Judas Horse

by April Smith

  Stone has never been more lucid. Even his skin looks baby soft and shaven. His hair is clean and straight; the summer sun has made it more blond than gray. He is back to the agreeable persona of the lawyer of the people, a northwest professional in a denim shirt and tie, moving confidently through the city.

  “Nervous?” he asks.

  “Terrified.”

  He makes me recite it again. We drive up. We wait. At 8:00 p.m., Laumann comes out of the house and walks down the driveway. He plays tennis at the club on Thursday nights. His court time is always 8:30. We put on the ski masks. I get out of the car. Stone keeps the engine running. I walk up to the target. I make my speech and empty the gun into his chest.

  “Less than a minute,” Stone promises.

  “I’m still nervous.”

  “You can’t miss at point-blank range.”

  And I’ve been practicing. Not just shooting Stone’s pistol up at the range but figuring out how to switch the magazines—the blanks that Jason provided, for the live ones in the gun—in two swift moves.

  “I’ve been thinking about his wife and kids.”

  “Don’t. Focus on the target. You’ve done it before, or so you say,” Stone comments.

  “That was emotional. This is cold.”

  “You’re paying the tax, as promised,” he says flatly. “The tax on Slammer’s foolishness.”

  “Okay, and then?”

  “After you do this, the tax will be repaid.”

  “And the family will be okay?”

  “Everyone in the family will be okay.”

  I pop a mint. No bad tastes, no bad associations. I’m not going to be suckered into the past.

  As we follow him across the bridge, through the prism of stacked-up car windows, I get a glimpse of the victim’s neck. Just like any other commuter’s neck.

  “You have to put the good round into him. You have to shoot him squarely in the vest. The adrenaline will be pumping,” Donnato warned.

  “I’ll be prepared.”

  “Get close. Knock him flat. He knows what’s coming, although I didn’t go into detail about the first shot.”

  “Right!” I laughed a high and desperate cackle that was sounding more and more like Stone’s. “Who in their right mind would agree to be a walking target?”

  Donnato: “A man with a guilty conscience.”

  Waiting makes the tension in my chest unbearable. We sit in the truck, watching the dashboard clock. Dick Stone is running his game, and we are running ours. There are agents in the in-laws’ house and in the house next door. Those females with the empty strollers are undercovers.

  I study the Wilkins’ house, the tacky hacienda that we raided in the dark, marking the curve in the bushes where I’ll make the switch. I fix it in my mind. For reassurance, I think about Donnato calling the shots from the stakeout. Stone is calmly smoking a cigar. He’s been on stakeout, too.

  At 8:06 p.m. Laumann appears at the front door. A light goes on above it, signaling all is ready. He is carrying a tennis racket and wearing white. This is going to make a big mess. Stone and I pull on our woolen masks. He hands me the Colt .45 and I unlock the car door.

  With a thousand hidden eyes upon me, I have never felt so alone. I walk half a dozen steps and start up the driveway, everything still and glittering and clear. My heart is hammering—more than hammering: It’s closing off my mind. I pass the crucial point in front of the bushes. I turn to block Stone’s view and switch the magazines, slipping the live one into the pocket of my black cargo pants, while all the time my legs keep marching forward, and Laumann in his whites keeps coming toward me in the precise evening light, floating, as if he is already dead.

  His eyes meet mine. Behind the glasses, there is nothing but terror. They had to shove him out the door. Both of us have been pushed together by our respective sides—the bride in black and the groom in white—to meet in middle of this surreal driveway, a doomed blood wedding.

  “ANIMAL KILLER!”

  My voice comes from some distant gravel pit. I raise the gun with both hands, plant my knees, sight, and fire.

  The first shot throws him backward. He’s down. I run up close. The shot was good; he is unhurt, squinting his eyes and twitching and stuttering, “No, no, no, no!” as I stand over him and fire. Two, three, four, five. The squibs inside his clothes go off, red fountains against the white.

  Dick Stone’s blood bomb is a wee-wee compared to this.

  I am busting back toward the getaway car, but here comes Stone, running hard, passing me in the opposite direction.

  “What the hell?”

  “Get in!”

  I continue toward the car. Stone is in the driveway. He’s going to finish him off! But on cue, there are screams and people running. Now Stone is back, the car door slams, and we’re gone.

  I’m shouting, “What the hell? What was that?”

  He coolly steers around the corner. “A good shooter never leaves his brass. You can only make that mistake once.”

  Stone opens the fingers of his right hand to reveal the five bullet casings that were ejected from the pistol.

  An ambulance driven by FBI agents has pulled up and loaded the blood-soaked deputy state director onto a gurney. At the same time, agents are storming the back door, getting the family out. There will be TV news stories, an obituary, and a funeral, but by then the Laumann family will be safely relocated in the witness protection program, where they will live undercover for the rest of their lives.

  Everything goes like clockwork.

  PART FOUR

  Thirty-five

  Four pug puppies will always cause a hullabaloo, even in West Hollywood. When Rooney Berwick takes his babies walking, some tourist will always shout, “How cute are they? I have a pug, too!”

  What are you supposed to say to that?

