisk had Blake and Hoffman clear one of the police channels for him. We had a lengthy conversation over Sullivan's radio."
Fisk's words from that night reverberated through Matt's ears. It stunned him, describing the interaction to Karen, just how accurate Fisk may have been about his psychology. "That's what makes you dangerous. It's not the mask. It's not the skills. It's your ideology. The lone man who thinks he can make a difference. I'm glad we could talk. I respect your conviction even if it runs counter with my own."
"Fucking asshole," Karen said. "And there's no proof of Fisk giving that sniper the order."
The conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. Matt stiffened up, wondering who it might be. When he heard a familiar male voice say "NYPD, open the door," he relaxed. Brett must have that information on Jasper Evans.
Karen got up and went to answer the door.
"Hey," Karen said. She could see Brett had a pair of file folders under his right shoulder.
"Hello," Brett said. He looked confused by the fact that Karen was the one answering the door and not Matt. "Is Murdock around?"
"Right this way," Karen said, ushering him down the hall and into the living room. I feel like I'm doing my secretarial stuff at Nelson & Murdock for some reason.
"I didn't realize you two had moved in together," Brett commented, taking in the surroundings.
"Well I only moved in a few weeks ago," Karen shrugged, sitting down on the couch next to Matt, "Word's pretty slow getting out there."
"Does Foggy know about this?"
"We only told him a couple days ago," Matt answered. But let's dispense with the pleasantries. "Do you have the file that we asked for on Jasper Evans?"
"It's on the coffee table right in front of you," Brett said, placing it in front of Matt. There were two copies of the police file, one with normal pages and one with braille pages. "Guy's a lifer. Killed two people in a convenience store robbery gone bad 27 years ago."
"Huh," Karen said, glancing briefly at the file. Brett put his hands on his knees.
"There was also something I needed to talk to you about, Matt."
"What is it?" Matt asked. You know I'm Daredevil? Or...
Brett looked at Matt. "I'm investigating a suspicious death that happened yesterday at the docks. You two might be able to help me."
"Okay…" Matt said, blood draining from his cheeks. He had a bad feeling just who Brett was probably talking about.
"Harbor Patrol fished a taxi out of the Hudson a few hours ago," he continued as he pulled out his notepad and pencil and started writing, "Around that pier near where Captain Sully landed his plane nine years back."
Matt had to put on a stoic face to hide the fact that he was a little paranoid. The taxi that Fisk's goons had tried to drown him with had been found. Fisk probably had been led to believe since then that he was dead. The discovery of the cab, combined with the fact that Fisk evidently had members of the FBI on his payroll, and maybe still some cops in the NYPD, Matt knew it wouldn't take too long for his archnemesis to find out he was still breathing.
"Why are you coming to us?" Karen feigned ignorance.
"At first it looked to us like the taxi driver, a guy named Lucas Eavey, got drunk, took a wrong turn and somehow mistook the river for a parking space," Brett said, "But my partner and I, we found evidence suggesting that he was killed before the cab ever went in the water."
Matt sat silently and said nothing. Obviously, with me being half-conscious and blind, I wouldn't notice that the driver was dead. His mind began working, trying to figure out where Fisk's men would've switched drivers.
"That doesn't answer the question of why you're coming to talk to me," Matt said, dryly.
"Were you the last person to ever communicate with Mr. Eavey?" Brett asked.
Matt could sense the air quotes in Brett's voice. "What makes you think that?"
"Well, I checked with his dispatcher," Brett said, "And he told me that Eavey's last pickup was yesterday morning on this block, and he then dropped off the fare at Rikers Island. There's only one person on this block that I can think of who'd be going to Rikers at ten o'clock in the morning."
Right, you're a detective. "Yes, it was me," Matt admitted. Better to just admit it now, since there was no real reason to lie about the death of an innocent cabbie.
"Was Mr. Eavey alive when he dropped you off at Rikers?" Brett asked.
Matt made a face. Maybe that's where Fisk's men made the switch. If Fisk still had control of the guards and prisoners, he'd be able to erase any CCTV footage of the cab driver's murder.
"Yes, he was," Matt said. "Where's this going?"
"I called Rikers right before coming here, to see if they'd seen you or Mr. Eavey," Brett said, "I thought it was strange."
"Strange how?" Karen asked.
"Well, the warden was like, we have no record that a Matt Murdock was ever here yesterday. So I push more, and before you know it, uh, the warden's gone, and I'm talking to some snot-nose lawyer who's asking me for my badge number."
Matt leaned over and whispered into Karen's ear, "Fisk must have directed them to lie or destroy evidence of the riot." He then cleared his throat and turned his attention back to Brett.
