Chapter 4 – Buying Time

Summary: Matt reacts to Gao's offer. Later, he makes a court appearance, and Foggy and Karen have to deal with the fallout.

Matt

Matt took a step back. His knees buckled. He sank into the chair behind him. His pulse hammered in his ears. His mouth was dry. He swallowed hard. "Wha – what did you say?" he stammered.

"You heard me, Matthew," Gao replied. "Work with me to neutralize the threat from Wilson Fisk, and I will restore your eyesight."

"You can do that?"

"I would not trifle with you about such a matter. You have witnessed the power of the Hand. We can defeat death. Restoring your eyesight is child's play for us."

Matt didn't doubt that she had the ability to do it. He was less certain that she would actually deliver on her promise if he did what she asked. The more difficult question was whether he wanted it. Then there was what Gao wasn't telling him. If Gao was offering something, it came with a price. There were some prices he wouldn't pay, even to regain his eyesight. His mind raced. He needed more time. Time to decide what he wanted, and time to find out what Gao wanted from him. There was only one way to buy himself that time.

"I'll do it," he said. "I'll help you stop Fisk."

"Good," she said. "Come with me."

Matt followed Gao into another room. It appeared to be a fully-equipped office. A laptop was centered on the desk, next to a phone and a braille printer. A stack of papers was in an inbox at one corner of the desk. He walked over to the desk and ran a hand over the piece of paper at the top of the stack; it was in braille.

"Everything you need to do your work is here," Gao told him. She turned and walked out of the room without another word.

Matt pulled out the desk chair and took a seat. When he powered up the laptop, he discovered it had a screen reader and a refreshable braille display. There were several word processing apps, set up to work with the braille printer. Gao had even subscribed to both Westlaw and Lexis. He had to give her credit: she was ready for him. She knew he would accept.

He wondered, briefly, if Gao could sense his reservations. She probably could. Stick had taught him how to control his reactions and suppress the 'tells' that gave sighted people clues to what he was thinking, but he didn't know if those techniques would work with Gao. He gave a mental shrug. If they didn't work, there was nothing he could do about it. Still, it was unsettling to think that she could read him, while he couldn't read her. He now understood what that was like for Foggy and Karen. Another reason to be grateful for their friendship – if he hadn't already lost it.

He sighed and picked up the stack of braille documents. A notice from the court was on top: Fisk's bail hearing was tomorrow afternoon. Time to get to work.

Gao left him alone until the end of the day. A man brought him lunch (a noodle dish that was surprisingly good) and, later, a pot of tea. He moved so silently that Matt almost missed his arrival. He said nothing, no doubt ordered not to speak. By the time Gao appeared in the doorway, he had reviewed all of the materials prepared by Ben Donovan's firm for the bail hearing, including a legal memo apparently written by someone who had never argued for a client's release on bail. Matt had done so more times than he could count, often unsuccessfully. Then again, he'd never argued on behalf of a rich white man, until now. That would be a new experience.

When he heard Gao's footsteps, Matt turned off his screen reader and raised his head.

"Good evening, Matthew," she greeted him.

"Good evening."

She made her way slowly across the room and took a seat in one of the side chairs. "There is an apartment for you upstairs." she said. "It is small, but I believe you will find it more comfortable than the . . . place where you have been staying."

Matt could hear the distaste in her voice. She wasn't wrong. Almost anywhere would be an improvement over the noisy, smelly hotel. "Thank you," he replied as he stood up. "I'll just go – "

She cut him off, anticipating what he was going to say. "There is no need for that. While you were working here, I sent someone to pay the bill and collect your belongings."

And to search them, too, he thought sourly. It's what he would have done, in her place. It wasn't a problem. They wouldn't have found anything of interest; he made sure of that. He gathered up the documents he still needed to review and shoved them, along with the phone and the laptop, into the briefcase he found in one of the desk drawers. Gao really had thought of everything. He closed the zipper on the briefcase and stood. "Lead the way," he said.