  Across from the cobalt blue shell of the Pacific Design Center is a neighborhood park with a small open field that provides a clear patch of sky—not an easy spot to find in the heart of L.A. So if you saw a loner—late fifties, wearing a black T-shirt, pants with a lot of pockets, and thick-soled combat boots—camped out in the middle of the field, pouring water into a collapsible bowl for four panting pugs, that would be Rooney Berwick, getting ready for a call on the satellite phone to his old buddy Dick Stone.

  Dead cases are kept in a room-size automated drum in the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard. For two days Mike Donnato moves files around a track, like the clothes at your dry cleaner’s, grabbing at whatever fragments might remain of a case in the seventies codenamed “Turquoise.”

  It was a failed operation, in which the Bureau targeted a series of armored car robberies thought to be linked to radical students at the University of Arizona who were allegedly part of the Weather Underground. Dick Stone was the rookie uc—short hair and creases in his jeans—who infiltrated the campus coffeehouse. Strangely, none of the radicals, who nicknamed him “the Fed,” wished to share their plans for the revolution.

  The Bureau went high-tech, bringing in another young buck from Los Angeles, a whiz-kid technician named Rooney Berwick (the photo ID shows him thin-faced and detached, a hundred pounds lighter), who installed listening devices on the armored cars. Three weeks later, arrests were made of two drivers with unchecked criminal records, who had conspired to stage “robberies” with the local bad guys.

  The Weather Underground had nothing to do with it.

  Intrigued, Donnato runs the full sweep on Rooney: personnel reports, bank accounts, phone records, traffic tickets, pharmacy prescriptions. A picture emerges of a highly intelligent, socially isolated individual, who lives with his mother in the same Hollywood apartment complex in which he grew up, apparently addicted to painkillers, which he has been getting from five different doctors.

  Donnato looks at Rooney’s recent cases. His latest assignment was to turn sand into gold. (If I could do that, I wouldn’t be in this rat hole, I can hear Rooney say.) The target was a ring of thieves in
Brazil, with ties to U.S. organized crime, that was selling counterfeit nuggets. The Bureau’s undercovers would pose as manufacturers of counterfeit gold. Rooney’s mandate was to make fake nuggets as good as the thieves’.

  Under pressure, Rooney was working the graveyard shift. On a scarred desk in the faceless JR Trading Company, in the midst of the displaced Hispanic nation, he set out rows of shiny rocks, ranging in quality from the real stuff to the Brazilian counterfeits. He knew they were melting authentic gold and mixing it with water and sand—but how much of each? His notes say he sectioned a Brazilian nugget and examined the slices under the microscope at fifty times normal magnification.

  Skimming the phone log attached to the lab records, Donnato sees that a call came in on Rooney’s private line that morning at 5:48 a.m.

  From an area code in Oregon.

  Rooney had probably been counting gold globules when he decided to take a break and work on one of his subversive little projects that turned up later—a digitalized photo of himself shaking hands with President Bill Clinton. It was another phony, but at least it was his phony, which is why, when the phone rang, he was in a bad mood about being interrupted and answered with annoyance, which he would immediately regret.

  All calls to the off-site are recorded in the archives. You just have to lean on the right person.

  “City morgue, George Romero speaking.”

  “Hey there, champ.”

  It was the voice of Dick Stone.

  Rooney reacted with silence. Stone: “Is this phone secure?”

  “Not entirely.” Rooney was testy. “But it’s six in the morning. Nobody’s here. Just me and the skeletons in the closet. It’s been a while. Where are you?”

  “I’m a farmer. Do you believe that?”

  Rooney chuckled. “The number-one cash crop in California?”

  “Nothing illegal, my friend. I grow filbert trees. I’m an arborist.”

  “Sounds fancy. Making a living?”

  “Occasionally. But that’s beside the point.”

  “Not for those of us in perpetual slavery.”

  “How is Ruby doing?”

  “It’s nice of you to think of Mom.”

  “How could I forget the Ambrose Dairy and your mom at the window making soft-serve cones? Dipped in chocolate? Oh my Lord.”

  Mrs. Ruby Berwick had been a jolly fixture at the famous drive-thru Ambrose Dairy, one of those iconic Los Angeles landmarks with a twelve-foot milk bottle perched on top, where you could get icy bottles of cream and homemade cottage cheese without leaving the car.

  “How many times was I over at your mom’s apartment, eating Polish, playing with the pugs?”

  “You haven’t heard the news. Mom passed on not too long ago.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that, pal.”

  “I miss her every day. She never hurt a soul.”

  “What was it?”

  “Cancer of the esophagus. Skip it if you can. My brain-dead supervisor keeps saying shit like, ‘It’s for the best.’ People are ignorant. Makes you want to put your fist through a wall.”

  There was inaudible scratching and scuffling. Rooney’s voice emerged:

  “…The Bureau’s going through changes, but they’re still after your ass.”

  “How do you know?” asked Stone.

  “Saw your name on some lists.”

  “What kind of lists?”

