The Law (The Dresden Files #17.4)(8)

I had just been defeated by a literal hallucination built from denial and the most determined and pettily self-interested stupidity I had ever encountered.

I think I had told Bob something like this before: stupid is way more dangerous than actual evil, if only because there’s so much more of it around. I simply wasn’t used to encountering it in such four-dimensional density, all in one place and at one time.

Hell’s bells.

I was going to have to find another angle.





Chapter Six





I met with Will and Paranoid Gary first thing after I got moving the next morning.

Paranoid Gary was a lean kid, Indian by way of Indiana, with light brown skin and eyes to match. He wore his hair cut in a buzz on the sides and left kind of unkempt and curly on top, and he looked nervous when he sat down in my office. Will lurked in the doorway, his folded forearms looking like ham hocks.

“Hey Gary,” I said.

“You could have called,” Gary said, not meeting my eyes. Paranoid Gary was one of the more notorious figures on the Paranet. There wasn’t a conspiracy theory (or conspiracy) he didn’t believe in. UFOs, Bigfoot, the Templars, secret government cabals, you name it, he pursued it fanatically. As a result, he’d stumbled across more truth about the supernatural world than quite a few of the actual citizens thereof.

It probably hadn’t been supremely healthy for his sanity. Most mortals are probably better off like Tripp Gregory, shielded from nightmares by their ignorance. Of course, that changed the moment they got targeted by one supernatural predator or another, but for the ninety-nine percent, moving along with their lives without being aware of how vulnerable they are probably means they’re happier in the long run.

Hell. Maybe the government wasn’t entirely wrong when they’d faked the Heebie Jeebies. It would give that majority an opportunity to stay marginally saner behind the shield of denial it would offer. And it wasn’t like someone like Tripp or Maya could stand up to mad Titans and ancient horrors from Outside the known universe.

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 a cancer charity?”

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.”