Flash Point

by Thomas Locke

  The guard was short and wide and had freckles that were stretched into a second coloring. Her face looked smashed by a frying pan, flat and utterly round, her nose a miniature indent. Most of the guards shared two things—odd physical appearances, and gazes as dull and flinty as old iron.

  “Clawson, you’ve got a visitor. Bring your gear.”

  She still had an hour before the morning claxon. Which was an odd time for visitors. But Reese was not surprised. She took her time closing her book and rolling off the bunk. Inmates did everything on their three-by-six foam mattress. Hers smelled bad, but it was not the worst she had known in her fourteen months of incarceration.

  For most inmates, visitors meant a sliver of activity in their dull grey existence. For Reese, it meant something else entirely. She pulled her sweatshirt over her prison blues, then filled the front pouch with her meager belongings. The book she left on the empty bunk. Her hand lingered on the blank notepad, then she decided to leave that as well. Why she had spent prison money on a journal was a mystery. She would never have dared write down the events that had brought her here. Even so, she had experienced bitter glee over the havoc her words might cause. But the thoughts remained locked inside, where they belonged. Because if she started writing what she knew, she would sign her own death warrant.

  Her cellmate was a huge Native American, so big she jammed onto the wall and spilled over the lower bunk’s rim. She asked sleepily, “Going somewhere?”

  “Out of state, most likely.”

  “What, you read smoke in the sky?”

  “Something like that.”

  The woman shut her eyes. “See you when you wake up, girl.”

  Reese followed the guard down the concrete alley and through the buzzed security doors, down another hall, past the main security point, ever closer to the forbidden outside. She was good at pretending she did not care about ever breaking out. But now and then she caught a whiff of the world beyond the wire. And her heart skipped a beat. Like now.

  She had assumed they were leading her to the narrow concrete-lined quadrangle where vehicles parked for prisoner transfers. Instead, the guard led her into an area she did not know, another windowless hall, another series of metal doors. As far as Reese was concerned, any change in the routine was interesting.

  The guard stopped by a door with a wire-mesh window and waved to the security officer in the bulletproof cage. The door buzzed. The guard opened it and said to the person waiting inside, “Rap on the glass when you’re done.”

  “Thank you, Officer.” The visitor did not look up from the file open on the metal desk. “Sit down, Clawson.”

  Reese did as she was told. Not because she was good at following instructions. Because she caught another faint whiff of a fragrance from far beyond this realm.

  The woman on the other side of the desk turned a page in the file she read. She wore a pin-striped suit and a white silk blouse with a frilly bow at the collar. The woman was bulky and mannish with long dark hair clenched tight inside a gold clip. On her, the frilly collar looked childish and odd, like she had intentionally dressed to draw attention away from her expression, which was cold and hard and calculating. She turned another page in the file and continued reading.

  Reese had no problem with waiting. She had been doing little else for fourteen long months.

  Since her arrest, Reese had been moved four times. When they had first picked her up, she had been sent from Santa Barbara to Raiford Women’s Prison in central Florida. Then Tennessee. The last two had both been in Virginia. Endless trips in the backseat of cars that had smelled worse than her mattress. It was enough to drive her insane. Which was perhaps what they had intended.

  The woman reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out what at first glance was a digital recorder. Which was probably why prison security had let the woman bring it inside. But Reese knew better. She had used the exact same device. The woman flipped a switch and waited until the light glowed green. The device sent out a jamming signal intended to blanket all frequencies. Such meetings as this were supposedly protected by attorney-client privilege. But this same code of ethics stated no American citizen could be held without charge for over a year.

  The woman had still not looked up. She turned another page. “Do you know where you are, Clawson?”

  The obvious answer was, the Lawyer Room. It was the inmates’ name for the security chamber, the only place in the entire prison not wired for sight and sound. At least, not on record.

  Reese Clawson had not been here before. Which was hardly a surprise. Since she had also never been charged. Or had any need to ask for a lawyer. Up to this point, she had been fairly certain that any such request would have made that day her last.

  The woman turned another page. She seemed to find nothing wrong with Reese’s silence. “You are at the verge of the only chance you will ever have.”

  Reese did not respond. There was nothing to say.

  “My name does not matter, because I am not here. We are not meeting.” She finally looked up and revealed a gaze as flat and hard as a prison guard’s. “Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have one question for you. Answer correctly, and you will move on to a different status. What that is, and where you will be operating, does not matter. Yet.”

  The woman liked holding this life-or-death clout, Reese could tell. Her eyes were brown as muck, dark as the life Reese had come to call her own. Reese also detected a secret anger and realized the woman was here against her will. She found that extremely interesting.

  The woman went on, “Answer incorrectly, and you will be swallowed by the federal system. Permanently. Tell me you understand.”