They climbed two flights of stairs. On the third floor, Gao stepped into the hallway and opened a door on her left. She handed the key to Matt and said, "I will leave you now. Dinner will be brought up shortly." She turned and limped away. Matt closed the apartment door behind her.

Once her footsteps reached the second floor, Matt set his briefcase on a small table in the entry and turned his attention to the apartment. It was small, as Gao had said, but neat and uncluttered, no doubt to accommodate his blindness. He stayed in the tiny foyer and scanned the space with his senses, searching for the cameras and microphones he was certain were there. Surprisingly, there weren't any. It didn't make any difference. He didn't know how – he didn't know the full extent of Gao's powers – but she would be watching him, one way or another.

He left the foyer and made his way into the kitchen, noticing the braille labels on the drawers and cupboards. He opened the mini-fridge and found it stocked with beer, white wine, milk, and fruit juices. He grabbed a bottle of beer and went into the living room, where he sat on the couch, drinking and thinking. When the bottle was half empty, he set it on the coffee table in front of him and leaned back with his hands laced together behind his head. He'd recovered from the shock of Gao's offer to restore his eyesight, but he was no closer to an answer to the question that had plagued him all day: did he even want it?

He supposed that Gao, like most sighted people, would assume he wanted it, more than anything else. In his case, not so much. As a nine-year-old boy, in the early days of his blindness, he was sure his eyesight would come back. It had to. When his dad and his doctor explained, as kindly and gently as possible, that it wasn't coming back, he refused to believe them. He clapped his hands over his ears, trying to block out their words, along with all of the other sounds of the hospital that were so loud. "Just give him time, Jack," the doctor said softly. But Matt heard him.

In time, as the doctor had predicted, he came to understand that his sight wasn't coming back. Then his father was murdered, and Stick came into his life. Stick, who taught him blindness wasn't a disability, and sight was irrelevant, a distraction. He absorbed these and Stick's other teachings and made them a part of himself. He focused on what his senses told him about the unseen world all around him; he didn't need sight. He no longer thought about getting his sight back. Until now.

Gao hadn't said whether restoring his sight would affect his senses and the abilities they gave him. It wasn't seeing, exactly. What his senses showed him was different. And it was better. He wasn't just putting a positive spin on his situation; he truly believed it. For sighted people, sight was the dominant sense. If he became dependent on sight, would he lose his abilities? He wasn't sure he'd make that trade.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Dinner had arrived.

"All rise."

Matt rose from his seat next to Ben Donovan at the defense table as the judge made his way into the courtroom and took the bench.

"Please be seated and come to order."

As the courtroom clerk called the case, two bailiffs escorted Wilson Fisk to a seat in the jury box, where in-custody defendants were customarily seated for hearings of this type. Matt tilted his head in Fisk's direction. He knew the exact moment when Fisk registered his presence in the courtroom. The big man's heart rate and adrenaline spiked, and he attempted to get to his feet, only to be restrained by the two bailiffs. Fisk shouldn't have been surprised to see him. Donovan said he'd told Fisk that Matt would be there to argue the motion on his behalf. It didn't matter. Fisk still wanted him dead.

The Assistant District Attorney, a woman named Kirsten McDuffie whom Matt didn't know, approached the lectern and began to speak. He listened intently as she outlined all of the reasons Fisk should not be released on bail, reasons with which Matt personally agreed. Nevertheless, he made mental notes of several points he would need to rebut in his own argument.

ADA McDuffie finished her argument and returned to her seat at the prosecution table. The judge turned to the defense table. "Counsel."

That was Matt's signal. He rose from his chair and made his way to the lectern, careful to trail his hand across the back of Donovan's chair and appear to be counting his steps. When he reached the lectern, he gripped it with both hands, feeling the usual courtroom butterflies in his stomach. They faded quickly. The outcome of the hearing was not in doubt. Donovan arranged to have the case assigned to a favorable judge, and Gao's people had found something that gave them leverage on the jurist. Matt didn't know what; it was better that he didn't know.

