by Mike Lawson
The FBI had used its wizards to identify Lincoln as the man in Randy White’s original photo. Well, Emma had her own wizard. She had her wizard take all the photos and construct one showing Oliver Lincoln – still wearing his Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball cap, a long-haired wig, a false beard, and sunglasses – sitting with Jubal Pugh at a table in the Waffle Shop. In the photo, a building across the street was clearly visible through a window near where they were seated. Emma, after studying the photo for a bit, made her wizard remove the sunglasses from Oliver Lincoln’s face.
A week later, Emma now had the photograph the FBI wished they had: a photograph that placed a recognizable Oliver Lincoln with Jubal Pugh in exactly the place that Jubal said they’d met. The fact that the photograph was a fake didn’t matter. Emma had no intention of giving the photograph to the FBI or using it to convict Lincoln for conspiring with Pugh. That wasn’t the reason she’d had the photograph made.
They needed someone to run the sting against Pugh, and the ideal person was some government employee who had decided to go over to the Dark Side. They thought originally that maybe DeMarco himself might be the right man for the job but then ruled that out. The problem was that Joe DeMarco was related to Danny DeMarco, and since Danny had been the one who had set Pugh up, Pugh would be suspicious of anything anyone named DeMarco might propose.
They considered using DeMarco’s friend Barry King at the DEA, but the truth was, even though DeMarco liked King, he just wasn’t sure that his softball-playing pal had the ability to do what they wanted done. The other problem was that Barry would be a new face to Pugh, and Pugh might be leery once again of being set up by someone he didn’t know.
No, they needed someone whom Pugh knew and someone who would have a legitimate reason for deciding to switch sides. They finally decided that the perfect person was Patsy Hall.
Patsy Hall had never been summoned up to the Hill before. People of her rank rarely were unless they’d turned whistleblower and had been asked to testify at some congressional hearing. The last time she’d been to the Capitol she’d come uninvited, to tell that bastard DeMarco what she thought of him for what he’d done. But now here she was again, and it wasn’t to testify. It was to meet with the speaker of the House. Why the hell the speaker would want to talk to her, she couldn’t imagine.
She walked into Mahoney’s suite in the Capitol and was immediately taken to his office, no waiting at all. She’d seen pictures of Mahoney, of course, but the man in the flesh was more impressive than the photos. The photos captured his big white-haired head, the stubborn thrust of his chin, the powerful body. What they didn’t convey was the twinkle in his eye or the way he blatantly checked out her figure when she entered the room. Nor did the photos capture the smell of bourbon on his breath when he grasped her small hand in his two big ones and said he was delighted to meet her.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘that you’re not too happy that this meth dealer, Pugh, ain’t sittin’ in a jail cell.’
Hall wanted to say no shit, but of course she didn’t. All she said was, ‘No, sir, I’m not.’
‘And the fact is, we’re not going to be able to put him in jail unless he commits some other crime. But what we can do, with your help, is get the man who hired Pugh, this Lincoln guy.’
‘With my help?’ Hall said.
‘Yeah,’ Mahoney said.
‘What do I have to do?’ Hall said, but she was thinking that if the Speaker of the House had wanted her to run around the National Mall dressed in a chicken suit, all he had to do was call the director of the DEA, that ass-kissing bastard Garner, and Garner would make her do it.
In answer to her question, though, the speaker surprised her by saying, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What?’ Hall said. ‘You want me to do something to help get Lincoln, but you don’t know what it is?’
‘Yep,’ Mahoney said. ‘You see, I can’t know, because what my friend has planned isn’t exactly – uh, orthodox.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Hall said.
‘Me either,’ Mahoney said, and he laughed, and because she couldn’t stop herself, she laughed with him. He was a lecherous old bastard, but he was charming.
‘But what I do know,’ Mahoney said, ‘is that right now you’re a GS-Thirteen and I know you’re damn good at your job. And I know you’ve still got two girls at home, in high school if I remember right, and that you’re on the road about half the time with this job you currently have. Whether you help me out or not, I’ve already told that brown-nosing boss of yours … what the hell’s his name?’
