Primary Justice

by Dave Conifer

  Fargo scowled but didn’t say anything. Only a soft man with an easy life remembered how he came by every little scar. He had freckles that looked worse.

  “Let me tell you about this gadget. Then you’ll understand why there isn’t much of a lock. It doesn’t need one.”

  “Why don’t you just strap it on me so I can get the fu—so I can go?”

  “This bracelet is state of the art, my friend, state of the art.” He turned it over, squinted, and then scrawled some numbers on a pad. “To make a long story short, we’ll know almost immediately if you find a way to take it off. And we’ll know before you put it down, or throw it out the window, into a lake or whatever you were thinking of doing with it.”

  “Okay, so I won’t take it off,” Fargo said. “I get it.”

  “It’s got body mass density and body temperature sensors. If there are any sudden changes, we’ll know. Best bet is just to leave it on. It’s shock resistant and water resistant, so don’t worry about hurting it.”

  God forbid, Fargo thought, but he merely nodded, hoping Mandan would move on, which he did.

  “Obviously it’s GPS-enabled. We’ll know where you are. It also has built-in drug sensors. Not all drugs, but a lot of them. Alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and crystal methamphetamine. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Anyway, it does this by measuring trans-dermal chemical emissions.”

  “Shit that comes out of my skin?”

  “Exactly. Now, we’ll test the battery every once in a while when you come in. All you need to do is wear it. Oh, and sign all these papers that basically say that I told you all about the bracelet and how it works.”

  Like the documents he’d signed earlier, they were unreadable. He signed each one and shoved them back at Mandan in turn. He almost laughed out loud when Mandan handed him a booklet labeled “User’s Manual,” as if it was a dishwasher. That won’t even make it back to the car, he knew. When he declined the chance to ask any more questions, Mandan came around the table and fastened the bracelet into place, an inch or two above the ankle bone. My new friend, Fargo thought. After that the guards were summoned and Fargo was delivered back to Faribault.

  “Do you have a place to go, Mr. Fargo?” Faribault asked. “It turns out the house at the address you gave us burned down three years ago.”

  “I didn’t know that. It was the last place I lived. I thought I could go back.”

  “You know, Mr. Fargo, I could get you into any halfway house in the state. It might be a good way to get back on your feet. They have counseling and a lot of programs to help you rejoin the world.”

  “Those places are full of losers like me,” Fargo told her. “If I get back with them, I’ll be back in jail in three weeks.”

  “It’s not like that, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll take my chances,” he told her.

  “That’s up to you, but a friendly warning, okay? You take one step out of New Jersey and you’ll be back in prison the next day. Please, please, please be careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Oh brother, he thought. I’ve had enough of Miss Goody-two-shoes for the day. For the rest of my life. “I know your type,” he snarled. “You went to college, you learned how to feel sorry for shit-eaters like me, and you’re gonna use all that education to fix me. Well, life ain’t like them schoolbooks you read. All the programs in the world ain’t gonna solve my problems. You can’t help me. The best thing you can do is leave me alone.”

  Binders were flipped closed and folders were pushed aside. “Fine, Mr. Fargo. I can’t force you to accept my help. Or follow my advice. Or have any respect for me.”

  “Come on,” he muttered. “I got to go.”

  “You know, I got into some trouble for you,” she said in a suddenly hushed voice. “I’m still getting warnings from my supervisor for asking about those case files you wanted. I got two nasty calls, and I still get an email a day from the attorney general’s office. There’s a letter of reprimand in my file now because of you. Breach of protocol. I’ll keep doing my job, but I’ll stop trying so hard to help you if that’s what you want.”

  “Can I go now?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she answered. “We’re done here.” She locked the files into a metal cabinet and came around the desk. He almost felt guilty when he saw her crestfallen face. Then he thought better of it after he felt the bracelet on his ankle and remembered that he couldn’t cross the river and go to Joanie or Bismarck. The hell with it. Why should I feel sorry for anybody else? She walked him to the front, signed him out and watched him scrawl his name under hers. He considered turning around to see if she was still there just before he walked through the door to the street, but he didn’t. What was the difference?

