by John Grisham
“Let’s say I’m curious. I don’t know all the facts yet. I would like to hear your version of what happened and walk through the drug bust at the scene. My lawyers have filed Freedom of Information applications to get the DEA records and also the court file. We’ll plow through the paperwork, but there’s a good chance the DEA has covered up everything. That’s what they typically do. We will slowly piece things together, and at the same time we’ll see how you and your family look on camera. The camera doesn’t like everyone, Nathan.”
He says, “I doubt if the camera likes my mother.”
“We’ll see.”
“Not so sure about that. She probably won’t do it. You mention anything about Gene’s death and she falls all to pieces.” He licks his fingers and selects another wing.
“Perfect. That’s what I want to capture on film.”
“What’s the time frame here? What are we looking at?”
I take a bite of my sandwich and chew for a while as I ponder. “Maybe a year. I’d like to finish all the filming within the next six months, then have that much time to cut, splice, edit, maybe reshoot some stuff. You can tinker with these things forever and it’s hard to let go. As far as you’re concerned, I would like to shoot some initial footage, maybe three or four hours, and send that to my producers and editors in Miami. Let them see you, hear you, get a feel for the story and your ability to tell it. If we all agree, then we’ll keep shooting.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Nothing, other than the truth and exposing the men who killed your brother. Think about it, Nathan. Wouldn’t you love to see these bastards charged with murder and put on trial?”
“Damned right I would.”
I lean in fiercely, my eyes on fire. “Then do it, Nathan. Tell me his story. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Tell me about the drug trade, how it wrecked your family, how Gene got caught up in it, how it was simply a way of life in these parts, there were no other jobs. You don’t have to name names-I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.” I take a sip and finish off my second beer. “Where was Gene the last time you saw him?”
“Lying on the ground, hands behind his back, getting handcuffed. Not a single shot had been fired by anyone. The deal was gone, the bust was over. I was handcuffed and led away, then I heard gunshots. They said Gene tripped an agent and sprinted into the woods. Bullshit. They killed him in cold blood.”
“You gotta tell me this story, Nathan. You gotta take me back to the scene and reenact it. The world needs to know what the federal government is doing in its war on drugs. It’s taking no prisoners.”
He takes a deep breath to let the moment pass. I’m talking too much, and too fast, so I spend a few minutes with my sandwich. The waitress asks if we want another round. “Yes, please, for me,” I say, and Nathan quickly follows. He finishes off a wing, licks his fingers, and says, “My family is causing problems right now. That’s why I moved away and came to Radford.”
I shrug as if this is his problem, not mine, but I’m not surprised. I ask, “If you cooperate, and the rest of your family does not, will that cause more trouble?”
He laughs and says, “Trouble is the norm with the Cooleys. We are notorious for feuding.”
“Let’s do this. Let’s sign a one-page agreement, already prepared by my lawyers and in English so plain you don’t need to hire your own lawyers unless you enjoy pissing away money, and the agreement will state that you, Nathan Cooley, will cooperate fully in the making of this documentary film. In return, you’ll be paid a fee of $8,000, which is the minimum required of actors in these projects. From time to time, or whenever you want, you can review the film in progress, and-and this is crucial-if you don’t like what you see, you can walk and I cannot use any of your footage. That’s a pretty fair deal, Nathan.”
He nods as he searches for loopholes, but Nathan is not the type to analyze things quickly. Plus, the alcohol is urging him on. I suspect he’s drooling over the word “actor.”
“Eight thousand dollars?” he repeats.
“Yes, as I said, these are low-budget films. Nobody will make a lot of money.”
The interesting point here is that I mentioned money before he did. I sweeten the deal by adding, “Plus, you’ll get a small piece of the back end.”
A piece of the back end. Nathan is probably thinking of something else.
“That means that you’ll get a few bucks if the movie sells some tickets, but don’t expect it,” I say. “You’re not doing this for the money, Nathan. You’re doing it for your brother.”
The plate in front of him is littered with bones. The waitress brings our third round and removes the scraps. It’s important to keep him talking because I don’t want him thinking.
“What kind of guy was Gene?” I ask.
