The Racketeer Read online

  into gravel, then to dirt. There is no traffic because there is so little population. It seems odd that a thirty-year-old bachelor would choose such a secluded place to live.

  She parks in his driveway and listens. Nathan’s yellow Lab is in the backyard, in the distance, barking inside a large, fencedin dog run with a cute little house to keep him dry. Other than the dog, though, there are no sounds. The darkness is broken slightly by a small yellow porch light. Vanessa has a 9-millimeter Glock stuck in a pocket, and she thinks she knows how to use it. She walks around the house, careful where she steps, listening to everything. The dog barks louder, but no one, other than Vanessa, can hear him. At the rear door, she starts using the keys. The first three fit neither the locked knob nor the dead bolt, but numbers four and five do the trick. She takes a breath as she pushes the door open. There are no sirens, no frantic beepings. She had walked through the same door just five days earlier during the first session of filming and noticed the dead bolts and the absence of an alarm system.

  Once inside, Vanessa peels off the leather gloves and puts on a pair of disposable latex gloves. She is about to examine every inch of the house, and she cannot leave a single print. Walking quickly, she flips on lights, pulls down all the shades, and cranks up the air-conditioning. It’s a cheap rental house being leased by an unmarried hillbilly who’s spent the last five years in prison, so the decor and furnishings are sparse. There are a few sticks of furniture, the obligatory oversized television, and sheets on some of the windows. There are also dirty dishes stacked by the kitchen sink and dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. The guest bedroom is used to store junk. Two dead mice lay perfectly still in traps, their necks snapped in two.

  She begins in Nathan’s bedroom by going through a tall chest of drawers. Nothing. She looks under his bed and between the mattress and the box spring. She examines every inch of his cluttered closet. The house has a conventional, framed foundation, no concrete slab, and the hardwood flooring gives way slightly with each step. She taps the flooring, searching for a more hollow sound, for evidence of a hiding place.

  I suspect Nathan has hidden his loot somewhere in the house, though probably not in one of the main rooms. Nonetheless, we have to look everywhere. If he’s smart, which is a stretch, he has split it and is using more than one hiding place.

  From his bedroom, Vanessa inspects the guest room, giving the dead mice plenty of space. At 12:30, she begins turning off lights, as if Nathan is winding down. Room by room she goes, checking every corner, every plank, every pocket. Nothing goes unturned or untested. It could be in the walls, the floors, the dry-wall above the ceilings, or it could be buried in the backyard or stashed in a safe at Bombay’s.

  The cramped basement has seven-foot ceilings, no air-conditioning, and unpainted cinder-block walls. After spending an hour there, Vanessa is soaking wet, and too tired to go on. At 2:00 a.m., she stretches out on the sofa in the den and falls asleep with her hand on the Glock’s holster.

  If Rashford was hesitant to work on Saturday, he was almost belligerent on Sunday, but I gave him little choice. I pleaded with him to accompany me to the jail and pull the same strings he’d pulled the day before. I gave him a $100 bill to facilitate matters.

  We arrive at the jail just before 9:00 a.m., and fifteen minutes later I am alone with Nathan in the same room used yesterday. I am shocked at his appearance. His injuries are evident and substantial, and I wonder how long the guards will allow the abuse to continue. His face is a mess of gashes, open wounds, and dried blood. His upper lip is bloated and protrudes grotesquely from under his nose. His left eye is completely shut and his right one is red and puffy. He is missing one front tooth. Gone are the cutoffs and cute Hawaiian shirt, replaced by a dirt-stained white jumpsuit covered with dried blood.

  We both lean forward, our faces just inches apart. “Help me,” he manages to say, almost in tears.

