Free The Wrong Man by David Ellis Page A

controlled whisper, “is Stanley?”
    Stanley Keane, he meant, the owner of SK Tool and Supply, located in the small downstate town of Weston.
    “Don’t see him,” said McCabe. McCabe, a principal at the law firm of Dembrow, Lane, and McCabe, was outside counsel to Global Harvest.
    Manning put his hand on the back of McCabe’s chair and spoke into his ear. “Stanley needs to be here,” he said. “He needs to be seen here.”
    “He understands that.”
    “Does he, Bruce? It was your job to make sure he understood.”
    “He’ll show up,” McCabe insisted.
    He never did. When the speech and luncheon ended, Randall Manning mingled with other business executives. He shook their hands and listened to their stories and told some of his own. He laughed at their jokes and told some of his own. He waited in line for a photograph with the labor secretary and swallowed his loathing and forced a smile on his face for the photographer.
    When it was over, Manning had his driver take him to the Gold Coast Athletic Club, where he met the president of a pharmaceutical company—one of Global Harvest’s biggest clients—for a game of squash. At five o’clock, he met a local alderman and a state senator for drinks to discuss a tax-incentive proposal for a freight yard that Global Harvest was considering building inside the city limits. At seven o’clock, he had a steak at one of the city’s best joints, enjoying a view of the river in the process.
    At nine o’clock, he returned to his hotel. He took the elevator up to his room, changed his overcoat from a charcoal one to a beige one, donned a fedora hat, and took the elevator back down to the fourth floor, a transitional floor that allowed him to access a different bank of elevators that, in turn, allowed him to exit the hotel onto a cross street, different from the one he’d taken to enter the hotel. He never broke stride into a waiting town car and settled in for the drive.
    They drove to a town called Overton Ridge, several miles outside the city limits to the south and west. The car passed the Good Shepherd Methodist Church on the corner of Wadsworth and Pickens, bearing a small magnetic sign that read: W HOSOEVER SHALL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE L ORD SHALL BE SAVED .
    The car stopped in an alley behind the church, where two large, armed men stood by the back door. They showed Randall Manning down a set of stairs to the basement, then to a back room.
    When that door opened, six men stood at once. They included Manning’s lawyer, Bruce McCabe. They included Stanley Keane of SK Tool and Supply, who hadn’t made it to the luncheon today.
    On Manning’s motion, the six men took their seats at a long rectangular table. At one end, where a seat remained vacant for Manning, was a. 38 revolver. Manning picked it up and pointed it at the man sitting immediately to his right.
    “Are you prepared to give your life for the cause?” he asked.
    “I am,” said the man, young and powerful like a football player in his prime, with a severe haircut and militant eyes. “I understand that the cause is greater than the individual. I understand that sacrificing this life for the cause will open up a new and richer life in the hereafter. I understand that—”
    “Good.” Manning lowered the weapon to his side and walked around the table to Stanley Keane’s spot. “And you, Stanley?”
    Stanley shrunk amid the scrutiny. “I am,” he said. “I understand that the cause is—”
    “Enough,” said Manning. He positioned the revolver against Stanley’s left ear. “Did we not agree that it was necessary for you to attend the luncheon today?”
    “We did, sir.”
    “But you did not.”
    “It was a scheduling issue, sir—”
    “A scheduling issue? We have to cover our tracks, Brother Stanley, if you hadn’t noticed. If anyone is wondering why I’m here in the city today, I can point to the lunch with the labor secretary, I can point to a meeting I had with elected officials, I