“So that’s why I want to convict this bastard and come up with enough to go after his bosses in Mexico.”
“You think you can go after them in Mexico? The way I hear it, you might never be able to get them out for a trial here.”
“Just a second. Let me check something.”
He did something and came on a moment later and his voice sound a little higher pitched, with a little echo like he was speaking in a barrel.
“There’s a little techno trick we’ve just come up with. Nobody will pick this up, not even NSA. Actually, we don’t tell them everything we have and we know they don’t tell us. You have to have some aces up your sleeves.”
Then:
“If we get enough, we’re not going to worry about extracting them for trial.”
“Oh. Do you think we should even be talking about this? I’m nowhere near that far up the chain and I know I don’t have clearance to hear something like that.”
“I didn’t say anything, and if you were taping the tape will be gibberish. Anyway, I’m just speculating. Besides, I get the feeling that…you know how to keep secrets.”
That stopped me.
“Sorry. Don’t follow.”
“I don’t know how much you know about it, but the NSA is something else. They were before 9/11 but nowadays I think they know more than God. Know all, see all, hear all.”
“I still don’t-“
“Because I’m one of the point men on this prosecution, the NSA routinely funnels anything they pick up having to do with Mendoza or the Cartel through my office.”
He stopped as if waiting for me.
“And?”
“Imagine my surprise when I received transcripts in Spanish of a conversation where your name mentioned prominently?”
“Again, what. As you should know, I’ve gotten a lot of attention as the Angel of Death. And a lot of people are speculating about Mendoza coming to Jacksonville. Could be anything.”
“This was between two second-tier guys in Mendoza’s cartel. I speak and read Spanish fluently so the upshot of what they were talking about was clear.”
This time I didn’t say anything. I had a bad feeling.
“They were talking about what they could do, what the Cartel would do, if it came your way. And they said very clearly that the word had come down from the top. Do not touch Maitland. Or his family. Now, this was just words on an email, but if I was reading between the lines, I would swear they were nervous. About you.”
I didn’t say anything but when the silence grew too long, I said, “Maybe they’re superstitious. Good to know this Rep is good for something.”
“These guys aren’t ignorant peasants. They’re college educated Mob guys; we’d call them Wise guys if they spoke English. They don’t run from scary legends.”
This time he broke the silence.
“I have to tell you, Maitland, it’s got me puzzled. I’m trying to figure out what there could be about a – pardon me but this is the way these guys would look at it – small town American prosecutor that would have them declare you and your family off limits. They’re not worried about killing anybody else. What is there about you that would frighten bad guys like them?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
I sat there listening to silence, wondering why he had called, the questions that had to be running through his mind.
Nobody in the world knew about the relationship between the Old Man and myself. Even Debbie only knew the barest outlines. It had all started in a way that could have gotten me sent to prison for a humanitarian act. Would have sent me to prison. I didn’t regret what I had done, but I knew in the cold unblinking stare of a federal prosecutor I would be judged guilty of breaking a number of laws. They were stupid laws. But they were laws. And I had made the decision to break them. If I had been standing in their shoes, I might have sent me to prison. And yet I didn’t feel guilty.
But I had wandered outside the confines of what safe and legal. I had wandered into His world and no one had ever looked closely at me because – I was nobody. Just a small town assistant prosecutor. Even after 9-11, nobody at Homeland would have thought of checking for my name on their tapes. Now, I was the Angel of Death and I might soon be the center of an internationally viewed criminal trial. And millions of eyes would be trained on me. And the truth about me was just beginning to seep out.
“So you have no idea? Well, I just thought I’d give you a heads-up to see what you had to say about things. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Of course, between you and me, the most logical answer would be they weren’t nervous.”
“What?”
“Most people if they learned that a drug cartel is killing American prosecutors, but tells their people not to touch this one particular prosecutor, would assume the cartel simply wasn’t afraid of this prosecutor.”
“Because they know the prosecutor would do something to screw up the trial, or get their man off. In other words, you’re saying that I’m dirty. They’ve either paid me off or have something on me that makes me their man?”
“I’m not saying that, Maitland. Just that a suspicious man might consider the possibility. After all, which makes more sense? That a major drug cartel is afraid of a small time prosecutor, or owns him?
“I’m not saying that, of course. We’ve found nothing to indicate you’re either on their payroll or would be vulnerable to blackmail or threats. You realize we’re going to have to do a much more in depth background investigation. No offense, but this has raised questions we can’t ignore.”
“Look as much as you want. There’s nothing there.”
“I’m sure there isn’t. Anyway, I won’t keep you. I know you’re busy and I am too. Lots of things to check out. As I said, I’ll be down there at some time in the future and we can talk more then.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Let me know if you hear anything else…interesting.”
“Oh, I will Mr. Maitland. I definitely will. You have a good day.”
I just sat there, looking at the phone for a long time after I hung it up. You go along living your life and you expect life to keep going in the same direction. It might be bad, but at least you knew what you were in store for. And then you find out your wife wants another man. And that a woman you could love is married to a friend. And then, your entire life begins to tick like a live bomb and you wait for the blast.
