Red Alert/Red Notice (The "Super Jerk" Prequel)

27 - I Can See a Liar

^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Oasis.^^

{Geoffrey}

I catch Eckles again after our meeting that same morning. It feels like I've barely seen him since Raina's arrest, but maybe that has something to do with Hugo and Aisha's problem. I haven't been able to concentrate on work much at all recently.

"Howard!" I have to jog to catch up to him.

"Geoff, good to see you," he says, bright blue eyes flaring. "How're things?"

"Actually..." I look around, seeing we're still surrounded by people. "Could we go to your office maybe? I don't want people listening in."

"Yeah, sure," he says, sounding a little confused. Then he nods down the hall. "I'm a floor up."

I don't feel it safe to say anything until we're safely shut away in his corner office on the level above, his secretary instructed to hold all his calls.

"Is it bad?" he asks, watching me pace and pull at my collar. "You're lookin' kinda tense."

"Yeah, it is," I say, stopping and collapsing into a chair. I fill him in on everything that's happened since we last saw him in the city, being careful to not linger on Raina for too long. I don't like the look he gets in his eyes when he hears her name.

"Well, lemme tell you somethin'," he says when I'm done. "Think we can get rid of Banks pretty easily."

"Really?" I raise one eyebrow. "How?"

He scratches a temple, and then folds his arms. "Put in a word with the FBI, that he might've been practicing without a license. Once they dig up one thing, they'll find tons of other stuff, and then you'll have raids, hearings, subpoenas, the whole deal. Think he'll be tied up for a while."

I sit up, surprised. It seems too good to be true. "And he won't ever find out it was you?"

Eckles shakes his head. "Anonymous tip. Feds love those."

"I can't believe you'd do this for us."

He shrugs. "You know what they say. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."

I'm about to ask him how that's possible, but I realize why after a second. He's not doing it because we're business partners. It's because of the fact that Banks held a gun to my wife's head and threatened to shoot her. As much as I've tried to deny it, I know it's true – he cares for Raina so much that he was willing to sabotage Banks for it.

"Yeah," I say instead, wisely deciding to keep all of that to myself. He can probably read my mind anyway.

"So this election night party," he says, changing the subject. His ears are pink, confirming my suspicions. We've found each other out, evidently. "Green's still going through with it? His numbers are way down."

"I guess." I pull at my necktie. It feels too tight suddenly. "He thinks he can pull it out at the last minute."

"Not likely, with his gap in the polls," Eckles says, adjusting his own necktie. He never looks disheveled, but it seems the air in here just became charged. "Twenty-two percent behind now."

"I don't think the way he handled the Blob attack helped."

He rubs the back of his head, not looking at me. "Well, I got some good news. I'm already starting to pull support. Cut Wigmore loose a few days ago."

"You're right. That is good news."

"All I'm sayin' now, Geoff, is you'd better watch yourself. Green gets any wind of this at all, and we're all dead meat." He drops his hands to his sides, gripping the ledge of the desk.