"So I have to ask you, Matt…" Matt could sense Brett making a weary face and putting the palm of his nonwriting hand against his forehead. "…what the hell's going on here? I got prison staff denying you were at a prison when I have evidence that says you were there."
"I. Was. There," Matt said, as patiently as he could, "Fisk orchestrated a riot, and tried to have me killed. If it wasn't for a couple of sympathetic inmates guiding me out, I would've died in there." Once again, he neglected to mention to Brett anything about the fight.
"And then you got in the cab, and…Fisk's man drove you into the river?"
"That's correct."
"And then you somehow freed yourself after the taxi hit the water?"
"Yup," Matt nodded, "My dad taught me some basic swimming skills before...y'know." "...I lost my sight." Not the best of excuses but…it'll have to make do.
Brett stared at Matt for a few seconds.
"Are you all right?" he asked. From his standpoint, those had to be a terrifying several minutes for a blind man like Matt to endure, trapped in a submerged car.
Matt gestured to the bandage on his forehead. "A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing too serious."
"And you didn't bother telling me about this yesterday when you two and Foggy came by the union function?"
"I wanted Fisk to think I was dead," Matt answered, an edge now creeping into his voice, "whatever he is planning, he clearly has it in for me, for Karen here, and for Foggy. And seeing as you're the one who had the honor of putting Fisk back in custody after he escaped, you should probably batten down your hatches too. "
After a lengthy silence where Matt was unsure whether Brett had more questions or not, the detective closed his notepad and got up from his chair. "Thanks for your time."
"No problem," Matt said, he and Karen both shaking Brett's hand one by one.
"You have my card if you ever need to reach me," Brett said, making his way to the door.
Once Brett departed, Matt was able to drop his shoulders. "Damnit," he said to Karen. Karen started to open her mouth to speak, but Matt spoke ahead of her. "Fisk has to know I'm alive. He knows I'm not out of the picture just yet."
Time to take a strike against Fisk. Without saying another word, Karen got up and grabbed one of her coats off the wall, the black one that had the red inner lining. The colors of Matt's armor, she'd thought when she bought it a few months before Midland Circle.
"Where are you going?" Matt asked, following her into the entry hallway.
"Red Lion Bank," she answered, matter-of-factly.
"You're gonna talk to Felix Manning? Or Stewart Finney?" he sounded alarmed. "Karen, what do you think that's gonna accomplish?"
"Fisk knows we're working together, Matt, so I might as well put him on notice by speaking to his cronies!" Karen said, exasperated. She took a deep breath. "And given what Fisk does to his so-called 'friends', why not see whether Felix or Finney have more self-preservation instincts than Wesley."
Matt exhaled and put a hand on her shoulder. "I still worry about you too, Karen. You're so unpredictable at times."
"I know," she said, sadly. "But this won't be like Wesley. I'll be talking to one of them in public, in front of dozens of people. They'd be stupid to try and snatch me or hurt me physically there." She gave him a hard wet kiss on the lips before he could say anything. "I'll be back in about two hours tops. Then we can go uptown and talk to Luke."
Matt stammered, dazed by the suddenness of the kiss. "Y-y—yeah, you do that. Just...Karen, be careful," he said as Karen closed the door behind her. Time to go find out all there is about you, Jasper Evans, he thought as he sat back down on the living room couch and began feeding the files Brett had dropped off into his screen reader. "Where are you, Evans?" he muttered.
While Matt and Karen were having their morning lovemaking and strategy session, Fisk was making his next move against their closest friend.
As soon as Felix left the secret war room, Fisk got on the phone with Donovan, and summoned him to the penthouse immediately. He showed up 15 minutes later, his office being only about eight blocks away. Fisk spent the next half hour getting Donovan up to speed about his plans. At 8:30 am sharp, a group of FBI agents joined them around the table in the penthouse living room. The assembled agents were comprised of Nadeem, Hattley, Dex, Lim, Waller, and Arinori. Fisk was seated at the table facing towards the doors, with Donovan standing just behind and to his left. Nadeem was positioned directly in front of him. Hattley and Dex were to his right/Nadeem's left. Waller, Lim and Arinori were to his left/Nadeem's right. All of them stood attentively with their hands clasped in front of them.
"Mr. Fisk," Hattley said, "Mr. Donovan. You have something important you want to share with us?"
"It's time for the government to honor our deal," Donovan said, "Thanks to my client, the Albanian syndicate has been completely wiped out. Their counterfeiting ring, their Dark Web child pornography. And the Jalisco connection Mr. Fisk divulged last week gave the DEA an early and very white Christmas."
