Barely Legal

111

James Glick looked longingly across the border.

On the other side was Mexico, the land of life, liberty, and the happiness of no pursuit. He figured they wouldn’t come after him there. It was an irrational notion, born of fear, but one to which he clung desperately.

In his left hand was the passport the man in Mexicali had made him for a hundred dollars. It looked real. There was no reason for anyone to doubt it. His picture stared up from it, and all the information on it was absolutely accurate, except for the passport number and expiration date. No one would be apt to check them. The man who made the passport had assured him they would not. Of course, he’d been eager to make a hundred bucks.

James Glick pushed his way out of the shadows toward the line of people waiting to cross the border.

Two men came out of the shadows, grabbed him by the arms, and pulled him away.

No one tried to help him. No one even stepped out of line. A couple of men shook their heads dispiritedly and went back to what they were doing.

James Glick was terrified, but not surprised. It only seemed natural, somehow, that it would end like this, that he would be snatched away from the goal line with victory in sight.

The two men pulled him back into the shadows.

“James Glick.”

He nearly peed in his pants. It was the two men he’d seen in the Marriott. The men with guns.

“No. You have me confused with someone else.”

“Yeah. We probably have you confused with this guy.” He pulled a photo out of his jacket pocket. It was a head shot of James Glick taken from the Woodman & Weld website, listing him as one of their criminal attorneys. He shoved it in Glick’s face. “We probably confused you with him because you look close enough to be his twin brother.”

James Glick was terrified. “Please. I didn’t do anything. I swear it.”

“If only that were true, Mr. Glick, we would not have had to chase you all over the damn country. But you did, and we did, and we got you.”

“Please, I didn’t do anything. I swear.”

“Good thing you’re not under oath, or you’d pile up another charge. As it is, we got you for conspiring to commit a crime, conspiring to conceal a crime, failure to appear in court, crossing I-lost-count-of-how-many state lines in order to evade arrest, and the list goes on. All in all, Mr. Glick, I would not like to be you.”

James Glick blinked. “Arrest?”

“Did you think we were going to let you walk after all the trouble you made? Even if you agreed to come back, we know your word’s no good for anything. I must say, I don’t envy you your choices. What are you going to do, serve time or testify against Tommy Taperelli? You happen to be in luck in that a lot of his muscle’s dead and they might need your testimony. Still, it’s not a pretty prospect.”

The detective turned him around and snapped handcuffs on his wrists.

James Glick had never felt so happy in his life.