Dan Lord is a forty-year-old private detective with a law degree working the blurred line between right and wrong in the Nation’s Capital. As a self-employed solutions broker and legal consultant, he works for a very select clientele. He doesn’t advertise and only takes cases on referral. But when two people close to him are murdered, Dan’s work becomes very personal.
With the assistance of a newly hired female intern, extracting clues from a ladder of acquaintances, Dan bounds through both the underbelly and elite of society, each step bringing more questions and yet ultimately taking him closer to the answer he seeks. A bail bondsman, a recluse hacker, a court clerk, a university student, an old-school barber, a high-class madam, an intelligence officer, a medical doctor, and a police detective are among the list of people Dan must cajole for help. His quest will lead him to discover things he never wanted to know, and put him in the position to reveal things that important people would prefer remain unrevealed. Tense, ingenious, and filled with the unforgettable characters, Favors and Lies is Mark Gilleo’s most thrilling novel yet.
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Read an excerpt from the book:
The cab pulled to the curb on one of the city’s myriad
one-way streets and Dan spoke through the holes drilled in the security glass. “What’s
the damage?”
“Nineteen even.”
Dan stepped from the back of the cab and slipped a twenty
through the front passenger window. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, big spender,” the burly driver replied, shoving the
cash into the front pocket of his sweaty shirt.
Dan bent at the waist, his manila folder in hand, and peered
into the open window. The glare from Dan’s light-blue eyes melted the driver’s
bravado, bringing long-sought momentary silence to the interior of the car. The
cabbie muttered something unintelligible and the car pulled away from the curb
into evening rush-hour traffic.
Dan straightened his dark blue suit and his red tie before
heading down H Street. The business side of the White House sat just beyond
Lafayette Square to his left. As a white male in a suit, within spitting
distance of the White House, Dan was perfectly camouflaged. Despite the changing
face of American society and the dual terms of President Obama, those making
the rules remained largely as it always had been – lily white. An hour watching
C-Span was the only proof needed.
Dan walked deliberately to the corner of H and 16th streets
and silently mingled with a half-dozen likeminded suits waiting for the light.
The pedestrian signal changed from an illuminated red hand to the depiction of
a person walking. The crowd moved. Dan took three steps toward the street and
then froze at the edge of the curb. He scanned his environment for a mirror
reaction from anyone in the vicinity. Sometimes the best way to see if you are
being followed is to stop. It was a standard counter-surveillance move, likely
perfected a hundred thousand years ago by an animal on the Serengeti trying to
avoid becoming dinner.
The sidewalk around Dan emptied as the pedestrian signal on
the far side of the street began to count down. Dan swiveled his head slowly,
finishing with a glance over each shoulder. No one, he thought. At least no one
on foot. Walking against traffic on a one-way street mitigated most of the
possibilities of being trailed by car.
He waited until the countdown on the pedestrian signal
reached five and then crossed the street illegally in the opposite direction,
dissecting a group of lawyers and think-tankers on their way to a local
watering hole to finish their briefs and pontifications for the evening.
On the far side of the street Dan turned right and headed
back in the direction from which he came. Once again he checked for
surveillance. Nothing.
Near the end of the block, with a taxi queue ten yards
ahead, Dan checked his watch with a casual glance and turned left down an alley
without looking back.
He passed several dumpsters and looked up at the darkening
sky framed by the buildings on both sides of the alley. A light scent of urine
wafted through the air. Under a fire escape near the corner of the building Dan
turned again. He followed a staircase downward, his hand running along a worn metal
handrail, his shoes trampling cracked concrete steps. Three stories above the
urban crevasse, room rates started at eight hundred a night.
Dan forced himself to relax. Feeling out of place was the
single greatest contributor for being spotted in an area where one had no
earthly business. But with the appropriate behavior and movement, a man in a
suit in an alley was no more out of place than a man in overalls in the lobby
of an office building. Properly portrayed, every appearance could be overlooked.
Dan reached the bottom of the stairs and admired the
collection of discarded cigarette butts thrown half-heartedly at an empty
coffee can resting just outside the door. He took one more calming breath and
pushed through an unlocked metal door that read “Exit Only” in neat white
print.
Unlocked doors were goldmines. Half the buildings in the
Nation’s Capital were circumventing million-dollar security systems with
propped open doors. A brick here. A doorstop there. If you knew where to look,
an employee with a smoking habit could be better than a week of surveillance.
Not to mention cheaper and less risky than paying off a doorman.
Inside the building, Dan entered an elbow-room-only foyer
facing another door. He watched the light under the closed door and waited for
the telltale movement of people on the other side to subside. When the timing
was right and the movement ceased, he pulled the knob.
An attractive blonde in an off-the-shoulder red dress took a
breath of surprise. Dan muted his response and without pausing pointed towards
the men’s room with his chin. “Wrong door.”