Looking back, I knew I shouldn’t have done what I did. And it hadn’t been out of anger or rage. I realized I did have an anger management problem. But what I had done I’d done after reflection, knowing the risk I took. Knowing that I risked the life I had built with my wife and my children. Because this was before everything went in the toilet. But I had gambled with their lives.
And maybe lost.
THREAD THREE: THE GIFT
September 15, 1998
Tuesday, 4 P.M.
Orangedale, Satsuma County, Florida
Clifford Samms sat in his sky blue 1990 Plymouth Acclaim looking at the off white doublewide, doublelong trailer at the other end of the dirt driveway.
If he looked at it long enough, he thought, maybe it would just go away and he wouldn't have to do what he couldn't quite bring himself to do.
He punched the button on the glove compartment and it fell open to reveal the cold blue monster that lurked within. He put his hand out and wrapped his fingers gingerly around the monster's barrel, lifting it up within the glove compartment, feeling its weight and solidity.
He was insane, he knew. What he was thinking was insane. A calm, rational, intelligent man - a college graduate, a former teacher - should not be entertaining the thought, the fantasy, of murder. Murder was the subject of movies and television, of lurid paperbacks seen in revolving racks in convenience stores.
The door to the trailer flew open and a small boy leaped out, missing the last step and falling and then rolling to his feet and running toward the car.
"Grandpa, grandpa," the boy s
creamed.
Samms was out running to the boy before he was even aware of his actions. In seconds he held the weeping boy in his arms, looking up as the tall, balding man wearing overalls and a ratty tee-shirt stepped down from the trailer waving a thick black belt with a shiny silver buckle.
As the man stared walking slowly toward Samms a woman stepped out of the trailer, standing at the top of the three-step entranceway. She shook her head and smiled as she recognized Samms.
"Get away from him, you old fart," the balding man carrying the belt said as he approached Samms. "Little smartass has got it coming and he's going to get it. Good. Now let him go before I kick your ass too."
"Grandpa, don't let him take me, please," the boy screamed.
Sliding the boy around behind him, Samms stood between the boy and the hulking man, who was easily four inches taller than Samm' 5-foot-8 and easily 50 pounds heavier. Besides being 30 years younger.
"What's going on here, Fargo?" Samms asked, trying to keep his voice from trembling. His heart was thudding like it would shoot out of his chest, his breathing was ragged, his ears burned as if they were on fire, and he knew his blood pressure had to be at a dangerous level.
"I already told you, you dumb bastard. Now get out of my way. You're nothing here anymore. Alma is married to me, the punk is my legally adopted stepson, and you got no rights here at all anymore."
The woman had stepped down from the trailer and stood behind Fargo, hands on her hips, sneering the way she always seemed to now whenever Samms was around.
"In case you come out here to beg us again to see Johnny, Clifford, the answer is no. He's my son, and you got no rights at all since the judge said I had full custody of him. If you don't get off our property, after Lennie finishes kicking your ass I'll call the sheriff's office and have you arrested for trespassing besides. Do the smart thing and go away."
As he held his grandson with one hand, feeling under his palm the welts and bruises his mother and step-father had inflicted, Samms wanted to scream at his former daughter-in-law. But rage wouldn't accomplish anything. Never had.
"Alma, don't do this. I'm the boy's grandfather It's not right not to let me see him at all. There are laws, and-"
She laughed. "Sure, and you go back to court and see how much good it does you. The judge didn't buy any of your horror stories about how we were mistreating Johnny before, and with our good friends on the Sheriff's Department to back us up, they won't this time."
"I'll call in the state HRS again, go to Tallahassee if I have to," Samms said. "I'll find somebody that will listen to me, you cold blooded bitch. You might have gotten away with murdering my son, and driving his mother to an early grave, but I won't let you destroy the only thing I got left on this entire earth."
Fargo's fist flicked out as quickly as a striking snake and the next thing Samms knew he was lying on the ground, his mouth bleeding, his glasses lying in the dirt a hand's length away. As he reached out for them, a heavy boot ground his fingers into the dirt and Samms screamed in pain.
"No, let him go you bast-" Johnny yelled, his voice shut off by the sound of a fist hitting flesh. Bending his neck, Samms saw the boy land in the grass near the septic tank three feet away.
A moment later Fargo had Samms by the hair, lifting his head up and forcing him to scramble to his knees. Fargo knelt over, holding his fist with the belt wrapped tightly around it in front of Samm's face.
"Listen here, asshole," Fargo growled. "This is the last time I'm going to be gentle with you. You been bugging me and my wife for the last two years and I've had it. Your stinking, wife- beating son was attacking Alma when I blew him away. Sheriff's Office never even charged me. It was open and shut. I can't help it if that crazy wife of yours lost her mind and killed herself. And Johnny is mine now. Ours. If I want to beat the crap out of him, I will. And you won't do or say anything about it because you aren't going to be anywhere around here, ever again. You're not going to call, you're not going to try to contact him at school. You're going to vanish, right?"