  -- Chapter 8 --

  After leaving the Parole Board offices Fargo walked slowly to his car, trying to get his head around what had just happened inside. No reason to hurry, he told himself. I’m homeless. No wonder so many cons end up back inside. What the fuck is there for us out here? At least when he was inside he had a place where he belonged, even if it was a concrete room that had no windows and smelled like piss.

  He went back to retrieve the car, not because he needed it but only because he owed it to Bismarck to hold onto it long enough to get it back to him. Of course, I can’t drive it to him, he thought bitterly. Just before he reached the car a group of neighborhood tough guy teens got curious about him. They changed their minds when they saw his prison yard stare, jamming their hands into their hoodie pockets and covering their retreat with defensive chatter. They could have taken him. He knew it, and so did they. But none of them had the balls to start trouble once they saw that face.

  After sitting in the car for a few minutes he drove down the street to the same freeway entrance where the state trooper had stopped him the previous week. With no idea where he was going, he merged onto the freeway and headed towards the river, even though he knew he wouldn’t dare cross it. The pressure he could feel on his ankle would be a constant reminder that from now on, somebody would always be watching.

  When a sign warned him that the next exit was the ‘Last Exit in New Jersey’ he veered left and shot down the ramp past the Amtrak station. A surprisingly trim Motel Six stood across the street, probably there to serve train travelers. On a whim, one that was enhanced by the ‘$35 a night’ lettering on the sign out front, he pulled into the tiny lot and parked the car. This was home, at least for the next thirty-five dollars. On his way into the lobby he noted the rusty liquor store squeezed into a corner opposite the train station. Yeah, this was going to work out better than he thought it would a few minutes earlier.

  The woman who checked him in chuckled to herself when he asked for a room with a view of the river, but she didn’t say anything. He didn’t understand when she handed him a plastic card instead of a room key, but he knew it would make sense when he found the room. Instead of going directly there, he walked up the street and crossed at the corner. Unless he counted that warm one at Bismarck’s place, and he didn’t, he hadn’t had a beer in eleven years. Everybody told him to make it an even dozen after he got out, to be on the safe side. So far he’d almost managed to follow that advice, but the way things stood at that moment he didn’t see any point in staying sober. He grabbed a six pack of Bud, then switched it out for a twelver of ice cold Millers that he saw on the way to the cashier. “I’ll take four of them ham sandwiches, too,” he told the stooped man behind the counter when he saw them wrapped in cellophane in a refrigerated display case. His wallet was fitting into his pocket much easier these days. He wondered how long that was even going to matter.

  The door to his room popped open when he slid the plastic card into the slot, once he put it in the right way. First things first, he decided once he was inside. Time for a beer or three. He admired the clear bottles and the amber liquid they contained as he liberated them from the cardboard party-time carrier, which, according to the posters in the store, was the key to getting laid b
y women who looked like friggin’ models. The first went down in two gulps after he twisted off the cap and flicked it expertly across the room and watched it carom off the wall with a metallic rap. Just like riding a bike. He was immediately lightheaded, and immediately hungry. After carefully placing the empty bottle into a trash can he opened another and unwrapped one of the sandwiches, which felt and smelled like it had been around for a long time. Within two minutes both the beer and the sandwich were gone.

  On his way to grab a third bottle he remembered the ankle bracelet. That goofy dude back in the office, the lab, said it was shock resistant. Could it stand up to a kick at the corner of the bureau that he’d left the beer on? It wasn’t worth the trouble of finding out, he decided. On the other hand, if all that shit was true, somebody somewhere might be finding out that he was well on his way to being drunk off his ass, and they knew exactly where they could find him doing it. Strangely, the claustrophobia of a prison cell closed in on him momentarily as he thought about the ankle bracelet, until he distracted himself by popping off the next cap and taking a healthy pull of Miller Genuine Draft.

