The Racketeer

protection. Over eight thousand and counting.”
    “That’s what you advertise. Frankly, I’m not too concernedwith your track record or what didn’t happen to the others. I’m worried about my own skin.”
    There is a pause as Erardi stops writing and decides to speak. “This guy sounds like he’s in a gang of some sort, maybe a drug dealer. What else can you tell us?”
    “Nothing, and I’ve told you nothing. You can make all the wild guesses you want.”
    Hanski smiles at nothing that is humorous. “I doubt if our boss will be too impressed with your scheme to get out of prison. As of today, we’ve had at least two other inmates contact us and claim to have valuable information. Of course, they want out of prison too. This is not unusual.”
    I have no way of knowing if this is true, but it sounds believable. The knot in my stomach has not gone away. I shrug, offer a smile, tell myself to stay cool. “You guys can play it any way you want. Obviously, you’re in charge. You can keep beating your heads against a wall. You can waste time with these other inmates. It’s up to you. But when you want to know the name of the person who killed Judge Fawcett, I can give it to you.”
    “Someone you met in prison?” Erardi asks.
    “Or maybe out of prison. You’ll never know until we have a deal.”
    There is a long pause as they stare at me and I stare right back. Finally, Erardi closes his notepad and sticks his pen back in his pocket. Hanski says, “Okay. We’ll go tell our boss.”
    “You know where to find me.”

    Several times a week, I meet my White Gang at the track, and we walk in wide circles around a field used for soccer and flag football. Carl, the optometrist, will be out in a few months. Kermit, the land speculator, has two more years. Wesley, the statesenator, should get out about the same time I do. Mark is the only one with his case still on appeal. He’s been here for eighteen months and says his lawyer is optimistic, though he freely admits he falsified some mortgage documents.
    We don’t talk much about our crimes, and this is usually true in prison. Who you were or what you did on the outside is not important, and it’s also too painful to dwell on.
    Wesley’s wife has just filed for divorce and he’s taking it hard. Since I’ve been through it, as has Kermit, we offer advice and try to cheer him up. I would love to entertain them with the details of my visit from the FBI, but this must be kept quiet. If my plan works, they will show up one day for a walk and I’ll be gone, suddenly transferred to another camp for reasons they will never know.

CHAPTER 7
    T he FBI’s temporary headquarters for its Fawcett task force was a warehouse in an industrial park near the Roanoke Regional Airport. When last occupied, the space had been leased by a company that imported shrimp from Central America and froze it for years. Almost immediately it was tagged “the Freezer.” It offered plenty of space, seclusion, and privacy away from the press. Carpenters hurriedly built walls and sectioned off rooms, offices, hallways, and meeting places. Technicians from Washington worked around the clock to install the latest high-tech gear and gadgets for communication, data, and security. Trucks filled with rented furniture and equipment ran nonstop until the CC—command center—was stuffed with more desks and tables than would ever be used. A fleet of rented SUVs filled the parking lot. A catering service was hired to haul in three meals a day for the team, which soon numbered close to seventy—about forty agents plus support staff. There was no budget and no concern for costs. The victim was, after all, a federal judge.
    A lease was signed for six months, but after three weeks of little progress there was a general mood among the Feds that they might be there longer. Aside from a short list of randomly picked suspects, all of whom were known to be violent and had appeared before Fawcett in the past eighteen years, there were no real leads. A man named Stacks had written the judge a threateningletter in 2002 from prison. Stacks was found working in a liquor store in Panama City Beach, Florida, and had an alibi for the weekend the judge and Ms. Clary were murdered. Stacks had not set foot in Virginia in at least five years. A narco-trafficker named Ruiz had cursed His Honor in Spanish when given a twenty-year sentence in 1999. Ruiz was still in a medium-security prison, but after a few days