Free Parker 05 - The Darkness by Jason Pinter

did you say..." I replied, but Jack cut me off.
    "So what does that mean?" Jack said. "They didn't pay
    for the space? How did you bring in money?"
    "The company itself didn't pay us," he replied, eyes
    looking at the bottle like it was a well-aged steak. "There
    was a law firm."
    "Kaiser, Hirschtritt and Certilman," I said. "They
    occupied the floor above."
    Talcott nodded, his eyes red. He bit his lower lip. Hard.
    "Go on," Jack said.
    "The law firm leased one floor. Eighteen. About a year
    after they leased it, our tenants on seventeen moved out.
    We needed money bad. So when Brett Kaiser came to us
    and made a proposition, we had no choice. The tenant that
    occupied that floor had left three months earlier. We
    couldn't afford to take another hit without recouping
    some of our losses."
    "What was the offer?" I said.
    "Somebody would occupy the seventeenth floor. Only
    for legal purposes, the firm would be listed as the leaser.
    They would take care of monthly payments for both
    floors. That was that. We treated it like a tenant was
    simply occupying two floors."
    "So who was on seventeen?" I asked.
    "I don't know," Talcott said. "That was part of Kaiser's
    deal. He said the people on seventeen would never need
    anything from Orchid, and we should never ever contact
    The Darkness
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    them for any reason. I never went to that floor, and they
    never even hired a cleaning crew as far as I know. One
    time, though, one of our maid services told me she accidentally got off on the wrong floor, got lost. She said the
    offices were closed, and had some sort of security system
    she'd never seen before. Like something out of the space
    program, she said."
    "Doesn't sound like something a law office would
    employ," I said to Jack. He didn't respond.
    "There's something wrong with that company. I don't
    know what it is, but I had a feeling that some day
    somebody would ask me these questions. I never wanted
    to know what they did. But I had to lease as much space
    as possible or the building could have gone under."
    "I'm sure Kaiser knew that," I said. "And knew you
    wouldn't ask questions as long as the checks arrived on
    time."
    "I never needed to or wanted to ask questions," Talcott
    said. "There are plenty of tenants whose businesses I'm
    not fully acquainted with. As long as they're running a
    legal operation and paying on time, they have their right
    to privacy."
    "And you have a right to know where your money is
    coming from," I said.
    "What if," Jack said, "you had a choice between getting
    paid and having a tenant running a legal operation?"
    "I've never had to make that choice."
    "Never had to, or never wanted to think you had to,"
    Jack replied.
    Talcott said nothing, but that bottle of scotch was practically gravitating toward his hands.
    "One more thing," Jack said. "Do you have contact information for Brett Kaiser?"
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    Jason Pinter
    "Sure," Talcott said. "Cell phone, home phone and
    e-mail address. Will that be all?"
    "Just the contact info," Jack said. "And if there's anything else you can think of, here's my card."
    Jack handed it to him. Talcott stared at it like it might
    spontaneously burst into flame, then pocketed it.
    "Not a problem." Talcott took a piece of letterhead
    from his printer and scribbled the information on it. His
    handwriting was sloppy and careless. My guess was that
    Iris was responsible for his "personal" notes.
    When he finished, Talcott folded the page and inserted
    it into an Orchid Realty envelope. Jack took it and stuffed
    it inside his jacket pocket.
    "Pleasure meeting you," Jack said, pointing at the
    bottle of liquor. "Now we'll leave you two alone."
    9
    Morgan Isaacs kept one hand on his BlackBerry, which
    was nestled snugly inside his front pants pocket. To
    anyone on the street it looked like he might be playing a
    game of pocket pool, but this Chester guy was ten minutes
    late and Morgan didn't want to miss a phone call. He considered leaving. I mean, who in the hell meets about a