The Disposable Man

Chapter 11

Danny Freer and Bill Nathan came for me the next day. With very short haircuts, broad shoulders, and stiff manners, they were models of the law enforcement stereotype-from the military-style mustache on Freer’s upper lip to the superfluous sunglasses Nathan removed as I let them in.

“You two dig a hole deep enough to bury me yet?” I asked with a smile, extending my hand in greeting.

But gallows humor was obviously not on the agenda. Danny-older, more experienced, and visibly embarrassed-cleared his throat. “Joseph Gunther, you’re under arrest for grand larceny and possession of stolen property. You’re going to have to come with us.” He began to recite the all-too-familiar Miranda warning.

I hesitated, watching his eyes, trying not to show the effect of his words. While I’d been braced for an encounter with these two, I’d always assumed I’d be dealt the same courtesies we usually offered our low-threat customers-either arranging a meeting at a lawyer’s office, or simply issuing a citation to appear in court.

I was baffled and irritated by what I saw as theatrical nonsense.

Freer concluded by asking me if I understood my rights. I ignored him. “Why all the razzle-dazzle, Dan? You don’t have a warrant, do you?”

Nathan, his frustration boiling over into a young man’s need for action, roughly spun me around. “Hands against the wall. Spread your feet.”

Danny growled, “Cut it out, Bill.”

A surge of noise outside made me look over my shoulder, out through the open door into the driveway. Climbing out of a series of cars and vans were reporters, cameramen, and technicians from several newspapers and radio and TV stations.

I dropped my hands from the wall, ignoring Nathan, and turned to face them both, all explanations suddenly clear. “Very impressive. Coffin’s dog-and-pony show. No wonder you look like you want to be somewhere else. Where’re we headed with this?”

“Woodstock,” Danny said gruffly, looking at the growing crowd by the door.

Skipping the body search, Nathan grabbed one of my hands, slapped his cuffs on the wrist, and reached for the other. “You carrying?”

I indicated with my head. “Holster-right hip. That’s it.” He finished with the handcuffs and then removed my pistol, slipping it into his jacket pocket. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

I tried to catch Freer’s eye. “Danny, you take me up there and call for bail, it’s not going to stick. The judge knows me. You’ll look like jerks.”

Freer pursed his lips silently. Nathan, his face flushed, grabbed my elbow and pushed me toward the door. “Well, I don’t know you from shit, and what I’ve been learning isn’t too impressive, so why don’t you just do the drill and shut up?”

I shook off his hand violently, hearing the first snap of a camera shutter from outside. Pure fury rose in my throat, choking my breathing. I stared at them both for a long couple of seconds, seriously considering making this a media event worthy of the name. The shame in Danny’s eyes won me over, however, along with the absolute knowledge that all three of us right now had been reduced to simple puppets.

We walked the small gauntlet of bright lights, questions, and proffered microphones to the unmarked car they’d parked facing the street and then slowly drove away, swathed at last in cold silence.

They drove me straight to the state correctional facility in Woodstock, over an hour’s drive north of Brattleboro. Normally, such a trip was only made after an arrest warrant had been served and a judge had dictated such conditions of release as would make a stay in jail unavoidable. In this situation, neither had occurred. As if dealing with some proven, stone-cold killer, Coffin had ordered Nathan and Freer to simply pick me up and deliver me for booking-an expeditious way of getting a menace off the streets. Except, as I’d told Danny, I was hardly that. Unless Coffin had something special up his sleeve, no judge in his right mind would jail me.

And from Freer’s and Nathan’s demeanor, I didn’t think Coffin had any hidden aces. We were being made victims of a supercharged ego, inflated to the point of folly by ambition and publicity. It seemed both Gail and Kathy Bartlett had been accurate in their appraisals of the man.

The irony was-assuming I was right about how this trip turned out-Coffin had just allowed himself to become as manipulated as I had been.

Unfortunately, his fate would be short-term ridicule and his reaction long-term hell for me. It was therefore with no satisfaction that I sat in the backseat watching the countryside slip by.

With nothing tangible to either prove my innocence or explain Boris’s death, I took advantage of the ride to ponder the few options I had left. Whoever was pulling the strings, for whatever end result, was counting on the legal system to be his dogged co-conspirator-the system I’d been brought up in, which was directing the other two men in this car, and which their boss was pushing to absurd extremes. Right now, all of us within it were being expected to serve the Rule of Law.

Except that I was beginning to consider the alternative.

If the puppeteer I was imagining truly existed, and was acting as I surmised, then the one thing he wouldn’t know how to control would be a renegade puppet, acting on his own. Of course, that wasn’t an insight I could act upon.

Yet.

