Chapter Twenty
The ride up to the next floor took no time at all. The doors opened onto a scene similar to what we had just seen on the floor below, except that the huge space was divided by a glass panelled wall and another creepy as hell pretend robot secretary greeted us.
“Do you have an appointment, gentlemen?” the almost-robot woman asked us.
I flashed her my badge. “Official business,” I snapped. “Go downstairs and wait for your summons.”
The robot woman obviously wasn't very bright because she got up and did what I told her to. I stared momentarily at my badge, it didn't look anything like a police badge, but I guess I still had my 'cop voice' down, and for that, I was at least thankful.
We shoved open the door into Fierri's office. Fierri was sitting behind his desk, yelling into the phone. He was a heavyset man, dressed in a suit that looked poorly tailored due to his girth, and I certainly thought that he looked like a CEO of some sort. He was the same guy we’d seen when we talked to Lazzari, the guy who excused himself to get a glass of water. I sneered. He wouldn't make it on the street doing anything useful, except maybe selling used cars. On second thought, he definitely looked like the kind of guy who would think it was a smart idea to sell defective robotics to a bunch of kids who were usually strung out on drugs and wanting a way to rebel against the system.
What a snake. I hated him immediately and wanted to punch his face in.
But I had to keep my cool. I needed to be able to pull the reins in on Jacks if he got out of control.
And it looked like I would be pulling on those reins pretty hard in a minute here.
Jackson strode across the room and snatched the phone out of Fierri's hand with his robotic one, and slammed the receiver down against the phone.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Fierri yelled at us.
“Detective Jackson Early,” Jackson snarled. I was surprised that he wasn't foaming at the mouth with rage. I was suddenly very afraid of my partner. “We're here to ask you a few very important questions.”
“I should have you arrested for trespassing,” Fierri snarled.
“I'd like to see you try,” Jackson threatened.
The two egos stared each other down for a long moment. Fierri broke first. He folded his hands and placed them on top of his desk and took us both in.
“You don't look like cops,” He drawled as the fire in his face dissipated. “What are you? CIA?”
I barked a laugh. “Sure, we can go with that if it makes you more comfortable,” I said, grinning widely. “Is that a liquor cabinet I spy in the corner there? Do you mind if I have a drink?” I asked, not waiting for an answer as I walked to the obvious bar and helped myself. “Hey, Jacks, do you want a drink?”
Jackson didn't answer me but I poured him a drink anyway. “Would you like one too, Mister Fierri?”
“No, thank you,” Fierri grumbled.
“My my, what a serious bunch I've fallen in with,” I rambled, picking up the rocks glasses I'd poured drinks in and walking back over to Jackson. I handed him his glass. “Cheers,” I said amiably, clinking our glasses together.
Jackson didn't take his eyes off of Fierri as he tossed back the double shot of bourbon I'd given him. I chose to sip my drink slowly, savouring the mild burn in my mouth and throat. I didn't need to appear hasty, either. We had all the time in the world to get a confession out of Fierri, and I planned to make sure that we'd have enough evidence to make any number of charges stick on this asshole.
“What do you want?” Fierri demanded, watching me with hate in his eyes.
“We're here to have a nice little chat,” I explained, taking a seat in the plush leather chairs that reminded me of the ones in my office, but triple the price if the appearance was to be believed.
“Then let's chat,” Fierri drawled in response. He reminded me of the old stereotypes placed on mobsters. He had an accent, but it was a Jersey accent, not a stereotypical mafia don accent, probably brought over from Jersey by Lazzari, that was the only way I could explain his position. And I was positive that he wasn't smart enough to be a mobster. “What can I do for you boys?”
“I was just wondering,” I started, taking another slow sip of my bourbon, “what it is that you do, exactly?”
“I run things around here,” Fierri replied.
I snorted a laugh. “Run things, huh?” I repeated. I shot a look at Jackson. “You hear that? He runs things.”
Jackson smirked and sat down in the chair next to mine. “What kind of things do you run, Mister Fierri?” Jackson asked dryly, unimpressed with Fierri's claims.
“Everything to do with production and distribution,” Fierri informed us with a self-satisfied little grin.
“So you're the one who oversees all the steps in the production line?” I asked.
Fierri nodded. “I approve designs to be put on the production line. I make the schedules for the pieces that are produced, I oversee quality control and maintain inventory, and I get rid of defective products.”
“See, that's the part that I'm the most interested in, to be honest,” I claimed, swirling the bourbon in my glass as I spoke. “From what I've been seeing on the streets lately, some of the product that's getting out there has been more than a little bit, shall I say, sub-standard?”
“What do you mean by 'sub-standard'?” Fierri asked, a hint of nervousness in his voice.
