The Racketeer

CHAPTER 41

At a tobacco store in downtown St. John’s, I see something that freezes me, then makes me smile. It’s a box of Lavos, an obscure cigar hand wrapped in Honduras and costing twice as much in the States. The four-inch torpedo model sells for $5 in Antigua and $10 at the downtown Roanoke tobacco store called Vandy’s Smokes. It was there that Judge Fawcett routinely purchased his favorite brand. On the bottom side of four of the fourteen Lavo boxes we now have stashed in banks, there are white square stickers advertising Vandy’s, with phone number and street address.

I buy twenty of the Lavo torpedoes, and admire the box. It’s made of wood, not cardboard, and the name appears to have been hand carved across the top. Judge Fawcett was known to drift around Lake Higgins in his canoe, puffing on Lavos while fishing and enjoying the solitude. Evidently, he saved the empty boxes.

The cruise ships have not arrived yet, so downtown is quiet. Merchants sit in the shade outside their shops, chatting and laughing in their seductive, lilting version of the King’s English. I drift from shop to shop, oblivious to time. I have gone from the stultifying tedium of prison life, to the jolting madness of tracking a killer and his loot, to this-the languid pace of island living. I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons, but also because it is now, the present, and the future. Max is a new person with a new life, and the baggage is quickly falling by the wayside.

I buy some clothes, shorts and T-shirts, beach stuff, then wander into my bank, the Royal Bank of the East Caribbean, and flirt with the cute girl working the front desk. She directs me on down the line, and I eventually present myself to the vault clerk. She studies my passport, then leads me into the depths of the bank. During my first visit nine weeks ago, I rented two of the largest lockboxes available. Alone with them now, I leave some cash and worthless papers, and I wonder how long it will be before they are filled with little gold bars. I flirt on the way out and promise to be back soon.

I rent a convertible Beetle for a month, put the top down, fire up a Lavo, and begin a tour of the island. After a few minutes, I feel dizzy. I can’t recall the last time I smoked a cigar and I’m not sure why I’m doing so now. The Lavo is short and black and even looks strong. I toss it out the window and keep driving.

FedEx wins the race. The first packages arrive Monday around noon, and because I have been anxiously roaming the grounds of Sugar Cove, I see the truck when it pulls up. Miss Robinson, the pleasant lady who runs the office, has by now heard the full version of the fiction. I am a writer/filmmaker, holed up in her villas for the next three months, working desperately to finish a novel and a screenplay based on said novel. My partners, meanwhile, are already filming preliminary scenes. Blah, blah, blah. Therefore, I am expecting approximately twenty overnight packages from Miami: manuscripts, research memos, videos, even some equipment. She is visibly impressed.

I’m really looking forward to the day when I can stop lying.

Inside my villa, I open the boxes. A backgammon set yields two bars; a toolbox, four; a hardback novel, one; and another backgammon set, two. A total of nine, all apparently untouched during their journey from Miami to Antigua. I often wonder about their history. Who mined the gold? From which continent? Who minted it? How did it get into this country? And so on. But I know these questions will never be answered.

I hustle into St. John’s, to the Royal Bank of the East Caribbean, and put the precious ingots to rest.

My second e-mail to Messrs. Westlake and Mumphrey reads:

Hey Guys:

It’s me again. Shame on you for not responding to my e-mail of two days ago. If you want to find Judge Fawcett’s killer, then you need to work on your communication skills. I’m not going away.

I’ll bet your initial reaction is to trump up some bogus indictment and come after me and Quinn Rucker. You can’t help this because you are, after all, the Feds, and it’s just your nature. What is it about our prosecutorial system that makes guys like you want to put everyone in jail? It’s pathetic, really. I met dozens of good people in prison; men who wouldn’t physically harm anyone and men who would never screw up again, yet, thanks to you, they’re serving long sentences and their lives are ruined.

But I digress. Forget another indictment. You can’t make the charges stick, not that that has ever slowed you down, but there is simply no section of your vast Federal Code that you can possibly use against me.

More important, you can’t catch me. Do something stupid, and I’ll disappear again. I’m not going back to prison, ever.

I have attached to this e-mail four color photographs. The first three are of the same cigar box, a dark brown wooden box handcrafted somewhere in Honduras. Into this box, a worker carefully placed twenty Lavos, a strong, black, rich, near-lethal cigar with a cone tip. The box was shipped to an importer in Miami, and from there sent to Vandy’s Smokes in downtown Roanoke where it was purchased by the Honorable Raymond Fawcett. Evidently, Judge Fawcett smoked Lavos for many years and kept the empty boxes. Perhaps you found a few when you searched the cabin after the murders. I have a hunch that if you check with the owner of Vandy’s he’ll be well acquainted with Judge Fawcett and his rather rare taste in cigars.

The first photo is of the box as it would appear in a store. It’s almost a perfect five-inch square, and five inches in height-unusual for a cigar box. The second photo is a side shot. The third is of the box’s bottom, clearly showing the white sticker of Vandy’s Smokes.