  “Here’s the latest, Nathan,” I begin. “The crooks are demanding $1 million from the jet’s owner, and he’s agreed to pay it, so these scumbags will get their money. They’re not going to charge me with anything, as of this morning. For you, they want a half a million bucks. I’ve explained, through Rashford, that neither of us has that kind of money. I’ve explained that we were just passengers on someone’s jet, that we’re not rich, and so on. The Jamaicans don’t believe this. Anyway, that’s where we are as of right now.”

  Nathan grimaces, as if it hurts to breathe. As bad as his face looks, I’d hate to see the rest of his body. I’m imagining the worst, so I don’t ask what happened.

  He grunts and says, “Can you get back to the U.S., Reed?” His voice is weak and scratchy; even it is wounded.

  “I think so. Rashford thinks so. But I don’t have a lot of cash, Nathan.”

  He frowns and grunts again and looks as though he may either faint or cry. “Reed, listen to me. I have some money, a lot of it.”

  I’m staring him straight in the eyes, or at least his right one because his left one is closed. This is the fateful moment upon which everything else has been created. Without this, the entire project would be a gargantuan disaster, one horrific and lousy gamble.

  “How much?” I ask as he pauses. He does not want to go on, but he has no choice.

  “Enough to get me out.”

  “A half a million dollars, Nathan?”

  “That, and more. We need to be partners, Reed. Just me and you. I’ll tell you where the money is, you go get it, you get me out of here, and we’ll be partners. But you gotta give me your word, Reed. I have to trust you, okay?”

  “Hang on, Nathan,” I say, pulling back and throwing up both palms. “You expect me to leave here, go home, then come back with a sackful of money and bribe the Jamaican police? Are you serious?”

  “Please, Reed. There’s no one else. I can’t call anyone at home. No one there understands what’s happening here, only you. You gotta do it, Reed. Please. My life depends on it. I can’t survive here. Look at me. Please, Reed. You do what I ask, get me out, and you’ll be a rich man.”

  I back away some more as if he’s contagious.

  He’s begging: “Come on, Reed, you got me into this mess, now get me out.”

  “It might be helpful if you explain how you made so much money.”

  “I didn’t make it. I stole it.”

  No surprise there. “Drug money?” I ask, but I know the answer.

  “No, no, no. Are we partners, Reed?”

  “I don’t know, Nathan. I’m not so sure I want to start bribing Jamaican police. What if I get busted? I could end up just like you.”

  “Then don’t come back. Send the money to Rashford, get him to make the delivery. You can figure it out, Reed, hell you’re a smart man.”

  I nod as if I like the way he’s thinking. “Where’s the money, Nathan?”

  “Are we partners, Reed? Fifty-fifty, just me and you, man?”

  “Okay, okay, but I’m not risking jail over this, you understand?”

  “I got it.”

  There’s a pause as we study each other. His breathing is labored and every word is painful. Slowly, he extends his right hand; it’s puffy and scratched. “Partners, Reed?” he asks, pleading. Slowly, I shake his hand and he grimaces. It’s probably broken.

  “Where’s the money?” I ask.

  “It’s at my house,” he says slowly, reluctantly, as he gives away the most precious secret of his life. “You’ve been there. There’s a storage shed in the backyard, full of junk. It has a wooden floor, and to the right, under an old Sears push mower that doesn’t work, is a trapdoor. You can’t see it until you move the mower and some of the junk around it. Watch out for snakes-there are a couple of king snakes that live there. Open the trapdoor, and you’ll see a bronze casket.” His breathing is labored and he is sweating profusely. The physical pain is obvious, but he’s also tormented by the pain of such a momentous revelation.

  “A casket?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Yes,
a child’s casket. Closed and sealed, waterproof and airtight. There’s a hidden latch at the narrow end, where the feet would go. When you lift it, the seals release and you can open the casket.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “A bunch of cigar boxes wrapped in duct tape. I think there are eighteen of them.”

  “You hid cash in cigar boxes?”

  “It’s not cash, Reed,” he says as he leans closer. “It’s gold.”