Woodstock Correctional Facility had taken on the aura of a populist penal colony. Not only is it located on the main street entering what is possibly Vermont’s most upscale village, thanks largely to some early Rockefeller largesse, but it butts right up to the sidewalk, around the corner from one gas station and opposite another, its unprotected front door within reach of any pedestrian. Turning Route 4’s sharp corner onto Pleasant Street, motorists are given an open view right into the jail’s exercise yard, predictably ringed by high fences and razor wire. It is a jarring sight, stimulating many a double take, and for me representing a typical example of the state’s make-do pragmatism.

This, of course, was before I was supposed to be one of its guests. Now, as our car pulled into the unguarded parking lot next to the building-and despite my own hopes about the futility of this trip-I also remembered Woodstock’s reputation for being cramped, overcrowded, and in need of repairs. Not that creature comforts were my primary concern. I was thinking of how someone of my profession might fare in such an environment, and a small knot of fear began forming in my stomach.

Freer and Nathan extracted me from the car and took turns securing their weapons in the trunk. Another of Woodstock’s lesser-known sins is that it occasionally loses the keys to the officers’ gun box, so the chastened have learned to trade being temporarily unarmed for being able to leave the place without delay after delivering their charges.

I was then led up the driveway, around the corner to the sidewalk, and up the few steps to the front door, my manacled wrists-as I felt it-like visual magnets to every passerby within sight. The odd absence of any press-given the publicity of our departure-didn’t strike me until later. At the door, Nathan pushed an intercom button, announced our arrival to a disembodied voice, and swung the door back in response to an electric buzz.

We found ourselves in a gray cement-block cubicle, facing a second door, heavier, with a small armored window at head height. The ignored gun box hung on the wall next to us. To the round, pale face of the supervisor floating in the window, both my escorts opened their jackets to reveal empty holsters. The face nodded, there was a dull clank, and the steel door opened before us.

We stepped into another, slightly larger room, with a tiny cell in one corner, an equally small strip-search bathroom opposite, one scarred and battered metal desk supporting a computer, and a booking stand equipped for “mugs and prints.” It was lit brightly enough to make us all squint upon entering. I saw, behind a curved bank of thick, tinted windows, the dim shape of the elevated control room operator, lording over a tilted panel of switches, intercoms, and TV monitors. Along one of the long walls, a second row of windows looked onto the prison cafeteria, where a few inmates could be seen listlessly wandering back and forth, barely glancing my way.

The heavy door slammed shut behind me, making me swallow hard, exposed in the harsh light.

Nathan handed the supervisor the booking affidavit, which he in turn carried over to the desk to be entered into the computer. Danny Freer turned to face me, his expression the only halfway sympathetic thing in the room.

He removed my handcuffs and indicated a metal straight-back chair. “Sit down, Joe. This’ll take a few minutes.”

He then picked up a clipboard and began asking me questions-age, height, weight, social security number, all the rest. As I responded to each, I saw through the corner of my eye the cafeteria windows slowly filling with gloating faces. Natural curiosity about incoming “fresh meat” had obviously been replaced by a widespread appetite for unprotected police officer. Word of my arrival had gotten out. Without comment, Danny moved to stand between me and the window, at which I heard a muffled outcry of protest. Someone began thumping on the thick glass.

“Okay,” Freer said, his voice impassive. “Empty your pockets.”

I did so slowly, allowing him to catalogue each item before he dropped it into a bag. Guards were now shouting at the inmates to back off from the window. My throat dry, fear overriding reason, I began to have doubts that Fred Coffin had stumbled in bringing me here-that maybe he was about to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Danny, his routine finally finished, gave me a receipt and nodded to Bill Nathan, who picked up the phone on the desk and dialed the Windham District Court. I now cast a glance toward the windows and saw a crowd of men standing several feet away, their eyes upon me. Several of them grinned and made suggestive gestures.

Nathan lowered the phone and addressed his partner with disgust. “The clerk won’t play. She’s gone to find a judge.”

We sat in silence for several minutes before Nathan began talking again, too quietly for me to hear. Finally, after the line had gone dead, he said, “Fuck you, too,” and hung up with a bang.

He looked at Danny in disgust. “We gotta cut him loose-flash-cite him for arraignment on Monday. No bail, no conditions, no nothin’.”

Danny shrugged. “You surprised?”

He handed me the bag he was still holding so I could refill my pockets, and returned the clipboard to the supervisor. “Let’s get out of here.”

Nathan’s face was closed down tight, his eyes narrow with anger. “I wanna mug and print him first, just for our records.”

Freer shook his head. “In good time, Bill. Joe was right-Coffin fucked up. No point getting our shorts in a twist. Let’s take him back.”

Nathan’s face colored. “He can hitch his way back.”

