Mark Gilleo - Sweat

With a light breeze coming off the water hitting his perspiration-drenched shirt, Jake unfurled his sleeping bag and shivered for the first time since March. The flattest terrain he could find was still mountainous compared to his mattress, and Jake knew he was in for a long night. The addition of scrap cardboard boxes did little to absorb the undulations of the ground beneath his spine. Jake “princess-and-the-pea” Patrick flopped around until Al couldn’t take anymore. “What is your problem? Haven’t you ever been camping?”

“Not recently.”

“Well the earth’s composition hasn’t changed much since the last time you went, this much I am sure of.”

“I just can’t get comfortable.”

“I know, and as a result, neither can I.”

Jake sat up and crossed his legs. He looked out at the Kennedy Center, the top of the white marble structure adorned with lights like the jewels on a crown. Al looked over at the silhouette of Jake’s head. “Do you know what used to be there before they built the Kennedy Center?”

“Swamp,” Jake answered with definitiveness.

“Good guess, but wrong. It used to be the Foggy Bottom Brewery. Founded by a German immigrant named Christian Heurich who died in the 1940s at the ripe old age of one hundred two. The beer is rumored to have preserved him quite well, and on his deathbed he was said to have looked younger than his eldest son. The brewery shut down during prohibition, but it came back to life when it was repealed.”

“Must have been an interesting period in history. A country full of drinkers trying to find an illegal drink.”

“Yeah, illegal is always more profitable than legal, all things being equal.”

Jake paused at Al’s statement. “Speaking of illegal, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Al answered. It was dark enough that Jake couldn’t really see Al. He was hidden in the shadows, stuffed in the corner of his worldly possessions.

“Hypothetically speaking, how could someone export illegal goods for years without being caught?”

“Well, it’s not as clear cut as you think. Look at the mob. Investigations into the mob went on for decades and some of them didn’t yield any prosecutable information. And I’m sure during those investigations the mob was still making money. It wasn’t until the mid-nineties when mafia members started ratting out one another that the FBI made real progress bringing the mob to justice. Up until that point, it was just faster to wait for mobsters to kill each other than to build a case against them.”

“And if they’re not the mob?”

“Are we talking about a crime that the FBI knows was committed, or investigating the possibility of illegal acts without a defined crime?” Al asked.

“The latter, I guess. Or the possibility of a crime at all.”

“Does this have something to do with your father?”

“Maybe.”

“Your father is very clever Jake. Very clever, very well connected.”

“How about wiretapping, informants, all that good stuff?”

“Wiretapping an American citizen is a myth, Jake. I mean from a technical perspective, it’s easy. Nothing could be easier. But even the FBI can’t just slap a wiretap on your phone. They need a reason. A good reason. And if you are an upstanding American citizen with political pull, they need a really good reason. They need to have a defined period of time to use the wiretap, and it needs to be for the express purpose of a defined investigation. They need to document this and prove that traditional forms of investigation and surveillance have failed before they can wiretap. Then they need a judge who will look at the case and grant the wiretap. On top of that, wiretaps are granted for specific phone numbers. So if a company has a hundred lines, the investigative authority needs to specify which line they want to tap, and why. And if you have a suspect who changes phone lines regularly, the authorities will always be playing catch-up.”

“Not like on TV. Sounds like it is a miracle they ever catch anyone.”

“Proactively, yes. Reactively, the FBI is good. That is what they were designed for. I mean if you leave a footprint behind at the scene of a federal crime, chances are good the FBI will catch you. But if you ask them to prevent a crime, well, they don’t have manuals for that.”

“So, theoretically, is there any way to avoid a wiretap if the FBI has proof against you?”

“There are some things you can do. Have well-connected lawyers, preferably a few who have personal relationships with federal judges. Buy the clerk at the federal courthouse…”

“Buy the clerk?”

“Yes, every wiretap has to be approved by a judge and filed with the court. The clerk will handle the actual filing of the documentation.”

“How does that help you?”

“If you have the clerk on your payroll, you will know the FBI has tapped your phones, and for how long. Then all you have to do is modify your behavior until the wiretap expires. Repeat this exercise a few times and it will get harder to find a judge to approve future wiretaps.”

“So the clerk is like a last minute warning system.”

“Exactly. But the Golden Rule still applies.”

“The Golden Rule?”

“Don’t use the phone, fax or computer for illegal transactions. Keep it all face-to-face.”

Jake thought about the strip club and the evening with Hasad. No one was going to be wiretapping in a basement filled with loud music and gyrating naked women. Jake paused and listened to the cars rumble over the bridge, their suspension softening the bumps from the seams in the concrete above.

“Jake, I assume that you have some dirt on your father?”

“Yes and no, I guess. Nothing definite.”

“That’s an easy call, Jake. Call the FBI and tell them what you know. Help the FBI investigate your father and Winthrop Enterprises.”

“I guess I’m still hoping it isn’t true, that my father is just posturing.”

“You’re a piece of work, Jake. You’re interested in saving a girl you don’t know because it is the right thing to do, but you aren’t willing to help the FBI even though it is also the right thing to do. Sounds like a moral dilemma to me.”

“It’s different with the girl. She is an innocent victim. I’m not.”

“And neither is your father.”

“I guess it goes deeper than that. If I admit that my father is involved in sweatshops, illegal exports, whatever, then I have to admit that I potentially have the same genetic tendencies.”

“You need to look beyond yourself, Jake. This isn’t just about you.” Al shut his eyes and then opened them again. “The decision to report your father is a decision that you have to make. If you go to the authorities to have your father put in prison, you can probably forget about any inheritance,” Al joked.

“Not sure I’d get anything anyway. Not after I wrapped his favorite toy around a telephone pole.”

Al continued. “The girl is a separate problem. A bigger problem. A political problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when it comes to third world populations, America sees lower life forms without seeing the human side.”

“That’s a broad generalization.”

“I’m not talking about you and me, Jake. I’m talking about America, from a policy-making standpoint. From a policy standpoint the U.S. government supports this. We allow jobs to go overseas, particularly in the manufacturing area, for what? The U.S. government claims it’s better for everyone. U.S. companies lower their costs and foreign workers receive an increase in pay from a penny an hour, to a dollar a day.”

“I don’t see where this is going.”

“The problem is that before these companies decide to close their plants in the U.S., they are paying their American workers minimum wage—six or seven bucks per hour. The U.S. government doesn’t see anything wrong with paying foreign workers a dollar for a full day of labor. These are American companies exploiting people.”