The Racketeer

sentenced.
    If all goes as planned, I may soon have the privilege of seeing the Honorable Judge Slater, and it will be on my terms.
    The Feds are back.

    The warden is much nicer to me these days. He figures he has a prize that some big people desire, and he needs to be in the thick of things. I take a seat at his desk and he asks if I want coffee. This offer is almost too surreal to comprehend—the almighty warden offering coffee to an inmate.
    “Sure,” I say. “Black.”
    He punches a button and relays our wishes to a secretary. I notice he’s wearing cuff links today, a good sign.
    “Got the big boys here today, Mal,” he informs me smugly, asif he’s coordinating all efforts to find the murderer. Since we are such good pals now, he’s using my first name. Until now it’s been Bannister this and Bannister that.
    “Who?” I ask.
    “The director of the task force, Victor Westlake, from Washington, and a bunch of lawyers. I’d say you have their attention.”
    I cannot keep from smiling, but only for a second.
    “This guy who killed Judge Fawcett, was he ever here, at Frostburg?” the warden asks.
    “Sorry, Warden, I can’t answer that.”
    “Either here or Louisville, I take it.”
    “Maybe, or maybe I knew him before prison.”
    He frowns and rubs his chin. “I see,” he mumbles.
    The coffee arrives, on a tray, and for the first time in years I drink from a cup not made of plastic or paper. We kill a few minutes talking about nothing. At 11:05, his secretary informs him through the intercom on his desk, “They are in place.” I follow him through the door and into the same conference room.
    Five men in the same dark suits, same white shirts with button-down collars, same bland ties. If I had seen them in a crowd from half a mile away, I could have said, “Yep, Feds.”
    We go through the usual stiff introductions and the warden reluctantly excuses himself. I sit on one side of the table and my five new buddies sit on the other. Victor Westlake is in the middle, and to his right are Agent Hanski and a new face, Agent Sasswater. Neither of these two will say a word. To the left of Westlake are the two assistant U.S. Attorneys—Mangrum from the Southern District of Virginia and Craddock from the Northern. The rookie Dunleavy got left behind.
    Thunderstorms had rolled through just after midnight, and Westlake begins by saying, “Quite a storm last night, huh?”
    I narrow my eyes and stare at him. “Seriously? You want to talk about the weather?”
    This really pisses him off, but he’s a pro. A smile, a grunt, then,“No, Mr. Bannister, I’m not here to talk about the weather. My boss thinks we should make a deal with you, so that’s why I’m here.”
    “Great. And, yes, it was quite a storm.”
    “We’d like to hear your terms.”
    “I think you know them. We use Rule 35. We sign an agreement, all of us, in which I give you the name of the man who killed Judge Fawcett. You pick him up, investigate him, do your thing, and when a federal grand jury indicts him, I walk. That very day. I transfer out of Frostburg and disappear into witness protection. No more time; no more criminal record; no more Malcolm Bannister. The deal is confidential, locked away, buried, and signed by the Attorney General.”
    “The AG?”
    “Yes sir. I don’t trust you or anyone in this room. I don’t trust Judge Slater or any other federal judge, prosecutor, assistant prosecutor, FBI agent, or anybody else working for the federal government. The paperwork must be perfect; the deal unbreakable. When the killer is indicted, I walk. Period.”
    “Will you use an attorney?”
    “No sir. I can handle that.”
    “Fair enough.”
    Mangrum suddenly produces a file and removes several copies of a document. He slides one across the table, and it comes to a rest in front of me, in perfect position. I glance at it and my heart begins to pound. The heading is the same as all of the motions and orders filed in my case: “In the United States District Court of Washington, D.C.; United States of America versus Malcolm W. Bannister.” In the center of the page, in all caps, are the words “RULE 35 MOTION.”
    “This is a proposed court order,” Mangrum says. “It’s just a starting point, but we’ve spent some time on it.”

    Two days later, I am placed in the rear seat of a Ford SUV and driven away from Frostburg, my first exit from the camp since the day I arrived three years earlier. No leg chains today,