  “Perfectly.” All four of the prisons where Reese had been held were run by state penal systems. In each case, cells were rented by the federal government to house prisoners convicted in federal court. Federal prisons were so overcrowded they could no longer ignore the public scrutiny and outrage. It was easier to house the federal prisoner overflow in rented cages than build new facilities. But this also made it possible for the government to falsify documents and claim a particular inmate had been tried, convicted, and sentenced. To a life without any shred of hope of parole. Which was no life at all.

  The woman’s actions were overly slow, and deliberate as an executioner. She tapped the pages back into order. Settled them into the file. Shut the cover. Placed the folder in her briefcase and snapped it shut. Rested her hands on the table. Gave Reese ten seconds of the eyes, cold as a cell door. “What would you do to earn another chance at freedom?”

  Reese gave the answer as much force as she could. “Whatever it takes.”

  The woman cut off the jamming device. She rose to her feet and hefted her briefcase. She walked to the door and rapped on the security glass. “That is the correct answer.”

  A black Escalade was waiting for them outside the prison gates. Reese was directed into the rear seat. The woman slipped in beside the driver, a bulky guy dressed in a tailored suit of slate and silk. He asked, “Any trouble?”

  “No. Drive.”

  Everything Reese saw or sensed carried an electric quality. Even the woman’s hostile silence was pleasurable. The world spun and the road unfurled and every breath took Reese farther from the existence she had feared was all she would ever know.

  The woman said her name was Vera. Reese assumed it was a lie, but just the same she wanted to thank her for the gift. To offer any name at all suggested a future and a purpose big enough to require further contact. The Escalade was not new and smelled vaguely of disinfectant. The leather seat was seamed with the sort of ingrained dirt that no amount of cleaning could pluck out.

  Vera said, “There’s a briefcase behind you in the rear hold.”

  Reese turned around and pulled the heavy Samsonite case onto the seat beside her. It contained four thick files. She estimated their combined weight at between twenty-five and thirty pounds. Their contents were divided into a logical
sequence—finance, product and fabrication, legal and personnel, customers. She was deep into her initial read-through when, an hour later, the Escalade pulled into the parking lot of a cheap highway motel, one that probably catered to the prison visitors.

  Vera kept her face aimed at the front windscreen as she said, “There’s a key in the case. Your room is straight ahead of where we’re parked. Go inside. Work. Don’t leave the room. An envelope in the briefcase holds cash. Order takeout. Don’t make any other calls. If you try to run, federal marshals will be given a shoot-to-kill order. You have seven days to memorize the contents of those files.”

  Reese felt her face constrict into an unfamiliar form, but at least she could still name it as a smile. Not because of the command or the warning. Because this woman thought she would need a week. “Will there be a test?”

  “Absolutely.” Vera did not bother turning around. “Fail, and Jack here will dispose of you.”

  3

  Lena’s third stop was by far the hardest.

  It was three o’clock on Thursday. The first two deals had already been worked through. The owners of both companies had agreed in principle. Don Metzer was already discussing contract details with the Pueblo bank president. The owner of the second business, a vendor of ATM machines, was at this moment driving from Colorado Springs to Pueblo to work through his own transaction. Lena’s conversations with both company chiefs had been staggeringly easy. She had offered, and they had accepted with the quiet desperation of men drowning in choppy economic seas.

  That was not what made her approach to this third company so hard.

  The previous night, Lena had not slept. Finally at two in the morning she had risen from her motel bed and sat by the window and stared at the lights speeding along the Denver bypass. What made the night so long, and this final meeting so hard, was accepting that it was all real. Which was strange, given everything that she had accomplished to this point. But her sense of a new reality had less to do with the current deal than with what it all meant.

  Lena was an analyst by nature. And she knew these potent communications from beyond were not just some benevolent voice offering her a chance to become rich. This was about something more. Something greater. And by taking this first series of steps, Lena knew she was signing on. To what, she had no idea.

  As she entered the third of her acquisition targets, the looming mystery weighed as heavy as her lack of sleep.

  The company owner was Juan Chavez, who ran it with his only son, Enrique. Lena’s research had revealed they were being squeezed hard. Revenue and profit margins were stagnant. If this had been a publicly traded company, they would have sold out long ago.

  Juan was seated behind a scarred and messy desk when Lena was ushered inside. His son leaned against the windowsill beside his father’s chair. “Like I told you on the phone, the company is not for sale.”

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Chavez. May I take a few moments and tell you what I have in mind?”

  Juan Chavez was so well-padded his features were mere indents in a corpulent ball. By contrast, Enrique was sharp-featured, tall, and handsome. If a lady liked men with the Latin lover’s indolent attitude, which Lena most definitely did not.

  The father waved a fat-fingered hand at a metal chair. “Sure, okay. We got ten minutes.”

  “First of all, I don’t want to buy you out. I want fifty-one percent. For which I’ll pay you one million dollars. Cash.”

  The presence of that much money, even if they didn’t want to sell, set the father to squirming. His chair complained with tight squeaks as he shifted. “My company is worth more.”

