JD04 - Reasonable Fear

by Scott Pratt

  When the cash started to pour in, the two of them traveled to Boston at the suggestion of Uncle Eduardo and consulted with a lawyer. They presented themselves to the lawyer as two business students who wanted to start their own investment firm. The lawyer was dubious about their prospects for success, but he agreed, for a fee of seven hundred dollars, to assist them in setting up a corporation. As soon as the paperwork was approved by the state of Massachusetts, they set up corporate accounts at five different banks in Boston and began making large cash deposits. By the time the summer was over, Equicorp had over a million-and-a-half dollars in cash.

  There were a couple of things that impressed me as I learned of Lipscomb and Pinzon’s early ventures. They showed remarkable maturity, discipline and ingenuity for nineteen-year-old boys. They didn’t run out and buy fancy cars. They didn’t hang out in bars. They didn’t host big parties and chase women. Pinzon didn’t use cocaine at all and Lipscomb used it only occasionally, at least early in the venture. They kept to themselves and they kept their mouths shut.

  The only money they spent was for business purposes. They rented stash houses in quiet neighborhoods where they stored, separated, and packaged their product, and they never used the house more than once. If a banker happened to question where all the cash was coming from, they made it worth his while to keep quiet. Lipscomb used pay phones near the apartment to conduct all of their business. But probably the most impressive thing they did was resist the urge and the pressure to expand their operation. They kept it small and manageable, and it paid off in spades.

  Lipscomb and Pinzon made another run to Colombia during the Thanksgiving break that first year. By then, their customers were literally begging them for more product, so they bought fifteen kilos. All of it was gone in less than two weeks. They went back the week before Christmas and picked up fifteen more. On January fifth, John Lipscomb deposited the cash that made each of the unlikely pair of nineteen-year-olds from Tennessee millionaires. He arrived back at their apartment with two bottles of Dom Perignon and three-and-a-half grams of pure Colombian cocaine that he’d been saving for the occasion.

  “Let’s party,” Lipscomb said to Pinzon when he walked through the door, holding up the bottles in one hand and dangling the baggie of coke in the other.

  “You know I don’t use that stuff,” Pinzon said, “and I thought we agreed that you’d stay out of it, too.”

  “Ah, c’mon, amigo. We deserve this. We’ve been busting our butts. We’ve made over two million bucks. It’s all good. Why don’t you loosen up a little?”

  “Because loosening up could get us caught.”

  “Look. I know this girl named Mallory. She’s cool. She loves to party, and she won’t say a word. I’ll call her up, ask her over, and we’ll take turns getting laid. How ‘bout it, buddy?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Okay, suit yourself,” Lipscomb said. He put the bottles on the counter and picked up the phone. “But you seriously need to get laid, dude. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re going gay on me.”

  Mallory arrived an hour later. Lipscomb introduced her as Mallory Vines. She was pretty, blonde-haired with a creamy complexion and huge breasts, just the kind of girl that attracted Lipscomb. Pinzon said hello and then disappeared into his bedroom, where he spent the remainder of the evening listening to music and reading Pablo Coelho’s “The Alchemist.” He turned off the music and light at eleven and heard the sound of Lipscomb’s headboard banging against the other side of the wall.

  At two-thirty, Pinzon was awakened by a frantic Lipscomb.

  “Get up,” Lipscomb said. “I need your help.”

  Pinzon could tell by looking at Lipscomb that he’d been using. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, and beads of sweat had formed across his flushed forehead.

  “I told you I’m not interested,” Pinzon snapped.

  Lipscomb grabbed him by the arm.

  “Get up, man! I think she’s dead.”

  “Dead? You’re joking, right?”

  “C’mon!”

  Lipscomb walked out, and Pinzon got up and followed. Mallory was lying naked on her back on Lipscomb’s bed, her blue eyes staring at the ceiling. Pinzon felt her wrist for a pulse, then her neck. He put the back of his hand near her lips to see if he could feel any sign of breathing. There was nothing.

  “What did you do to her?”

  “She did a lot of coke, man. She started talking crazy. Then she started jerking and spazzing and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she just went quiet. I tried mouth to mouth and CPR, but it didn’t do any good.”

  “Did you call 9-1-1?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “We can’t just leave her here like this, John. We have to call someone.”

  Lipscomb approached to within a few inches of Pinzon’s face. There was anger and desperation in his eyes. His upper lip was drawn back tightly like a snarling dog. He poked Pinzon in the chest with his finger.

  “We’re not calling anybody,” he said. “If we call an ambulance, they’ll bring the police with them. Even if I flush the coke down the toilet, they’ll do tests on her and they’ll find out what killed her. Then they’ll start nosing around in our lives. Do you want that, huh? Do you want them nosing around in our lives?”

  Pinzon’s eyes dropped to the floor.

  “What are we going to do with her?”