  There was no balcony in a place like this, but true to her word, the woman at the desk had provided him with a view to the west which included the river, and on the far shore, Pennsylvania. With his free hand he pushed the floor-to-ceiling drapes aside. It was only 5:30 but there was February darkness outside. There was plenty else to look at but his eyes were drawn to one of the bridges. That one. The letters blazed in neon red now that night was falling. ‘Trenton Makes’ on the west end, ‘The World Takes’ on the east. That’s how it must have looked eleven years ago when they found the body underneath it in the dark. Come to think of it, he had almost as good a view as that cop had, sitting on the Jersey side of the bridge. He could barely see the far end, let alone the rocky shore beneath it. He wrapped his lips around the mouth of the bottle and tilted it back far enough to drain it. It was either his fourth or his fifth. He couldn’t remember anymore. Nor could he remember if he’d asked what’s his name, the pretty boy from Joanie’s office, to check that cop out. He thought he had, but the beer was making everything hazy. Even if it didn’t come to anything, he told himself, he just had to know what the story was. If he hadn’t asked him to, he would soon.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the cell phone, which he’d pitched onto the bed as soon as he entered the room because he was tired of its weight in his pocket. As he scrambled to answer it he prayed that it was Joanie, and it was. He was surprised at how happy he was to hear her voice. Maybe it was the beer.

  “Billy? How’d it go? Where are you? Are you coming home?”

  “Home? I don’t have a home.” Damn. No way she can’t tell. I can barely understand my own damn words.

  “Are you drinking?” she asked. “Where are you? Billy, talk to me.”

  “Still in Trenton,” he said, moving back to the window for a view of the river and the bridge. “Got in some trouble today.” He bent down and pulled up the bottom of his jeans to see if it was still there, because he couldn’t feel it anymore. “I got to stay in Jersey from now on. Otherwise they send me back up.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, that was the original deal, right? That’s not so bad.”

  He decided not to tell her about the ankle bracelet. Not yet. “Now I got two strikes on me. They busted me for staying over there.”

  “So you’re staying there?”

  “Have to.”

  A pause. “I wish you were coming home.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Last night you didn’t have shit to say to me. You wouldn’t even make me nothin’ to eat. That ain’t home. Not mine, anyway.”

  “Billy. It isn’t like that. I know we didn’t talk.” Another pause. “You didn’t say nothing, either.” He heard her crying. Or laughing.

  “Don’t make a difference,” he said. “It ain’t your fault. You don’t know how to act around me. Nobody does.”

  “I’ll do better next time.”

  “Guess what I’m lookin’ at,” he said.

  “Tell me.”

  “That bridge. That goddamned bridge. Right now, I’m starin’ at it.”

