John Grisham - The Racketeer

Around midnight, Eva and I make it to my room, where we immediately undress and hop into bed. I almost pray the FBI has the room wired for even the meekest of sounds. If so, Eva and I give them an earful.

I hustle out of the cab at a curb on 8th Avenue, in downtown Miami. It’s 9:30 a.m., already hot, and after a few minutes of brisk walking, my shirt is sticking to my back. I don’t think I’m being followed, but I duck and dart just the same. The building is a squat five-story box, so ugly you can’t believe someone paid an architect to design it. But then I doubt if most of the tenants are cutting-edge companies. One happens to be called Corporate Registry Services, or CRS, a name so bland and innocuous that no one would ever know the company’s business. And most people would not want to.

CRS may be perfectly legitimate, but it attracts a lot of clients who are not. It’s an address, a drop-off, a front, a phone-answering service that a corporation can hire to buy some measure of authenticity. Since I have not called ahead, I kill an hour waiting for an account representative. Loyd is his name, and he eventually leads me back to a small, stuffy office and offers me a chair across from his landfill of a desk. We chat for a few minutes as he scans the questionnaire I’ve filled out.

“What is Skelter Films?” he finally asks.

“A documentary film production company.”

“Who owns it?”

“Me. Incorporated in Delaware.”

“How many films have you made?”

“None. Just getting started.”

“What are the chances of Skelter Films being around two years from now?”

“Slim.”

He hears this shadiness all the time and it doesn’t faze him. “Sounds like a front.”

“That’s pretty accurate.”

“We require an affidavit in which you swear under oath that your company will not be engaged in criminal activities.”

“I swear it will not.”

He’s heard this before too. “Okay, here’s how we operate. We provide Skelter with a physical address, here in this building. When we get mail, we forward it to wherever you say. We provide a phone number, and all incoming calls will be handled by a live voice who’ll chirp whatever you want. ‘Good morning, Skelter Films, how can I direct your call?’ Or something else. You got partners?”

“No.”

“Any employees, fictional or otherwise?”

“I’ll have a few names, all fictional.”

“No problem. If the caller asks for one of these ghosts, our girl will say whatever you want. ‘Sorry, he’s filming on location,’ or whatever. You write the fiction, and we’ll deliver it. As soon as we get a call, we notify you. What about a Web site?”

I’m not sure about this, so I say, “Not yet. What are the pros?”

Loyd shifts weight and leans on his elbows. “Okay, let’s say Skelter is a legitimate company that will make lots of documentaries. If so, it will need a Web site for all the usual reasons-marketing, information, ego. On the other hand, let’s pretend Skelter is a real corporation but not a real film company. Maybe it’s trying to just give that impression, for whatever reason. A Web site is a great way to bolster the image, to sort of fudge on reality. Nothing illegal, mind you. But we can establish a Web site with stock photos and biographies of your staff, your films, awards, ongoing projects, you name it.”

“How much?”

“Ten grand.”

I’m not sure I want or need to spend the money, not at this point anyway. “Let me ponder it,” I say, and Loyd shrugs. “How much for your basic registry services?”

“Address, phone, fax, and everything related is $500 a month, payable six months in advance.”

“You accept cash?”

Loyd smiles and says, “Oh yes. We prefer cash.” No surprise there. I pay the money, sign a contract, sign the affidavit form promising to keep my activities legal, and leave his office. CRS boasts of nine hundred satisfied clients, and as I walk through the lobby, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve joined some manner of underworld filled with shell companies, faceless crooks, and foreign tax evaders. What the hell.

After two more nights with Eva, she wants me to go home to Puerto Rico with her. I promise to think about it, then slip away from the Blue Moon and drive to the Miami International Airport, where I park in long-term and shuttle to the terminals. I pull out a credit card and my new passport and buy a one-way ticket to Montego Bay on Air Jamaica. The plane is packed: half dark-skinned native Jamaicans and half pale-white tourists headed for the sun. Before we take off, the lovely attendants are serving rum punch. The flight takes forty-five minutes. On the ground, the Customs agent takes far too long studying my passport, and I’m starting to panic when he finally waves me through. I find the bus to Rum Bay Resort, an all-inclusive, singles-only, fairly notorious stretch of topless beaches. For three days, I sit in the shade by the pool and ponder the meaning of life.

From Jamaica, I fly to Antigua, in the Leeward Islands of the eastern Caribbean. It’s a lovely island, a hundred square miles, with mountains and white beaches and dozens of resorts. It’s also known as one of the world’s friendlier tax havens these days, and this is one reason for my visit. If I wanted nothing more than a good party, I would have stayed in Jamaica. The capital is St. John’s, a bustling town of thirty thousand situated on a deep harbor that attracts cruise ships. I check into my room in a small inn on the edge of St. John’s, with a beautiful view of the water, boats, and yachts. It’s June, the off-season, and for $300 a night I will eat like a king, sleep until noon, and relish the fact that no one knows who I am, where I came from, or anything about my past.

The Freezer had been dismantled a month earlier, and Victor Westlake was settled back into his routine and office on the fourth floor of the Hoover Building in Washington. Though the murders of Judge Fawcett and Naomi Clary were technically solved, many doubts and questions remained. The most pressing issue, of course, was the validity of Quinn Rucker’s confession. If the judge suppressed it, the government would be left with little proof with which to go forward. The murders were solved, but the case was not closed, at least in Westlake’s opinion. He was still spending two hours each day dealing with it. There was the daily report on the business of Max Baldwin: his movements, meetings, phone calls, Internet activity, et cetera. So far, Max had done nothing to surprise them. Westlake did not like the trip to Jamaica and beyond, but there was nothing he could do about it. They were watching as closely as possible. There was the daily report on Rucker’s family. The FBI had obtained court approval to monitor phone conversations of Dee Ray Rucker, Sammy (Tall Man) Rucker, their sister Lucinda, and four relatives involved in the D.C. unit of their trafficking operation.

On Wednesday, June 15, Westlake was in a staff meeting when he was summoned to the phone. It was urgent, and within minutes he was in a conference room with technicians who were working quickly to prepare the audio. One of them said, “The call came to Dee Ray’s cell phone last night at 11:19, not sure where it came from, but here it is. The first voice is Dee Ray, the second is Sully. We have not yet identified Sully.” Another technician said, “Here it is.”

DEE RAY: Yeah.

SULLY: Dee Ray, Sully here.

DEE RAY: What you got?

SULLY: Got the snitch, man. Bannister.

DEE RAY: No shit, man.

SULLY: No shit, Dee Ray.

DEE RAY: Okay, don’t tell me how, just tell me where.

SULLY: Well, he’s a beach bum now, in Florida. Name is Max Baldwin, lives in a little condo in Neptune Beach, east of Jacksonville. Seems to have some money, taking it easy, you know. The good life.