  “Get dressed,” Lipscomb said. “I know what to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The following Monday, a little after eleven, I was looking over the subpoenas for the grand jury witnesses when I sensed someone walking though the door. I looked up, and my heart lightened. It was my daughter, Lilly, auburn-haired like her mother, green-eyed like Sarah and me. She was wearing an orange University of Tennessee T-shirt covered by an open, black jacket and a pair of jeans. She was trim, athletic, ridiculously young and vibrant, and smiling the radiant smile that always turned me into a ball of pliable putty.

  “Hi daddy,” she said brightly.

  “Lilly! What are you doing here?” I stood and bashed my thigh against the corner of the desk as I hurried around to embrace her. Pain shot through my leg, but I ignored it and limped the last couple of steps.

  “I came to take you to lunch,” she said.

  “Why aren’t you in school? Have I missed something?”

  She hugged me tightly around the neck and kissed me on the cheek. She’d done it thousands of times, but the touch of her lips against my skin and the warmth of the embrace always warmed me.

  I cupped her face in my hands. “Has anyone told you lately what a drop-dead gorgeous young lady you are?”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard ‘drop-dead gorgeous’ lately.”

  “That’s a crime. Give me the name of every boy you’ve seen in the past month, and I’ll put them all in jail. So what are you doing here? This is your third year in college and it’s the first time you’ve ever showed up unannounced.”

  “I’ve been missing you. And there’s something I need to talk to you about. Can you get away for an hour or so?”

  “Absolutely. Where do you want to go?”

  “Someplace private.”

  I ordered take-out from The Firehouse in Johnson City and we drove to Rotary Park off Oakland Avenue. Something was bothering her, because she was quiet and seemed distracted in the car. Lilly was rarely distracted, and she was never quiet. I’d been on hour-long walks with her in the past during which the only syllables I uttered were, “uh-huh.” When we got to the park, we walked through the woods to one of the small pavilions and sat down at a picnic table. The day was overcast and a bit chilly, and the canopy of oak leaves rustled in the breeze above our heads.

  “Is this private enough?” I asked, opening a Styrofoam container of salad and sliding it across to her. She smiled half-heartedly and started picking at the salad with a plastic fork.

  “So what’s on your mind, Lil? Is everything okay?”

  “I gues
s it depends on your definition of okay.”

  “Spit it out. You know you can talk to me about anything.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve let you down.”

  Her bottom lip began to quiver slightly and her eyes became translucent with tears. I couldn’t imagine what she’d done, or what she thought she’d done, that would upset her so. Lilly had been entirely too easy to raise, a child that was as close to perfect as I could have hoped for. She was a tremendous student, she worked hard at dance and theater, and she loved to read. She’d never been moody or rebellious, she didn’t drink, smoke or use drugs, and she’d managed to stay away from boys until after her senior year in high school. She’d started dating a young man named Randy Lowe just before she went off to the University of Tennessee, and they were still together. She was almost a prude in some respects, so much so that one evening when she was fifteen years old, I offered her twenty dollars just to say “shit.” She blurted out the syllable and stuck out her hand. The word sounded so strange, so out-of-character, coming from her lips that it was hilarious, and I laughed so hard that my stomach cramped. I paid up, though, and it was the only time I’d ever heard her curse.

  I reached across the table for her hand as tears began to run down both of her cheeks.

  “What is it, Lil? Tell me.”

  She looked down at the salad, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her eyes rose up to meet mine.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said softly.

  The words were so unexpected, so utterly shocking, that I stopped breathing for a second. I released her hand and straightened up, momentarily unable to think, to feel, or to understand. The phrase echoed in my sub-consciousness like I was standing at the precipice of a deep canyon listening to an echo, but instead of fading, it grew louder.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and I stood and walked a few steps away from the table, trying to gather my thoughts. Pregnant? Lilly? Impossible. Caroline and I had had the pregnancy conversation with both Jack and Lilly dozens of times. Don’t get pregnant. Don’t get someone pregnant. If you’re going to have sex, use some kind of contraception. You’re not ready for a child. Get your education, find a career, get married, then have a baby if you want one. Set the parameters for the child’s life, don’t let a child set the parameters for yours. I stopped ten feet from the table, turned, and asked the dumbest question I possibly could have asked.

  “How? How did this happen?”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “A mistake? I don’t think I’d call this a mistake, Lilly. This is more along the lines of monumental blunder. What are you going to do now? What are you going to do with a baby?”

  “I’ll love it, daddy. The same way you love me.”

  I walked back over to the table and stood over her. Part of me wanted to hug her and part of me wanted to smack her.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” I said. “Have you thought this through at all? What about school? What about dance? And theater? What about your career? How are you going to feed this baby and clothe it and shelter it? Dammit, Lilly! How could you be so stupid? What about your future?”

  “Stop yelling at me!”

  “I’m not yelling!”

  “Yes you are!”

  “No I’m not!”

  “I’ll have the baby and raise it. We’ll work it out somehow.”

  “You don’t have the first clue about how to raise a child. It’s not like they come with instructions.”

