The Racketeer

At 6:30 Monday morning, Agent Fox walked into the large office of Victor Westlake and said, "The Jamaicans are as slow as ever. Nothing much to add. Baldwin arrived late Friday night on a jet chartered from a company in Raleigh, a nice plane that is currently being seized by Jamaican Customs and can't come home. No sign of Baldwin. His friend Nathaniel Coley tried to enter with a fake passport and is now locked up just like the airplane."



"He's in jail?" Westlake asked, chewing on a thumbnail.



"Yes sir. That's all I can get as of now. Don't know when he might be getting out. I'm trying to get the police to check hotel records to find Baldwin, but they're hesitant to do so. He's not a fugitive; they don't like to piss off the hotels; it was the weekend; et cetera."



"Find Baldwin."



"Trying, sir."



"What's he up to?"



Fox shook his head. "It makes no sense. Why burn that much cash on a private jet? Why travel with someone using a fake passport? Who the hell is Nathaniel Coley? We've done a search in Virginia and West Virginia and found no possible hits. Maybe Coley is a good friend who can't get a passport, and they were trying to beat Customs so they can play in the sun for a few days."



"Maybe maybe."



"You got it, sir."



"Keep digging and report back by e-mail."



"Yes sir."



"I'm assuming he left his car behind at the Roanoke airport."



"He did, in the parking lot of the general aviation terminal. Same Florida license plates. We found it Saturday morning and have it under surveillance."



"Good. Just find him, okay?"



"And if we do?"



"Just follow him and figure out what he's doing."



Over coffee and gold, we plan our day, but we do not linger. At nine, Vanessa turns in the key at the front desk and checks out. We kiss good-bye and I follow her out of the parking lot, careful not to crowd the rear bumper of her Accord. On the other side of it, hidden deep in the trunk, is half the gold. The other half is in the trunk of my rented Impala. We separate at the interchange; she's going north and I'm going south. She waves in the rearview mirror, and I wonder when I'll see her again.



As I settle into the long drive, tall coffee in hand, I remind myself that the time must be spent wisely. No foolish daydreaming; no mental loafing; no fantasies about what to do with all the money. So many issues vie for priority. When will the police find Nathan's truck? When do I call Rashford Watley and instruct him to pass along the message to Nathan that things are proceeding as planned? How many of these cigar boxes will fit into the bank lockboxes I leased a month ago? How much of the gold should I try to sell at a discount to raise cash? How do I get the attention of Victor Westlake and Stanley Mumphrey, the U.S. Attorney in Roanoke? And, most important, how do we get the gold out of the country, and how long might it take?



Instead, my mind drifts to thoughts of my father, old Henry, who hasn't had contact with his younger son in over four months. I'm sure he's disgusted with me for getting busted out of Frostburg and shipped off to Fort Wayne. I'm sure he's puzzled by the absence of correspondence. He's probably calling my brother, Marcus, in D.C. and my sister, Ruby, in California to see if they've heard anything. I wonder if Henry's a great-grandfather yet, courtesy of Marcus's delinquent son and his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, or did she get the abortion?



On second thought, maybe I don't miss my family as much as I sometimes think. It would be nice, though, to see my father, though I suspect he will not approve of my altered looks. Truth is, there's a good chance I'll never see any of them again. Depending on the whims and machinations of the federal government, I could remain a free man or I could spend the rest of my life as a fugitive. Regardless, I'll have the gold.



As the miles pass and I cling to the speed limit while trying to avoid getting hit by the big rigs, I can't help but think of Bo. I've been out of prison for four months now, and every day I've fought the urge to dwell on my son. It's too painful to think I may never see him again, but as the weeks go by I have come to accept this reality. Reuniting with him, in some fashion, would be the first huge step down the road to normalcy, but my life from now on will be anything but normal. We could never again live together under the same roof, as father and son, and I see no benefit to Bo of knowing that I'm suddenly around and would like to have an ice cream twice a month. I'm sure he still remembers me, but the memories are certainly fading. Dionne is a smart, lovely woman, and I'm sure she and her second husband are providing a happy life for Bo. Why should I, a virtual stranger and a guy who certainly looks like one, pop into their world and upset things? Once I convinced Bo I was really his father, how would I rekindle a relationship that's been dead for over five years?



To stop this torment, I try to focus on the next few hours, then the next few days. Crucial steps lie ahead, and a screwup could cost me a fortune and possibly send me back to prison.



I stop for gas and a vending-machine sandwich near Savannah, and two and a half hours later I'm in Neptune Beach, my old, temporary stomping ground. At an office supply store I purchase a heavy, thick briefcase, then drive to a public parking area for the beach. There are no security cameras and no foot traffic, and I quickly open the trunk, remove two of the cigar boxes and place them in the briefcase. It weighs about forty pounds, and as I walk around the car I realize it's too heavy. I remove one container and return it to the trunk.



