Chapter 2 – The Pitch
Matt
Two weeks passed.
During the day, when they weren't working on their cases, Matt and Karen investigated Vanessa Fisk. Apparently, she had some money squirreled away, out of the reach of the Feds and the State of New York. She used some of that money openly to buy the Scene Contempo gallery, where she used to work. This allowed her to create a public image as a gallery owner specializing in undiscovered and underappreciated artists. Behind the scenes, Matt and Karen now suspected, she was using the rest of her money to rebuild her husband's organization. Apparently, the rebuilding effort had made enough progress to enable her to contest Owlsley's power grab in Hell's Kitchen.
At night, the violence between Owlsley's and Vanessa's organizations continued unabated. If anything, it was getting worse. Matt went after drug dealers, pimps and muggers but continued to stay out of the clashes between Owlsley's and Vanessa's men. He hoped Owlsley could take down Vanessa on his own, and he could somehow convince Fisk he had nothing to do with it. But even if he could persuade Fisk, Matt wasn't optimistic about his chances of preserving their deal and keeping Foggy and Karen safe. Fisk wouldn't care that it was Owlsley, not Daredevil, who brought Vanessa down. Once that happened, Fisk would no longer have an incentive to honor the deal. But until Matt could come up with a better plan, this was his only option.
The answer came one afternoon when Matt was alone in the office. Foggy was in court, and Karen was serving a subpoena on a witness who didn't want to "get involved." His phone rang, a call from an unknown number, but Matt answered it anyway. It could be a new client calling. The number was unknown to him, but the voice wasn't.
"Hello, Matthew," Vanessa said.
"Vanessa."
"I was wondering if you might be able to meet me at my gallery in, say, an hour."
"What's this about?" Matt asked.
"I'd rather not discuss it over the phone," Vanessa replied, "but I assure you it will be to your advantage."
Matt considered this. He didn't trust Vanessa, not for a minute, but he had to admit he was intrigued. And the risk was minimal. His deal with Fisk protected both of them. Vanessa was unlikely to blow it up, especially not by killing him in her own art gallery.
"All right," he said guardedly, "I'll be there."
When he arrived at the gallery, it was empty except for Vanessa and two security guards. She dismissed them. They grumbled but obeyed. Matt recognized the dismissal of the guards for what it was: she was sending a message. Two messages, really. He was no threat to her, and she was no threat to him. Not at this moment, anyway. He followed her to an office at the rear of the building. She closed the door and said, "Have a seat," gesturing to a chair on her right. "May I offer you a drink?"
"No, thank you," Matt replied, pulling up the chair. Vanessa took a seat on the opposite side of a small low table. He turned to face her, raising his eyebrows. "So – ?" he began.
"I have a . . . proposal for you, involving our mutual adversary, 'The Owl'," Vanessa explained. "I have been following your efforts to curb his activities in Hell's Kitchen, but I am sorry to say, they don't appear to be working."
"Got that right," Matt muttered.
"I do, however, appreciate your staying out of the, ah, disputes between his people and mine."
"I was hoping you'd end up taking each other out," Matt observed.
"Of course you were. Not a bad idea, except for one thing: your agreement with my husband. If I go down, he will surely view that as – what do you lawyers call it? – a breach of contract?"
"Not exactly," Matt countered. "I only agreed not to go after you myself. I haven't, and I won't."
"Always the lawyer," Vanessa murmured, "but I don't think Wilson will appreciate the distinction. And if Owlsley prevails, there will be no reason for him to continue to honor the agreement. There will be no – what's the legal term?"
"Consideration," Matt replied.
"Exactly." Vanessa steepled her hands in front of her face. "I have a better idea, one that will preserve your agreement and keep your friends, and me, safe."
"I'm listening," Matt replied.