‘You mean Garner?’ Hall said.
‘Yeah, that’s the guy. Anyway, I’ve already told him that because of your role in nailing Pugh’s people, I’m disappointed that you’re not a GS-Fourteen, maybe a Fifteen, and acting as the DEA’s liaison with Congress. I got a feelin’,’ Mahoney said with a wink, ‘that Mr Garner is very concerned that I’m disappointed.’
‘Jesus,’ Hall said. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘All you have to do is talk to a guy named DeMarco. I think you’ve met him.’
Hall’s face must have conveyed her opinion of DeMarco because the speaker said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, he wasn’t exactly up front with you last time, but this time I promise he will be.’
‘You don’t have to bribe me with a promotion to get me to talk to him, Mr Speaker.’
‘I know that,’ Mahoney said, ‘and it’s not a bribe. I’m givin’ your career a boost because I like you and because I’m impressed with all the knuckleheads you’ve put in jail during your career.’
Before Hall could say anything else, Mahoney said, ‘You wanna drink? How ’bout a little Wild Turkey on the rocks?’
‘Oh – uh, no, sir. But thank you for offering,’ Hall said.
‘Come on, Patsy, it’s damn near quittin’ time. The sun’s practically over the yardarm.’
It was three-thirty.
‘Well – uh, sure, Mr Speaker. Maybe just a small one.’
Mahoney rose from his chair and walked over to a cabinet, dropped two ice cubes into two glasses, and poured them both three fingers of bourbon.
‘Let’s sit over here,’ Mahoney said, pointing to a couch. Then he winked at her and said, ‘I can’t see your legs sittin’ over there behind my desk.’ And again he laughed, and again Hall laughed with him.
She bet that when he was younger he was just hell on wheels, and it didn’t appear that he’d slowed down all that much as he’d aged.
‘Now, what are your daughters’ names?’ Mahoney said. ‘I have three girls myself, you know. Man, were they a pain when they were in their teens, particularly my oldest one.’
Hall was just a little drunk when she met with DeMarco, but not so drunk that she was happy to see him. They met at Sam and Harry’s on 19th Street.
‘Would you like a drink?’ DeMarco asked, as soon as she sat down.
‘No. Mahoney already forced two drinks into me. I think he was trying to get into my pants.’
She wished immediately that she hadn’t said that, even though she suspected it was the truth.
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ DeMarco said. ‘But I’m not trying to get into your pants. I was just being polite.’
‘So stop being polite and tell me what you want.’
DeMarco did.
‘Jesus,’ Hall said, ‘are you nuts?’
‘Probably,’ DeMarco said.
‘I could lose my job if I did this,’ Hall said.
‘You won’t lose your job. Right now you’re bulletproof. And unless something goes wrong, there’s no reason for anyone to even know you were involved.’
‘Something always goes wrong,’ Hall said.
66
Patsy Hall had never been to Montana before, and the beauty of the place just overwhelmed her: the mountains, a cloudless sky like an inverted blue bowl over her head, the wide rivers cutting through the landscape. When she saw the rivers, she was immediately reminded of that Re
dford movie A River Runs Through It, and just like in the movie, there were men fly-fishing on the rivers. She didn’t know if these guys ever caught any fish but they created the prettiest picture – the fishing line looping out behind them, then snapping forward, the fly landing on the water as light as a butterfly’s kiss. And she loved the names: Bitterroot River, Sapphire Mountains, Anaconda Range. Maybe next summer she’d come out here with her husband and her girls, do a little fly-fishin’ herself or take a rafting trip down one of those gorgeous rivers.
But that was next year. Right now her job was to con Jubal Pugh.
Pugh lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of Victor. His trailer was white with green trim and only a month old, yet it was already showing signs of neglect. Weeds were growing up around the blocks the trailer sat on, and a piece of sheet metal near one window was hanging loose. Hall knocked on the trailer door. She could hear a television playing inside, and when no one came to the door, she took out her gun, the big.40 caliber that was always digging into her ribs, and hit the door with the butt, hard enough to leave a dent in the metal.