The lady in red smiled and Dan followed through on his
impromptu ruse and entered the restroom.
“Shit,” Dan whispered, looking into the mirror over a
granite sink with gold fixtures. He had rules. One adjustment in the plan was
standard. Two put him on notice. Three unforeseen adjustments to a plan and he
aborted – immediately and without exception. There was little he could do about
the woman in the hall so he pushed it aside. That’s one, he thought. A little
early for an adjustment.
The lower level back door at the Hay Adams Hotel was a
direct line into the living room of the elite. Off the Record – the
appropriately named bar in the basement of the Hay Adams Hotel – boasted a
history as long as its client list. It was where the rich blew off steam.
People with faces too famous to enjoy a quiet drink in Georgetown or along
Connecticut Avenue. Faces from the morning paper and evening news. Off the
Record embraced customers who didn’t mind overpaying for drinks or the forty
bucks it cost to valet their cars. Money was rapidly becoming the last legal
barrier for keeping out the riffraff.
The Hay Adams Hotel, and its subterranean watering hole, was
public. Dan could have chosen to walk through the lobby. He could have nodded
at the bellhop and doorman as he strolled in unquestioned and unmolested. He
could have slowly crossed the ornate wood-paneled entrance and past the polite
scrutiny of the front desk as he made his way to the stairs. But why announce
your arrival when you didn’t have to? Especially so close to payday.
In the mirror in the bathroom, Dan checked his watch, his
hair, his face, his glasses, his teeth, his fingers. He peeked inside his
manila folder. He exited the room and walked through the lone swinging door
into the bar. He located his target before his first foot hit the deep burgundy
carpet. He completed his room assessment by the time his second foot landed.
Nine men and four women, he calculated, parsing his headcount before anyone
noticed he was in the room. Five men at the bar, two of them seated together,
most likely coworkers. Two women alone at a table on the far side of the room
in similar black dresses. Waiting for dates, he thought. A table of three
huddled in the opposite corner, far enough away to be out of most contingency
scenarios. Dan added two more to the headcount for the bartender and waitress,
and one more for the lady in red who was now in the bathroom.
Dan stepped from the dark corner near the bathroom and
approached a man in his early fifties sitting alone at a table, his hand
caressing a glass of Maker’s Mark.
“Judge McMichael,” Dan said, sitting quickly without
invitation.
The judge tried not to look surprised but the corner of his
eyes betrayed him as they danced towards the entrance of the bar.
“The back door?” the judge asked.
“Bathroom window,” Dan replied straight-faced.
“Am I at the correct table?”
“Yes. Thank you for following instructions.”
Dan didn’t take his eyes off the judge. The judge looked
older than his pictures in the press. More stately. Fifty and fit with large
hands and sharp eyes. The lighting at the table was romantic – enough light to
see the judge, but dark enough to erase cosmetic imperfections from across the
table. Perfect call-girl ambiance.
The judge stared back across the table at a short grey mop
of curls and wild blue eyes dancing behind thick black-framed glasses. The
judge’s eyes dropped to Dan’s hands and the manila folder on the table. Dan
noticed the judge’s attention and he covered one hand with the other, both on
top of the folder.
“Why don’t we both agree to keep our hands on the table,”
Dan suggested before getting to work. “See the two guys at the far end of the
bar?”
The judge turned his head slightly.
“They are with me.”
The judge nodded.
“I will make this short and sweet. Your wife has divorce
papers for you to sign. She also has an agreement regarding alimony and the
custody of your stepson and stepdaughter. She says you have been refusing to
sign these documents and have threatened her and her children.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes. Judge Terrance J. McMichael. Born in Naperville,
Illinois. Educated at Princeton. Law School at Dartmouth. Judge for the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit… also known as the
D.C. Circuit. Wife is named Cindy. Stepdaughter is Caroline. Stepson is Craig.”
“And you are?”
“Someone willing to ruin your life. Your wife hired me to
make a request on her behalf. You are a highly intelligent man so I’m going to
assume you heard my request the first time and that I don’t need to repeat
myself.” Dan paused for effect. “You are going to sign the papers.”
“Do you have any idea what I can do to you?”
Dan slid the manila folder into the middle of the table and
opened it. The first photograph showed the judge’s wife with raccoon eyes, her
nose broken, swollen to...
About the author:
Mark Gilleo is the author of three award-winning novels. His books have won both the National Indie Excellence Award and the Readers’ Favorite Award. His two most recent novels were finalists in the 2014 International Book Awards. His latest novel, Favors and Lies, was named Runner-Up for fiction in both the 2014 San Francisco Book Festival and the 2014 New York Book Festival. Mark has a graduate degree in international business from the University of South Carolina and an undergraduate degree in business from George Mason University. He enjoys traveling, hiking and biking. He speaks Japanese. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, he currently resides in the DC area.Follow the author on Twitter | Goodreads
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