  I appear too dumbfounded to speak, so he continues, almost in a whisper. “Mini-bars, each weighing ten ounces, as pure as anything being mined in the world. They’re about the size of a large domino. They’re beautiful, Reed, just beautiful.”

  I stare at him for a long time in disbelief, then say, “Okay, as hard as it is, I’ll resist asking a lot of obvious questions. I’m supposed to hustle home, go fetch the gold from a casket, fight off some snakes, somehow find a dealer who’ll swap me gold for cash, and then figure out a way to smuggle a half a million bucks back here into Jamaica where I’ll fork it over to some crooked Customs agents and police who’ll then set you free. That pretty well sum it up, Nathan?”

  “It does. And hurry, okay?”

  “I think you’re crazy.”

  “We shook hands. We’re partners, Reed. You figure out a way to do it, and you’ll be a rich man.”

  “How many dominoes are we talking about?”

  “Between five and six hundred.”

  “What’s gold worth these days?”

  “Two days ago it was trading for fifteen hundred bucks an ounce.”

  I do the math and say, “That’s between seven and a half and eight million bucks.”

  Nathan is nodding. He does the math every day of his life as he watches the price fluctuate.

  There is a loud knock on the door behind me, and one of the jailers appears. “Time’s up, mon,” he says, then disappears.

  “This is probably one of the stupidest things I’ll ever do in my life,” I say.

  “Or maybe one of the smartest,” Nathan replies. “But please hurry, Reed. I can’t survive long.”

  We shake hands and say good-bye. My last visual of Nathan is a battered little man trying to stand, in pain. Rashford and I leave in a hurry. He drops me off at my hotel, where I run to my room and call Vanessa.

  She’s in the attic, where it’s 120 degrees, picking through old cardboard boxes and broken furniture. “It’s not there,” I announce. “It’s outside, in the storage shed.”

  “Hang on,” she says as she climbs down the retractable ladder. “Has he told you?” she asks between breaths.

  “Yes.”

  “Someone’s here,” she says, and through the phone I hear a loud doorbell chime. Vanessa ducks low in the hallway and reaches for the Glock. “I’ll call you right back,” she whispers into the phone and turns it off.

  It’s late Sunday morning. Nathan’s truck is in his driveway. Assuming his friends would know he was away for the weekend, the presence of his truck would raise questions. The doorbell chimes again, and someone starts pounding on the front door. Then he yells, “Nathan, you in there? Open up.”

  Vanessa crouches but doesn’t move. The banging continues, then someone else is knocking on the back door and yelling for Nathan. There are at least two of them, with voices of young men, no doubt friends of Nathan’s who stopped by for some reason. They show no signs of leaving. One of them taps on his bedroom window, but he cannot see inside. Vanessa eases into the bathroom and wipes her face. Her breathing is heavy and she’s shaking with fear.

  They’re pounding and yelling and will soon come to the conclusion that something is wrong with Nathan. They’ll kick in a door. Instinctively, Vanessa strips down to her bikini panties, dries the sweat off her body, leaves the Glock near the bathroom sink, and steps to the front door. She opens it widely and the young man gets a most unexpected treat. Her brown breasts are large and firm; her body athletic and toned. His eyes drop from her chest to the panties, pinched together to reveal as much flesh as possible, then he catches himself. She’s smiling and saying, “Maybe Nathan is busy right now.”

  “Wow,” he says. “Sorry.”

  They’re facing each other through a screen door, neither in a hurry to leave. Over his shoulder he says, “Hey, Tommy, over here.” Tommy arrives at the front door in a rush and can’t believe his eyes.

  Vanessa says, “Come on, guys, give us some privacy here, okay? Nathan’s in the shower and we’re not finished with our business. Who shall I tell him stopped by?” She then realizes that in her haste she forgot to remove the latex gloves. Red panties, aquamarine gloves.

