The Racketeer

Nathan insists on going with us to his hometown of Willow Gap, so for the second morning we work our way through the mountains as he drives and Gwen gushes about the reactions in Miami. She says to Nathan that Tad Carsloff and other important people down there in the home office watched all of our footage last night and are beyond thrilled. They simply love Nathan on camera and are convinced he is the turning point in the production of our documentary. More important, one of our major investors is visiting Miami and happened to watch the tape from Virginia. The guy is so impressed with Nathan and the entire film so far that he is willing to double down on his money. The guy's worth a bundle and thinks the movie should run at least ninety minutes. It could lead to indictments within the DEA. It could explode into a scandal like Washington has never seen.

As I listen to this chatter, I am on the phone, presumably speaking with the home office, but there's no one on the other end. I grunt occasionally and say something profound, but mainly I'm just listening and brooding and acting as though the creative process can be burdensome. Sometimes I glance at Nathan. The boy is all in.

Over breakfast, Gwen stressed again that I should say as little as possible, speak deeply and slowly, and keep my hands away from my face. I'm happy to let her do the talking, something she's quite good at.

Gene Cooley is buried behind an abandoned country church in a small, weedy cemetery with about a hundred graves. I tell Slade and Cody I want several shots of the grave and its surroundings, then I step away for another important phone call. Nathan, now quite the actor and full of himself, suggests that he kneel beside the grave while the camera rolls, and Gwen loves the idea. I nod from a distance with the cell phone stuck to my jaw, whispering to no one. Nathan even manages to work up a few more tears, and Slade zooms in for a close-up.

For the record, Willow Gap has five hundred people, but you'll never find them. Downtown proper is an overgrown alley with four crumbling buildings and a country store with a post office attached to it. A few folks are moving about, and Nathan becomes nervous. He knows these people, and he does not want to be seen with a camera crew. He explains that most of the residents, including his family and friends, live out from town, off the narrow country lanes and deep in the valleys. They are suspicious people by nature, and I now understand why he wanted to accompany us.

There is no school he and Gene attended; the kids from Willow Gap are bused an hour away. "Made it easy to quit," Nathan says, almost to himself. He reluctantly shows us a tiny, empty four-room cottage where he and Gene lived once, for about a year. "It was the last place I remember living with my father," he says. "I was about six, I guess, so Gene was about ten." I cajole him into sitting on the broken front steps and talking, to the camera, about all the places he and Gene lived. For the moment, he forgets about the glamour of acting and becomes sullen. I ask him about his father, but he wants no part of that conversation. He gets angry and barks at me, and suddenly he's acting again. A few minutes later, Gwen, very much on his side now and wary of me, tells him he's superb.

As we loiter around the front of the shack, I pace as if lost in a deep creative funk. I finally ask where his mother is living now. He points and says, "About ten minutes down that road, but we are not going there, okay?"

I reluctantly agree and step away to chat on the phone again.

After two hours in and around Willow Gap, we've seen enough. I make it known I'm not too pleased with what we've shot, and I become irritable. Gwen whispers to Nathan, "He'll get over it."

"Where was Gene's meth lab?" I ask.

"It's gone," he answers. "Blew up not long after he died."

"That's just great," I mumble.

We finally load up everything and leave the area. For the second day in a row, lunch is a burger and fries just off an interstate exit. When we're on the road again, I finish another imaginary phone call and stick the phone in my pocket. I turn so I can see Gwen, and it's obvious I have big news. "Okay, here's where we are. Tad has been talking nonstop to the Alvarez family in Texas and the Marshak family in California. I mentioned these two cases to you, Nathan, if you'll recall. The Alvarez boy was shot fourteen times by DEA agents. The Marshak kid was asleep in his college dorm room when they broke in and shot him before he woke up. Remember?"

Nathan is nodding as he drives.

"They've found a cousin in the Alvarez family with good English and he's willing to talk. Mr. Marshak has sued the DEA and his lawyers have told him to keep quiet, but he's really pissed and wants to go public. Both can be in Miami this weekend, at our expense, of course. Both have jobs, though, so the filming has to be done on a Saturday. Two questions, Nathan: First, do you want to go and do this? And second, can you go on such short notice?"

"Have you told him about the DEA files?" Gwen asks before he can answer.

"Not yet. I just found out this morning."

"What is it?" Nathan asks.

"I think I told you our lawyers have filed the necessary paperwork to obtain copies of the DEA files on certain cases, including Gene's. Yesterday, a federal judge in Washington ruled in our favor, sort of. We can see the files, but we cannot actually have possession of them. So the DEA in D.C. is sending the files to the DEA office in Miami, and we will have access to the materials."

"When?" Gwen asks.

"As early as Monday."

"Do you want to see Gene's file, Nathan?" Gwen asks cautiously, protectively.

