The Racketeer

For the sixth day in a row, Victor Westlake sipped his early morning coffee while scanning a brief memo on Mr. Max Baldwin. The informant had vanished. The GPS tracker had finally been removed from a Cadillac Seville owned by an elderly Canadian couple as they ate lunch near Savannah, Georgia. They would never know they had been cyber-tracked by the FBI for three hundred miles. Westlake had punished the three field agents assigned to monitor Baldwin's car. They lost him in Orlando and picked up the wrong scent as the Cadillac headed north.

Baldwin wasn't using his iPhone, his credit cards, or his initial Internet service provider. The court-approved snooping on those fronts would expire in a week, and there was almost no chance it would be renewed. He was neither a suspect nor a fugitive, and the court was reluctant to allow such extensive eavesdropping on a law-abiding citizen. His checking account at SunCoast had a balance of $4,500. The reward money had been tracked as it was split and bounced around the state of Florida, but the FBI eventually lost its trail. Baldwin had moved the money so fast the FBI lawyers could not keep pace with their requests for search warrants. There were at least eight withdrawals totaling $65,000 in cash. There was one record of a wire transfer of $40,000 to an account in Panama, and Westlake assumed the rest of the money was offshore. He had grudgingly come to respect Baldwin and his ability to disappear. If the FBI couldn't find him, maybe he was safe after all.

If Baldwin could avoid credit cards, his iPhone, use of his passport, and getting himself arrested, he could remain hidden for a long time. There had been no more chatter from the Rucker clan, and Westlake was still dumbfounded by the fact that a gang of narco-traffickers in D.C. had located Baldwin near Jacksonville. The FBI and the Marshals Service were investigating themselves, but so far not a clue.

Westlake placed the memo in a pile of papers and finished his coffee.

I find the office of Beebe Security in a professional office building not far from my motel. The Yellow Pages ad boasted twenty years of experience, a law enforcement background, state-of-the-art technology, and so on. Almost all of the ads in the Private Investigations section used this same language, and I cannot remember, as I park my car, what attracted me to Beebe. Maybe it is the name. If I don't like the outfit, I'll go to the next name on my list.

If I had seen Frank Beebe walk down the street, I could've said, "There goes a private detective." Fifty years old, thick-chested with a gut pressuring his shirt buttons, polyester pants, pointed-toe cowboy boots, full head of gray hair, the obligatory mustache, and the cocky swagger of a man who's armed and unafraid. He closes the door to his cramped office and says, "What can I do for you, Mr. Baldwin?"

"I need to locate someone."

"What type of case?" he asks as he lands hard in his oversized executive chair. The wall behind him is covered with large photos and seminar certificates.

"It's not really a case. I just need to find this guy."

"What will you do after you find him?"

"Talk to him. That's all. There's no cheating husband or delinquent debtor. I'm not looking for money or revenge or anything bad. I just need to meet this guy and find out more about him."

"Fair enough." Frank uncaps his pen and is ready to take notes. "Tell me about him."

"His name is Nathan Cooley. I think he also goes by Nat, too. Thirty years old, single, I think. He's from a small town called Willow Gap."

"I've been through Willow Gap."

"Last I knew, his mother still lives there, but I'm not sure where Cooley is now. A few years back, he got busted in a meth sting - "

"What a surprise."

"And spent a few years in federal prison. His older brother was killed in a shoot-out with the police."

Frank is scribbling away. "And how do you know this guy?"

"Let's just say we go way back."

"Fair enough." He knows when to ask questions and when to let them pass. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Look, Mr. Beebe - "

"It's Frank."

"Okay, Frank, I doubt there are many black folks in and around Willow Gap. That, plus I'm from Miami, and I have Florida tags on my little foreign car. If I show up and start poking around, asking questions, I probably won't get too far."

"You'd probably get shot."

"I'd like to avoid that. So, I figure you can do the job without raising suspicion. I just need his address and phone number if possible. Anything else would be gravy."

"Have you tried the phone book?"

"Yes, and there are quite a few Cooleys around Willow Gap. No Nathan. I wouldn't get too far making a bunch of cold calls."

"Right. Anything else?"

"That's it. Pretty simple."

"Okay, I charge a hundred bucks an hour, plus expenses. I'll drive to Willow Gap this afternoon. It's about an hour from here, way back in the boondocks."

"So I've heard."

The first draft of my letter reads:

Dear Mr. Cooley:

My name is Reed Baldwin and I am a documentary filmmaker in Miami. Along with two partners, I own a production company called Skelter Films. We specialize in documentaries dealing with the abuse of power by the federal government.

