Primary Justice

by Dave Conifer

  “Princeton,” Bismarck said. “Colfax ain’t got far to go. That was lucky for us.”

  “It was convenient,” Willmar said, correcting him. “Not lucky. We’d have gone wherever we had to go.”

  ~~~

  The ride down Route 29 with a cutover on some back roads to Princeton didn’t take long. As he waited at a light on Witherspoon Street, at the heart of the Princeton University campus, Colfax watched the students and remembered his own college days. He hadn’t been Ivy League material and had done his schooling up north at Montclair State, but it looked like the same cast of characters. Things had seemed so easy back then. All he had to do was play by the rules and life would be good. It probably would have been. It was for a while. Too bad he got greedy and screwed it up.

  He adjusted the rear view mirror and surveyed the damage. There was some swelling on his lower lip, but nothing too noticeable yet. His face and rib cage still throbbed with pain, but he was passable, he decided. He doubted anybody would care, anyway, even if they noticed anything.

  A right turn on Washington Avenue took him to Route 1. Now he was just a mile or two away from the hotel. Like many businesses on that stretch of the road, the Hyatt boasted a Princeton address but wasn’t actually located in the borough of Princeton. He’d always thought that was silly. He doubted that anybody cared whether a florist was in Princeton, Plainsboro or Lawrenceville, but what did he know? He was nothing but a dirty cop.

  Several campaign officials that Colfax recognized were standing by the elevators when he walked into the lobby, so he limped over to join them after going inside. One of them pushed the elevator door back open after Colfax followed them on. “We’re going to a restricted floor,” he said. “It’s off limits.”

  “Not to me,” Colfax told him. “Minot’s expecting me.” He didn’t want to pull out his badge and go cop on him, so he was relieved when the man allowed the door to close after an approving glance from his colleague. “Can you take me to him?” Colfax asked.

  “He’s pretty booked up. What’s it about?”

  “Just get me to him,” Colfax said. “It’s private. Tell him we found our man. Trust me, he’ll come running. You’ll be sorry if you don’t tell him right away.”

  The man stared, as if he was deciding how to answer. “It could be a while,” he finally cautioned.

  “It won’t be.”

  “Take him down to the suite at the end of the hall,” the other said after they exited the elevator on the fourth floor. “I’ll go find him.”

  ~~~

  “I wonder where Joanie went,” Bismarck said when they were assembled at the table for dinner. “I thought she might be worried about those damn cats, but I called her place and nobody answered.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been worried about that too,” Willmar said. “She disappeared in a hurry. Maybe she just needed to get away from all this.”

  “I can relate to that,” Gail said. “I’m all mixed up. It took me a long time to stop thinking about it. Now it’s all back.”

  “If we can keep Billy from going back to jail, then I think it’s worth it,” Bismarck said. “That’s why we’re all here in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure why I’m here at all,” Morris said. “I just got done getting hammered by my wife on the phone. She isn’t too happy with me right now.”

  “I’ll bet,” Gail said. “I wouldn’t be either. What’d you tell her?”

  “The truth,” Morris said with a shrug. “But you have to understand. She worries about me, on account of my past. Especially anything that has to do with Billy.”

  “Speaking of Billy,” Willmar said. “Where is he?”

  “He went back to bed. I knocked on his door and told him we’re eating,” Bismarck said. “Must be sleeping.”

  “He can sleep later,” Willmar said. “He needs to eat. I’ll go get him.” He pushed back from the table and left the room.

  ~~~

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Minot said after storming into the room and throwing the door closed. “You found our boys?”

  “I’m out,” Colfax said. “I mean it this time. You got what you needed, so it’s all over for me.”

  “Slow down,” Minot said. “Think again. Nothing’s over until I say it’s over.”

  “Not this time. We’re even. I’m calling it quits and you can’t stop me.”

  Minot walked closer and sat on the corner of a chair. Good, Colfax thought. Now we’re getting somewhere. “I can’t stop you? The hell I can’t. Are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m dead serious,” Colfax said. “It’s time to get on with my life.”

  “Your life? I gave you your life, remember? I’ve got a thick file on you,” Minot said. “You and I have been busy over the years. We had to be, or we’d never have gotten this far. We both have a lot of blood on our hands.”

  “Nothing I did is quite that bad,” Colfax challenged. “Even if you could prove it.”

  Minot laughed. “Now I know you’re kidding around, pal. Your end of it is plenty bad, and I’ve got enough proof for any jury.”