He doesn't answer quickly, so I chime in: "We won't be shown everything, but there will be a lot of photos - crime scene stuff and statements from all of the agents, probably a statement from the informant who set you guys up. There will be ballistics reports, the autopsy, photos of that. It could be fascinating."

Nathan clenches his jaws and says, "I'd like to see it."

"So you're in?" I ask.

"What's the downside?" he asks, and this question gets a lot of consideration for the next few minutes. Finally, I reply, "Downside? If you are still dealing, then the DEA would come after you with a vengeance. We've had this discussion."

"I'm not dealing. I told you that."

"Then there's no downside. You're doing it for Gene and for all of the DEA's murder victims. You're doing it for justice."

"And you're gonna love South Beach," Gwen adds.

I close the deal by saying, "We can leave tomorrow afternoon out of Roanoke, fly straight to Miami, do the shoot on Saturday, play on Sunday, see the DEA file on Monday morning, and you're home that night."

Gwen says, "I thought Nicky had the jet in Vancouver."

I reply, "He does, but it'll be here tomorrow afternoon."

"You have a jet?" Nathan asks, and he looks at me in pure amazement.

This is amusing to Gwen and me. I laugh and say, "Not mine, personally, but our company leases one. We travel an awful lot and sometimes it's the only way to get things done."

"I can't leave tomorrow," Gwen says, looking at her schedule on her iPhone. "I'll be in D.C., but I'll just fly down Saturday. I'm not gonna miss the three families in the same room at the same time. Incredible."

"What about your bar?" I ask Nathan.

"I own the place," he says smugly. "And I got a pretty good manager. Plus, I'd like to get outta town for a few days. The bar is ten, twelve hours a day, six days a week."

"And your parole officer?"

"I'm free to travel. I just have to notify him, that's all."

"This is exciting," Gwen says, almost squealing with delight. Nathan is smiling like a kid at Christmas. Me, I'm all business as usual. "Look, Nathan, I need to nail this down right now. If we're going, then say so. I have to call Nicky and line up the jet, and I have to call Tad so he can arrange flights for the other families. Yes or no?"

Without hesitation, Nathan says, "Yep. Let's go."

"Great."

Gwen asks, "Which hotel would Nathan like, Reed?"

"I don't know. They're all good. Your call." I tap keys on my phone and begin another unilateral conversation.

"You want to be right on the beach, Nathan, or one block off?"

"Where are the girls?" he asks and laughs at his own incredible humor.

"Okay, on the beach it is."

By the time we return to Radford, Nathan Cooley thinks he's booked into one of the coolest hotels in the world, on one of the hippest beaches, and he'll arrive there by private jet, which will only be fitting for such a serious actor.

Vanessa leaves in a mad dash for Reston, Virginia, D.C. suburbs, some four hours away. Her first destination is a nameless organization renting space in a run-down strip mall. It's the workshop of a group of talented forgers who can create virtually any document on the spot. They specialize in fake passports, but for the right price they can produce college diplomas, birth certificates, marriage licenses, court orders, car titles, eviction notices, driver's licenses, credit histories - there's no limit to their mischief. Some of what they do is illegal and some is not. They brazenly advertise on the Internet, along with an astonishing number of competitors, but claim to be careful about whom they work for.

I found them several weeks ago after an exhaustive search, and to validate their reliability, I sent a $500 check drawn on Skelter Films for a fake passport. It arrived in Florida a week later, and I was floored at its seeming authenticity. According to the guy on the phone, a real expert, there was an eighty-twenty chance the fake passport would clear Customs in the event I tried to leave the country. There was a 90 percent chance I would be able to enter any country in the Caribbean. Problems will arise, though, if I try to reenter the United States. I explained that this will not happen, not with my new fake passport. He explained that nowadays, in the age of terror, the U.S. Customs Service is much more concerned with who's on the No Fly List than who's fudging with phony papers.

Because it's a rush job, Vanessa forks over $1,000 in cash, and they get down to business. Her forger is a nervous geek with an odd name that he reluctantly divulged. Like his colleagues, he works in a cramped, fortified cubicle with no one else in sight. The atmosphere is suspicious, as though everyone there is violating some law and half expecting a SWAT team any minute. They don't like drop-ins. They prefer the shield of the Internet so no one sees their shady business.

Vanessa hands over the memory card from her camera, and on a twenty-inch screen they look at the shots of a smiling Nathan Cooley. They select one for the passport and driver's license, and go through his data - address, date of birth, and so on. Vanessa says she wants the new documents in the name of Nathaniel Coley, not Cooley. Whatever, the geek says. He could not care less. He is soon lost in a flurry of high-speed imaging. It takes him an hour to produce an American passport and a Virginia driver's license that would fool anyone. The passport's blue vinyl binding is sufficiently worn, and our boy Nathan, who's never traveled far, has now seen all of Europe and most of Asia.

Vanessa hustles into D.C., where she picks up two first-aid kits, a pistol, and some pills. At 8:30, she turns around and heads south for Roanoke.