The Racketeer

to work my way back to Frostburg.
    Pat and I say our farewells. I thank him for his courtesies and professionalism, and he wishes me well. He assures me my new life will be rewarding and secure. I’m not sure I believe this, because I’m still looking over my shoulder. I strongly suspect the FBI will monitor me for some time, at least until the day when Quinn Rucker is convicted and sent away.
    The truth is I cannot afford to trust anyone, including Pat Surhoff, Diana Tyler, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the FBI. There are a lot of shadows back there, not to mention the bad guys. If the government wants to watch me, there’s little I can do. They can obtain court orders to snoop into my bank account, to listen to my phone calls, to monitor my credit card activity, and to watch everything I do online. I anticipate all of the above, and my challenge in the near future is to deceive them without letting them know they are being deceived. Taking one of the two jobs would only allow them another opportunity to spy.

    During the afternoon, I open another checking account at Atlantic Trust and move $50,000 from the SunCoast account.Then I do the same thing at a third bank, Jacksonville Savings. In a day or two, once the checks have cleared, I will begin withdrawing cash.
    As I putter around the neighborhood in my little Audi, I spend as much time looking in the mirror as I do watching the road. It’s already a habit. When I walk the beach, I check out every face I see. When I walk into a store, I immediately find cover and watch the door I just came through. I never eat in the same restaurant twice, and I always find a table with a view of the parking lot. I use the cell phone only for routine matters, and I assume someone is listening. I pay cash for a laptop, set up three Gmail accounts, and do my browsing in Internet cafés using their servers. I begin experimenting with prepaid credit cards I buy at a Walgreens pharmacy. I install two hidden cameras in my condo, just in case someone drops in while I’m away.
    Paranoia is the key here. I convince myself someone is always watching and listening, and as the days pass, I fall deeper into my own little world of deception. I call Diana every other day with the latest news in my increasingly mundane life, and she gives no hint of being suspicious. But then, she would not.
    The lawyer’s name is Murray Huggins, and his small Yellow Pages ad announces specialties in just about everything. Divorce, real estate, bankruptcy, criminal matters, and so forth, pretty much the same ham-and-egg routine we followed at dear old Copeland, Reed & Bannister. His office is not far from my condo, and one look suggests the laid-back beach practice of a guy who comes in at nine and is on the golf course by three. During our first appointment, Murray tells me his life story. He had great success in a big law firm in Tampa but burned out at the age of fifty and tried retirement. He moved to Atlantic Beach, got a divorce, got bored, and decided to hang out his shingle. He’s in his sixties now, happy in his little office, where he puts in a few hours here and there and chooses his clients carefully.
    We go through my biography, and I, for the most part, stick tothe script. A couple of ex-wives in Seattle and so forth. I add my own new wrinkle of being a fledgling screenwriter who is polishing up my first script. With a lucky break here and there, the script has been optioned by a small production company that does documentaries. For various business reasons, I need to establish a small front in Florida.
    For $2,500, Murray can build a few firewalls. He’ll set up an LLC—limited liability company—in Florida, with M. R. Baldwin as the sole owner. The LLC will then form a corporation in Delaware with Murray as the sole incorporator and me as the sole owner. The registered address will be his office, and my name will appear in none of the corporate documents. He says, “I do this all the time. Florida attracts a lot of folks who are trying to start over.” If you say so, Murray.
    I could do this myself online, but it’s safer to route it through a lawyer. The confidentiality is important. I can pay Murray to do things the shadows will never suspect and be unable to trace. With his seasoned guidance, Skelter Films comes to life.

    Two and a half months after the arrest of Quinn Rucker, and two weeks after I move into my beachfront condo, I am informed over coffee one morning by Diana that