  Neither can take his eyes off her breasts. One says, “Uh, Greg and Tommy, we, uh, were just sorta passing by.” Both are entranced by her nakedness and baffled by the gloves. What on earth has this gal been doing with our buddy?

  “I’ll be happy to tell him,” she says with a cute smile as she slowly closes the door. Through the window she watches as they back away, still slack-jawed and confused. They finally get to their truck, climb in, and start laughing as they leave the driveway.

  After they’re gone, Vanessa fixes a glass of ice water and sits at the kitchen table for a few moments. She’s rattled and ready for a meltdown but cannot afford one. She’s sick of the house and has serious doubts about the entire project. But she has to go on.

  I’m in the back of a cab headed for the airport when I see the call. I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes imagining various scenes and conflicts inside Nathan’s house, none of them with good endings. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yes, just a couple of rednecks looking for Nathan. I got rid of them.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “Oh yes. It’s cool. We’re fine. Where’s the stuff?”

  “Out back, in the storage shed. I’ll stay on the phone.”

  “Okay.” Vanessa checks the driveway once more to make sure there are no more visitors, then hurries out the back door and to the storage shed. The dog is growling and barking frantically, and I can hear him clearly in Jamaica.

  I cannot make myself warn her about the snakes, so I silently pray that she does not encounter them. Digging through a grungy outbuilding is bad enough; throw in the snakes and she might freak out and disappear. When she steps into the shed, she describes the interior. She says it’s like an oven. I relay Nathan’s instructions, and we sign off. She’ll need both hands.

  She moves two empty paint thinner cans, kicks aside a burlap bag, pushes the Sears mower as far away as possible, lifts a sheet of plywood, and finds a rope handle. It’s stuck, so she yanks it harder and harder until the door opens. There are no hinges, so the entire trapdoor bolts from the floor and falls against the wall. Under it, on the ground, as advertised, is a soiled bronze casket no more than four feet in length. Vanessa gawks at it in horror, as if she has stumbled upon a crime scene and found some poor child’s body. But there is no time for fear or second-guessing, no time to ask, What in hell am I doing here?

  She tries to lift the casket, but it is too heavy. She finds the latch, twists, and half of the top lid opens slowly. Mercifully, there is no dead baby inside. Far from it. Vanessa pauses to study the collection of small wooden cigar boxes all sealed with a band of silver duct tape and for the most part stacked in rows. Sweat is dripping from her eyebrows and she tries to swipe at it with a forearm. Carefully, she removes one of the boxes and steps outside under the shade of an oak. Glancing around, seeing no one, nothing but the dog, who’s tired of barking and growling, Vanessa peels off the tape, opens the box, and slowly removes a layer of wadded newspaper.

  Mini-bars. Little bricks. Dominoes. An entire casket full of them. Millions upon millions.

  She removes one and examines it. A perfect rectangle, not quite a half inch thick, lined with a tiny border ridge that allows for precise stacking and storage. On the front side is stamped “10 ounces.” And under that: “9
9.9 %.” And nothing else-no bank name, no indication of where it came from or who mined it. No registration number.

  Using a prepaid credit card, I pay $300 for an Air Jamaica flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It leaves in an hour, so I find a bench near my gate and kill time, staring at my cell phone. Before long, it lights up and vibrates.

  Vanessa says, “He’s not lying.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Love to, baby. We now own eighteen cigar boxes filled with these gorgeous little gold mini-bars, haven’t counted them all yet, but there must be at least five hundred.”

  I take a deep breath and feel like crying. This project has been on the drawing board for over two years, and during most of that time the odds of a successful outcome were at least a thousand to one. A series of loosely connected events had to fall perfectly into place. We’re not yet at the finish line, but we are in the homestretch. I can smell the barn.

  “Between five hundred and six hundred,” I say, “according to our boy.”

  “He’s earned the right to be trusted. Where are you?”

  “At the airport. I bought a ticket, made it through Customs, and I’ll board in an hour. So far, no problems. Where are you?”