"And in exchange for his ongoing cooperation, the DOJ will not be filing charges against Vanessa Marianna," Nadeem completed Donovan's sentence. He and Hattley were the only two agents at the table who knew the entire terms of Fisk's informant deal by memory. As the agent Fisk had made the informant deal with, and the SAC, respectively, they were the ones who worked closely with his lawyers to iron out the terms for the finalized version of the agreement.
"Mr. Fisk is also entitled to the return of certain personal belongings, and supervised movement within the hotel," Donovan added on, as if an afterthought.
"He'll get everything he was offered. In time," Nadeem said, slightly agitated, more from being rousted so early than from Fisk trying to be pushy. Let's not rush anything along here.
"That time is now, Special Agent Nadeem," Donovan said, "Unless you'd like my client to stop talking."
Fisk waved his hand to gesture that he'd like to speak. I get to do this part. He exchanged a brief glance at Hattley and Dex before focusing entirely on Nadeem. "FBI has sacrificed a great deal for me. And I will continue to cooperate and trust you'll honor your word."
Nadeem and Hattley nodded.
"There's a criminal that I've employed," Fisk continued, measuring his words, "A facilitator. On my behalf, he's laundered and hid money, bribed law enforcement and court officials, orchestrated perjured testimony, manufactured evidence."
"Who is he?" Nadeem asked, interested.
"A lawyer," Fisk said, "Franklin Percy Nelson."
Nadeem scratched his chin. He sat down and removed a notepad from his coat pocket. "What is your connection to Mr. Nelson?"
"The papers know him as the man who exonerated Luke Cage...and defended the Punisher," Fisk said, "But there's another life he's hiding beneath the headlines..."
Over the next fifteen minutes, Fisk divulged to the assembled agents a highly edited account of his dealings with Nelson & Murdock. The best liars stuck as close to the truth as possible. So Fisk did just that, recite the truth but with some details changed so as to paint Franklin "Foggy" Nelson as a silent accomplice, typically by having Nelson take credit for actions that were in reality conducted by another associate. As he framed it, he'd begun grooming Nelson while he and Murdock were interning at Landman & Zack. After they split off to start their own firm, Nelson regularly bribed Detective Brett Mahoney of the 15th Precinct for case referrals involving associates of Fisk's, so he could tamper with them. The Union Allied scandal and the John Healy case slotted in nicely here. For the former, Fisk made it seem as if following Farnum's and Rance's failures to kill Karen, he'd tasked Nelson with hiring the young woman to work for Nelson & Murdock as a secretary and had ordered him to ensure that she kept her mouth shut. With Healy, Fisk edited the story to make it seem like he'd had James Wesley work with Nelson to blackmail the jury to ensure that Healy got a hung jury (in actuality, Wesley had done this all by himself). Speaking of Wesley, Fisk was quick to add a note of how he "suspected" that Nelson or one of his colleagues had had a hand in Wesley's death, but had never been able to prove it (little did Fisk know that he was dancing dangerously close to the truth on that one).
Fisk even managed to work in the string-pulling he'd done to get access to Frank Castle so that he could use the Punisher's skills to dispose of Dutton. The only difference being that in this edited account it was Nelson who passed his message on to Castle to throw his trial, not a hired guard. He also credited Nelson for the alleged witness tampering surrounding Dr. Gregory Tepper. Against all odds, he also found a way to take credit for Nelson & Murdock's dissolution. While the actual details of the firm's breakup were unknown, Fisk was able to twist it as if Matt Murdock and Karen Page had found out about how deeply Nelson was involved with Fisk and decided to break things off with him. Lastly, he divulged the details of the scheme through which his people had tricked Theo Nelson into falsifying his books for a loan application, while dropping hints of Nelson having some influence in the operation.
Most of the story was circumstantial, and Fisk knew none of it was true. But by the time Nadeem figured out the truth and Nelson's innocence, Dex would've been turned and it'd be too late for him to back out of the deal. Plus, Hattley would be there to ensure Nadeem stayed in if he even thought of blowing the whistle.
"...that is all I have to say at this time," he said, concluding his story.
"Thank you for this information, Mr. Fisk," Nadeem said at the conclusion of Fisk's phony story. He got up from the table, and he and the other agents in the room filed out.
As Hattley was putting her coat on, Fisk stood up and tapped Donovan's shoulder. "Stay. I need a few minutes with Hattley to discuss this…matter…concerning Agent Poindexter. This has to be off-the-record."
Donovan nodded. Hattley was about to follow Arinori out the door when he spoke up. "Special Agent Hattley?" Donovan asked. "We need a minute with you, alone."
Hattley turned to Arinori, "Keep the cameras off and don't let anyone in for the next couple minutes."
