The Racketeer

CHAPTER 21

Three weeks post-surgery and I’m climbing the walls. The bandages are off and the stitches are gone, but the swelling is taking forever. I look in the mirror a hundred times a day, waiting for things to improve, waiting for Max to emerge from the bruising and puffiness. My surgical team stops by constantly to tell me how great I look, but I’m sick of these people. I can’t chew, can’t eat, can’t walk for more than five minutes, and so most of my time is spent rolling around in a wheelchair. Movements must be slow and calculated; otherwise, I could rip out some of the fine artwork that has gone into the face of Max Reed Baldwin. I count the days and often think I’m in prison again. Weeks pass, and the swelling and bruising slowly go away.

Is it possible to be in love with a woman you’ve never actually touched? I have convinced myself the answer is yes. Her name is Vanessa Young, and I met her at Frostburg, in the visitors’ room on a cold wintry Saturday morning. I shouldn’t say that I met her, but I saw her for the first time. She was there visiting her brother, a guy I knew and liked. We met later, during another visit, but we couldn’t touch. I wrote her letters and she wrote a few back, but it became painfully obvious, at least to me, that my infatuation with Vanessa was not exactly a two-way street.

I cannot begin to contemplate the hours I’ve invested fantasizing about this woman.

Over the past two years, our lives have changed dramatically, and now I am emboldened to contact her. My new best friend, Pat Surhoff, informed me that I cannot write or receive letters while at Fort Carson, but I write one anyway. I work on it for days, tweaking, editing, killing time. I bare my soul to Vanessa, and practically beg her to see me.

I’ll find a way to mail it later.

Surhoff is back to fetch me. We leave Fort Carson in a hurry and drive to Denver, where we board a nonstop flight to Atlanta. I wear a baseball cap and big sunglasses, and I do not catch a single curious glance. I bitch about the seating arrangement; we’re sitting side by side in coach, not first class. Pat says Congress is cutting budgets everywhere. After a hearty lunch of raisins and Cokes, we get down to business. He opens a delightful little file with all sorts of goodies: a Virginia court order changing my name to Max Reed Baldwin; a new Social Security card issued to the same guy; a birth certificate proving I was born in Memphis to parents I’ve never heard of; and a Florida driver’s license with a fake photo taken from the computerized rendering my doctors and I concocted before the surgery. It looks so real that not even I can tell it’s fake. Pat explains that I’ll get another in a month or so when my face finally comes together. Same for a passport. We fill out applications for Visa and American Express cards. At his suggestion, I’ve been practicing a different handwriting, one that resembles chicken scratch but is not much worse than the old one. Max signs a six-month lease for a one-bedroom condo in Neptune Beach, a few miles east of Jacksonville, and he applies for a checking account at SunCoast Bank. Pat tells me there’s a branch office three blocks from the condo. The reward money of $150,000 will be wired into the account as soon as it’s up and running, and from there I can do with it what I want. Because I will hit the ground with so much cash, the powers that be feel as though I don’t need much from them. I really can’t gripe about this. He says the IRS will grant me a waiver from any taxes on the money and provides the name of an accountant who knows both the IRS code and whatever code the marshals use. He hands me an envelope with $3,000 in cash and says this should be enough to get me plugged in. We talk about the ins and outs of leasing a car, as opposed to buying one, and he explains that a lease is easier and will help build a good credit rating.

He hands me a two-page summary of the life of Max Baldwin, and it reads like an obituary. Parents, siblings, education, employment history, and I’m intrigued to know that I’ve spent most of my life in Seattle and have been divorced twice, no children. I’m relocating to Florida because it’s about as far away from wife number two as I can get. It’s important for me to memorize this fiction and stick with the script. I have an employment history (all with government agencies) and a credit score.

On the issue of employment, I have two choices. The first is that of a procurement officer at the Mayport Naval Station a few miles north of Neptune Beach, starting salary of $48,000, two months of training required. The second is that of an account manager for the Veterans Administration, also at $48,000 a year. It’s best if I remain a federal employee, at least for the first few years. However, Pat stresses for the tenth time, my life now belongs to me, and I can do whatever I want. The only boundaries are those dictated by my past.