  “I don’t play politics; you know that. That’s me, flying below the radar. But you still have supporters in this organization, myself foremost among them, who have always felt you got one raw deal. They trashed your reputation, went around saying you’d gone over—based on what?” He was getting worked up. “They never had proof; they were using you as a scapegoat for their dumb-ass mistakes. Justice was not served by the Justice Department.”

  “Don’t stress. The intelligence you have provided over the years about my former friends has been very useful.”

  “That’s something.

  Stone, upbeat: “Still have the pugs?”

  Rooney might have glanced at the photo poster above the ID machine.

  “Brand-new litter. Three girls and a boy. Mom would get a kick out of ’em. They were her ‘grand-dogs.’”

  Both men were breathing audibly into the phone, cautious, psyching each other out.

  “Is that a rooster I hear up on the old farm? Cancel that,” Rooney said quickly. “Don’t say what you don’t need to say.”

  “I am feeling a little paranoid these days. Got a sixth sense about the Bureau.”

  “They’re heeeeere!” Rooney could be unbelievably juvenile.

  “Up close and personal,” Stone agreed. “Can you do me a favor and check it out?”

  “Anytime I can say fuck you to management, I am there.”

  “See what they’ve got going in the Northwest. There’s something else. Soon I’ll be digging up the turquoise. It’s time to move on. You’re entitled to your share.”

  Rooney choked up. “You got out, but still, after all these years, you remembered?”

  “You trusted me, so I’m keeping my word. Some things are simple. What are your plans?”

  “Plans?” Rooney’s voice deflated. “I have nobody left. What would I do?”

  “Anything you want, buddy.”

  Uncertain: “I guess I’d have to take the dogs.”

  “You could buy a whole kennel.”

  “I wish Mom were here.”

  “She would want you to be happy.”

  “How do we do this?”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  There are no records of them talking again. Once they started using the satellite phone, Rooney would take it to the park. It was probably there that he blew the whistle.

  Thirty-six

  “This is a waste of time. I don’t need to be here.”

  “How are you feeling? What’s your mood?”

  “Right now? I’m buzzed, thinking of a million things, like how long we are going to be sitting in this motel. When my partner is coming to get me. How long I can hide out in Portland. How to keep all the balls in the air.”

  “You’re good at it? Keeping balls in the air?”

  “Have I dropped any lately that you know about?”

  “The FBI doesn’t tell me the details of their cases.”

  “That would be messy.”

  “I’m a psychiatrist; I’m hired as an independent contractor. My concern here is only about you—your mental health, how you’re handling the pressures and demands they put you under.”

  “This is a standard evaluation, right? Like they do for all our undercovers?”

  “Tell me what’s been going on.”

  “I’ve been in deep cover, in an extreme situation, for about three months. I’m living on a Podunk farm with a bunch of violent anarchists who could pop at any minute.”

  “Stressful?”

  “Kind of.”

  “How do you handle the stress?”

  “By having chest pains, what do you think?”

  “When was that?”

  “About a week ago. I was watching TV.”

  “No unusual exertion? No change in medication? Just watching TV?”

  “Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.”

  “Would this TV watching be normal for someone working undercover?”

  “Umm. Yes and no. Depends.”

  “Do you like TV?”

  “Yeah, I love it. I’m addicted to stupid, mind-numbing crap.”

  “I’m wondering if you use it as a way to deal with stress.”

  “I don’t watch the shows. I only watch the news.”

  “You watch the news.”

  “There’s really only one story I’m interested in.”

  “Which is what?”

  “It’s a local story. There’s a guy named Herbert Laumann, from the Bureau of Land Management, who was killed recently.”

  “Yes, he was gunned down in his driveway by some animal
rights fanatics. I’m afraid there are a lot of them up here.”

  “You saw it?”

  “It was all over the papers.”

  “I did that!”

  “You did it?”

  “I shot the dude. The whole thing was staged. But it looked real, didn’t it? It was perfect. He and his family are in the witness protection program now. Isn’t that cool?”

  “This is when you started having chest pains?”

  “After it was over.”

  “So you’re watching the news stories about the so-called murder.”

  “Obsessively. I have it on tape. All the national coverage, everything from the local stations, and a close-up of the animal rights movement they did on 20/20. My story was the lead.”

  “You sound proud.”

  “It wasn’t easy to pull it off.”

  “I’m sure. So you’re watching the tapes, over and over. Are alcohol or drugs involved?”

  “A little weed. A little beer. That’s how we do it on the farm.”

  “Okay, you’re getting high and watching how this man died. The one you supposedly killed.”

  “In the line of duty.”

  “I understand. You say the operation went well?”

  “Very well.”

  “And your superiors are pleased?”

  “Yes, because now I’m really tight with the bad guys.”

  “I’ve got a note here that your communication with the FBI has lagged.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Do you think you’ve been communicating with your office less than usual? Are you feeling withdrawn from the Bureau?”

  “No, it’s just a hassle. I have to get up early and hide out in the barn, or up in the trees. Right now, there’s not that much to say.”

  “The important thing, in your view, is that you’ve been initiated into this group—kind of like being a ‘made man’ in the Mafia. And the tapes of the news stories—they’re fascinating to you.”

  “Because I did such a…a really good job.”

  “Here. You’re feeling some emotion.”

  “I’m sorry.”