"You want to be alone with him?" Arinori asked, concerned. "With what he has on you?"
"He's not gonna do anything to me up here," Hattley replied. Allison, if Fisk punishes me for this, I'm sorry I failed you as a mother.
"You're the boss," Arinori sighed and exited the penthouse, shutting the doors behind him. Hattley turned to face Fisk, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow.
"Sir," she said, bluntly, "If you're going to ream me out about speaking to Karen Page and that boyfriend of hers the other day, I swear to God…I had no idea that they'd be coming." Fisk could hear her subtextual plea of please don't hurt my daughter.
"In the future, you need to inform me of these things sooner," Fisk said, his voice rising, "I insist that bad news be delivered to me immediately."
Hattley waved her hands. "If there's anything I can do to make this up for you"-
"You can tell me the progress of the Office of Professional Responsibility's investigation into Agent Poindexter."
Hattley nodded slowly as Fisk sat back down in his chair. After a long pause, she answered, "Winn doesn't believe your corroboration of Dex's bullshit story. He says you're not a reliable witness." Even minus Fisk's deceptions, that was actually true. He was trapped in an overturned SUV when Dex had started shooting, and the double-kill that had gotten the OPR investigation opened into him, Fisk had had to witness that through bullet-ridden, bulletproof glass. His vision wouldn't have been the best.
"I see." Fisk nodded slowly. "And the background files that Felix has asked of you?"
"They're being printed at the office as we speak," Hattley said, "I went as far as back as the records could, as per your instructions. I can have your silver-haired sycophant here…" She shot a look at Donovan, who wasn't put off by her insult. "…bring them over later today, if you'd like?"
Donovan leaned over and whispered into Fisk's ear, "Now might be the time to throw Poindexter under the bus."
Fisk nodded, acknowledging Donovan's advice, and addressed Hattley. "And what will Poindexter be facing when it is found that his…actions were not justifiable?"
"At best, a lengthy suspension without pay for six months," she outlined, "I don't think he'll be indicted. The people above me, they're afraid of the bad headlines that would result."
"Tomorrow," Fisk declared. "It needs to happen tomorrow."
"I'm not sure that will be possible," Hattley tried to say.
"Karen Page and Matthew Murdock are becoming a nuisance to everyone in this room," Fisk stated, resisting the urge to raise his voice, "My plans for them can only be carried out by Poindexter, and the timetable is very tight."
Hattley glanced at her watch. "What do you want me to do?"
"Contact Jennifer Many at the New York Bulletin," he said. That was the reporter the Bulletin had officially assigned to covering Fisk's release from prison and everything that went with it. "Show her the differences between Poindexter's statements and what the forensic evidence says."
Hattley nodded. "Yes, sir." She remained standing there, pondering.
"...You have something else to say," Fisk broke the silence.
Hattley bit her lip. "This stuff you've just said to Ray about Foggy Nelson, none of it's true, right?" she asked. "Nothing personal. Just...I'm curious."
"All of that is true," her employer answered, slowly, "Other than the parts where Nelson is implicated. He knows nothing about his brother's...situation."
Hattley slowly nodded. "Great. That should be it." With that, she turned and exited the penthouse, leaving Fisk with Donovan.
"Go to the Tombs and speak to Mr. Williamson and Mr. Munoz," Fisk directed Donovan, "I want to know more about the individual who subdued them." If that indeed was Matt Murdock who had taken out his men at the A-Train Diner, he would be very...displeased, as Wesley would say.
As Karen rode the 2 train down to Wall Street station, just a few blocks away from Red Lion National Bank in the Financial District, she felt very uneasy. After last night's incident with the catcallers, she couldn't help but scan the other passengers in the car, looking for any ne'er-do-wells to beat the shit out of. She was instinctively clutching her purse to her chest, wanting to have her gun readily accessible in the worst case scenario. God, one of these days I'm going to be the next Bernard Goetz. I believe his act of vigilantism happened on this line, actually. It was stupid to think Fisk's men would go after her in a crowded subway car, but with Fisk, she just had to assume the worst. Fortunately, nothing came of it, and she exited the train without any incidents unfolding.
Red Lion National Bank was the sort of place Karen doubted she would ever have a chance of getting an account at even if she sacrificed her soul and donated all of her blood. Tall vaulted ceilings like the Vatican. Gold cuff links on marble counters. The smell of freshly printed money. It was like a cathedral.
Focus on the target, Karen. One of the objects of Karen's investigation was seated at an open office on the east side of the lobby, working on his computer.
Felix Manning was a man in his mid-fifties, with a receding hairline, craggy features, and sporting a very crisp three piece suit. True to Silvio's word, he looked like Daniel Craig's version of James Bond, if Craig had more wrinkles on him and his hair was a dirty brown instead of golden blond. He looked like he was in very good spirits.