Four blocks away, I park at First Coast Trust, and nonchalantly walk toward the front door. The digital thermometer on the bank's rotating billboard reads ninety-six degrees. The briefcase gets heavier with each step, and I struggle to act as though it contains nothing but some important papers. Twenty pounds is not a lot of weight, but it's far too much for a briefcase of any size. Every step is now being captured on video, and the last thing I want is the image of me lumbering into the bank with a heavy satchel. I worry about Vanessa and her efforts to access her lockboxes in Richmond with such a burden on her shoulder.



Heavy as it is, I can't help but smile at the astonishing weight of pure gold.



Inside I wait patiently for the vault clerk to finish with another customer. When it's my turn, I give her my Florida driver's license and sign my name. She checks my face and my handwriting, approves, and escorts me to the vault in the rear of the bank. She inserts the house key into my lockbox, and I insert my own. Noises click perfectly, the box is released, and I carry it to a narrow, private closet and close the door. The clerk waits outside, in the center of the vault.



The lockbox is six inches wide, six inches tall, and eighteen inches long, the largest available when I leased it a month ago for one year, at $300 per. I place the cigar box inside. Vanessa and I labeled each one with the exact number of mini-bars. This one has thirty-three, or 330 ounces, roughly $500,000. I close the box, admire it, kill a few minutes, then open the door and report to the clerk. Part of her job is to remain aloof with no suspicions whatsoever, and she does it well. I suppose she's seen it all.



Twenty minutes later, I'm in the vault at a branch of the Jacksonville Savings Bank. The vault is larger, the lockboxes smaller, the clerk more suspicious, but everything else is the same. Behind a locked door, I gently place another stash of mini-bars into the box. Thirty-two gorgeous little ingots worth another half a million bucks.



At my third and final bank, not a half mile from the first one, I make the last deposit of the day, then spend an hour looking for a motel where I can park just outside my room.



In a mall on the west end of Richmond, Vanessa wanders through a high-end department store until she finds the ladies' accessories. Though she acts calm, she is all nerves because her Accord is alone out there in the parking lot just waiting to be vandalized or stolen. She selects a chic red leather shoulder bag large enough to be called luggage. Its designer is well-known, and it will probably be noticed by the female clerks who run the banks. She pays cash for it and hustles back to her car.



Two weeks earlier, Max - she had always known him as Malcolm but she liked the new name better - had instructed her to rent three lockboxes. She had carefully selected the banks around Richmond, made the applications, passed the screenings, and paid the fees. Then, as instructed, she had visited each one twice to deposit useless paperwork and such. The vault clerks now recognized her, trusted her, and were not the least bit suspicious when Ms. Vanessa Young showed up with a killer new bag and needed access to the vault.



In less than ninety minutes, Vanessa safely stashes away almost $1.5 million in gold bullion.



She returns to her apartment for the first time in over a week and parks in a space she can see from her second-floor window. The complex is in a nice part of town, near the University of Richmond, and the neighborhood is generally safe. She has lived here for two years and cannot remember a stolen car or a burglary. Nevertheless, she is taking no chances. She inspects the doors and windows for signs of entry, and finds none. She showers, changes clothes, then leaves.



Four hours later, she returns, and in the darkness she slowly, methodically hauls the treasure into her apartment and hides it under her bed. She sleeps above it, the Glock on the night table, every door locked and latched and jammed with a chair.



She drifts in and out, and at dawn she's sipping coffee on the sofa in the den watching the weather on local cable. The clock seems to have stopped. She would love to sleep some more, but her mind will not allow her body to surrender. Her appetite is gone too, though she tries to choke down some cottage cheese. Every ten minutes or so, she walks to the window and checks the parking lot. The early morning commuters leave in shifts - 7:30, 7:45, 8:00. The banks do not open until 9:00. She takes a long shower, dresses as if she's going to court, packs a bag and takes it to her car. Over the next twenty minutes, she removes three of the cigar boxes from under the bed and takes them to her car. These she will soon deposit in the same three lockboxes she visited the day before.



The great debate raging in her mind is whether the remaining three canisters will be safer in the trunk of her car or in her apartment under the bed. She decides to play it both ways, and leaves two at home while taking another one with her.



Vanessa calls with the news that she's made her third and final deposit of the morning, and is headed to Roanoke to see the lawyer. I'm ahead of her by a step or two. I visited my three banks a bit earlier, made the deposits, and am now driving to Miami. We have tucked away 380 of the 570 mini-bars. It's a good feeling, but the pressure is still on. The Feds can and will seize all assets under the right circumstances, and even the wrong ones, so we can take no chances. I have to get the gold out of the country.



I am assuming the Feds do not know Vanessa and I are working together. I am also assuming they have yet to link Nathan Cooley to me. I'm making lots of assumptions and have no way of knowing if they are correct.