J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 02 - No Time to Die

by J. D. Trafford

  Dylan’s face was getting red, and he was getting more jumpy. He had wanted to be sober for his meeting with Maus, but after a few hours of work, he needed a hit. Dylan needed the confidence that only cocaine provided.

  “I’m sure he knows who we are.” Brian pulled a chair out from the table and patted the back of the chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I’m not sitting down.” He wasn’t going to be polite and cautious any more. Dylan took a small plastic bag and straw out of his pocket. “Why can’t he come to us?”

  “Because that’s not how it works, and I don’t want to pay a lawyer $600 an hour to drive to our office.”

  “Who cares? We got money.” Dylan poured a little bit of his cocaine out on the conference table and cut a few lines. He needed the hit, but he also did it to piss off his brother.

  Brian looked around; making sure the door was closed.

  “You think you could do that in the bathroom?”

  “This is as good a place as any.” Dylan stuck the straw in his nose and drew in the white powder. He put the straw back in his pocket, and then Dylan let the drugs work him over. He loved cocaine. He had always loved cocaine.

  Brian tried to stay calm. His brother made him nervous. One trip to Hazelden and two trips to Betty Ford hadn’t made one bit of difference, mainly because Dylan didn’t care. The only reason Dylan went was because Brian had threatened to cut him off and lock all of his money away in a trust fund.

  “I know we have healthy bank accounts,” Brian said, “but I want to keep it. You don’t accumulate wealth by paying for things you don’t have to.” Brian talked slow, like he was explaining something to a child. “And I figured you’d have other ways to spend $600.”

  Dylan looked at his brother. His eyes were bugged, and he sneered at Brian while he thought it over. $600 would buy a nice bit of coke, he thought, that was a pretty good point.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I called in a favor to get this meeting,” Jane said. “So let me do the talking.”

  “What do you mean?” Michael found a meter on Fourth Street in downtown Miami and parked under a palm tree. “You’re making me nervous.”

  That was true. Sweat rolled down Michael’s neck, and then down his back. His stomach turned somersaults.

  He had been in Florida for less than three days, and Michael knew the feds were already tracking him. He wanted to help Pace and his family. He also liked and wanted to help Jane, but now she’d asked him to do something crazy.

  Michael didn’t think that Jane knew what she was doing to him. He didn’t think there was any way that she could know. But Jane had purportedly scheduled a meeting with somebody at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Florida. Michael was about to walk into the offices of an organization that had been investigating him for years.

  “Besides meeting with the feds – who are constantly trying to deport your clients, by the way – how exactly does an Assistant United States Attorney owe you favor?”

  Ignoring Michael’s question, Jane grabbed her notebook and large purse off the floor of the SUV. Then she unlocked her door.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Michael repeated the question, before Jane got out.

  “Maybe. … It’s a long story.”

  “I think I should know before we go in there.” Michael looked up at the tall building, while Jane sighed.

  “Well, if you have to know.” Jane stopped fiddling with her purse. She turned to face Michael. “We were sort of engaged to be married.”

  “So you’re not exactly calling in a favor,” Michael said. “More like exploiting a personal relationship.”

  Jane opened the door.

  “That’s a more cynical way of looking at it.”

  ###

  The United States Attorney’s Office in Miami was in the James Lawrence King Federal Court Building. It was a modern building built in the 1980s with lots of white stone, and then after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, accented with the hasty addition of concrete barricades.

  Jane and Michael made it through the metal detectors and past a probing wand.

  Michael thought that the guard was particularly thorough in patting down Jane. He expected a remark, but Jane didn’t say anything. He realized that she was nervous, too.

  They got into the elevator. The doors slid shut, and they were alone.

  “When was the last time you talked with this guy?” Michael asked.

  Jane paused, thinking. A bell rang. The doors slid open, and they stepped out into the hallway.

  “It was the night I called off the engagement.”

  “You called off the engagement?”

  Jane pursed her lips, thinking.

  “Well, that may not be entirely accurate. There was a lot of yelling. I think he may believe that he called off the engagement. It was sort of mutual.”

  “Does he even know we’re coming?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “No.”

  “But you said that you made an appointment.”

  “I lied.”

  ###

  They waited in a plain government conference room for 20 minutes. The walls were barren except for two large poster-sized photographs hung side-by-side. One picture was a portrait of the Attorney General in front of a flag. The other one was a nearly identical photograph of the President of the United States. The two giant heads with their four gigantic eyes peered down on them while they sat.

  Eventually their unsuspecting host arrived.

  Both Jane and Michael stood up.

  On another day, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who entered the room would have been an attractive guy. At the moment, however, he looked like death. He was too thin. His hair was disheveled, and he had large, dark circles under his eyes.

  His whole body tensed when Jane gave him a stiff and awkward hug. Then he noticed Michael and Michael caught the look. His eyes looked at Michael’s wrinkled khaki pants, short-sleeve shirt, and sandals. His expression was: Who the hell are you?

  “I’m Michael.” Michael extended his hand, trying to be warm and friendly.

