When had I started sitting at the same table as Agent K?
Jeez.
Anyway. Gary had opened his eyes and had suffered for it—but he’d also turned his talents to the aid of the good guys, or at least me and several of my allies.
“You won’t give anyone your phone number, Gary,” I pointed out reasonably.
He scowled at me. He was in his early twenties and hadn’t gotten used to the idea of not taking offense at contradiction yet. “Luddite.”
He wasn’t wrong, even if it was involuntary. I reminded myself that the kid lived on the internet and was uncomfortable without a phone or tablet or laptop in hand. He clutched a thick folder to his chest like a teddy bear.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know that going outside isn’t exactly your gig, so thanks for coming by.”
That seemed to mollify him a little. He nodded once.
“First things first,” I said. “Any word on Justine?”
He shook his head. “Nothing new. A few hints. They’re on the last few pages.” He reluctantly laid the folder down on my desk.
“What’s the rest?” I asked.
“Everything I could find on Winter Winter, your lawyer.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “What?”
He sighed and nodded at the folder. “Page one of the needlessly killed trees. Talvi Inverno has got to be some kind of alias. The name is just the Finnish and Portuguese words for ‘winter.’”
I lifted my eyebrows and opened the folder.
Bob the Skull might be able to receive cable and the internet now, but the spirit still didn’t seem to understand how things were done there, despite the shared quality of disembodiment. Paranoid Gary, however, was a native of the virtual realms, and he’d come up with a hell of a lot more than Bob had.
I scanned over the pages. “Defends killers, drug dealers and pimps,” I said. “Starting about a year after Marcone became Baron Marcone.” I tilted back my head, still reading. “And he’s good. This can’t be right. Ninety-nine percent of his trials are wins?”
“Some high end legal guys are like that,” Will put in quietly from the doorway. “If they aren’t sure they can win, they prefer to settle.”
“Predators are like that,” I contradicted him. “They take sure bets. They’re reluctant to engage in anything less than a completely unfair fight. But you never know how a trial is going to go. With a record like that, and if he’s an outfit lawyer in Chicago, he probably gets a thumb put on the scales for him a lot of the time.”
“Whatever,” Gary said. “It suggests this guy will absolutely go to court and tear your client apart.”
“Yes, it does,” I said, frowning. I eyed one of the entries. “How many million? From acancercharity?”
Will whistled, half impressed, half concerned.
“He’s ruthless,” Gary said. “And he employs a cyber security firm to track anyone trying to look him up.”
I looked to Will for context.
Will lifted an eyebrow at Gary. “Did you use a VPN?”
Gary glanced at Will as if he’d asked a very stupid question. “No. I used actual countermeasures. VPN’s are like privacy locks. They just make you slightly harder to hack than the guy next to you, so the lightweights mostly leave you alone if you use them, in order to hit someone without even that much security.”
Will looked willfully patient. “My point is, Gary, are you in any danger?”
Gary shrugged, a jerky movement of shoulders constantly held too tightly. “No more than usual. I think.”
Will grimaced and looked at me. “What do you think?”
“Lawyer Winter-Winter is likely from Faerie,” I said.