  ~~~

  After the first knock went unanswered, Willmar started to worry. A minute later he was scared. “Billy? You in there?” He twisted the door knob and walked in, suddenly afraid of what he was going to find. Thankfully the room was empty. He was expecting worse.

  ~~~

  “I’m guilty of a few pranks,” Colfax said. “That’s about it. I’ll get a slap on the wrist maybe, if you’re dumb enough to go public about it.”

  “A few pranks? Get real,” scoffed Minot. “Both of us have a lot to hide. We burned a house down and got rid of that girl. Then we fixed the investigations so that white trash kid took the rap for both. What’s his name, Mankato, talked too much so he had to go. And you, in the meantime, were on the receiving end of so many bogus promotions that I lost track. The story behind your career path isn’t something you want out there. You sure as hell don’t want your wife and kids thinking you didn’t earn it all by your rosy-cheeked self.” He fixed his glare on Colfax’s face. “I remind you. Think of your wife and kids. You still have a lot at stake.”

  “I’ll kill you if those goons get anywhere near my family! I swear to God I will! You leave them out of this!”

  “Sorry, but I can’t. Especially when you come to me with this kind of crazy talk on a night like this. Now, can you settle down? Can we get back to business? How many times do I have to tell you? I’ve got important work to do and I won’t let you stand in my way. This is forever.”

  ~~~

  “He’s not in there,” Willmar reported back at the dinner table. “He’s not anywhere. Did anybody see him leave?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to catch up with Joanie,” Gail suggested.

  They searched the cabin. He wasn’t there. “Everybody outside,” Willmar commanded. He went to the chest where he’d stored his guns and yanked it open. “He couldn’t have gotten far on foot.”

  “He’s not on foot, Ricky,” said Bismarck, who was staring out a front window. “My car’s gone.”

  Willmar rummaged around the chest before turning to face the group, all of whom were watching him. “So is my shotgun.”

  ~~~

  “I can’t let you walk away,” Minot said. “There’s too much risk. There’s too much at stake. Back down, or you’ll wish you had. And yes, that’s a threat.”

  “You can’t take me down without going down yourself. Governor,” he added spitefully. “So do your worst. I dare you.” But by then he was talking to Minot’s back.