"A few weeks ago, I attempted an aboveboard approach to Mr. Owlsley. One of my associates met with him and offered an arrangement whereby he and I would share the heroin trade in Hell's Kitchen. Owlsley's answer to my proposal was to have my associate brutally murdered. His body was found in pieces, scattered around the Kitchen. In light of that outcome, I have concluded the only way to bring Owlsley down is from inside his organization."
"Makes sense," Matt commented. "But what does this have to do with me?"
"I want you to infiltrate Owlsley's organization and help me bring him down."
"Me?" Matt asked incredulously. "Why not recruit someone who's already working for him?"
Vanessa shook her head. "No. I need someone who can be trusted. I suppose we might find something to give us leverage on one of his associates, enough to turn him. But someone who can be turned once can't be trusted not to turn again. No. It has to be you."
"Aren't you forgetting something? I'm blind. Owlsley will never hire a blind guy. And I can't pass for sighted indefinitely."
"You won't need to," Vanessa said dismissively, with a wave of her hand. "You have skills that can be very useful to someone like Owlsley. You simply need to give him a demonstration of those skills. Once you're in, you can gain his trust, get him to talk, maybe listen in when he's talking to other people, find out what he's planning. Then you tell me. You can do that as well as anyone, probably better."
"You have no idea," Matt thought. Or maybe she did. He wasn't sure how much Fisk had figured out about his abilities, but whatever Fisk knew, Vanessa knew.
"And he won't see a blind man as a threat," Vanessa added.
Matt bristled at the comment, but before he could respond, she continued, "People have underestimated you your whole life, ever since you lost your sight. We can use that to our advantage."
She was right, but that didn't mean Matt had to go along with her plan. "There's no way it'll work. I can't go to work for Owlsley as Matt Murdock."
"Of course not. Do you remember when Wilson went public with his plan for 'A Better Tomorrow'?" Matt nodded. "The people who altered his life story on the Internet and in the public records still work for me. As we speak, they're working on an identity for you. And we'll change your appearance."
Vanessa stood up and walked over to her desk. She picked up a file and handed it to Matt. "Meet 'Michael John Murphy'," she said.
Matt set the file down on the coffee table. "You're forgetting one thing," he said, "I have a life. I can't just walk away from it. People will notice."
"I haven't forgotten that," Vanessa assured him as she resumed her seat. "The cover story will be that you're on a well-deserved sabbatical, at a religious retreat upstate. Entirely in character, don't you think?" When Matt didn't respond, she added, "The retreat is a real place, where guests are incommunicado during their stay. Fortunately, the chapel is in dire need of a new roof. The brothers were happy to accept my generous donation. And I've arranged for one of my associates to stay there under your name. If anyone asks about you, they will be told you're there, for as long as we need you to be."
Matt had heard enough. More than enough. He started to get to his feet. Then a final objection occurred to him. "Foggy and Karen will need to be in on it. They'll never agree."
"I think they will," Vanessa replied confidently. "It's for their protection, after all."
Matt scoffed as he stood up. "Somehow, I don't think they'll see it that way." He took several steps toward the door before Vanessa spoke. He stopped and turned to face her.
"Just consider my proposal, please," she said. "If Owlsley and I go to war, it will tear Hell's Kitchen apart. You know it will. And this is the only alternative."
Matt walked out without replying. But he took the file with him.
Matt decided to walk back to the office instead of taking a cab. He needed time to think. Vanessa's plan would never work, of course, but it had a certain . . . appeal. And a nagging voice in his head kept telling him her parting comment was correct: there was no other way to keep the Kitchen safe, not to mention Foggy and Karen. On the other hand, he couldn't discount the possibility that it was all an elaborate scheme to discredit him or, worse, get him killed. He hadn't detected any falsity in Vanessa's voice or her heartbeat, but she could have concealed her true intentions without directly lying to him. He gave a mental shrug. Even if Vanessa was being honest with him, it wasn't going to happen. Foggy and Karen would never agree.