“I suppose that 'defective' would be a better term overall, wouldn't you agree, Jacks?”
Jackson nodded. “Yeah, I think that defective is a much better way to phrase what we've seen lately.”
“And the kids in the Kitchen who end up with these shitty defective implants!” I continued. “Good God, they've been through hell and back!”
“I'll say,” Jackson agreed, playing along with my tactics. “I've seen everything from torn ligaments and improperly fitted joints to shredded flesh and exploded pumps.”
I wrinkled my nose, wondering how much of that statement was actually true, and how much of it was made up just to further our little ruse. “It's a damn shame,” I agreed sadly. “And the Greasers too y'know? Working with outdated equipment and tools? No wonder there's been so many deaths and serious infections running around out there!”
“It's a tragedy,” Jackson agreed further. “And there's only one person who has really tried to make an impact with these kids, and to fix 'em up, you know?”
“That Doctor Jones, out there in Hell's Kitchen, right?” I asked.
Jackson nodded. “The one and the same. It's too bad that he was the only person who actually bothered to help fix up these defective implants those kids have been getting.”
“Yeah, that's a pity,” I agreed. “Considering that he's dead now.”
I watched Fierri carefully. He paled slightly and shifted uncomfortably when we mentioned that Doctor Jones was dead, but that was to be expected. Hell, I shifted uncomfortably when someone mentioned someone else being dead, and I was used to dealing with death on an almost-daily basis.
“What does this have to do with me?” Fierri asked, trying to play it cool and failing. Instead he just sounded like a child arguing why they should be allowed to eat ice cream for dinner.
“Well, if you're in charge of inventory, then all the illegal implants that leak out of your factory every month must be slipping past your quality control and into your output. You must know something about that?” I suggested. “I mean, we're looking at hundreds of illegal pieces slipping out of your factory! That's gotta mess with inventory in the long run, right?”
Fierri shrugged nonchalantly. “We don't count the inventory after it's been declared defective.”
“See, that's funny,” I mused, finishing my drink. “Because I was under the impression that you guys melted down your defective pieces and reused the materials. Waste not want not, right?”
Fierri was definitely sweating bullets now. I'd caught him.
“Well, er, yes, of course we do!” Fierri back-p
edalled so quickly I thought he might be able to turn back the clock. “What I meant by 'not taking inventory' is that we count how many pieces are considered defective, but we don't double-check when they're being melted down!”
“But wouldn't missing pieces actually mess up your count when you're recasting them?” Jackson asked, all but purring in delight that we'd caught Fierri's lie.
“We don't necessarily cast the same pieces a second time if they're defective!” Fierri stammered.
“But don't you have orders to fill? Isn't that going to make your orders consistently short?” Jackson pressed on. “I mean, if you have five people waiting for a new clockwork arm, and you've lost three of them to defects, and then two of them go missing from the defective pile, and you don't recast those three, you're gonna end up short. And that's no good for business.”
“Huh,” I said, nodding, my mouth hanging open as I considered this. “And I wonder, how much those defective pieces sell for?”
Jackson shook his head. “It would have to be less than cost,” He suggested. “No one would buy them if they were defective and at market value.”
“So if they're being sold for pennies, how many would you have to sell to turn a profit?” I wondered.
“No idea,” Jackson said. “There would have to be a cut coming back from the Greasers though.” He decided. “Considering that the standard fare for an illegal implant is about a hundred dollars, if the cost is five bucks for a piece, and then they sell from the defective line at below cost, say, maybe three bucks? Then they resell from the distributors to the Greasers for around fifty bucks? There'd have to be a kickback coming from somewhere along the line.”
“Maybe from all parties involved?” I suggested.
“Ooh, tax the illegal surgeons!” Jackson exclaimed. “I like that! It's diabolical and just evil enough to turn a tidy profit and line someone's pockets!”
“Enough of this!” Fierri shouted.
“Enough of what?” I asked innocently.
“Enough of your banter,” Fierri grumbled. “Yes, fine, I am making a tidy profit as you so call it, and have earned more than my share selling these defective pieces.”
Jackson's robotic fingers clenched into a fist and I nudged his leg with my foot to keep him from snapping.
Focus, Jacks. I threw my thoughts out there really hard, hoping that if Jacks could really read my mind, he would hear my thoughts and not leap across the desk and throttle Fierri before we could get a full out confession from him. And besides, karma owed me one at this point.
“So you're admitting that you're the one responsible for flooding the market with these sub-standard clockwork body parts?” I asked, feigning shock.
“Yes,” Fierri growled.
“Why?” I asked. “Why not just skim good product from your warehouse and sell it the same way? You're not losing any money on anything and you can continue to fudge the inventory.”