He took a deep breath, stated his appearance – "Good afternoon, Your Honor, Matthew Murdock, for defendant Wilson Fisk" – and launched into his argument. He had to make it look good, so that the judge's ruling would appear legitimate. He covered all of the usual points: flight risk, ties to the community, the constitutional right to bail, the obstacles to assisting in his defense if he remained in custody. Matt didn't downplay the seriousness of the crimes with which Fisk was charged, but argued the court had the power to set conditions to address any concerns about public safety. His argument complete, Matt thanked the judge and returned to his seat.

To Matt's surprise, ADA McDuffie merely rose and shook her head, saying, "No, Your Honor," when the judge asked if she wished to respond to his argument. Did she know it was futile, because the fix was in? Or did she simply feel she'd rebutted all of Matt's arguments already? Matt didn't know the answers to those questions, and he wasn't about to ask her.

The judge announced, "We'll be in recess for fifteen minutes. I'll announce my ruling at that time." Matt stood as the judge left the bench and went into his chambers. Apparently the judge had also gotten the message that he had to make it look good. He hoped that was the case, and the judge wasn't getting cold feet.

True to his word, the judge returned in fifteen minutes to make his ruling. "The motion for bail is granted, subject to the following conditions. The defendant to post bond in the amount of two million dollars. Upon posting bond, the defendant shall be released to home confinement. The defendant shall be confined to his residence except for court appearances. Any other exceptions must be authorized by an order of this court. The defendant must wear an ankle monitor at all times. The defendant shall surrender his passport. The defendant shall submit to a search of his person and residence by law enforcement at any time, without notice."

Donovan rose from his chair. "Thank you, Your Honor."

"Anything further?" the judge asked.

"No. Thank you, Your Honor," the attorneys replied in unison.

The judge banged his gavel. "Next case."

The attorneys gathered their files and left the courtroom as the attorneys in the next case came forward.

Matt shook hands with Donovan and walked out of the courthouse. He stood on the courthouse steps next to Donovan as he made a statement about the court's ruling to the assembled media. Donovan ended the briefing without taking questions, shook Matt's hand for the photographers, then went back inside the courthouse to deal with the details of Fisk's release. Matt walked away, pursued by several reporters. He ignored them. A car was waiting for him down the block from the building. It took him back to his "office" behind the Chinatown restaurant.

He sat at his desk and pulled the laptop out of his briefcase but didn't open it. Now that the judge had ordered Fisk's release on bail, he could no longer ignore the question that had been nagging at him: if the fix was in, why did Gao need him, specifically? It wasn't simply to make Fisk more amenable when Matt approached him about selling the properties. Plenty of other lawyers could have done what he did. Gao had another agenda. He was sure of it.

Gao's limping footsteps, in time with the thumps of her cane, approached. She stopped a few feet from the door. "It all went as planned, I trust."

"Yes."

"Good." She turned to leave, not waiting for his answer.

"Wait," he barked. She stopped and turned toward him. "The Hand has been around for a long time, centuries, right?"

"That is correct."

"You told me yesterday that you left K'un Lun to use your powers to benefit humanity, but billions of people still live in poverty, suffering from hunger and disease, oppressed by corrupt and racist governments. I see no evidence you've done anything for them."

Gao sighed indulgently and took a seat across the desk from him. "Of course you cannot. You are unable to see the long view. You are impatient because you have so little time. Real change is slow, it takes place over centuries. We take two steps forward, one step back, sometimes two or three steps back. Short-lived humans are susceptible to demagogues and con men who prey on their ignorance and fear of change to thwart our efforts."

It was true, what she said about demagogues and con men. He wasn't so sure about the rest. "The Hand wasn't working to benefit humanity," he told her, "you were only amassing wealth and power for the purpose of amassing more wealth and power."

She chuckled, softly and mirthlessly. "Do you think I am interested in accumulating diamonds and yachts and private planes?" she asked.

"No."

"Then what do you think I have been doing?"

That was the problem. He didn't know. When he didn't answer her, she rose from her chair and started to leave. He didn't want to let her go, not until she told him what he needed to know.

