Whistler's Angel (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  They’d accept the loss as a cost of doing business. But some, many hundreds, had no criminal intent. Some were merely on vacation. Some had won the money gambling. Some merely liked to carry a few thousand in cash for any number of reasons. Perhaps they had no credit, or they didn’t trust banks, or perhaps they simply enjoyed flashing rolls. Their money would be seized and they would soon learn that the legal costs of getting it back would be greater than what they had lost in the first place. They would also be reminded that they still could be charged, and would be if they didn’t go away.

  Claudia was listening. “Like those articles Mom faxed us. But this makes it sound even worse.”

  Whistler nodded. “It’s worse than you know. Your mother was not the first person to be framed and it isn’t all just the police. Any vengeful ex-wife or ex-husband can do it. Any business competitor, any rival, and it’s easy.”

  She handed him his coffee. “How easy?”

  Whistler pointed to a house on the shore. A luxury home; it had its own private dock. “See that house. Let’s say that my ex-wife owns it. No, wait, we’ll rule out vengeance. We’ll stick to simple greed. Say I don’t know the owner. Never met him.”

  “Okay.”

  “One way or another, I get into that house. I stash a sellable quantity of cocaine in something that’s likely to have the owner’s prints on it. I tell the cops that I’ve heard he’s been dealing. I say that someone told me where he keeps it, that he sells it from the house. My word is all they need in terms of probable cause to go to some judge for a warrant. Next they’ll call in the DEA to make the actual raid. That’s because when the Feds are involved in a seizure, 80% of the proceeds, by law, revert to the local jurisdiction. If the locality should do it on its own, that amount would usually go to the state. The locality would rather keep the money.”

  “So, they find the drugs you’ve stashed…”

  “The Feds, by the way, will have first asked the owner whether he has any drugs on his property. He’ll say no, and now there’s another charge against him. It’s a felony to lie to any federal official. When the drugs are found, that house is instantly seized. When the house is later sold by the U.S. Marshal’s Service, I get 10% of the take.”

  “That’s unless he’s found innocent. He probably would be.”

  “He might; he might not, but that wouldn’t really matter. Guilt or innocence has very little to do with how the seizure laws work.”

  She said, “Adam, I find that hard to believe.”

  “You do? Why is that? Because this is America?”

  “And because there’s such a thing as constitutional protection.”

  “The constitution means what the courts say it means. It protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure…or at least it protects them in principle. But the courts have said that property isn’t a person and does not rate the same protection.”

  She had closed one eye. “Then who does this man go to?”

  “For what? To get his house back? He can bid on it himself. He might want to because that would be cheaper and quicker than trying to get it back through the courts. Either way, the man’s reputation is ruined. If this happened, he must have been guilty.”

  “That’s outrageous, Adam.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the law. It’s extortion, but it’s legal. And it won’t stop anytime soon. It’s easy money.”

  “Laws can be changed. No one’s trying to change it?”

  “Ragland is, for one. And look what happened to him.”

  “Are you…saying you think that’s why someone wants him dead?”

  Whistler shrugged, then shook his head. “No, not really. I’ve no reason to think so. Actually it’s more that I’m hoping it isn’t. I’m hoping that the motive will be some grudge that has nothing to do with you or me.”

  Whistler supposed that he had drugs on the brain. Oddly, however, if drugs had been the motive…or rather Philip Ragland’s position on drugs…it’s the traffickers who probably would have wanted him silenced as much as the anti-drug side. Traffickers don’t want the drug laws reformed. Take away prohibition and their business dries up. Whistler knew, however, that no trafficker had done this. They would not have been that sloppy or stupid.