  She sighed. “Billy, you got to put it behind you. It’s over and done. I know you didn’t do it, I believe you, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Oh no? Easy for you to say. You’re not walking around with it tattooed on your face. Everybody knows.” And with that, he was done talking. Instead of pawing around for the button he lofted the phone onto the bed, resisting the urge to throw it against the wall because like the car, it belonged to Bismarck. Then he went into the bathroom to take a leak before cracking another beer and stretching out on the bed with it.

  ~~~

  “All I know is he was still in Trenton,” Joanie said to her uncle the next night. “At least that’s what he said. He sounded pretty wasted.” She’d stopped by Bismarck’s place hoping he knew where Fargo was or what he was up to, but he knew neither. “I tried calling all day.”

  “I know,” Bismarck said. “You called me every time he didn’t answer.” He took a sip of his evening beer, the nightly treat that Joanie had already turned down. “Tried a couple times myself.”

  “Ricky was saying that if parolees get in trouble and have to go back to prison, they usually do it in the first week or two.”

  “He’s right on schedule.” Elbows planted prominently on the table where he sat across from her, Bismarck rubbed his face. “That’s for damn sure. I don’t need anybody to tell me that. I seen it a hundred times before. At first I thought he was gonna make it.”

  “He still could,” Joanie insisted. “We just have to find him.”

  “Not just find him,” Bismarck reminded her. “Find him in Jersey and keep him there.”

  “Ricky did some checking,” Joanie said. “He really likes Billy. You know that cop that found the body?”

  “Yeah, I heard the story.”

  “Ryne Colfax. Well, Ricky thinks he’s dirty. He’s got a lot of police friends over there, so he’s been asking around the last couple of days. He told me about it this afternoon. Seems like everybody knows this guy. And nobody has anything good to say about him.”

  “Nobody’s got anything good to say about Billy, either. What does it matter?”

  “Ricky knows a guy at the State Police Headquarters in Sea Girt. Closed his office door this morning and made the call,” Joanie said. “He wouldn’t tell me anything except that this guy had heard about what happened to Billy. Lots of people had. It’s all true.”

  “Didn’t you believe it when Billy was telling us?” Bismarck asked. “He had the files. He wasn’t guessing. Same cop, same night.”

  “I thought it might be true. But it was only his hunch. He didn’t have any file on the murder, Uncle Russ,” Joanie countered. “Not the one with the two kids.”

  “It was more than a hunch. He had articles.”

  “Big deal. I can take you down to the ACME and show you articles about spacemen flying over the Schuykill Expressway. So, anyway, at about three o’clock the phone rings,” she continued. “I answer it and transfer it back to Ricky, because that’s who they asked for. Five minutes later? Ricky flies out of his office hootin’ and hollerin’ about stirring up a hornet’s nest or something. I asked him what he was yelling about. He said he was talking about Billy.” She watched Bismarck’s face, looking for some payoff.

  “So let’s hear it,” was all he said.

  “He said he just talked to somebody who worked for the assistant attorney general. Sure enough, that’s what caller ID said when I looked. The guy out and out threatened Ricky,” Joanie said. “Can you believe it?”

  “Threatened him how?” He took another sip. “Somebody threatened that big sucker you work for?”

  “Not him,” Joanie said. “His business. The guy said it don’t look good for a bail bondsman to be snooping around looking for dirt on old cases. Said there was a conflict of interest.”

/>   “How high up was this guy?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanie said. “I could ask Ricky. He told Ricky that if he heard about any more questions, well, Ricky was taking a chance on losing a lot of business. All it would take was for the Attorney General start an investigation. His privileges would be suspended and it could go on forever.”

  “All this over one guy who just got out after eleven years. That cop knows somebody,” Bismarck said.

  “You mean that cop is somebody,” she argued. “Colfax works for New Jersey Homeland Security. But Ricky says Homeland Security is run by the attorney general. For all we know, that was the cop himself on the phone.”

  “Or the cop told somebody to make that call.” He crushed his beer can and stood up. “I’m not sure what to make of this. And even if it’s true, I wouldn’t know what to do about it.”

  ~~~

  Fargo hadn’t awoken until noon the day after his bender. He tried to roll over and sleep off the hangover until he realized that the banging he heard was real. After he remembered where he was he struggled to his feet and staggered toward the door. He’d forgotten about the ankle bracelet until he felt its squeeze as he walked. A heavyset woman with a permanent expression of anger on her face was waiting on the other side when he finally figured out how to unchain the door and swing it open.

  “Check out time is ten-thirty,” she said loudly. “That’s a long time ago, son! You can’t sleep all day!”

  “I’ll pay for another night,” he mumbled. “Hold on.” He shuffled to the table by the window, found his wallet and slipped some bills from it as he returned to the door. “Is this enough?” he asked, thrusting the bills at her without even looking at them.

  “Does this look like the front desk?” she scolded. But after she took a closer look at what was in his outstretched hand, she grabbed the money. “I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry.”