The Racketeer

months in Louisville, Kentucky, a medium-security prison with a population of two thousand. Since then he’s been at Frostburg, a camp with six hundred inmates.”
    “That’s a lot of people; plus, they come and go,” Westlake said.
    “Right, so let’s start at the logical place. Let’s get his prison records, the names of his cell mates, maybe dorm mates. We’ll go to the two prisons, talk to the wardens, the unit managers, the COs, talk to anyone who might know something about Bannister and his friends. We’ll begin collecting names and we’ll see how many crossed paths with Fawcett.”
    Erardi added, “He says the killer has nasty friends, thus the desire for protection. Sounds like a gang of some variety. Oncewe start adding names, we’ll concentrate on those with gang connections.”
    A pause, then a doubtful Westlake said, “And that’s it?”
    “It’s the best we can do for now.”
    Westlake clicked his heels together, arched his back, gripped his hands behind his head, and breathed deeply. He stretched, and breathed, and stretched, then said, “Okay. Collect the prison records and get started. How many hands do you need?”
    “Can you spare two men?”
    “No, but you can have them. Go. Get started.”

    Barry the Backhander. The client I never met until they dragged us into federal court one gray morning and read the entire indictment aloud.
    In a ham-and-egg storefront law office, you learn the basics of many mundane legal tasks, but it’s difficult to specialize. I tried to avoid divorce and bankruptcy and I never liked real estate, but to survive I often had to take who and what walked in the door. Oddly, it would be real estate that brought about The Fall.
    The referral came from a law school pal who was working for a midsized firm in central D.C. The firm had a client who wished to purchase a hunting lodge in Shenandoah County, in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, about an hour southwest of Winchester. The client desired great secrecy and demanded anonymity, which should have been the first warning sign. The purchase price was $4 million, and after some haggling, I negotiated a flat fee of $100,000 for Copeland, Reed & Bannister to handle the transaction. Such a fee had never been seen by me or my partners, and we were excited, initially. I set my other files aside and went to research the land records in Shenandoah County.
    The lodge was about twenty years old and had been built by some doctors who enjoyed grouse hunting, but as happens withmany such ventures, the partners had reached a disagreement. A serious one, involving lawyers and lawsuits, even a bankruptcy or two. After a couple of weeks, though, I had things sorted out and delivering a clean title opinion to my still anonymous client would be no problem. A closing date was set and I prepared all the necessary contracts and deeds. There was a lot of paperwork, but then again we were going to earn a rather fat fee.
    The closing was delayed a month, and I asked my law school pal for $50,000, or half of the attorneys’ fees. This was not uncommon, and since I had invested a hundred hours at this point, I wanted to get paid. He called back to say the client would not agree. No big deal, I thought. In a typical real estate transaction, the attorneys are not paid until the closing takes place. I was informed that my client, a corporation, had changed its name. I redrafted the documents and waited. The closing was again delayed, and the sellers began threatening to walk away.
    During this time, I was vaguely aware of the name and reputation of a Beltway operative by the name of Barry Rafko or, more famously, Barry the Backhander. He was about fifty years old and for most of his adult life had been rummaging around D.C. looking for a lazy way to make a buck. He had been a consultant, a strategist, an analyst, a fund-raiser, and a spokesman, and he had worked at the lower levels of a few election campaigns of congressmen and senators, both Democratic and Republican. Didn’t matter to Barry. If he was getting paid he could strategize and analyze from either side of the street. He hit his stride, though, when he and a partner opened a lounge near the Capitol. Barry hired some young hookers to tend bar in miniskirts, and almost overnight the place became a favorite meat market for the legions of staffers who swarm the Hill. Low-ranking congressmen and mid-ranking bureaucrats discovered the place, and Barry was on the map. With