My current project deals with a series of cold-blooded murders carried out by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration. This topic is very close to me because three years ago my seventeen-year-old nephew was gunned down by two agents in Trenton, New Jersey. He was unarmed and had no criminal record. Of course, an internal investigation showed no fault on the part of the DEA. The lawsuit filed by my family was dismissed.

In researching this film, I believe I have uncovered a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the DEA. I believe certain agents are encouraged to simply murder drug dealers, or suspected drug dealers. The purpose is twofold: First, such murders obviously stop criminal activity. Second, they avoid lengthy trials and such. The DEA is killing people instead of arresting them.

To date, I have uncovered about a dozen of these suspicious killings. I have interviewed several of the families, and they all feel strongly that their loved ones were murdered. This brings me to you: I know the basic facts regarding the death of your brother, Gene, in 2004. There were at least three DEA agents involved in the shooting, and, as always, they claim they acted in self-defense. I believe you were on the scene at the time of the shooting.

Please allow me the opportunity to meet, buy you lunch, and discuss this project. I am currently in Washington, D.C., but I can drop things here and drive to southwest Virginia at your convenience. My cell phone number is 305-806-1921.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

M. Reed Baldwin

The clock slows considerably as the hours pass. I go for a long drive south down Interstate 81 and check out Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech, then Christiansburg, Radford, Marion, and Pulaski. It's mountainous terrain and a pretty drive, but I'm not sightseeing. I may need one of these towns in the near future, and so I take notes of truck stops, motels, and fast-food joints near the interstate. The truck traffic is heavy and there are automobiles from dozens of states, so no one notices me. Occasionally, I leave the four-lane and venture deep into the hills, driving through small towns without stopping. I find Ripplemead, population 500, the nearest hamlet to the lakeside cabin where Judge Fawcett and Naomi Clary were murdered. I eventually wander back to Roanoke. The lights are on; the Red Sox are playing again. I buy a ticket and have a hot dog and a beer for dinner.

Frank Beebe calls me at eight the next morning, and an hour later I'm in his office. As he pours coffee, he says, matter-of-factly, "Found him in the town of Radford, a college town of about 16,000. He got out of prison a few months ago, lived with his mother for a while, then moved away. I talked to his mother, a tough old gal, and she said he bought a bar in Radford."

I'm curious, so I ask, "How did you get her to talk?"

Frank laughs and lights another cigarette. "That's the easy part, Reed. When you've been in this business as long as I have, you can always spew some bullshit and get people talking. I figured his mother still has a healthy fear of anyone connected to the prison system, so I told her I was a federal prison agent and needed to chat with her boy."

"Isn't that impersonating an officer?"

"Nope, no such thing as a federal prison agent. She didn't ask for a card, and if she had, then I would've given her one. I keep a bunch of cards. On any given day, I can be one of many different federal agents. You'd be amazed how easy it is to fool people."

"Did you go to the bar?"

"I did, but I didn't go in. I wouldn't fit. It's just off the campus of Radford University, so the crowd is a lot younger than me. It's called Bombay's and it's been around for some time. According to city records, it changed hands on May 10 of this year. The seller was one Arthur Stone, and your boy Nathan Cooley was the buyer."

"Where does he live?"

"Don't know. Nothing in the land records. I suspect he's renting, so there would be no record of that. Hell, he could be sleeping above the bar. It's an old two-story building. You're not going there, are you?"

"No."

"Good. You're too old and you're too black. It's an all-white crowd."

"Thanks. I'll meet him somewhere else."

I pay Frank Beebe $600 in cash, and on the way out I ask, "Say, Frank, if I needed a fake passport, you got any ideas?"

"Sure. There's a guy in Baltimore I've used before, does most anything. But passports are tricky these days, Homeland Security and all that crap. If they catch you, they really get excited."

I smile and say, "It's not for me."

He laughs and says, "Gee, I've never heard that before."

My car is packed and I leave town. Four hours later I'm in McLean, Virginia, looking for a copy center that offers executive services. I find one in an upscale shopping center, pay a hookup fee, and plug in my laptop to a printer. After ten minutes of fiddling and haggling, I get the damned thing to work and print the letter to Nathan Cooley. It's on Skelter Films stationery, complete with an address on 8th Avenue in Miami and a full selection of phone and fax numbers. On the envelope, I write: "Mr. Nathan Cooley, c/o Bombay's Bar & Grill, 914 East Main Street, Radford, Virginia 24141." To the left of the address, I write in bold letters: "Personal and Confidential."

When it's perfect, I cross the Potomac and drive through central D.C., looking for a post office drop box.