This box was taken from Judge Fawcett’s safe shortly before he was executed. It is now in my possession. I would give it to you, but the killer’s fingerprints are most certainly on it, and I’d hate to ruin the surprise.

The fourth photo is the reason we’re all at the table. It is of three, ten-ounce, gold ingots, perfect little mini-bars without the slightest hint of registration or identification (more about this later). These little dudes were stacked thirty to a cigar box and tucked away in Judge Fawcett’s safe.

So, one mystery is now solved. Why was he murdered? Someone knew he had a pot of gold.

The big mystery, though, still haunts you. The killer is still out there, and after six months of bumbling, stumbling, goose chasing, puffing, posturing, and lying, you DO NOT HAVE A CLUE!

Come on guys, give it up. Let’s cut a deal and close this file.

Your friend, Malcolm

Victor Westlake canceled yet another dinner with his wife and at 7:00 p.m., Friday, walked into the office of his boss, the Director of the FBI, Mr. George McTavey. Two of McTavey’s assistants stayed in the office to take notes and fetch files. They gathered around a long conference table, all exhausted from another interminable week.

McTavey had been fully briefed, so there was no need to cover old territory. He began with his trademark “Is there anything that I don’t know?” This question could always be anticipated, and it had damned well be answered truthfully.

“Yes,” Westlake replied.

“Let’s hear it.”

“The spike in the price of gold has created a huge demand for the stuff, so we’re seeing all sorts of scams. Every pawnbroker in the country is now a gold trader, so you can imagine the crap that’s being bought and sold. We ran an investigation last year in New York City involving some rather established traders who were melting gold, diluting it, then passing it along as basically pure. No indictments yet, but the case is not closed. In the course of this, an informant who worked for a dealer got his hands on a ten-ounce bar with no ID stamped on it. Ninety-nine point nine percent pure, really fine stuff, and an unusual price. He dug around and found out that a man named Ray Fawcett came in from time to time and sold a few bars, at a slight discount, for cash of course. We have a video of Fawcett in the store on Forty-Seventh Street back in December, two months before he was murdered. Apparently, he drove to New York a couple times a year, did his trading, and drove back to Roanoke with a sackful of cash. The records appear to be incomplete, but based on what we have it looks as though he sold at least $600,000 worth of gold over the past four years in New York City. There is nothing illegal about this, assuming, of course, the gold was rightfully owned by Fawcett.”

“Interesting, but?”

“I showed Bannister’s photo of the gold to our informant. In his words, they are identical. Bannister has the gold. How much, we have no way of knowing. The cigar box checks out. The gold checks out. Assuming he got the gold from the killer, then he certainly knows the truth.”

“And your theory is?”

“Malcolm Bannister and Quinn Rucker served together at Frostburg, and they were closer friends than we realized. One of them knew about Fawcett and his stash of gold, and they planned their racket. Rucker walks away from prison, goes into rehab for his alibi, and they wait for the killer to strike. He does, and their plan suddenly becomes operational. Bannister squeals on Rucker, who gives a bogus confession, which leads to an immediate indictment, and Bannister walks. Once he’s out, he goes through witness protection, leaves it, somehow finds the killer and the gold.”

“Wouldn’t he have to kill the killer to get his gold?”

Westlake shrugged because he had no idea. “Maybe, but maybe not. Bannister wants immunity, and we’re betting he’ll also demand a Rule 35 release for Rucker. Quinn has five more years on his original sentence, plus a few extra for the escape. If you’re Bannister, why not try to get your buddy out? If the killer is dead, then Rule 35 might not work for Quinn. I don’t know. The lawyers are downstairs scratching their heads.”

“That’s always comforting,” McTavey said. “What’s the downside of dealing with Bannister?”

“We dealt with him last time and he lied to us.”

“Okay, but what does he gain by lying now?”

“Nothing. He has the gold.”

McTavey’s tired and worried face suddenly became jovial. He chuckled, threw his hands into the air, and said, “Beautiful, brilliant, I love it! We gotta hire this guy because he’s a lot smarter than we are. Talk about a set of balls. He gets his dear friend indicted for the capital murder of a federal judge and he knows the entire time he can get it unraveled and walk him out. Are you kidding me? We look like a bunch of fools.”

Westlake couldn’t help but join in the fun. He smiled and shook his head in disbelief.

McTavey said, “He’s not lying, Vic, because he doesn’t have to. Lies were important earlier, during the first phase of the project, but not now. Now it’s time for the truth, and Bannister knows the truth.”

Westlake nodded in agreement. “So what’s our plan?”

“Where’s the U.S. Attorney on this? What’s his name?”

“Mumphrey. He’s squawking about another indictment, but it’s not going to happen.”

“Does he know everything?”

“Of course not. He doesn’t know that we know Fawcett was selling gold in New York.”

“I’m having brunch with the AG in the morning. I’ll explain what we’re doing and he’ll get Mumphrey in line. I suggest the two of you meet with Bannister as soon as possible and tie up the loose ends. I’m really tired of Judge Fawcett, Vic, know what I mean?”

“Yes sir.”