"Felix Manning?" Karen asked as she stepped through the swinging gate partitioning his office from the main lobby. Felix looked up from his computer and studied her. "You haven't returned my calls. I'm Karen Page, from the Bulletin."
Felix didn't seem annoyed at Karen intruding his space. In hindsight, she should've seen that as a red flag since most bank employees would not take too kindly to random people barging into their office space like this.
Okay, he's not the talkative kind, is he? Karen thought. She took out her notepad and pen. Let's see if the threat of Fisk cutting him loose can do anything to his vocal chords.
"Before I go to print, I'm obligated to offer you a chance to comment on your involvement in laundering money for Wilson Fisk," Karen continued.
No response from Felix.
"Look, if you talk to me off the record, help me connect some dots, I promise I will keep your name out of it. But that is only if you talk to me."
Felix still didn't say anything. Karen was starting to worry that this interview wasn't going to end well. She had a hard time deciding why Felix was being surprisingly mute. Was he just trying to formulate a response to her questions? Was he afraid of Fisk killing him in retribution? Or was he so loyal to Fisk that he wouldn't say a word about the operation to anyone unless physical force was used? That gave Karen an idea: if she actually was going to write a story alleging Felix's involvement in criminal activities, it would probably persuade Fisk to turn against Felix, as he was getting too much unwanted attention. Karen hoped that Felix was someone Fisk could easily turn on, just like his Russian and Hand contacts and even close associates like Owlsley, when he'd decided that their services were no longer needed.
"You're a fixer, Mr. Manning," she said, "You're a freelancer. Other clients, a lot to lose. Once this story breaks, Fisk is gonna hang you out to dry. If I were you, I would start looking out for myself."
Felix took a deep breath, and opened his mouth to respond. What he said was the last thing Karen wanted to hear.
"Karen Page," Felix said, in a rather posh accent, "Daughter of Paxton and Penelope. 239 Kings Road, Fagan Corners, Vermont. You had the back room. My guess, Dad wanted his little girl to be safe." He reached into a drawer in his desk and grabbed a newspaper. "Sadly, he should've been more worried about his little boy. Drug addicts really do destroy families, don't they?"
Karen froze, and her eyes went wide as Felix set the newspaper down on the desk. It was a copy of the Fagan Corners Star, dated the day after Kevin's death. The page emblazoned with a black and white photo of the family's wrecked 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee on the back of a tow truck, after the emergency workers had had it turned upright to remove Kevin's body, under the caption "DINER COOK DIES IN SUSPICIOUS ACCIDENT". Karen suddenly felt incredibly dizzy. The walls and floor seemed to warp and dip wildly around her, and it took every ounce of strength to not faint. Fucking shit! Fuck! Fisk didn't just have evidence that Matt was Daredevil, he had evidence about her past life before she came to New York. The stuff that she'd said to Ben would mean no one would look at her seriously!
"Off the record," Felix said, standing up, aware that Karen was wetting her panties in response to his bombshell, "You are incorrect. About what I do for a living. I don't fix problems. I make them disappear."
Karen hightailed it out of the bank, hyperventilating and her hands shaking with uncontrolled rage. She couldn't think of anything else beyond I gotta contact Matt as she began making her way back to the 2 train. Felix, and by extension Fisk, knew everything about her. About her brother. About her drug addiction. About her relationship with Todd. Matt was right about Fisk coming after them with all he had. Jesus, she should have seen this coming! She'd shown her face when she and Matt roughed up Donovan in the garage! Even if it weren't for that, her involvement with Union Allied, and with Daniel FIsher's death, was public knowledge. And with her change of occupation, she was no longer an under-the-radar person like she'd been at Nelson & Murdock. The Bulletin job had given her a bit of a celebrity status. Maybe not as much as Trish Walker had had at Trish Talk before she'd gone off the air in the scandal surrounding IGH and the suspicious death of Dr. Karl Malus, but still enough that she was a household name in the press circles. She remembered a conversation she'd had with Ben a few hours after she killed Wesley, when she'd approached him at his apartment and, while not mentioning the details of Wesley's death, warned him that people knew about their visit to Marlene.
"No, you have to trust me on this, Ben," she'd said, "We need that story out there before it is too late."
"You could always post it yourself on the net," Ben suggested. "You don't need me."
"And who'll believe me when they start digging?" Karen asked. "When they find what you found when you were looking into me."
And then there was what Ben had said during one of their first meetings as they'd first investigated the Union Allied money trail. "Stories like this are built on sources, Miss Page, credible sources. I did some, uh, digging into your, uh…past activities."
