“Are you fucking kidding me?” Brady demanded. “Don’t listen to him, Mr. D. He just wants to get you alone so he can whack you.”
Finch gave Brady a look almost as chilly as the one he’d originally given Hudson, and Brady flinched. “Hudson Taylor is one of my most trusted friends.”
For the first time, Hudson began to contemplate the idea that he might actually get out of Kismet alive. “Please, Mr. D,” he begged. “I really do think I know what happened, but I don’t wanna say in front of these guys.”
Finch closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. “Gio,” he said.
“Mr. D?”
“Take everyone except Hudson downstairs. Put them in the break room and lock both doors. You hear me?” He opened his eyes. “The door to the cloakroomandthe main door to the dance floor. And while you’re at it, I want you to check every other door in and out of this place is shut and locked, including the emergency exit.” He looked around at the others standing there, glaring at him. “And every one of you here who has a key to any door, any window, anythingin this place, you put it on my desk. Now.”
Hudson and Dino turned over theirs quickly, dropping them on the desk. Ziggy put his neatly-organized keyring down next to them, and then Art added his to the pile.
“You never trusted me enough to give me keys,” Brady said with a rude shrug when Finch turned expectantly to him.
“And I’m pleased about that right now,” Finch said, narrowing his eyes at the DJ. “Phones, too. No bitching,” he added, as Brady started to moan about it.
Ziggy cleared his throat. “You can look through my phone if you want, Mr. D. For incriminating texts or whatever.”
Finch hesitated, but then said, “I don’t think we need to go there yet, Ziggy.”
“No one’s looking throughmyphone,” Brady snarled. “It’s private. And I ain’t leaving it here.”
“Yeah, you are,” Gio said. “And no one wants to see your dick pics, dipshit. Relax.” Brady looked at him for a moment, sneering, and then tossed his phone down on the desk.
“Wait,” Finch said, after everyone had handed over their phones and were turning towards the door. “I think… I think I’d better have any weapons, as well.”
“I ain’t getting locked in some room with these fuckers and no protection,” Dino said at once.
“Come on, Dino,” Gio said. “Don’t be stupid about this.”
Mutinously, Dino unholstered his gun and laid it on the table. “Don’t tell me the rest of you fuckers aren’t armed.”
Brady shook his head. “What do I need a gun for?”
Art guffawed, “You think I need protection from shitty toilets?”
Ziggy merely spread his arms with a shrug.
“I ain’t going nowhere with these guys if they don’t turn them over,” Dino insisted.
Finch squeezed at the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut again. “Gio, pat them down.”
Hudson watched. In the very back of his brain he was thinking about what it might feel like to have Gio Carlucci pathimdown.
“They’re clean,” Gio said. “No weapons. No money, either.”
“Okay,” Finch said. “Happy, Dino?”
“Since you ask?—”
“Get the fuck out of here, all of you,” Finch said wearily.
“Yo, all of you. Let’s go,” Gio said, jerking his head towards the door.
Once they were gone, and Hudson was the only one left in the office, Finch laid his hand softly over his gun. “You’re not going to make any sudden moves, are you, Hudson?”
“No, Mr. D. Definitely not.”