When he arrived back at the office, he had the place to himself; Foggy and Karen had not yet returned. He sat behind his desk and opened the case file in front of him. He started reading the motion to suppress he'd filed several weeks earlier and was going to argue in the morning, but he couldn't concentrate on the legal points he needed to make in his argument. His thoughts kept straying to the other file on the desk, the one Vanessa had given him. Finally, he gave up and closed the case file.
He picked up Vanessa's file and started to read. Halfway through it, he paused and smiled to himself at the name of the religious retreat he supposedly was going to visit: St. Dunstan's Abbey. "St. Dunstan? Seriously?" he asked himself, recognizing the name of the saint who cleverly defeated the devil, twice. He wondered if Vanessa knew the story. And if she knew, was she trying to send him a message? He shrugged. He'd have to ask Karen to find out if it was a real place. Ten minutes later, his reading finished, he closed the file and leaned back in his chair. He had to admit he was impressed with Vanessa's thoroughness and attention to detail, traits she shared with her husband. The plan, if it was a real plan, just might work. It wasn't as if he had a better one.
Foggy finally got back from court a little after 5 p.m. Karen had arrived a half hour earlier. As soon as he heard Foggy walk in, Matt picked up Vanessa's file and followed Foggy into his office. He took a seat in one of their new client chairs and said, "We need to talk." Before he could ask Karen to join them, he heard her footsteps approaching. "Take a seat, please," he told her, gesturing toward the other client chair.
As soon as Matt finished explaining Vanessa's plan, Foggy exploded. "Have you lost your fucking mind?" he demanded. Before Matt could respond, Foggy cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Never mind. I already know the answer."
"Look, Fog, I know it sounds crazy," Matt began.
Foggy cut him off again. "No, Matt, it doesn't sound crazy. It is crazy. Going undercover in Owlsley's organization?"
"I have to do this, Fog."
"No, you don't." Foggy leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"You're forgetting something," Matt told him.
"What's that?" Foggy asked.
"My deal with Fisk."
"What about it?"
"You and Karen are safe only as long as Vanessa is. If Owlsley takes her down, the deal is history. I can't let that happen."
"Shit," Foggy swore.
"Just take a look," Matt urged him, holding out the file. "It could work."
"Yeah, and it could also get you killed," Foggy protested. "I can't believe you'd trust Vanessa. She's Fisk's wife, for chrissake."
"I don't trust her. But I do trust that she wants to take Owlsley down."
"I don't think it's Owlsley she wants to take down. It's you, Matt. You're her target."
"If that's her plan, she's going to a hell of a lot of trouble to get rid of me," Matt argued. "There are plenty of easier ways to do it. Just read it, please," Matt said, offering him the file again.
Foggy took the file and opened it, then groaned. "You know I suck at Braille."
"And whose fault is that?" Matt asked him, then addressed Karen."You have no idea how much time I spent – no, wasted – trying to teach Foggy to read Braille when we were in college."
"Don't try to change the subject," Foggy told him, dropping the file on his desk. He turned to Karen. "Help me out here, Karen."
She didn't answer right away. Finally, she said slowly, "I don't know . . . ."
"You gotta be shitting me!" Foggy exclaimed.
"Just hear me out," Karen said. "Maybe we need to deal with one threat at a time. Right now, Owlsley's the bigger threat. It's his heroin, his thugs, that are everywhere in Hell's Kitchen. Vanessa's less of a threat, as long as Matt's deal with Fisk is in place."
"Yeah," Foggy scoffed, "and how long's that gonna be?"
"I don't know," Karen conceded, "but probably long enough for us to take care of Owlsley."
Foggy shook his head. "I don't believe it. You can't be serious."
"I'm not saying Vanessa's plan is the way to do it, but we need to bring down Owlsley, one way or another."
"You got a better idea?" Matt asked. "If so, I'm all ears."
Neither Foggy nor Karen responded. Matt guessed there was some non-verbal communication between them that he couldn't pick up. He decided to wait them out, but after several minutes passed in silence, he picked up the file, went back to his office, and made a call. When Vanessa answered, he said, "I'll do it."