The trailer door flew open. Jubal Pugh was barefoot, dressed in baggy grease-stained jeans and a white sleeveless T-shirt. Broad suspenders held up the jeans. In his hand was a Coors. He hadn’t shaved in days and, judging by his eyes, the Coors in his hand wasn’t his first.
Patsy knew Jubal liked his beer, but it looked to her like he’d gone considerably downhill since he’d left Virginia. She supposed that losing everything you owned and working in a scrap yard might have that effect.
‘Why in the hell are you bangin’ on—’ Then Jubal recognized Hall. ‘You bitch! What are you—’
‘Let me in, Jubal.’
‘Don’t call me that. My name’s Steve now.’
‘I don’t give a shit what your name is. Let me in.’
Pugh hesitated, but he finally stepped back so Hall could enter the trailer. It was worse than she’d expected, clothes lying on the floor and over the backs of chairs, beer cans and take-out food cartons scattered all over the place, unwashed dishes in the tiny sink. The man had definitely gone downhill.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re doin’ here, you bitch, but the DEA—’
Hall executed the move so fast that Pugh was taken completely by surprise. She whipped a leather-covered sap out of the back pocket of her jeans and cracked it right across the bridge of Pugh’s long nose. She didn’t hit him all that hard, barely hard enough to break the skin, but Jubal’s legs turned to jelly and he collapsed to the floor, landing hard on his butt.
Hall had wanted to do that for a very long time.
‘Now, Jubal,’ she said, looking down at him, ‘I’m here to make you a proposition, one that’s going to be very profitable for both of us, but you need to learn that I don’t like being called a bitch. So quit being such a lousy host and offer me a beer.’
Pugh got up and walked unsteadily over to the small kitchen in the trailer and tore a sheet off a roll of paper towels. While he was dabbing the paper against his bleeding nose, he opened the refrigerator and got a Coors for Hall and another for himself. The one he’d been drinking had spilled when Hall had hit him. He handed her the beer and then fell into a fake-leather recliner and continued to press the paper towel against his nose as he glared at her.
Hall looked around for someplace to sit. There was a bench seat that wrapped around a small dining table and a built-in couch along one wall of the trailer. The couch appeared to be the cleaner of the two, so she sat there, took a sip of beer, and then leaned back and crossed her legs to give the impression that she was relaxed. ‘Jesus, this place is a dump,’ she said. She was still holding the sap in the hand that wasn’t holding the beer.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ Pugh said. ‘Those marshals said my location was secret.’
‘Yeah, it’s secret, all right,’ Hall said, ‘unless you work for the government and know who to ask.’
‘So what do you want? You already ruined my life. I’m living in this shit hole and making about two hundred bucks a week. And since you can’t put me in jail, there ain’t a fuckin’ thing you can threaten me with that’ll make my life any worse.’
‘You need to develop some listening skills,’ Hall said. ‘I told you I came here to make you a proposition.’
‘What proposition?’
‘You and me, Jubal, we’re gonna blackmail Oliver Lincoln. We’re gonna make him give us four million dollars, two for you and two for me.’
‘What the hell is this?’ Pugh said. ‘You expect me to believe that?’ Pugh pulled the paper towel away and tenderly touched his nose; the bleeding had stopped. He wadded up the paper towel and tossed it on the floor.
‘Jubal, I tried for five years to put you in jail, and I know everything there is to know about you. But you – you don’t know anything about me, so I’m gonna tell you a little about myself. I make about eighty grand a year, which isn’t a bad salary unless you take into account that my dumb shit of a husband took out a mortgage on a house that’s three times what we can afford, and then, after he gets the loan, he loses his job and hasn’t worked since. So about three quarters of my salary goes to pay for a house we never should have bought in the first place, and I’ve got two daughters that are expecting to go to college in a couple of years. And while I’m dressing in clothes from Kmart, there’s guys like you and Oliver Lincoln making money hand over fist. How much did you make last year, Jubal? Two, three million?’