Just as I begin to feel somewhat overwhelmed, he reaches into his briefcase and pulls out the toys. The first is an Apple iPad, mine courtesy of the government, and already registered to Max. As the librarian, Malcolm had access to computers (but not the Internet), and I worked hard to keep my skills as fresh as possible. But this thing blows me away. We spend a full hour in an intense tutorial. When I’m exhausted, he pulls out an iPhone. It’s his, not mine because I’ll have to select a service provider and buy my own phone, but he walks me through this amazing device. The flight is over before we can finish.

I find a computer store in the Atlanta airport and I kill an hour browsing through the gadgets. Technology will be the key to my survival, and I am determined to know the latest. Before we leave Atlanta, I mail the letter to Vanessa Young. No return address.

We land in Jacksonville at dark, rent a car, and drive thirty minutes to the beaches east of the city. Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach, you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s a cool area with hundreds of neat cottages, some residential, some rentals, and assorted small hotels and modern condos facing the ocean. The raisins for lunch are long forgotten and we are starving. We find a seafood place on a pedestrian mall a block from the water and devour oysters and shrimp. It’s a young crowd at the bar, lots of pretty girls with tanned legs, and I can’t help but stare. So far, everyone is white, and I wonder if I’ll stand out. The Jacksonville metro area has a million people and 18 percent of them are black, so Pat does not think my ethnicity will be a problem. I attempt to explain what it’s like being black in a white world but realize, again, that some things cannot be fully covered over dinner, if ever.

I change the subject and ask questions about the Witness Security Program. Pat is based in Virginia and will soon return home. Another marshal will become my contact, my handler, and this person will not in any way attempt to keep me under surveillance. He, or she, will always be close by in case of problems, or trouble. Typically, my handler will have several other “persons” to monitor. If there is a hint of something gone wrong, I will be moved at once to another location, but, Pat assures me, this rarely happens.

What will it take for the bad guys to find me? Pat says he doesn’t know because this has never happened. I press him: “But surely you’ve had to relocate some people.”

“I’ve never been involved in a relocation, but, yes, it has happened. To my knowledge, and I’ve been handling informants for ten years, there has not been a serious threat against one. But I’ve heard of a couple, maybe three, who became convinced they had been discovered. They wanted to move, so we swooped in and they vanished, again.”

For obvious reasons, neither the law library nor the general library at Frostburg offered books on witness protection, so my knowledge is limited. But I know the program has not been perfect. “So no problems whatsoever? That’s hard to believe.”

“I didn’t say it was perfect. There’s a great story from thirty years ago, a legend in the business. We had a serious Mafia informant who squealed on the family and took down some big bosses, one of the FBI’s biggest grand slams ever. This guy had a bull’s-eye on him you could hit blindfolded. We took him deep, buried him, and a few years passed. He was a postal inspector in a town of fifty thousand, perfect cover, but he was a crook, right? A thug by birth, and it was impossible for him to stay clean. He opened a used-car lot, then another. He got into the pawnshop business, started fencing stolen goods, and eventually found his way into the marijuana trade. We knew who he was, but the FBI did not. When he got indicted, he called his handler to come bail him out of jail. The handler freaked out, as did everyone along the ladder, all the way up to the Director of the FBI. There was a mad scramble to get him out of jail and off to a new location. Jobs were threatened, deals were cut, judges were pleaded with, and they eventually got his charges dismissed. But it was a close call. So don’t start laundering money again.”

He thinks his last comment is funny. “I’ve never laundered money,” I say without a smile.

“Sorry.”

We finish dessert and head for my new home. It’s on the seventh floor of a tower, one of four in a cluster lined up along the beach, with tennis courts and pools scattered below. Pat explains that most of the units are rentals, but a few have permanent residents. I’m here for six months, and then it’s up to me. It’s a one-bedroom unit, furnished, with a kitchen-den combo, nice sofa and chairs, nothing luxurious but not cheap either. After he’s gone, I stand on my small balcony and stare at the moon over the ocean. I breathe the salty air and listen to the waves gently roll ashore.

Freedom is exhilarating, and indescribable.