Danny stared at him until his partner looked away, then he nodded good-bye to the supervisor and motioned toward the exit. We all three left without saying a word.

Gail met us in the driveway, hugging my neck as soon as I got out of the car, allowing Freer and Nathan to slip away without further embarrassment. Just as at the jail, there were no reporters.

“I heard it on the news,” Gail said into my ear, still hanging on. “I can’t believe he’d try something like that.”

I rubbed her back, pleased beyond measure to have her in my arms. “Yeah-quite the sendoff. Everybody but the New York Times.”

She pulled away far enough to look into my eyes. “How was it?”

“In retrospect, a slightly nervous drive in the countryside.”

She scowled. “Coffin is such a prick. I’m glad Judge Harrowsmith handed him his lunch.”

We began walking back toward the house. “Didn’t put him on Nathan’s good side, though,” I said.

Gail stopped just shy of the door. “Joe. I want to apologize for last night.”

I put my hand on her cheek. “Don’t. There’s no need. You are being victimized. You have a right to be pissed off.”

“But not at you.”

I laughed. “Maybe, but that’s the way it works, isn’t it?”

She shook her head in response, but I interrupted her before she could speak. “Gail, it’s better to blow a cork at someone who loves you than at someone who wouldn’t understand. God knows, I’ve run you over a few times.”

The phone began ringing inside the house, so I jogged into the kitchen to answer it.

“I was hoping you’d be back by now,” Sammie said. “That was some stunt. Doesn’t give you much faith in the AG’s office.”

“Not that particular AG,” I agreed. “On the other hand, since it didn’t work, maybe he’ll be a little more rational next time.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Anyhow, I don’t know that we’ll be able to tie Marty Sopper to Boris’s death, not if Boris was knocked off when we think he was. Willy’s dug up a pretty good alibi for him-he was cheating on Marianne all that night with another woman.”

“And it’s solid?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Okay. What did Ron find out about Rarig?”

“That’s looking more promising. He took your advice about working outside the paper trail, but he did it one better. He started calling people who knew Rarig as a kid-in Ames, Iowa, of all places. There’ll be one hell of a phone bill next month, but I think it’ll be worth it. From the few folks who remembered him, it doesn’t sound like their Rarig’s the same one we’ve got.”

“A switch?” I asked.

“Could be. Hard to say exactly. Rarig’s in his seventies, so anyone who knew him back then’s pretty old, but their descriptions don’t jibe with our guy. ’Course, to be fair, they also don’t exactly jibe with each other, either. Still, I think we’re barking up the right tree. Ron’s still at it. He’s hoping to find out why Rarig’s never been back to Ames and never made contact with anyone there.”

“He doesn’t have any family? Maybe we could get some early pictures.”

Sammie laughed. “That’s why this is looking good. He was an orphan. There’re some school pictures, and we’ll be getting copies of those, but it sounds like real cloak-and-dagger stuff. Kind of cool.”

I wasn’t sure I would’ve phrased it quite that way. “Well, I’m glad it’s going well. Did you get any feedback on the motorist from the other night?” I tried to temper my lingering anxiety by adding lightly, “The one I damn near shot?”

“Nope,” she said without apparent concern. “Not a peep yet. We’re still looking, though. By the way, I have an idea why Coffin tried his little throw-you-in-jail gimmick.”

I shook my head at the phone, caught off guard by her sudden shift of gears. “Better stop there, Sam. You get on the stand, you’ll have to own up to this.”

“Not to worry,” she answered, as she had before. “This is purely informational. I found out about that Mickey Mitchell deal-the shoplifter you got Henri Alonzo to go light on. Alonzo told Coffin’s two boys he felt you pressured him-says he was threatened by the uniform-quote, unquote-and that in fact he wanted to prosecute. His theory now is that you had it in for him because he wanted to walk the straight and narrow, while you were just after brownie points with some snitch.”

My mouth opened in surprise. “What? I never had Mitchell as a snitch. Before you reminded me, I didn’t even remember who he was. And why the hell would I rip off Alonzo years later for a piece of bullshit like that?”

“Beats me,” Sammie said. “But I think that’s what Nathan and Freer were told to sell the judge from Woodstock. It does make you look pretty bad, you have to admit-especially with Coffin painting in the details.”

I muttered something I barely heard myself and hung up, staring sightlessly out the window, my face flushed. Gail came in from the living room and cautiously stood beside me.

“Bad news?”

“It’s not good.” I checked my watch. “I’m going out for a while.”

She looked at me, startled. “Where? You want me to come?”

“No. Thanks. And I better not tell you, either.”

She followed me as I made for the door. “Joe, wait. If you’re doing something connected to the case against you, you better think twice. Or at least fly it by Richard.”

