The Racketeer

up in Roanoke the day after the bodies are found, goes to a bar, gets drunk, gets in a fight, gets arrested, and he’s got a pocketful of cash. There are a lot of gaps here, Miss …”
    “Yes, there are, and with time the gaps will be filled in. Right now, though, it’s not that important, is it? What’s important is that you have clear proof of his innocence. Other than the bogus confession, the government has no evidence against my brother, right?”
    “That’s correct. There’s no physical evidence, just a lot of suspicious behavior. Such as, why was he in Roanoke? How did he get there? Where did he get all that cash? Where did he buy the stolen guns? Lots of questions, Miss, but I suppose you don’t have the answers, right?”
    “Correct.”
    Dusty locks his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling. After a long, silent gap he says, “I’ll have to investigate this, you know. I’ll have to go to the rehab center, interview the people there, take affidavits and such. The Feds are not about to roll over until our file is much thicker and we can hit them over the head with it. I’ll need another $25,000.”
    Without hesitation, she says, “I’ll discuss it with Dee Ray.”
    “The pretrial conference is in two weeks, so we need to move fast. I’d like to file a motion to dismiss the charges before the conference.”
    “You’re the lawyer.”
    Another pause as Dusty leans forward on his elbows and looksat Vanessa. “I knew Judge Fawcett well. We weren’t friends, but friendly acquaintances. If Quinn didn’t kill him, any idea who did?”
    She is already shaking her head. No.

    The police found Nathan’s truck at the general aviation area of the Roanoke Regional Airport late Tuesday morning. As expected, his employees at the bar became concerned Monday when he didn’t show, and by late afternoon they were making calls. They finally contacted the police, who eventually scoured the airport. Nathan had boasted of flying to Miami on a private jet, so the search was not difficult, at least for his truck. Finding it did not automatically indicate foul play, and the police were in no hurry to start a manhunt. A quick background check on the name revealed the criminal record, and this did nothing to create sympathy. There was no family screaming for the lost loved one.
    A computer search and a few phone calls revealed that Nathan had purchased the brand-new Chevy Silverado two months earlier from a dealer in Lexington, Virginia, an hour north of Roanoke on Interstate 81. The selling price was $41,000, and Nathan had paid in cash. Not the kind of cash often referred to when one writes a check, but hard cash. An impressive stack of $100 bills.
    Unknown to the car dealer, or the police, or anyone else for that matter, Nathan had found himself a gold trader.

    I finally find one myself.
    After two trips into the vault of the Palmetto Trust in south-central Miami, I still have in my possession, in the trunk of my rented Impala, exactly forty-one of the precious little mini-bars, value of about $600,000. I need to convert some of them to cash,and to do so I am forced to enter the shady world of gold trading, where rules are pliant and adjusted on the fly and all characters have shifty eyes and speak in double-talk.
    The first two dealers, lifted from the Yellow Pages, suspect I’m an agent of some variety and promptly hang up. The third one, a gentleman with an accent, which I’m quickly learning is not unusual in the trade, wants to know how I came to possess a ten-ounce bar of seemingly pure gold. “It’s a long story,” I say, then hang up. Number four is a small fry who pawns appliances out front and buys jewelry in the back. Number five shows some potential but, of course, will have to see what I’ve got. I explain that I do not want to walk into his store because I do not wish to be caught on video. He pauses and I suspect he’s thinking about getting robbed of his cash at gunpoint. We eventually agree to meet at an ice cream shop two doors down from his store, in a shopping center, in a good part of town. He’ll be wearing a black Marlins cap.
    Thirty minutes later I’m sitting in front of a double pistachio gelato. Hassan, a large gray-bearded Syrian, is across from me and working on a triple chocolate fudge. Twenty feet away is another swarthy gentleman who’s reading a newspaper, eating frozen yogurt, and probably ready to shoot me if I show the slightest sign of causing