  ~~~

  Willmar slammed the chest closed and headed for the window to see for himself. He stopped in his tracks when he saw a flashing light on one of the gadgets at the command post he’d set up on an end table. “Wait a second. We’ve got something.”

  ~~~

  Time to go, Colfax told himself. I have what I came for. Now I can have my life back. What’s left of it. Just as he was stan
ding to leave, however, the door flew open and two men entered the room. Colfax knew about these men. For them, there weren’t any lines that couldn’t be crossed. He was surprised they let him see their faces. “Sit down,” one of them barked. “You’re not going anywhere yet.”

  Colfax sat. There was still more talking to do. “The governor and I just cleared things up,” he said. “Ask him.”

  “We just did. Check him out,” he said to his partner. “Then we’ll all go for a little ride. Stand up,” he ordered Colfax while pulling a pistol from the inside of his jacket. “The boss says to keep you out of sight for a while.” He smiled at his partner. “Until some time in November.”

  Colfax saw the silencer screwed onto the end the barrel. “You don’t understand,” he told them. “It’s all settled.” Nobody’s expression changed. “Don’t do this. Take it easy.”

  “Sorry, just followin’ orders. Gotta show some respect for the boss.”

  “Wait!” Colfax said, reaching into his coat. “Show the boss this!”

  His hand was still out of view when muted sounds of gunfire erupted. Two bullets to the chest sent Colfax to the floor. Blood gurgled from his mouth when he tried to speak. He didn’t hear the next shot, nor did he feel the slug bore through his skull and tear up his brain before emerging from the other side in front of his left ear.

  “Some guys just never want to shut up,” said the man with the gun.

  “Why’d you do that?” the other yelled. “We weren’t supposed to do that! We were supposed to take him away and sit on him for a while! Now we gotta’ find a way to get him out of here! This place is crawling with cameras! What if somebody heard?”

  “What was I supposed to do? He mighta’ been reaching for a gun. I had no choice.”

  “Damn! Did anybody know he was here?”

  “How the hell should I know? Let’s see what he was goin’ for,” he said as he bent over far enough to grab Colfax’s shoulder and turn him onto his back. “You’ll see.” But in the dead man’s hand wasn’t a gun, but a cell phone with a wire plugged into it. When he followed the wire to the breast pocket of Colfax’s shirt he found a ball-point pen. Only it wasn’t a pen.

  “Shit,” he said. He grabbed the phone from Colfax’s hand and looked at the display. “This is a microphone. He was wired.” After yanking the cord from the jack he threw the phone as hard as he could against the wall. “Somebody was listening. We did that live.”

  “Live?” the other said. “You mean dead.”

  ~~~

  “What the hell did we just hear?” Bismarck asked. “What was that, Ricky?”

  “You heard it just as plain as me,” Willmar answered.

  “Oh my God,” Gail said. “They just shot that man, didn’t they? Was that Colfax?”

  “Sure sounded like it. What I want to know is what he got Minot to say before the guns came out. If he ever got to Minot in the first place. I’ll know in a minute. Let me play it back.”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she said. “He was just here.”

  “We don’t know he’s dead,” Willmar said as he worked the controls on an electronic box. “We don’t know what that was. I don’t think they’d kill him. He’s too important. It’d be impossible to cover up for long.”

  “He’s dead,” Gail said softly. “You heard those men same as I did.”

  “If he is,” Willmar said without looking up, “I’m not losing any sleep over it. The guy’s a crook who put Billy away for eleven years. What’s with all the sorrow all of a sudden? I’m more worried about tracking Billy down than I am about this bum.”

  “You want something to be sorry about?” Bismarck said from where he now stood in front of the TV. “Take a look at this. They already declared Minot the winner in four states so far, including this one. He’s gonna make his speech now. Guy makes me want to puke.”

  The rest of them moved to the TV and watched as balloons cascaded from the ceiling of the hotel ballroom. A glistening Michael Minot, former governor of New Jersey and now everybody’s frontrunner for the nomination, marched onto the stage with the hand of his beautiful wife inside his own.

  “I hope that ain’t where Billy went,” Bismarck said. The raucous crowd drowned out the voice of the television reporter, especially after they broke into a chant, the words of which couldn’t be discerned. It was probably no more than a minute or two that Minot and his wife waved, all the while mouthing “Thank you,” but it seemed like longer. None of the hysterical Minot supporters knew what the people in the cabin in Lambertville did. Seconds earlier the man on the stage had ordered a murder, a murder that had occurred somewhere in that very building. Colfax was probably still bleeding.