  “Michael?” He hung on the last syllables of Michael’s first name. He wanted a last name and Michael didn’t want to give it to him. But there really wasn’t a choice.

  “Michael Collins.” They shook hands in the way that men do; two dogs sniffing one another.

  “I’m Justin Kent.” He gestured to the chairs. “Please sit.” And they all sat down.

  Kent looked at Michael.

  “So are you volunteering or working for Jane?”

  “Volunteering,” Michael said, thinking that was the least complicated explanation for his presence.

  “That’s great.” It was obviously meant to be a compliment, but the tone was flat. Kent turned to Jane.

  “Jane does …” his voice cracked. Kent looked her over before finishing. “Jane does good work.”

  There was another lull in the conversation. Everyone wanted to be polite, but the silence lasted a little too long. There was frost in the air.

  “So the receptionist said that you’re working on a case,” Kent said. “What do you need me for?”

  Michael was thinking the same thing.

  “It’s Tommy,” Jane said. “He’s been missing for a few weeks. He’s sick, and I wanted to know if you could find out whether immigration has him in custody.”

  “I shouldn’t do that.”

  “Come on,” Jane said. “Tommy was a good source for you. He trusted you and you trusted him.”

  “Why don’t you call ICE? You don’t need me for that.” Kent checked his watch.

  “Justin, you know how they are.” Jane started to continue, but stopped short. Jane took another tack. “Maybe you should explain to Michael what you do.”

  Kent shifted in his seat. It was clear that he was trying to figure out how to act. Should he be mad, friendly, or business-like? It appeared as though he had settled on mildly irritated.

  “I’m pretty busy, Jane,�
� he said. “I don’t have time for this anymore.” Kent shook his head. “I don’t even know why I agreed to this. I’m not going to get sucked into your schemes again. The last one almost cost me my job.”

  “I thought the information was good.”

  “But it wasn’t good,” Kent said. “We came up with nothing.” Kent started to continue, raising his voice, but then stopped himself.

  It was then that Michael realized why he was there. It was going to be harder for Kent to say no when there’s a witness, an outsider. Michael was being used as a shield.

  Jane tried to keep the meeting going, ignoring the digression.

  “Michael,” she turned to him, “Justin Kent is one of the nation’s experts on modern-day slavery. That’s what he prosecutes here. He investigates human trafficking, everything from sex rings to maids to farm laborers. Immigrants who are brought here illegally to work for little or no pay. That’s how we met. We were on a panel together at a conference.”

  “Two attorneys tilting at windmills,” Kent said, “but I’m not doing it any more. Politically nobody wanted me to do it from the beginning. Now it’s time. Time for a transfer.” Kent looked at Jane. His voice softened. “I’m thinking about going to Washington D.C.”

  “We just need a phone call,” Jane said. “Just a quick look at whether anything new has come in.”

  Kent looked back at her, thinking.

  “We’ve got nothing, Justin.” Jane pleaded. “Not just with Tommy. I got another call from Jolly Boy’s attorney. The negotiations are cancelled. We’ve got no funding. We’re about to be evicted from our office. The board meets tomorrow. If I can’t show them something, the board is going to vote to shut us down.” Jane reached out and took hold of Justin Kent’s hand.

  “Please. I’m begging you.”

  ###

  Michael and Jane sat alone for another hour.

  “How long do you think it’s going to take?” Michael leaned back in his chair.

  Jane didn’t respond. She stared out the window, instead. It wasn’t much of a view, only the side of another office building across the street, more glass and stone.“You told me things were bad, but I didn’t know about the board meeting.”

  He waited, but only got more silence. Jane sat with her arms crossed, staring off at the distance, tapping her foot.

  “It doesn’t make sense. They should be lining up to give you a grant. Justin was right about that … you do great work.”

  Jane turned to him.

  “Thanks.” She had tears in her eyes. “I shouldn’t cry. Lawyers don’t cry. Lawyers are supposed to be tough, right? You’ve seen me beg and plead more in the past three days than …” Her voice trailed off.

  Michael countered her pity.

  “I think you’re pretty tough.”

  Jane wiped a tear away from her cheek.

  “Lawyers are cheap bastards.”

  “Yes they are.”

  “But weird too,” Jane said. “They drop $100 on lunch. They spend all this money for the top floors of whatever building seems the most prestigious. They buy oak desks, fancy suits, and expensive cars. But then when it comes to donating to legal aid …” Jane shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Michael nodded, remembering his own time at the firm.

  “At Wabash, I wasted so much money, pissed it away. I was stupid.”

  “Our board wants us to have an annual fundraising dinner at this hotel in downtown Miami. They want to have all the firms sponsor the tables, bring in a famous speaker, and then have the speaker praise them all for their commitment to legal services for the poor.”

  “I’ve been to those.” Michael thought back to the various functions he had attended as an associate, excuses to drink at an open bar and be seen.

  “The firm buys the table. I get to drink heavily and I don’t give the organization a dime. The firm pays for everything.”

  “And when you subtract the costs, the organization barely raises a thing.” Jane’s voice hardened.