Ben was probably right to worry about her credibility being shot. If Fisk ran stories about how Karen Page killed her brother while driving under the influence, that was it for her. There'd be a seed of doubt cast upon every piece, every byline, she'd written for the past year.
But how could Fisk have found out the whole truth? Two possible sources came to mind: her father, or someone in the Bulletin. Ellison had mentioned the possibility yesterday of Fisk having moles in the Bulletin besides Caldwell, and one of them could easily have gotten access to his copies of Ben's research into Karen, since he never locked his office. The alternate possibility was that Fisk had sent someone up to Fagan Corners and intimidated her dad. Dad...Karen knew her dad didn't want her around in Fagan Corners anymore, as he'd made clear after Kevin's funeral, but the idea of him getting roughed up by Fisk's men was very...frightening. I better call him to see if he's okay. Then call Ellison and ask him to grill every other reporter in the office.
She decided to start with Ellison, dialing his cell number.
"Ellison," he answered.
"It's Karen," Karen said, speaking quickly, "I'm in trouble!"
"Karen, calm down," Ellison said, "What's happening?"
Karen took a deep breath. "I think Fisk knows about my past activities."
"Oh," Ellison said, after a long pause.
"Well I think he's gotten to someone else on the payroll," she replied.
"What do you propose I do? I can't exactly do much from here," Ellison said, sounding apologetic.
"You're the editor in chief! Go over everyone on the staff and see who has access to your office or has come into money recently!" Karen snapped, hanging up before Ellison could reply. She felt a little bad rudely hanging up on her boss like that, but she didn't care. She was not going to let her past define who she was.
She was just nearing 23 Wall Street when she heard the sirens. Barely had she realized they were a few hundred feet away when a pair of dark black SUVs came to a stop at the corner right in front of her. Karen paused, wondering what was happening. Those are federal SUVs, judging from the 'US GOVERNMENT' plates. A moment later, a dark-skinned man emerged from one of the cars, accompanied by a brunette Latina woman in her early thirties and they began walking towards her. Karen's eyes widened as she recognized the man. This was one of the FBI agents that had shot at Matt in the Presidential Hotel's parking garage the other day.
"Karen Page?" the male agent asked, flashing an FBI badge.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Don't move." The agents began to step closer to her.
"Uh I have a weapon in my purse! And a concealed carry permit!" Karen exclaimed, raising her hands. When she'd applied for her permit, in the weeks following Fisk's arrest, Brett had advised her that it would be in her best interest whenever stopped by the police to declare that she was carrying a weapon on her, as it would be the safest way to ensure that she didn't get shot.
"Keep your hands exactly where they are and follow my instructions," the male agent said. Karen nodded. "Now turn around."
"Okay." Karen reluctantly turned around, facing away from the cars, and let the female agent pat down her arms and legs for weapons. "Okay. Okay. Okay. What do you want?"
"We need you to come with us please, answer a few questions for us," the female agent said, "It shouldn't take too long."
Karen tried her best to hide her fear. These agents had to be in Fisk's pocket, and had been tasked with taking her to some warehouse where they were going to kill her and dump her body.
"Oh—okay," she whispered.
The two FBI agents loaded Karen into the back of their SUV and drove off. Karen was confused when she noticed that they weren't going to the FBI offices, and instead were taking the Williamsburg Bridge out of Manhattan.
She tensed up, unsure where they might be going as the SUV navigated the twisted streets of Brooklyn. The agents were not using their lights or their sirens, and they were conversing quietly about Garcia and Torres, two of the agents who had been killed during the motorcade attack. Apparently their funerals were being held next week, and Garcia had left behind a wife and three kids. Both of the agents barely seemed to even acknowledge that Karen existed.
Then they came to a stop at a high-rise apartment building off Sixth Street in north Williamsburg, west of Kent Street. There were several FBI and NYPD vehicles with their lights flashing parked on the street, where it abruptly ended . Her breathing accelerated, as she recognized just whose building this was. This was the building where Foggy and Marci's apartment was. She recognized it from the few times she'd come over in the past few months to hang out with Marci and Foggy, when she couldn't stand being alone in her apartment, or Matt's after she'd moved into his place. What the hell are we doing here?
"Right this way, ma'am," the female agent said, opening the rear door to let Karen out.
Without saying another word, the agents escorted Karen into the building's elevator. Moments later, they were on their way up the elevator to the 30th floor of 22 North Sixth Street, where Foggy and Marci's apartment was located. She was surprised to find Foggy and Marci's apartment door wide open and a pair of uniformed cops standing outside.
