Jess Walter - The Financial Lives Of the Poets

After a second, Lt. Reese sits back and nods. “Yeah, Monte’s a tool. Mildly autistic. Does whatever Eddie tells him to. Parents died in a car wreck when he was fifteen, lived with his crazy old grandfather, raised that dipshit little brother of his. This whole deal is really Eddie’s; he uses poor Monte like a shield. That’s what Eddie looks for-people to insulate him. Everything’s in Monte’s name. Monte does all the work, takes all the risk. But now he wants out. That’s why Eddie wants you in. ’Cause he needs a new shield.”

Randy steps in. “When we finally arrest him, Eddie will try to pull out his contracts and claim he never was around more than the medicinal amount…that he never had it in his possession, that he simply worked as Monte’s lawyer.”

I look back at Eddie-Dave’s rap sheet. “I had no idea.”

“See, this is what pisses me off!” Lt. Reese stands up, his face red. “You old pot-head baby-boomer shit-bags thinking, it’s just marijuana. No one gets hurt. Let’s smoke a reefer and go bomb the ROTC building! Well, fuck you!”

I start to say that I wasn’t going to bomb anything, but before I can-

Lt. Reese waves me off and stands. “I gotta get some air.” He storms out of the room, although something about his eruption seems vaguely Arthur Miller-ish.

“Okay,” says Randy quietly. He leans forward, and I think maybe his smile means no more than a dog’s does. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to get you out of this.”

Wait. I know this: Mark Akenside, the salesman at the Nissan lot! Lisa and I had gone in to buy the more modest Altima but Mark kept glancing over at the sleek, gunmetal Maxima, with its sunroof, spoiler and heated seats. We can’t afford that, I said. Sure, Mark said, and why should you spend more…after all, the Altima’s a great little car…but what if I could get you the top-of-the-line Maxima for virtually the same price? Then Mark wrote a number on a sheet of paper that was definitely not the same price as the Altima. But, I said, that’s a much higher price and Mark turned the paper toward himself and wrote a slightly smaller figure, and he kept doing this, coming down a few hundred bucks each time, saying, Work with me here and I’m doing all I can for you here until here was only two thousand higher than the Altima and Lisa and I would have confessed to being domestic terrorists to get out of that room. I said, Fine, we’ll take it, and Mark dragged us into a room with his manager, whose job was to close the deal as Mark went out for some air, just like Lt. Reese did-though less angrily-and the manager did everything he could to pump that number back up (thus my redundant service contract and winter floor mats) and we left having paid more for the Maxima than the first number Mark wrote down.

Randy slides a piece of paper in front of me. It has a seal and a chart and what appears to be a mission statement on it.

“We are a federally funded task force working in conjunction with the DEA,” Randy says in perfect loan-closing voice. He takes the page back before I can read it. He replaces it with a page that has a graph with FEDERAL SENTENCING GUIDELINES. “Because of that, our mandate is a little different than, say, your local drug unit. We’re about big fish, so our focus is on intelligence-gathering as much as enforcement and prosecution. But that doesn’t mean we turn our backs on dime-bag buyers. Make no mistake about it; we will take down the little fish. Like you?” He runs his finger past the steeper crimes and sentences until he arrives

at mine. “Three ounces? Intent to deliver? You’re looking at a year and a fifty-thousand-dollar fine. But sometimes…” He pretends to look up to make sure Lt. Reese isn’t in the room. “We can let a little fish wiggle off a hook if it means getting a bigger one. Now, you’re probably thinking…what constitutes a big fish?”

I nod as if that’s what I was thinking.

He points a few slots up the sentencing guidelines to 100 kilos or 100 plants. Then his finger goes to the mandatory sentence: twenty years. “I’d guess right about now you’re thinking: Gosh, these guys have me over a barrel. Well, ask yourself what would happen if we’d waited and arrested you tomorrow, when you had, what, two pounds?” He points to a column that ends with five years in prison and a $100,000 fine. “So ask yourself, why would we do that? What do we gain by keeping you from becoming a big fish?”

Small fish make better bait?

Then a new page appears, a spreadsheet that reminds me of Monte’s business prospectus. “You were a reporter,” Randy says. “So I’m gonna be straight with you. There’s an institutional side to all of this.” He points to the bottom line, the operating budget on this spreadsheet: $1.18 million. “We’re at the end of a four-year budgetary period, and the lieutenant and I are charged with coming up with a budgetary proposal and rationale for why, with all the cuts we’re facing, regional drug interdiction remains a priority. We’re setting goals for the next biennium, and our primary target, the trend we’re seeing out there…”

And now he looks at me. “…is indoor domestic grow operations. So you’re probably thinking, ‘That’s all fine, Randy, but where do I come in?’”

I don’t mind someone telling me what I’m thinking. It’s nice.

Randy’s budget disappears and taking its place is a flow chart of drug prosecutions for the last two years, in both state court and

federal court.

“Those big fish I talked about, they end up in this pond.” He points to federal court. “The little fish we just turn over to local police and prosecutors. That puts us in a unique position. We can…overlook some of these cases. See, Matthew? We’re not compelled to turn over all of our little fish.” He holds up my file folder. “These files can remain sealed. They can even just…go away. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nod.

He smiles gently. “Good.” He takes a deep breath. We are apparently through some number of steps. “Now, it probably feels like you don’t have any choice here.”

I nod.

“I hate that. I always ask the Lieu, why do we back people into a corner this way?” He shakes his head, as if he’s sorry for all of this unpleasantness. “I mean…what’s the point if we don’t give people a choice? By the way, I like that name…Matthew. It’s Biblical.”

I nod. Don’t tell him I’m named after my dad’s drunk-a-day brother.

“Listen, Matthew,” Randy says. “Do you know Jesus feels the same way, that he doesn’t like backing people into corners either?”

“Jesus?”

Randy nods. “Why else would He give us free will? He could make us robots. But He wants us to choose to be good. Our good works are empty if we don’t choose them.” Then Randy looks up at the door, to make sure his lieutenant hasn’t come back into the room. It occurs to me that he might be off-script here. He speaks quietly: “Remember, before, when I talked about big fish and little fish? Do you know who else was a fisherman?”

I take a stab: “Jesus?”

The Up-With-People smile returns. “That’s right, Matthew. Metaphorically, Jesus was a fisherman. And his disciples were actual fishermen, many of them plying the seas of Galilee. They all came to work for that great fisher of men, Jesus.”

Oh. My good cop is a born-again Christian. Sure. Randy nearly whispers: “Matthew, have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

“Well,” I say weakly, “…I’ve been thinking of becoming Catholic.”

Randy looks stung. “I’m afraid that’s a false doctrine…not His true church.” He puts his hand on his heart. “But at least you’re looking for something deeper. If your heart is genuinely open, Jesus will find His way in. Don’t worry. Now watch closely. I want to show you something.”