  If Ragland won his Pulitzer for a series of reports in favor of the “more enlightened European model,” Whistler knew what Ragland’s position must have been. It must have been much like his father’s. Start by accepting the world as it is, not as you’d like it to be. There has never been a drug-free society. Scrap all the drug laws as they’re now on the books. Adopt the successful Dutch and Swiss systems that emphasize treatment and containment. Let doctors treat addicts under strict controls instead of not letting doctors treat them at all. Recognize that addiction is an illness, not a crime, much the same as alcoholism. Decriminalize, therefore, all private use and put all your effort into choking off the source. Keep coming down hard on the traffickers.

  Whistler reached to switch back to the CNN channel. It was still on Ragland. And a similar topic. This one mentioned that Ragland had personally funded a number of drug treatment centers.

  Claudia asked, “But does drug treatment work?”

  “Sure it does. What there is of it,” he answered.

  “I sure wouldn’t think so from all that I’ve read. Doesn’t only a tiny percentage stay clean?”

  “Yes, but that’s true of diets and of trying to quit smoking. Most people who try are going to fall off the wagon. However, while they’re trying, and even if they fail, their consumption is down and that’s something at least. Most will try again until it finally takes. But the government does not want to pay for treatment centers. They’d rather spend the money, up to ten times the money, to put drug users in jail.”

  An excerpt from one of Ragland’s programs came on. No, it wasn’t a program. It was Ragland at some hearing. He was testifying before congress. His words startled Whistler because it almost seemed as if he’d picked up on Whistler’s train of thought.

  “Above all,” he was saying, “start telling the truth. Admit that the drug war has been a disaster. Admit that most of what you’ve been saying about drug use is at best misleading and at worst an outright lie. Admit that the Dutch and Swiss have been right and that what they are doing is working. Admit that addiction has gone down, not increased, wherever common sense laws have been enacted. Admit what every honest clinician has long known – that cannabis has never been a dangerous drug. If it’s harmful, it’s far less harmful than alcohol and only slightly more toxic than coffee. Admit what’s been known for more than three thousand years. Admit that it’s a medicine that can ease more human suffering than almost any legitimate drug. Chemotherapy patients

  and those suffering from AIDs are able to eat food and keep it down. People wracked by migraines can get instant relief. Give a little cannabis to a patient with Glaucoma and the pressure…that can blind them… is eased in two minutes. Will you give it? No. Will you consider it? No. So you force these sufferers, those who can afford it, to fly off to one of the more civilized countries, one whose leaders have listened to its doctors. One whose leaders, I might add, are not gutless.”

  A gavel came down. “That will do, Mr. Ragland.” The hearing room had erupted into laughter and cheers.

  Claudia asked, “It that all true?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Do those congressmen know that?”

  “Some do. Most don’t want to. That’s why he said, ‘gutless.’ Any congressman rash enough to agree, at least in public, knows he won’t be in office very long.”

  Ragland, once again, was saying much the same thing. “Some of you know what I’m talking about. But admit it? You won’t. You’d be called soft on crime.

  And as most of you know, the stakes are too high to let a little thing like truth get in the way. The war on drugs has become a big business. Twenty billion a year and that’s just law enforcement. Add in all the prisons built to lock up drug offende
rs, most of whom are there for personal use or for selling a miniscule amount. Add in the lost income of lives that have been ruined by mandatory sentencing guidelines. Five years for possessing five grams of crack, an atrocity against urban blacks.”

  Ragland paused to study their faces. He said, “You’re sitting there thinking, ‘What makes that an atrocity? These animals are guilty, are they not?’ The fact is that blacks use far less crack than whites. But they’re there; they’re available, you can pick them off the street and they usually can’t afford a decent lawyer. The result? As we speak, there are more blacks in prison for simple possession of just marijuana than for all crimes of violence put together.”

  He said, “Add in police corruption – cops stealing and dealing. Add in more human cost; the muggings, the burglaries. Add in tens of thousands of women turning tricks in order to finance a need they can’t control and despising themselves for what they’ve become.”