"Like people vanish when they don't pay you for the drugs you sell them?" Samms said, enjoying a tiny moment of triumph as rage crossed Fargo's features. The next moment the fist and belt smashed him hard in the mouth and he went down to the ground again. For a moment it hurt too hard to breath. Then he could breathe although the old pain in his side had flared again for a moment. It had to be an ulcer, hurt too bad to be anything else. Then, as quickly as it hit, the pain in his side vanished and he could concentrate on his mouth and the blood pouring from his lips and bruised gums.
The sound of a motorcycle drew Fargo's attention away from Samms, followed by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway behind Samms' Acclaim.
Fargo and Alma exchanged glances and Alma hurried back into the trailer. Rolling to his backside, Samms sat up and saw the longhaired motorcyclist step off, carrying a briefcase with him. As the motorcyclist approached Fargo nodded his head toward the trailer and the rider, with only a casual curious glance, walked on by to the trailer and stepped inside.
Putting his hand to his mouth, Samms wiped away the blood and winced as he brushed raw flesh where either Fargo's knuckles or the belt had torn away a chunk of his lip.
As he stood up to face Fargo he saw a potbellied deputy in the uniform of the Satsuma County Sheriff's Office standing nearby, hand on the overly large pistol poking out of his holster.
"Some trouble here," the deputy asked Fargo.
"Some, Robbie. This is Alma's ex-father-in-law. He came by to stir up trouble between us and Johnny like he has ever since I shot his son. He swung at me and I had to deck the old bastard."
"That's a lie," Johnny shouted. Moving quicker than Samms would have thought possible for a man of his size, the deputy grabbed Johnny by the back of his shirt and threw him at Fargo, who caught him and sent him to the ground again with a kick to the rear.
"You need to be respectful to your parents, boy," the deputy said, then added, "You want me to charge this bozo, Lennie?"
Fargo shook his head.
"Naw, Robbie. More trouble than it's worth. I think the old coot has got the message. You did get the message, didn't you, Samms?"
As the two men stared at Samms, and his grandson sobbed on the ground, Samms licked the blood off his lip and picked his glass up off the ground, settling them on his nose.
"You're not going to do anything about this, are you, deputy?" he finally asked. "You're a friend of his, and part of his drug business too I imagine. You come here to protect that guy making a pickup?"
The deputy's pistol, which looked like a .357 magnum, was out in a heartbeat, the barrel pointed squarely at Samms' face from three inches away.
"You better be real careful, old man, real careful," the deputy said. "Talking trash like that could get you arrested, and you might try to resist so I'd have to break some bones. Or you just might manage to escape and no one would ever see you again.
"Now," he said, moving the barrel gently side to side in front of Samms' face, "you want to reconsider those statements?"
After a long moment, Samms coughed, spitting blood, and said, "Yeah. I just lost my head, deputy. I didn't mean it. I know that Fargo doesn't sell drugs to all the people that come here at all hours of the days and night carrying suitcases and bags and coming out with suitcases and bags. And I know you and other Satsuma deputies aren't providing protection and getting your cut. I'm sorry."
The deputy looked for just an instant like he wanted to pull the trigger, then slowly holstered the pistol.
"Get the hell out of here before Mr. Fargo decides to press assault charges," the deputy said.
As Samms turned and started walking toward his Acclaim he heard Johnny screaming, "Grandpa, don't go, don't go..." but he forced himself to look only at his car and to get into it without looking back. Inside, he laid his forehead against the steering wheel and tears that hadn't come when his son had been killed and his wife had shot herself finally came.
He put his hand into the glove compartment and stroked the monster. What he wanted most in all the world right now was to take it out, step out of the car, walk back with it held down at his side to where the deputy and Fargo stood, and then empty it into their bloated bodies.
But he couldn't make his fingers grasp the blue steel of the monster, lift it out. His body rebelled against it.
"You miserable coward," he cursed himself, knowing it was true, and knowing the truth was more than that. True, he was afraid, physically afraid of going back to face the man who had killed his son, driven his wife to suicide, and was tormenting his only grandson.
But, at the same time the voice of reason whispered in the back of his mind. If he killed Fargo and Alma, there would be no one left in the world to look out for Johnny. As it was now, he could still watch over the boy, try to help him, dream of finding a way of rescuing him. That hope would vanish if he threw his life away.
And more than that, he knew looking deeper into his own heart, he was afraid of surviving the murder of Fargo and Alma. There would be a trial and then prison and all that meant, knowing that Johnny would be on the outside unable to help him, maybe hating him for killing his mother. Who knows?
His mind whirling, he thought the old saying went, "tis reason doth make cowards of us all." Maybe that wasn't how it went, but it should have because it was true. Easy enough to fantasize about taking the law into his own hands for one glorious moment, but when the fantasy faded and the reality of it sunk in, he knew he couldn't do it.
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