  “Anybody wanna’ see any more of this shit?” Bismarck asked. When nobody answered, he turned it off.

  ~~~

  Fargo hadn’t been sure where he was going an hour earlier when he grabbed the shotgun, a box of shells and then a pistol for good measure. All he knew was that he was close to a decision, a decision he didn’t want any help with. Thanks to Ricky Willmar, it looked like Trooper Colfax and maybe even Mike Minot himself would go to prison. Rip Mankato was probably dead and gone. He’d outlasted them all, but it didn’t feel as good as he’d hoped. Nor did it change the fact that he, too, might be headed back to prison over his busted parole. And if by some miracle he didn’t get sent back, what the hell was there for him on the outside? Even before I was an ex-con there wasn’t shit for me. Now what am I supposed to do?

  He drove south all the way to Trenton and parked at the train station. That was as good a place as any to get another look, maybe a last look, at the bridge where it had all started. The neon tubing in the letters glowed red in the dark. It looked better that way, he thought. Maybe because that’s how it must have looked that night.

  He wondered if he’d die if he walked out onto the bridge and jumped off. Probably not, he concluded. It wasn’t that high. Most likely he’d end up sick, but still alive and miserable. Unless he walked to the Pennsylvania end, where the boulders were. Now he was getting somewhere. Of course, the easiest option of all was the one he’d left in the car. When he’d grabbed the shotgun before climbing out the back window of the cabin and stealing Bismarck’s car, he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted it for. Now he knew.

  There’s where I got tasered, he thought as he walked past the main entrance of the train station on the way back to the car. At the time he hadn’t understood the big picture and didn’t know who had sent those men. Now he realized it had been done by a man who was running for president and needed to keep a certain ex-con from asking too many questions. Even if he gets knocked out of the race over this, he still got away with too much shit. If he gets busted he’ll go to some damn country club prison filled with a bunch of other rich pussies. I don’t get my life back. I’m still the loser. Unless – he thought of the shotgun again. That would work. At least I could say I’d outlasted him. Not by much, though. He’d already made up his mind about that part.

  All he had to do was get on Route 1, which would take him all the way to the Hyatt in Princeton. As he moved through Trenton he realized he could never get the shotgun into the hotel, and was thankful that he’d grabbed the pistol. He wondered if he could get close enough. It was worth a try. He thought he could do it.

  A cell phone, probably Bismarck’s, beeped a few minutes after he’d crossed the city limit and left Trenton. No harm in answering, he decided.

  “Billy, is that you?”

  “Yeah. Hi, Russ.”

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. What’s up?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Let’s see. I’m on Route 1, just about to pass Quaker Bridge Mall. I’m on my way to see Minot at the Hyatt Hotel. Nice place. I went to the comedy club there once.”

  “Billy, what are you doing?” Bismarck asked.

  “I just want to make sure I go out a winner for once in my life. Takin’ matters into my own hands, I gu
ess you could say.”

  “Billy, don’t do this,” Bismarck begged. “You already won. Colfax is dead and Minot’s finished. It’s all over. Don’t blow it.”

  “Colfax is dead?”

  “Yeah. It just happened.”

  “Great. Now I know I win.”

  “Is Joanie with you?” Bismarck asked.

  “Joanie? No,” Fargo said. “Haven’t seen her. She ain’t got no use for me, anyway.”

  “She’s crazy for you, Billy. I swear she is.”

  “Bullshit. Why don’t she show it?”

  “Maybe the same reason you don’t,” Bismarck answered. “This’ll crush her. Don’t do this. You’ll never recover from it.”

  “Who said anything about recoverin’?” Fargo asked. “Hey, Russ, can you tell Ricky I’m sorry for callin’ him a fuckin’ fairy?” He hung up without waiting for an answer. He expected it to ring again, but Bismarck didn’t call back. He don’t give a shit, either. All the more reason. He carefully placed the phone on the passenger seat where he’d found it. Bismarck would probably want it back.

  After he’d reached the Hyatt he circled through the parking lots without finding an empty slot. It was only after he’d pulled into a space along the curb on Alexander Road that he laughed at himself for worrying about parking legally, given the reason for his visit. The phone rang again just as he cut the engine and picked up the gun.

  “Hello?”

  “Billy? This is Joanie! Are you okay? Where are you?”

  He swallowed hard. This wasn’t something he expected. “I’m at the Hyatt. Didn’t Russ tell you?”