  “You know I sent a letter to every lawyer in Miami, Naples and Fort Myers last year. I personally bought the list from the bar association, put it on my credit card. All I was asking for was $25 – they probably had three times that much in their wallet – and we sent out the letter and waited, and waited, and waited, and then three weeks later I get one response. It was a donation for $50 from a law school classmate of mine who works at Florida Legal Aid. She probably makes less than me, which is about one-fourth the salary of a first-year associate at any of those firms.”

  “Lawyers.” Michael shook his head.

  “Cheap bastards.”

  ###

  Michael eventually found a water pitcher and Styrofoam cups in a government-issued credenza. He filled up the pitcher from the hallway drinking fountain, and then returned to the conference room.

  “Water?” Michael began pouring himself a glass.

  Jane nodded, and so Michael poured another and handed it to her.

  “So when did you break off the engagement?”

  Jane took the glass of water. Michael could see that she didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Come on,” Michael said. “I’ll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow.

  “You were engaged?”

  Michael nodded. “It was the happiest six hours of my life.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” Michael took a sip of water. “But I made the mistake of being honest.”

  “You’re saying honesty isn’t the best policy?”

  “Perhaps honesty isn’t the best policy … all at once.” Michael smiled, finishing his water. He poured himself another. “Once upon a time, I was a pretty good lawyer. I dropped out, and I thought she deserved to know the reasons why.”

  Michael was surprised at how good it felt to talk to her. Jane was somebody who might understand.

  “I knew she’d be upset, but I thought it’d be fair to let her know upfront. Full disclosure.”

  “Sorry.” Jane didn’t ask for more details, and Michael wasn’t ready to tell her more. Not yet.

  “So how about you?”

  “I love my job,” Jane said. “It drives me crazy, but I love my job and what I do. I got out of law school and decided to blaze my own path. I harassed all of these foundations to give me money to start, but after a few years they lost interest. Immigration was a big deal in the mid-1990s, then things shifted to charter schools and wrap-around services for inner-city kids, then it was about giving everybody who’s poor a laptop computer, and now it’s all about childhood obesity. I ask for money and they’re like, ‘haven’t you solved that problem yet?’ and ‘why are you still around?’ or ‘what are your benchmarks for effectiveness?’”

  Jane looked up at the ceiling, brought her focus back down, and then continued.

  “We went from a staff of 10 to five and now it’s just me. It’s a slow death.”

  “Justin mentioned a raid?”

  Jane nodded.

  “So I get a tip that New Harvest foods is housing about 20 illegal immigrants in a pole barn on one of their big farms a little south of here. I convince Justin to get a search warrant and raid the place at the same time as their corporate human resources department, but when the raid happened there was nothing in the barn, only equipment.”

  “That happens.” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “Why would it almost cost Justin his job?”

  “Well,” Jane scrunched up her face, embarrassed, “I kind of told some local television reporters.”

  “You think they tipped off New Harvest?”

  “Probably, inadvertently,” Jane said. “I had a big grant application in at the Miami Foundation. I thought the publicity would help. It didn’t.”

  “And the feds thought Justin tipped off the media?”

  “Exactly,” Jane said. “They thought he was an ambitious young politician trying to make a name for himself. I mean, why else would an
ybody care about immigrants? Must be somebody running for office, courting the Latino vote.”

  “There’s never any shortage of politically ambitious assistant U.S. Attorneys.”

  Jane shook her head.

  “Justin isn’t like that. He’s a true believer,” she paused, “or was a true believer. … Anyway, I begged him to rat me out, but he didn’t. We just got into a huge argument and the engagement was called off.”

  ###

  Justin Kent finally returned after another hour. Michael and Jane had thought about leaving, questioning whether Justin was really going to come back and wondering if it would be best just to move on. But the truth was, they had no other leads. They didn’t have any place else to go.

  Kermit was off on his own. He was busy talking with people in Jesser, likely scaring them more than obtaining useful information. They were prohibited from going to Tommy’s trailer, and going to the other trailers hadn’t prompted anybody to come forward.

  “Did you find anything out from immigration?” Jane asked as Justin sat down.

  “I talked to three people over there, and they hadn’t picked him up. He’s not in detention and hasn’t been deported.”

  Justin set a folder onto the table. He opened it, and then removed a few pieces of paper. They looked like color printouts, photographs.

  “What’s that?” Jane asked.

  Justin slid the photographs over to her.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But the timing worries me.”

  Michael rolled his chair closer to Jane. He looked over her shoulder as she stared down at the photographs.

  “What are we looking at?” Michael looked and it appeared to be a pale object in the dirt. “Is that a bone?”

  “An arm,” Justin said. “It was badly decomposed, but what makes it more difficult is that some sort of animal got at it.”

  Jane placed first picture underneath the second.

  The second photograph was of another object. This object was darker and thicker than the first.

  Justin walked over to Jane, joining her and Michael. Justin pointed at the middle of the photograph with the tip of his pen.

  “That’s the torso and leg.”