Page 112 of Broken Brothers

Nevertheless, I was realizing I had to take a more diplomatic approach with Morgan when it came to this problem. To just blurt out all of the ills that Edwin brought to us would only chase Morgan away; like telling a girl the truth about how I felt about her too much, I had to know when to apply my conversational magic and when I had to manipulate the setting with some feigns and slights of hand a bit.

“It is an idea worth keeping, though,” I said as a sort of olive branch to Morgan. “But for the sake of brainstorming, let’s consider all the possibilities. What else? We could plant something that forces him to get fired.”

“What do you mean?” Morgan said.

Again, I had to treat carefully here. The ideas that came to mind immediately entailed having someone make a false allegation or even just a slightly exaggerated one, but not only would that push Morgan away, it was even starting to impinge on my own sense of ethics. Of course, more time with Edwin would likely mean less concern for that, but at least for the moment, I had boundaries, even if barely visible.

“Well, let’s be honest, your father pushes boundaries in business to get his way.”

“Don’t they all?”

“Of course, but we’re not worried about a VC in San Francisco or a banker in New Yorker, we’re concerned about Edwin Hunt and Edwin Hunt alone,” I said. “Given this, we have to say your father pushes boundaries. Surely, in his time, he’s done some things that were unethical at best, illegal at worst.”

“Chance, are you trying to send my father to jail?”

I wouldn’t mind.

“No, that’s not my goal,” I said, which was about as far as I could stretch the truth without it turning into a lie. “My goal is to get him out of a position of power so that he stops bothering us. Plain and simple. The very threat of something like jail makes it easy to negotiate. No, I have no intentions of putting anyone in jail. Just… putting him in a place where he can’t hurt us.”

Morgan grimaced, leaned into the couch, and said nothing. This was a bad sign—Morgan only clammed up when he felt like the argument was unwinnable, but rather than concede, he had a tendency to simply withdraw.

So I had to do the only thing I could think of to ensure full participation from Morgan. I had to throw him back into the middle of it.

“Look, Morgan, here’s an honest truth—I will never get an audience with your father solo,” I said, sitting next to him. “Because of this, there are limits to what I can do and I have to resort to drastic measures. I don’t want that, you don’t want that, and no one else wants that. But you can.”

He looked over to me. Back in the game. Excellent.

“You can get an audience with your father. You can pry more information out of him. You can get something out of him that gives us a position of leverage.”

“True,” Morgan said, going silent for a few seconds as he pondered what I had said. “But what am I supposed to do, take notes during our meeting? That’s going to look too overt.”

“You do have a brain that remembers things, you know,” I said with a laugh, but he raised a great point. What Morgan considered important may not be the things I counted as important, and if I didn’t account for a way to record or listen to the conversation, it would be a waste of a golden opportunity.

The idea coming to mind seemed drastic and stupid—illegal, possibly. But all of the crime shows I had ever seen and the mystery books I had ever come across gave me an idea thatseemed cliche, but cliches existed for a reason. They spoke the truth.

“You could also wear a wire,” I said.

Morgan laughed as if I was trying to supply a moment of levity. And in some respects, I was, but the end goal was serious and the same—I had to know the truth, and if it took a fucking wire, it took a goddamn fucking wire.

“You’re actually serious,” Morgan said.

“Of course I’m serious, what part of tonight has given you anything to make you think I’m not serious?”

Morgan shook his head.

“That’s got to be illegal in some sense,” he said. “Even if it’s not, it might not be admissible in arbitration or legal settings. Even if that’s not the case, you’re pushing boundaries pretty damn far, Chance. I want peace and quiet, but I don’t want to lose my father. If he catches me recording him in any fashion, we’re as good as fucked. Sorry, I’m as good as fucked.”

“At least you acknowledge the imbalance in outcome,” I said, a statement that seemed like a throwaway but was anything but given our history of both of us failing to realize the life of the other. In any case, I had played polite and politics for too long. It was time to throw down the gauntlet. “Look at how stressed you are though, Morgan. You had a meltdown in my apartment and drank like a fish two seconds from dying in the air. You killed half a bottle of whiskey. Your father isn’t going to stop. If you don’t want to see this as fighting him, then see it as a chance to speak to him and provide some temporary protection. I can’t promise that he’ll let up, but maybe if you sit with him one on one and give the appearance of listening to him, he’ll lighten up some.”

Finally, I saw what I was looking for—agreement from Morgan. He nodded his head, aware that what I had said made some modicum of sense. It might not be permanent relief, but itsure would feel good to have temporary relief from his current state.

“I still don’t know about the wire, though,” Morgan said. He forced a laugh, but he truly seemed uncomfortable with the idea. “That seems a little too CSI-y. And you know, lots of people die when they have to wear those things.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Morgan, be a little realistic.”

“Says the guy who wants to fight a billionaire.”

“Says the guy who wants to buy out the billionaire.”