  “I’m leaving this dump. I’ve loaded up the good stuff and put everything back in its place. The house is locked.”

  “Don’t worry about the house. He’ll never see it again.”

  “I know. I gave his dog a whole sackful of food. Maybe someone will check on him.”

  “Get away from that place.”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  “Just follow the plan and I’ll call when I can.”

  CHAPTER 37

  It’s almost eleven, Sunday morning, July 24, a hot clear day with little traffic around Radford. Vanessa wants to avoid another encounter with anyone who might see Nathan’s pickup truck and get suspicious. She heads north on the interstate, past Roanoke, into the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, driving as cautiously as humanly possible with the needle stuck on seventy miles per hour and every lane change properly telegraphed with a turn signal. She watches the rearview mirror because it’s now such a habit, and she watches every other vehicle to avoid any chance of a collision. On the passenger’s floorboard, and on the seat next to her, there is literally a fortune in gold, a fortune in unmarked and untraceable ingots freshly stolen from a thief who stole them from a crook who took them from a gang of thugs. How could she explain such a collection of precious metal to a nosy state trooper? She could not, so she drives as perfectly as possible as the 18-wheelers roar by in the left lane.

  She exits at a small town and drifts until she finds a cheap dollar store. The banner across the front windows advertises pre-back-to-school specials. She parks near the entrance and spreads a soiled blanket, taken from Nathan’s, over the cigar boxes. She puts the Glock under a corner of the blanket, next to her, and analyzes the parking lot. It’s virtually empty on a Sunday morning. Finally, she takes a deep breath, gets out, locks the truck, and hurries inside. In less than ten minutes, Vanessa buys ten kids’ backpacks, all with a Desert Storm camouflage motif. She pays in cash and does not respond when the cashier quips, “Must have a lot of kids heading back to school.”

  She shoves her purchases into the cab of the truck and heads back to the interstate. An hour later, she finds a truck stop near Staunton, Virginia, and parks next to the rigs. When she’s certain that no one is watching, she begins to quickly stuff the cigar boxes into the backpacks, two of which are not used.

  She fills up the tank, eats lunch from a fast-food drive-through, and kills time roaming up and down Interstate 81, as far north as Maryland and as far south as Roanoke. The hours drag by. She cannot park and leave the jackpot. It has to be guarded at all times, so she flows with the traffic while she waits on darkness.

  I’m pacing in a crowded and humid wing of the San Juan airport, waiting on a Delta flight to Atlanta. My ticket was purchased in the name of Malcolm Bannister, and his old passport worked just fine. It will expire in four months. The last time it was used, Dionne and I escaped on a cheap cruise to the Bahamas. Another lifetime.

  I call Vanessa twice and we speak in code. Got the goods. Packages are fine. She’s moving around, following the plan. If a spook somewhere is listening, then he’s scratching his head.

  At 3:30 we finally board, and then sit for an hour in the sweltering cabin as a howling storm pounds the airport and the pilots go mute. At least two babies are squalling behind me. As tempers rise, I close my eyes and try to nap, but I have deprived myself of sleep for so long I have forgotten how to doze off. Instead, I think of Nathan Cooley and his hopeless situation, though I have little sympathy. I think of Vanessa and smile at her toughness under pressure. We are so close to the finish line, but there are still so many ways to fail. We have the gold, but can we keep it?

  I wake up as we lurch forward and begin rumbling down the runway. Two hours later we land in Atlanta. At Passport Control, I manage to avoid the counters manned by black Customs agents and instead pick a beefy young white boy who seems to be bored and indifferent. He takes my passport, glances at a nine-year-old photo of Malcolm Bannister, quickly compares it to the revised face of Max Reed Baldwin, and sees nothing unusual. We all look the same.

  I am assuming Customs has by now notified the FBI that I left the country two days earlier, on a private jet bound for Jamaica. What I don’t know is whether