  The camera, tight on Ragland, pulled back a few feet to show some people nodding in agreement. Whistler recognized one of them. It was Ragland’s wife. Same intelligent face. And she was, of course, a good deal more composed than she had been the last time he saw her. Her husband was still speaking. This was more than a film clip. The news show that was running it was letting it go on well beyond the sort of sound bites that were usual. Whistler guessed that this network agreed with Ragland’s views, and was probably the network that carried his show. Ragland seemed to be just warming up.

  He said, “Add in all sick who are in chronic pain, people hurting so badly they wish they could die. Any doctor could ease their pain if you’d let them. But do you? No, you don’t. Any doctor who prescribes enough pain drugs to help them risks having his license to practice suspended. You intimidate the doctor; you intimidate the pharmacist; you let the patient suffer, and for what? Because the DEA zealots say it sends the wrong message. Use drugs to feel better? Oh, we can’t allow that. We can’t let some old lady who’s dying of cancer risk getting addicted to morphine, God forbid. We’ve got to protect that old lady from herself. Can’t any of you grasp how imbecilic that is? Don’t any of you have the guts to stand up and…”

  A gavel came down. “You’ve been warned, Mr. Ragland.”

  “My Black Lab had cancer. I had to put him down. But that dog was kept free of pain all the way and he died a calm and dignified death. My mother had cancer. She died trying to scream. Mr. Chairman, do you see an inequity here? It’s okay to help my dog but not okay to help my mother. I wish to God that I myself had had the guts to go out and buy morphine on the street. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I decided to treat my mother as mercifully as I treated my dog. You hypocrites would have had me locked up. Not one of you would have…”

  A gavel came down hard. “Mr. Ragland, that’s enough.”

  “Very well, I’ll change the subject. Let us talk about our children. We must protect them from drugs, must we not?”

  “I believe that’s what we’re here for, Mr. Ragland.”

  “You’re aware that our children can readily buy drugs. Most don’t, but all of them can. Am I right?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “Ask a child which drug is the hardest to buy. So hard that it’s scarely

  worth the effort. Can you name it?”

  “I dare say that you’re about to tell us, Mr. Ragland.”

  “The answer is booze. I’m talking alcohol, gentlemen. Vastly more common, vastly more harmful, but vastly more difficult to purchase. And why is that?

  “Because its distribution is controlled by the government.”

  Ragland nodded. “Correct. And controlled quite effectively. You used to prohibit it, did you not?”

  “Mr. Ragland…”

  “Distribution of alcohol is controlled by our government. Distribution of drugs is controlled by the mob. There’s a lesson there somewhere if you look hard enough.”

  The gavel rapped again. The committee chairman was angry. He was telling the witness to be careful with his language and to forego any further personal attacks on the honorable members there seated. But the people in the gallery seemed to be with Philip Ragland. A camera panned over them. Most of them were applauding. Several, here and there, had sour looks on their faces. Those several, no doubt, were there to testify as well, probably to rebut Ragland’s arguments.

  Whistler suddenly blinked. He leaned closer to the screen. He said, “Claudia, look. Those two men three rows back.” He reached to point them out with his finger.

  “Uh-huh. Who are they? Do you know them?”

  “Oh, yes.” He tapped the screen. “The bigger one, white-hair, yellow tie, is Stanton Poole. The one who looks like a frog…that’s Felix Aubrey.”

  “They’re the ones who…?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  She squinted, surprised. “But they both look so…harmless.”

  “Well, they don’t have horns and a tail.”

  “Especially Poole. He has a kind face. He looks…I don’t know…so at peace with himself.”

  “That look is standard issue for the morally certain. Never mistake it for kindness.”

  “But even the other one. He doesn’t look evil. He reminds me…I don’t know…of some kids I went to school with.”

  “Kids you thought were dorks?”

  “I have never used that word.”

  “Not you. You wouldn’t. But you’re right about the type. The kind who never had a date or got invited to parties. And who envied, even hated, those who did. Yeah, that would have been Aubrey. And Aubrey, I imagine, dreamed of someday getting even. I think you’d be surprised how many people like Aubrey find their way into government jobs.”