"What do you want from me? What's happened? Why'd you bring me here?!" Karen was speaking rapidly, firing off questions a mile a minute as the agents who picked her up ushered her into the apartment. FBI agents wearing blue windbreakers were combing over every surface of the apartment, rifling through cabinets and looking under furniture, as if they were trying to find illegal contraband. Standing by the couch in the middle of the living room, with its nice sweeping panoramic views of the East River and the Lower East Side, was Ray Nadeem. He no longer had a bandage on his forehead, and he looked very displeased as the two agents led Karen over to him.
"I asked them to," Nadeem said.
"Is Foggy okay? Is Marci okay? You wanna tell me what's going on?!" Karen demanded. Why the hell are the FBI doing this?!
"Miss Page, I get that you ask questions for a living, but, for now, I'll be the one asking," Nadeem said, taking out his notepad. "When's the last time you spoke to Foggy Nelson?"
"Um, I speak to Foggy at least once or twice a week," she answered.
"Have you seen or spoken to him recently?" Nadeem asked.
"Not since last night," Karen replied.
"He give you any indication where he might be?"
"I would suggest you check WJBP in an hour or so," Karen said, checking her watch. "Or maybe see his brother down at Nelson's Meats." Karen felt her voice turning hard. Has Fisk bribed these people? Matt was saying he overheard Felix talking about members of the FBI being in Fisk's pocket. "H…how much bribe money is Fisk paying you, Agent Nadeem?!"
"You were a secretary for Nelson & Murdock, is that correct?" Nadeem asked, ignoring her accusation.
"Mmm-mmm. Office manager," Karen gritted her teeth, voice laced with venom. She hated being referred to as Nelson & Murdock's former secretary. It was such a demeaning word. She had been more than a secretary at the firm. She greeted clients, did investigative work, and she did the books. Hell, she did so much for the firm that Matt had joked once during Frank's trial that they should consider making her a third partner. "Just thought it might be more fun as Nelson, Murdock & Page," he'd said.
"And when did the firm first start working for Wilson Fisk?" he asked.
Ahhhhhhhhh… so Fisk has led him to think Nelson & Murdock did dirty work for him, and he's using the FBI to harass us, starting with Foggy, Karen realized. That is just bullshit. Anyone with a working brain would know that is not true. Wait until I get Matt to sue you people for malicious prosecution. "We never worked for Wilson Fisk," Karen replied, doing her best not to sound too defensive. Nadeem lifted an eyebrow. He didn't seem convinced.
"Hold on." Nadeem reached into his pocket and produced a check. Karen's breath hitched as she recognized it. It was the check that Wesley had passed across the table to them when he hired them to defend Healy. It had her signature on it, from when she'd deposited it at the Midtown branch of Empire Credit Union following her meeting with the Union Allied lawyers. The one Foggy had been very eager to accept, while Matt had been right to be suspicious about.
"Is that your signature?" Nadeem asked. "Do you remember depositing this retainer check for a company called Confederated Global Investments?"
"Yes, I do," Karen said, slowly. Yes, it was a matter of public record that they'd defended one of Fisk's hitmen, and that Confederated Global wrote the check. But they hadn't known until a few weeks after the Healy trial had finished that Confederated Global was one of Fisk's main revenue streams. So why is Nadeem asking it like we did more work for Fisk than just that one case? Anyone who bothered to do any sort of research would find it hard to believe that the firm that took down Wilson Fisk also worked for him the whole time. She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled. "Look, we took on one case for them. That's all."
"According to my source, CGI was a front for Fisk." Nadeem tapped his notepad.
"Yeah well, we didn't know that at the time!" Karen pointed a finger at the ceiling, exasperated. We didn't know yet because Wesley didn't even dare say his name. And before that morning, we didn't even know about this shell company's existence.
"But you do now. So you see how your last answer wasn't technically accurate?"
Karen was already in a crappy mood, between getting shot at yesterday, Matt's identity being compromised, and having just learned that Fisk knew all about her background too. And she was in an even worse mood now, being accused (along with Matt and Foggy) of working for a man she hated. "Okay, we never knowingly worked for Fisk," Karen corrected. Matt didn't know it was Fisk who hired us until he beat the shit out of the client we got hired to defend. And Foggy and I didn't make the connection until Matt obtained those papers from Owlsley and gave them to Ben. "They hired us through someone else."
"Who?"
Karen shrugged. "Some executive," she said, crossing her arms. Please don't ask me about Wesley, please don't…
"Hang on." Nadeem flipped open another file folder and displayed the front of it clearly to Karen. Karen felt her heart skip a beat as she saw the photograph of James Wesley's face that was clipped to the front. Even three years later, it was still enough to give her flashes of that night in the warehouse. It was like what had happened with that near-doppelganger of Wesley she'd run into on the Q train on Monday night, on the way home from dinner with Ellison's family.