Fierri shook his head, grinning mirthfully as he recounted his explanation to us. “Taking from the bottom of the barrel doesn't affect our overhead in any real way. A hundred defective pieces going missing in a week doesn't even factor into the huge amount of body parts we produce. No one has noticed that a barrel full of copper goes missing. No one notices when sixteen cogs out of thirty thousand produced at a time disappear. I've been fudging the inventory books for years. I deliberately miscount, I omit things in the inventory system and no one notices!”
“You're an evil genius,” I commended, though it was sarcastic. “So you just stole the initial investment of materials?”
“Essentially,” Fierri replied with a nod. He was proud of himself, it was disgusting. “When the entire Gearhead subculture started to emerge, we 'lost' a shipment from the back of a truck. That was the first time I'd taken from Five Points. Then it was just a matter of lying in the books to make the accountants think that we'd acquired an overage, or that we'd lost something along the way. It's perfect and untraceable in the books. You'd need to know exactly what you were looking for to find the missing pieces. Defective pieces don't get serial numbers so they are completely untraceable. I have a whole network of people who run my little black market with me.”
“That's sick,” Jackson said bluntly.
“It's brilliant,” I chimed in. “How long have you been doing this? Ten years or so?”
“Easily,” Fierri agreed. “I paid off a mortgage this way, and let me tell you, I make a pretty handsome salary without skimming.”
“I can imagine,” I agreed, nodding. I frowned to myself.
“Why are you frowning?” Fierri asked, smiling a serpent's smile at me. “I've given you everything you needed haven't I?”
“Well, kind of,” I admitted slowly. “But there's just a few things bugging me.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you see, those kids in the Kitchen, the ones who you so honestly fleece? They were kind of dependant on the doctor who was killed,” I explained. “They all went to him for treatments when their defective implants blew up in their faces.”
“So?” Fierri drawled.
“Well, he was on Wayside's payroll,” I confessed. “He had just signed a new contract that put him in charge of the new technology research that Wayside was about to unveil. He was made a very generous offer by Wayside. In fact, they were going to replace all of his patients' defective clockwork with the new stuff they were designing. All for free, so long as the doctor did the research and performed the surgeries. They were gonna provide free medical care for these kids.”
Jackson nodded fervently. “And he was murdered by someone claiming that they were hired by Five Points to collect the information that was being sent to the doctor for review.”
“Right!” I exclaimed, slapping my own forehead. “I forgot about that part!”
“That's the most important part!” Jackson teased me. “The fact that Wayside was so far ahead of the curve on releasing the next wave of technology...”
Jackson trailed off and we stared at each other for a long time.
I turned my gaze back to Fierri. “Wayside was way ahead of Five Points in the race to produce the next wave of clockwork weren't they?”
Fierri smiled coolly. “Oh yes. They are still exceedingly far ahead of us.”
“So why have the Doctor killed?”
“I approached him weeks ago,” Fierri admitted. “I wanted him to come work with Tekla. Together they would have put Five Points back on the map and back in the race.”
“But he refused?”
Fierri laughed darkly. “He spit on the most generous offer we made on behalf of Five Points Engineering.”
“Because Wayside paid for all of his charity work?” I suggested.
“He said that he was more than content working for Wayside and running his little charity. He didn't want to be rich,” Fierri sneered, as though the concept of not wanting to be rich was alien to him. “He threatened to expose Five Points as the culprit for flooding the market with illegal clockwork.”
“So you hired a messed up kid to cool him off?” I asked, incredulous.
“The kid jumped the gun,” Fierri said simply. “He was just supposed to bring back the delivery for us, murder wasn't my first choice, but we make do with what we get. Had the kid brought the package after killing the Doctor, this whole thing would have been swept under the carpet. Instead, that kid is gonna rot in jail and never see his precious sister again.”
“Why?”
Fierri shrugged, fidgeting in his seat again. “Doctor Jones was slowing down the need for more illegal clockwork. His charity was ruining the entire system we had set up. With less people wanting the illegal implants because of their free healthcare, we were losing out on our business. Greasers were starting to go elsewhere to get their parts, and last I had heard, there was talk of grave robbing going on in the underworld of illegal implants.”
“Gross,” Jackson mumbled angrily.
“Tell me about it!” Fierri said sar
castically. “But now that the Doctor is out of the way, the kids are going to fall back into their old ways and business will be booming again in a matter of weeks.”
I shook my head. “That's absolutely disgusting.”
“It's the nature of the beast,” Fierri told me, grinning proudly.
“So, why are you telling us all of this?” Jackson asked. “It's not because we were so charming and polite, is it?”
Fierri laughed his cold, callous laugh again and I felt my stomach drop at the sound.
“I'm telling you all of this because this information is never going to leave this room.”