  Claudia leaned closer. “What’s he holding in his lap?”

  “Looks like a crutch. The short kind with a clamp.”

  “Is he crippled?”

  “He wasn’t. Must have been in an accident.”

  Whistler hadn’t told Claudia that Aubrey had been visited. He saw no point in telling her now. In any case, the pan of the camera had ended. A voice-over announcer was wrapping up the segment. He reminded the viewers that Ragland had been shot, but that he was expected to recover.

  “It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it,” said Claudia.

  “You mean seeing Poole and Aubrey in the same room with Ragland? I wouldn’t call that a coincidence.”

  “It doesn’t make you wonder?”

  “Yeah, it does, but it shouldn’t. A hearing like that one would have dozens of witnesses arguing for and against. Stanton Poole is always testifying at these things. Poole and Aubrey wouldn’t care about silencing one critic unless he’s caught on to what they were doing. Even then, they wouldn’t have done it like this. They had nothing to do with last night.”

  “Or you’re hoping they didn’t.”

  “No, I’m sure of it.”

  Claudia turned her head. She was looking toward the shore. A sportfishing boat had left the dock and was motoring in their direction. She reached below for a pair of binoculars. As she focused them on the approaching boat, she saw a young woman in a sweatshirt and shorts stand up and wave both her arms.

  She said, “That’s Leslie who’s waving. From Jump & Phil’s. She’s trying to get our attention. And that’s Phil himself at the wheel. That’s his boat.”

  Whistler stared. “Who’s that with them? Is that Sergeant Moore?”

  “Yes, it is. Why would he be coming out on Phil’s boat?”

  “As opposed to a police boat? I can’t imagine.”

  “Hold on. Leslie’s trying to tell us.”

  Leslie had backed away from the wheel and out of Sergeant Moore’s line of sight. She brought a hand to her ear as if holding a phone, then she spread her hands wide and she shrugged.

  “She’s saying that she tried to call us, I think. Did you shut off our phones?”

  “Yeah, I did. I forgot.”

  “Now she’s mouthing something. She saying…he knows. He knows what?


  That I did throw that knife?”

  “He couldn’t know that because that didn’t happen. He probably knows our real names. That’s okay. She’s just letting us know that she had to tell him, but that doesn’t explain why he’s coming out with them.”

  “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Vernon Lockwood had called Felix Aubrey at his home as Aubrey was

  struggling to get dressed. Aubrey’s dressing routine involved strapping on a brace that supported one atrophied leg. It also involved putting on an undergarment that absorbed a certain leakage that had plagued him. These reminders of his visit by that woman from hell did not start Aubrey’s day on a positive note. Nor did any interruption, especially from Lockwood. He was not pleased to hear Lockwood’s voice.

  “Yeah, well, just listen. You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Then I probably won’t at the office either. See me then, Mr. Lockwood.

  It can wait.”

  “You want to know who cut you? I can make a good guess. I think it

  was that girl who’s with Whistler.”

  “Mr. Lockwood…”

  “Turns out she’s as good as they come with a knife. You’re not going to believe what happened last night. You’re not going to believe why they stopped on that island. You’re not going to believe who they’re tight with.”

  “Mr. Lockwood…reflect. Think back, if you can, to when I was assaulted. Do you recall where Miss Geller was at that moment?”

  “Where? Oh, the hospital? She was still there?”

  “She’d been shot five days earlier. She was not in robust health. So you see, you’re quite right. I’m not going to believe you.”

  “You’re not? Then try this. She did a lobotomy on some guy last night. It was in this bar. My guy, Kaplan? He saw it. And now before you start giving me shit, ask me why her and Whistler were there.”

  “Mr. Lockwood…no more teasers. Blurt it out, if you will.”

  “They’re down there to meet with Philip Ragland.”