I forgot to close the curtains, and I wake up to a blinding sun. It is my first true morning as a liberated and unwatched person, and I can’t wait to feel sand between my toes. There are a few early birds on the beach, and I hustle down there, my face partially hidden behind a cap and sunglasses. No one notices; no one cares. People who roam aimlessly up and down beaches are lost in their own worlds, and I am quickly getting lost in mine. I have no family, no job, no responsibilities, and no past. Max is starting a brand-new life.

Pat Surhoff retrieves me around noon, and we have a sandwich for lunch. Then he drives me to the Mayport Naval Station, where I have an appointment with a doctor who knows the code. The surgery is progressing nicely, no complications whatsoever. I’ll return in two weeks for another exam.

Next, we go to the SunCoast Bank branch near the condo, and as we get close, Pat preps me for what’s coming. He will not go inside, because it’s important for me to establish the account myself. No one in the bank knows the code; it’s strictly aboveboard. For the time being, Max Baldwin is semiretired, not working, and pondering a move to the area. He wants to open a standard checking account, no frills, and so on, and will put down $1,000 cash as the initial deposit. Once the account is opened, Max will return to the bank and get the proper wiring instructions. Inside the bank, I am routed to the lovely Gretchen Hiler, a fortyish bleached blonde who’s spent far too much time in the sun. She has a small desk in a tight cubicle and no wedding ring. She has no way of knowing that she is the first woman I’ve been truly alone with in over five years. Try as I do, I cannot stop a lot of improper thoughts. Or maybe they’re just natural. Gretchen is a chatterbox, and at this moment so am I. We go through the paperwork quickly, with me proudly giving a real address. I put down a thousand in cash. She fetches some temporary checks and promises more in the mail later. When all business has ended, we keep talking. She gives me her card and is willing to help in any way. I promise to call when I get a cell phone; the bank needs a phone number. I almost ask her to dinner, primarily because I’m convinced she might say yes, but I wisely let it pass. There will be plenty of time for that later, after I’m more comfortable and my face is easier to look at, hopefully.

I proposed to Dionne when I was twenty-four years old, and from that moment until the day I was sentenced and taken into custody, I was never unfaithful. There was one near miss, with the wife of an acquaintance, but we both realized things would end badly. As a small-town lawyer, I saw a lot of divorces, and I was constantly amazed at the awful ways men could screw up their lives and families simply because they couldn’t resist temptation. A quickie, then a casual fling, then something more serious, and before long they were in court getting their eyeballs clawed out and losing their kids, along with their money. The truth was I adored my wife and I was getting all the sex I wanted at home. The other part of the truth was that I never fancied myself as a ladies’ man.

Before Dionne, I had girlfriends and enjoyed my single days, but I never hopped blindly from one bed to another. Now, forty-three and single, I have a hunch there are a lot of women around my age who are looking for companionship. I can feel the urge, but at the same time all movements must be calculated.

As I walk out of the bank, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I just pulled off the first little mission of my secret existence. Pat has been waiting in the car, and when I get in he says, “Well?”

“No problem.”

“What took so long?”

“The account manager is a cute girl and she threw herself at me.”

“Has this always been a problem?”

“I wouldn’t call it a problem, but, yes, women are attracted to me. I’ve always had to fight them off with a stick.”

“Keep fighting. It’s been the downfall of many men.”

“So you’re an expert on women?”

“Not at all. Where are we going now?”

“Shopping. I want some decent clothes.”

We find a men’s store and I spend $800 upgrading my wardrobe. Once again, Pat waits in the car. We agree that two men, both in their early forties, one white and the other black, shopping together, might raise an eyebrow or two. My goal is to raise as few eyebrows as possible. Next, he drops me off at a Florida Cellular office where I open an account and buy an iPhone. With it in my pocket, I finally feel like a real American, connected.

We spend the next two days running errands and getting Max firmly established. I write my first check to a car-leasing agency and drive away in a used Audi A4 convertible, mine for the next twelve months at $400 a pop and fully insured. Now that I’m mobile, and now that Pat and I are getting on each other’s nerves, he starts talking about his exit. I’m ready for the independence and he’s ready to go home.

I visit Gretchen again to check on the bank’s wiring instructions and explain to her that a substantial sum of money is on the way. Pat clears things with his higher-ups, and the reward money is moved from some buried account to SunCoast. I assume that everybody involved in the wire transfer invokes all the standard precautions.

I have no way of knowing the wire is being watched.