"Was it this guy?" he asked. "James Wesley? You remember him?"
Karen pretended to study the photo. It's him. But he doesn't look so attractive when he doesn't have seven bullets in his body.
"Uh, yeah. That was him," she said. "Why?"
"Just trying to put the pieces together," Nadeem said, setting the folder down.
From what Karen could tell, Fisk had told Nadeem about how, through Wesley, he'd hired Nelson & Murdock to defend Healy for the Prohaszka killing. But that didn't justify raiding Foggy and Marci's apartment and acting like they were even more crooked than Ben Donovan, unless...Fisk had led Nadeem to think Foggy was in league with Wesley and had assisted him in rigging the hung jury that had gotten Healy off. Nadeem seemed to be under the impression that Foggy had engaged in unscrupulous conduct during the Healy trial. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to come to such a conclusion. Karen mused that Wesley probably kept notes of his meetings with business partners and underlings for reference. If indeed he'd made such a record of his meeting with Nelson & Murdock, his entry probably went something like, "Mr. Nelson was all too happy to accept the check I made out to the firm on behalf of Confederated Global. Mr. Murdock, on the other hand, he was persnickety and asking all sorts of questions of the most peculiar nature." It was actually a little creepy that she imagined such a remark in Wesley's monotone voice. But just as quickly as she came up with that theory, she shot it down. Fisk would've made such a record "disappear into a black hole", as she'd like to say, after Wesley died.
As she stood there in the middle of her friend's apartment, it hit Karen. The campaign. Fisk was presumably allowed to receive newspapers in his hotel suite. He must have seen the same front page with Foggy's photo on it as everyone else in the city had. Putting herself in Fisk's shoes to understand his side of things, Karen surmised that it would not be a good thing for him if Foggy unseated Blake Tower. That front page was practically a declaration of war. In which case, it would make sense that Fisk would send the FBI to harass Foggy and try to scare him into backing out of the race.
Karen felt a bead of sweat forming on her brow as it occurred to her that it would only be a matter of time before Nadeem began probing her life and Matt's life, and found evidence linking Matt to Daredevil, assuming Fisk hadn't disclosed that to the FBI. Hopefully I can get Nadeem to reverse direction on this bullshit witch hunt of his before he starts uncovering any of my skeletons, or Matt's for that matter. Especially Matt's. Perhaps I should give up some of the information Matt and I have uncovered. That's what cooperation entails, right? "Okay. Uh, well, here are some other pieces for you to put together," Karen offered. "Um, Felix Manning? Red Lion National Bank? Vancorp? Silvio Manfredi? Any of that ring any bells?" She chose not to mention Jasper Evans, in the interest of keeping him alive.
"I don't follow," Nadeem said, refusing to be swayed by Karen's attempt to turn the interview back on him.
"Well, instead of letting Fisk use you and the FBI to retaliate against innocent lawyers who put him in prison, why don't you ask him if he ordered a drive-by shooting on Silvio Manfredi in Harlem yesterday afternoon!" Karen's voice rose in pitch and volume until she was shouting, and every agent in the room was staring at her. "Ask him if he hired a fixer named Felix Manning and a banker named Stewart Finney to launder money through Red Lion! Or maybe ask him if he's running an extortion racket, collecting protection money from other crime organizations in the city! While you're at it, ask him if he ordered a prison riot at Rikers yesterday in an attempt to kill Matt Murdock! And ask him if he's the true owner of a shell company called Vancorp!"
"Why would I do that?" Nadeem asked, giving her a look of "I don't like people who act like smartasses to me." He was pretty caught off guard by all of Karen's various accusations. How does she know all this? he was thinking.
"Because it just bought the Presidential Hotel," Karen sniped.
"Where are you getting all this from?" Nadeem asked.
My due diligence and my hot blind boyfriend who'll be happy to take you to court. "I ask questions for a living," Karen smirked, icily, "I just ask better ones than you do. Like, has your so-called prisoner just bought the prison you're keeping him in?" Okay, that was maybe a little bit too sassy...
"Has he bought?" Nadeem made a face. "So this is what? Just a theory? You have any proof?"
"Fisk is using you, Agent Nadeem. That's what he does," she growled. "Is that a no? Am I under arrest?"
"Not at this time."
So I'm free to go. That's great, 'cause I don't want to put up with your questions any longer. "Then I think I'm done answering the wrong questions," Karen said, turning around and marching out the door. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a vigilante boyfriend to inform about this bullshit, and a mafia queen to go provoke...