I waved my hand casually at her, crossing the driveway toward the garage. “Not to worry.”

“Joe,” she called out louder, an edge to her voice, “don’t think you’re a cop anymore. Coffin’s just waiting for you to hand him something.”

I faced her from the garage door. “I’m just going to clear something up. No big deal.”

I got into the car and backed it into the open.

She walked up to my window, her face now tight with anger. “This is stupid and you know it. You’re not in a position to clear anything up. That’s not how it works. Let other people do their jobs, Joe. Don’t mess it all up.”

A sudden flash of rage ran through me. “How the hell can I make anything worse? I sit around on my ass, I’ll not only get fired, I’ll probably end up in jail. This whole goddamn thing’s a frame, and it’ll work because the system’s making it work.”

She slapped the side of the car door with her hand. “Yours isn’t the only life on the line, you know,” she shouted. “And you’re not the only one feeling pushed around. You can’t just disappear and play cop because you’re pissed off.”

I put the car into gear, feeling like I was about to explode. “We’ll talk later. I gotta go.”

We were both right, of course, which made matters worse, since for either one of us to back down, more than pride would be sacrificed. But in my self-righteous anger, I only saw that while we were both being victimized, I was the one with the most to lose, and the one best placed to do something about it-a male warrior instinct that belittled Gail’s claim, made me feel subconsciously guilty and, predictably, twice as furious with Henri Alonzo.

The closer I got to Springfield, Vermont, where he lived, the more I resented his reckless intervention. An arrogant twerp at the best of times, he’d either gratuitously taken a poke at me when I was down and out, or he was up to something more sinister. Given the scope of everything that was swirling around me-a dead Russian, the CIA, an attempt on my life, and a steel-tight frame-it wasn’t such a stretch to imagine Henri Alonzo as a willing pawn in somebody else’s scheme.

My growing paranoia had become seductively rational, overriding all the warning signals that normally would have cleared my head. Gail might’ve been wrong about putting my trust in the system she’d so recently embraced. But I was dead wrong in taking my present impulsive course.

I’d totally overlooked the sequence of events that had stimulated me to make this drive-and the unseen hand that had carefully stacked them in place.

While Springfield has as distinct an identity as any other Vermont town, Alonzo’s street seemed totally interchangeable with a dozen others I knew. Comfortably outfitted with trees, lawns, and sidewalks, the neighborhood was one of those post-World War Two enclaves, fated to travel the decades with no truly definable identity. Neither classic nor modern, bearing no particularly regional aspect, they all resemble the generic movie sets so common to films of the 1950s.

I parked opposite his house, the address of which I remembered from the night of the burglary, and crossed the fresh-cut grass to the front door.

He opened up as soon as my thumb left the doorbell.

“What do you want?” I couldn’t decide if his tone echoed anger or fear.

I struggled in vain to stay neutral. “An explanation wouldn’t hurt. Why did you come up with this cock-and-bull story about Mickey Mitchell? We both know it’s total bullshit.”

More slightly built than I, he almost cowered in the doorway. “I told them the truth.”

“What truth? Mitchell was no snitch of mine. He was just a kid. We caught him red-handed, he swore on a stack of Bibles he wouldn’t do it again, and you let him off the hook.”

“I was pressured into that.”

I felt like pinching his face in my hand, and totally lost control of my voice. “Pressured? You fucking little weasel. You told me you didn’t want the publicity.”

He stepped back nervously, and I thought for a moment he might slam the door. “I told you what you wanted to hear.”

I paused, breathing deeply, feeling out of touch with my brain. “Henri,” I tried again more calmly, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Did somebody pay you? Are you in a jam we could help you with?”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What?”

My blood rose once more. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you can’t help what you’re doing. Does somebody have something on you?”

He straightened as if stung. “I’m a respectable man. I have nothing to hide. I have always followed the rules. You’re a crook and now you’ve been caught. That’s not my problem. Please get off my property.”

I sized him up for a moment, considering that since I obviously had nothing left to lose, I might just pop him one for fun. But the adrenaline that had propelled me up here suddenly drained away, and I barely felt able to walk back to the car.

“I guess I had it wrong, then. You’re just a nasty little bastard after all.”

He didn’t answer, choosing to look indignant instead.

I left him and drove back to Brattleboro on autopilot, my mind numb. At home I found a note from Gail, telling me she’d gone to spend the night with her friend Susan, that a little breathing room might do us both some good. She ended with “I love you,” which I knew was supposed to be significant, but by then such sentiment had scant meaning for me. I was feeling as I had a lifetime ago-a teenage warrior in full retreat-empty, alone, beaten, and like the most disposable man on someone else’s game board.