  “You and mom will help me.”

  “Your mom and I have lives of our own. We have plans of our own, and right now our plans don’t include raising another child.”

  “Fine, then I’ll raise it myself.”

  She got up from the table and started walking down the path toward the parking lot. I stared at her for a minute, still incredulous.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going back to school.”

  “How are you going to get back to your car? Walk?”

  She kept going.

  “Lilly! I’m sorry, alright? Come back here and let’s talk.”

  She stopped and turned.

  “No more yelling,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “If you yell again I’m leaving.”

  “I promise.”

  She trudged back up to the table and sat down heavily. She refused to look at me, and I knew she was angry. I suppose she expected a sympathetic response from me, which is exactly what she should have gotten, but the utter shock of her revelation had rendered me temporarily unable to feel compassion.

  “You have a choice, you know,” I said, and I immediately regretted it.

  “Is that what you want me to do?” Her eyes blazed with fury, and I found myself face to face with no less formidable a force than maternal instinct. “You want me to have an abortion? I should have known. Always the lawyer. Your precious law says I can kill it in the first trimester, so that’s what you want. You’d rather me kill my own child than cause you any inconvenience.”

  She was standing again, glaring at me. My little girl had grown into a woman somewhere along the line, and I’d missed it. She was protecting her unborn child like a mother grizzly, and she regarded me as a threat rather than a father. I backed away a few steps and shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling a chill and a sense of shame.

  “I apologize for even suggesting it,” I said. “I don’t want you to have an abortion. You’d never forgive yourself. I’d never forgive myself. I just don’t understand how you could have done this.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “It was the third anniversary of our first date,” she said. “I cooked dinner at my apartment. Spaghetti. We ate by candlelight. We had a glass of wine with dinner. It was the first time I ever drank alcohol. Then we had another. Before we knew it, the bottle was gone and we were. . . we were. . . I’m sorry. I really am. I know how much this disappoints you, but you have to forgive me. I need you. I need you more than ever.”

  “Have you told your mother?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to tell you first. I figured if you killed me, it would save me the trouble of having to tell mom, too.”

  “Come here.”

  I opened my arms and she walked to me. I wrapped her up and kissed her on top of the head as she began to sob.

  “It’s alright, baby,” I said. “We’ll figure it out. We always have.”

  As Lilly cried, I squeezed her tighter. A vision entered my mind, and a smile gradually spread over my face. I pictured a tree covered in brightly colored lights on Christmas Eve. Beside the tree stood a wide-eyed toddler, eagerly tearing the paper away from a gift-wrapped package.

  “You know something?” I said. “I’m too young to be a grandfather and you’re too young to be a mother. But I suppose there are worse things. Don’t worry, baby. Like your mother says, everything will be alright.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  John Lipscomb graduated from fledgling drug dealer to illegally disposing of a body to murderer in three years. His best friend and co-conspirator, Andres Pinzon, went along for the ride. Pinzon could have walked away early – maybe. But the allure of easy money and a nagging sense of fear kept him in.

  Then, one day when he was twenty-one years old, Pinzon opened the passenger side door and slid into John Lipscomb’s new Mercedes. It was precisely the type of vehicle they’d agreed to stay away from. It was flashy and expensive, the kind of car that attracted attention.

  “I hate this car,” Pinzon said as Lipscomb climbed in behind the steering wheel. “It screams, ‘Look at me! I’m rich!’”

  “You’re probably the most up tight person I’ve ever known,” Lipscomb said. “When are you going to learn to relax a little?”

  “We’ve been under the radar so far. I’d like to stay there.”

  “Your friend is very wise,” a heavily-accented voice said from the back seat. Pinzon spun around, frightened.

  “Who are yo
u?” Pinzon asked.

  “I’m surprised you don’t recognize him,” Lipscomb said. “He’s your second cousin on your father’s side.”

  The man in the back nodded. He was young, only a few years older than Lipscomb and Pinzon. He was wearing a shiny, gray sport coat over a baby-blue button-down with an open collar. His black hair, which was the same color as his lifeless eyes, was combed straight back from his forehead. He looked like a South American wise guy. He had a deep, pink scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his left temple in the shape of a scythe blade.

  “What’s he doing here?” Pinzon said.

  “He’s going to take care of something for me.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Some people call him Santiago. Others call him El Maligno. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  El Maligno meant “the evil one.” Pinzon had heard of him. The man in the back seat was a sicario.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the airport.”

  Pinzon looked out the window as Lipscomb drove through the streets of the Back Bay toward Logan International Airport. The Charles River gleamed bright green in the sunlight, but as they passed through the long shadows cast by the buildings on Beacon Hill, Pinzon began to feel a strong sense of uneasiness.

  “Why are we going to the airport?” he asked Lipscomb.

  “To pick up a friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  “A new friend. You’ve never met him.”

  “How can he be a friend if I’ve never met him?”

  “He’s a friend of mine. You can call him a business associate if you want.”