‘I don’t buy that you’re willing to risk jail time because you’re a little short of cash,’ Pugh said.
‘First of all, I’m not a little short, I’m a lot short. But you’re right, this isn’t totally about money. Mostly, but not totally. You know what happened after I nabbed your ass? After the goddamn FBI made you that deal?’
‘No.’
‘Well, other than the fact that you didn’t go to jail, my boss, this D.C. asshole, blamed me for you getting off. He blamed me! I didn’t have a damn thing to do with the deal the Bureau cut you, but my boss was pissed because the FBI got all the glory, so he decided I was the one who’d screwed up. So even though I finally got the evidence to put you away, I’m no longer a supervisor and I’m working for some jackass who doesn’t have half my brains. I might even get demoted. So I’m not a happy girl, Jubal. But I think two million dollars will make me happy, particularly if it comes from Oliver Lincoln.
‘But enough talk about me. Let’s consider your situation. You’re livin’ here in your double-wide—’
‘It’s not even a double-wide,’ Jubal said.
‘Whatever,’ Hall said. ‘It’s like living in a coffee can. And this job you’ve got. A junkyard, for Christ’s sake! But if you had two million bucks, you could get yourself a new identity, go live someplace nice, maybe even start making meth again.’
Jubal nodded his head unconsciously.
‘How would we get the money out of Lincoln?’ he said.
‘All the FBI needs to put Lincoln in jail is proof that you actually met with him,’ Hall said. ‘If they had anything tangible, a good-citizen witness, a decent photograph of the two of you together, then they could use your testimony to nail him. Unfortunately all they have is that one crummy picture Randy took and your word that you met with him, and we both know what your word is worth. But what do you think the FBI would do if they had something like this?’ Hall reached into her purse and handed Pugh an envelope.
Pugh opened the envelope and looked at the photograph that Emma had made.
‘Where the hell did you get this?’ he said.
‘I made it,’ Hall said. ‘Actually, I got a computer geek that works at the NSA to make it for me.’
‘What’s the NSA?’ Jubal said.
‘A government agency that spies on Americans,’ Hall said.
‘But won’t some expert be able to tell that this picture isn’t real?’
‘Probably not,’ Hall said. ‘The guy who made it doesn�
��t run the one-hour photo place at the drugstore. But it doesn’t matter. We’re not planning to show that picture to some expert at a trial. We’re just gonna show it to Lincoln.’
Pugh looked at the photo again. ‘He doesn’t have his sunglasses on in this picture.’
‘Right,’ Hall said, ‘which makes it easy to identify him even with the fake beard.’
‘But he never took off the glasses when we met,’ Pugh said.
‘Sure he did. You just don’t remember – and Lincoln won’t remember if he did either, when you met seven–eight months ago.’
‘But Lincoln’ll know this is a fake,’ Pugh said. ‘If I’d had this kinda picture, I would have given it to the FBI when they arrested me.’
Hall shook her head sadly, the gesture conveying her disappointment in Pugh’s ability to reason. ‘Just get me another beer, Jubal,’ she said.
Jubal struggled to get out of the recliner; recliners were made for drunks to pass out in, not to get out of once they were drunk. He went to his refrig erator, opened it, and said, ‘There’s only one left.’
‘So? I’m your guest. Act like you have some manners.’
Pugh gave her the beer and collapsed back into the recliner.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said. ‘If I had a picture like this, why wouldn’t I have given it to the Bureau?’
‘Because you’re so sly,’ Hall said. ‘See, you’re going to explain to Lincoln that you gave the Bureau that one bad photograph because you had to give ’em something to get your ass off the hook. But, clever bastard that you are, you kept this photo because you figured, when the heat died down a little, and if Lincoln didn’t go to jail, you could use that photo to blackmail him. Oh, yeah, you’re a very cagey guy, Jubal. And you have something else going for you: you have a witness.’
‘A witness?’
‘Yep. At the waffle house where you met Lincoln is a waitress named Sandy Burnett. Do you know Sandy?’