  “It could be. Depending on how the valuers consider your assets. But more than half your trucks are approaching the end of their natural lives. And six have over two hundred thousand miles on the clock.” She held up her hand. “We don’t need to discuss valuation because it doesn’t matter. One million dollars is all I can offer because it’s all I have.”

  “We could maybe talk to you about selling, say, twenty percent.”

  “Sorry. It has to be a majority share for my plan to work.”

  Enrique cut off his father’s protest with, “So what’s this plan?”

  “I want to build the first financial institute designed specifically to service the Colorado marijuana retailers.”

  “For real?” The son flashed a remarkably attractive smile. “You want us to go into the dope business?”

  “No, Mr. Chavez. I want us to enter the money business.”

  Lena had uncovered this opportunity while researching the most bizarre situation in recent commercial history. In a growing number of states, with a variety of restrictions, trade in marijuana had been declared legal. This was made possible through a change of state law. But all financial operations were governed by federal law. In principle, every financial transaction by every buyer and seller was still illegal.

  Banks would not touch the money. Credit cards could not be used to make purchases. The same went for checks. Buying from licensed retailers remained a cash-only business.

  This resulted in huge problems.

  These newly licensed businesses were required to record their transactions, register with the IRS as commercial enterprises, and pay their state and federal taxes.

  But they could not set up bank accounts. Or deposit their earnings. Even the use of secured safety-deposit boxes was forbidden by most banks. The financial institutions’ legal departments suffered multiple heart seizures over the threat of federal litigation. The bank’s charter could be declared forfeited. The lawyers who advised them could be brought up on charges and be stripped of their right to practice law. Same for their auditors. The bank and everyone involved in the process risked losing everything.

  And so problems for the retailers grew steadily worse.

  They were, quite literally, swimming in cash. In Colorado alone, the state’s tax authorities estimated the retailers would, in their third year of legalized operation, generate over three billion dollars in turnover.

  Small business owners were investing in massive safes and armed guards and bulletproof doors. But robberies remained common, often orchestrated by these very same guards. Too many people were lured by massive hoards of ready cash.

  And then a new problem surfaced. A crisis of national proportions. One that changed the entire landscape.

  The transport company owner’s son had lost his flirtatious smirk before Lena completed her overview. Juan frowned in concentration, his chair squeaking as he nodded in time to Lena’s points. Enrique left his perch by the window and drew up a chair beside his father. The two men now shared the same hard stare. They were cautious, but they were also intent. Lena liked their silence. She liked how Juan’s first words were, “So how come we’re the last group to be contacted?”

  She liked even more how Enrique replied for her, “Because we’re not desperate, right?”

  “Exactly,” Lena replied. “I agree, in some circumstances a million dollars could be viewed as a lowball offer.”

  “But that’s all you got,” Juan said.

  “Every last dime.”

  “So you form this new company that owns parts of the three groups. Then what?”

  “In the short term, we become the only financial group serving the retailers. We don’t just go in and offer them bank accounts. We offer them everything.” She ticked the items off her fingers. “We install ATM machines in each of our customers’ outlets. Because these machines are owned and managed by a chartered bank, each ATM is legally considered a bank branch. This means the machines will accept deposits as well as dispense cash. The usage of credit cards also becomes possible.”

  Enrique nodded in time to her words. “Then our trucks show up at the close of every business day.”

  “And you sweep up the money under bonded guard and transport the cash to the Pueblo State Bank,” Lena confirmed. “Where the money will be deposited in special short-term accounts.”

 
The two men gave that a long minute, then Enrique said, “So explain why you won’t accept a smaller cut of our company.”

  “Because it’s not about me. It’s about who would be willing to buy this new entity.”

  Their eyes opened wide. “You’re selling us out?”

  “The very instant the federal government changes the regulations on these financial transactions. Which will happen soon.”

  Juan demanded, “How come you’re so sure about that?”

  “Because,” Lena replied. “They don’t have any choice. The absence of a legal means of handling all this cash has opened this up to organized crime. A number of cities in Colorado and other states have seen a huge upsurge in gang violence. That was what alerted me. The government is being forced to issue a new ruling. And soon.”

  “So your idea is to get in early. Offer these desperate retailers a legal method of depositing their cash.” Enrique nodded slowly. “This is smart.”

  Juan studied his son. “You like this?”

  “You got to admit, Pop, it’s a totally new take on a major issue.”

  Which was exactly what Lena had thought. Until the Weasel shot her down. And the events kept pushing her, first to the investors and now here. Through experiences that changed everything.

  But all she said was, “When the attorney general’s new ruling comes down, we will have a lock on the market. One of the large regional banks, or perhaps a venture capital group, will snap us up. But for this to happen, we have to show them a clean deal.”

  Juan said slowly, “So you need a majority share.”

  “Right. It’s essential to them that they gain outright control over each piece of the puzzle.”

  Enrique said to his father, “So the part of the company we still hold would be worth some serious cash, Pop.”