Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

Cisco was turning in an Oscar-caliber performance. I put my hand on his shoulder and held him from approaching the two men. I didn’t have to say anything but the message was clear. Let me have a shot at them.
    I took the wrench from Cisco and squatted like a baseball catcher in front of the captives. I hefted the heavy tool in my hand for a few seconds, getting a good feel for its weight, before speaking.
    “Who hired you to hurt me?”
    The Talker answered immediately. He wasn’t interested in protecting anybody but himself and his brother.
    “A guy named Dahl. He told us to hit you hard but not kill you. You can’t do this, man.”
    “I think we can do whatever we want. How do you know Dahl?”
    “We don’t. But we had a mutual connection.”
    “And who was that?”
    No answer. I didn’t have to wait long before Bam Bam lived up to his moniker and leaned down and hit them both with pistonlike punches to the jaw. The Talker was spitting blood when he gave me the name.
    “Jerry Castille.”
    “And who’s Jerry Castille?”
    “Look, you can’t tell anybody this.”
    “You’re not in a position to tell me what I can or can’t do. Who’s Jerry Castille?”
    “He’s the west coast representative.”
    I waited but that was it.
    “I don’t have all night, man. West coast representative of what?”
    The bloodied man nodded like he knew there was only one way to go here.
    “Of a certain east-coast organization. You get it?”
    I looked at Cisco. Herb Dahl had ties to east-coast organized crime? It seemed far-fetched.
    “No, you don’t get it,” I said. “I’m a lawyer. I want a direct answer. Which organization? You have exactly five seconds until—”
    “He works for Joey Giordano outta Brooklyn, okay? Now you’ve sealed the deal on us anyway. So go fuck yourself.”
    He reared back and spit blood at me. I had left my suit coat and tie at the office. I looked down at my white shirt and saw a bloodstain just outside the area that would be covered by a tie.
    “This is a monogrammed shirt, you shit head.”
    Tommy Guns suddenly moved between us and I heard the brutal impact of fist on face but didn’t see it because of Tommy’s massive size. He then stepped back and I could see the Talker was now spitting out teeth.
    “Monogrammed shirt, man,” Tommy Guns said, as if offering an explanation for his vicious action.
    I stood up.
    “Okay, cut them loose,” I said.
    Cisco and the two Saints turned to look at me.
    “Cut ’em loose,” I said again.
    “You sure?” Cisco said. “They’ll probably go running back to this fucker Castille and tell him we know.”
    I looked down at the two men on the floor and shook my head.
    “No, they won’t. They tell him that they talked and they’ll probably end up dead. So cut them loose and it’s like this never happened. They’ll drop out of sight until the bruises go away. And that will be the end of it.”
    I bent down to get close to the two captives.
    “I have that right, right?”
    “Yeah,” said the Talker, a bulge the size of a marble forming on his upper lip.
    I looked at his brother.
    “Is that right? I want to hear it from both of you.”
    “Yeah, yeah, right,” the Puncher said.
    I looked at Cisco. We were finished here. He gave the order.
    “Okay, Guns, listen up. You wait till dark. You leave them in here and wait till dark. Then you bag ’em and take ’em back to wherever they want to go. You drop them off but you leave ’em alone. You got it?”
    “Yeah, I got it.”
    Poor Tommy Guns. He truly looked disappointed.
    I took one last look at the bloodied men on the floor. And they looked up at me. The feeling of holding their lives in my hands sent an electric jolt through me. Cisco tapped me on the back and I followed him from the room, closing the door behind me. We started down the hall but I put my hand on my investigator’s arm and stopped him.
    “You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have brought me here.”
    “Are you kidding? I had to bring you here.”
    “What are you talking about? Why?”
    “Because they did something to you. Inside. You lost something, Mick, and if you don’t get it back you aren’t going to be much good to yourself or anybody else.”
    I stared at him for a long moment and then nodded.
    “I got it back.”
    “Good. Now we never have to talk about this again. Can you take me back to the office so I can pick up my bike?”
    “Yeah. I can do that.”

Thirty-one
    Driving by