"I got Fisk out," he said, "and you'll get the properties you want. But what do you really want from me?"

She stopped and turned toward him. "That will be revealed in time."

Matt leaped to his feet. "Tell me!" he yelled as he charged toward her. She extended an arm, and a force he couldn't resist pushed him back. He skidded across the room, slammed into the far wall, and fell to the floor.

"Patience, Matthew. All in good time."

He sat up, turning his face toward her with what he hoped looked like a glare. When he caught his breath, he got to his feet and said, "Answer the question, damn you! What do you want from me?"

She turned and limped away, closing the door firmly behind her.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath.

Karen

"God damn it." Karen scowled at her laptop, but that failed to change what she was seeing on the screen: Matt, standing on the courthouse steps next to Ben Donovan, who was praising him for his work – getting Wilson Fisk out on bail. "Foggy!" she yelled.

"I'm right here." Foggy scrambled to his feet and went to stand behind her. Both of them gazed in disbelief at the scene unfolding on the screen. It was mercifully brief, ending when Matt and Donovan shook hands for the photographers. Then Matt walked down the stairs and away from the building, while Donovan went back into the courthouse.

She and Foggy looked at each other, speechless. She finally found her voice. "What the hell is he doing?"

Foggy just shook his head.

She tried to get inside Matt's head – never easy to do – and figure out what he was up to. Only one possibility came to mind. It was the only one that made any sense to her, but it made her blood run cold.

"What if – " she began, then fell silent. She didn't want to say what she was thinking. Finally, she said, "What if he got Fisk out to . . . to kill him?"

"Shit," Foggy swore. He pulled up a chair and fell into it. He buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, his expression was bleak. "Could be. It sounds like something Matt would do."

"But why now? Things were going so well, and . . . and he made that deal with Fisk."

"Something must've happened."

"OK, but what?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." She started to say something else, but stopped when the sound of voices – many of them – drifted up from the street in front of Nelson's Meats. She crossed to the window and looked out. Foggy followed her.

"What the hell?" he asked. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, chanting, "Lock Fisk up!" and "Lock Murdock up!" A few of them were even waving homemade signs.

Foggy sat down heavily in the nearest chair. He looked up at her. "So much for Nelson & Murdock," he said. "No one in Hell's Kitchen will hire us, not after this."

Karen sat next to him. "You're right. It only took him three months to turn it all to shit." Anger welled up in her. "God damn him to hell."

They looked at each other, then went back to work. Karen stared at a report on her screen for a few minutes, maybe longer, she didn't know. Then she decided it was hopeless and went to look out the window again.

Foggy

"Uh-oh." Karen let her hand fall to her side. The slats of the blinds fell back into place.

Foggy looked over the screen of his laptop. "What?"

"See for yourself."

He got to his feet and went to look out the window. His bad day was about to become a whole lot worse. Brett Mahoney was pushing his way through the crowd in front of the building. Moments later, he heard the detective's footsteps on the stairs. The door to the office was flung open, and Brett marched into the room. "What the hell, Nelson?" he demanded. "What sort of fucked-up game is Murdock playing this time?"

Foggy held out his hands, his palms up. "No idea." He did have an idea, but he wasn't about to share it with Brett. If Matt was planning to kill Fisk, Brett didn't need to know. "Maybe that wasn't really him. Maybe it was a pod person or a clone," he quipped.

"This isn't a joke, Nelson," Brett reminded him sternly.

"I know. But I honestly do not know what he's doing."

"You haven't heard from him since he left?"

Foggy shook his head. "No."

Brett turned to Karen. "What about you, Page?"

"No."

"Any idea what he thinks he's doing?"

Like Foggy, Karen shook her head. "No. I've wracked my brains, but . . . nothing."

Brett gave a frustrated huff. "OK. Let me know if you hear from him. And understand this, both of you." He pointed a finger at them. "If I find out you've been lying to me, or holding something back, you won't like what happens next."

"Look, Brett, I know it doesn't look good," Foggy said. "But maybe we should, you know, reserve judgment until we have all the facts."

Brett glared at him, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.