He shakes his head and looks as if he might cry. “My big brother, you know. Our dad disappeared when we were small. Just me and Gene.” He narrates a few stories about their childhood, funny stories about two kids trying to survive. We finish our third beers, order another round, but vow to stop after that.
At ten the following morning, Nathan and I meet at a coffee shop in Radford. He looks over the contract, asks a few questions, and signs it. I sign as the vice president of Skelter Films and hand over a check for $8,000 drawn on a company bank account in Miami.
“When do we start?” he asks.
“Well, Nathan, I’m here and I’m not leaving. The sooner, the better. What about tomorrow morning?”
“Sure. Where?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. We’re in southwest Virginia, where mountains are important. In fact, the land here has a lot to do with the story. The remoteness of the mountains and so on. I think I’d like to be outdoors, at first anyway. We can always move around. Do you live in town or in the country?”
“I’m renting a place just outside town. From the backyard, there’s a nice view of some hills.”
“Let’s take a look. I’ll be there at ten in the morning with a small crew and we’ll check out the lighting.”
“Okay. I talked to my mother and she says no way.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“You can try, but she’s pretty tough. She doesn’t like the idea of you or anybody else making a movie about Gene and our family. She thinks you’ll make us look like a bunch of ignorant mountain folk.”
“Did you explain that you have the right to monitor the film as it progresses?”
“I tried to. She was drinking.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
CHAPTER 30
Nathan is living in a small, redbrick house on a narrow road a few miles west of the Radford city limits. His nearest neighbor lives in a double-wide trailer half a mile closer to the state highway. His front lawn is neatly mowed and there are a few shrubs lining the narrow front porch. He’s outside playing with his yellow Lab as we arrive and park in the drive behind his shiny new truck.
My ace crew consists of my new assistant, Vanessa, who will be called Gwen on this project, and two freelancers from Roanoke-Slade, the videographer, and his assistant, Cody. Slade bills himself as a filmmaker and works out of his garage. He owns the cameras and equipment, and he looks the part-long hair in a ponytail, jeans with holes in the knees, a couple of gold chains around his neck. Cody is younger and sufficiently grungy. Their fee is $1,000 a day plus expenses, and part of the deal is that they do what they’re supposed to do and stay as quiet as possible. I have promised to pay them in cash and I’ve made no reference to Skelter Films or anything else. It might be a documentary film, or it might be something else. Just do as I say and offer no details to Nathan Cooley.
Vanessa arrived in Radford last night, and we bunked together in a nice hotel where we registered in her name and used a prepaid credit card. She told her boss she had the flu and, under doctor’s orders, can’t leave the house for several days. She knows nothing about filmmaking, but then neither
do I.
After a round of awkward introductions in the driveway, we check out the surroundings. Nathan’s backyard is a large open area that slopes up the side of a hill. A herd of whitetail deer scamper over a fence when they see us. I ask Nathan how long it takes to cut his grass, and he says three hours. He points to a tractor shed where a fancy John Deere riding mower is parked. It looks new. He says he’s a country boy who prefers the outdoors, likes to hunt and fish and pee off the back porch. Plus, he still thinks of prison and life there with a thousand men surviving in close quarters. No sir, he loves the open spaces. While we walk and talk, Slade and Cody wander aimlessly about, mumbling to each other as they look at the sun and rub their chins.
“I like it here,” I say, pointing, taking charge. “I want those hills in the frame.”
Slade seems to disagree, but he and Cody nonetheless start hauling gear from their van. The setup takes forever, and to show my artistic temperament, I start barking about the time. Gwen has brought along a small makeup kit, and Nathan reluctantly agrees to a touch-up with powder and a bit of blush. I’m sure it’s his first, but he needs to feel like an actor. Gwen is wearing a short skirt and a blouse that’s hardly buttoned, and part of her act is to see how easily the boy can be teased. I pretend to look over my notes, but I watch Nathan as he watches Gwen. He loves the attention and teasing.
When the camera, lights, monitor, and sound are almost ready, I take Nathan aside, just the two of us, director and star, to contemplate my vision.
“Okay, Nathan, I want you to be very serious. Think about Gene, his murder at the hands of the federal government. I want you to be somber, no smiles, no fun here, okay?”
“Got it.”
“Speak slowly, almost painfully. I’ll ask the questions, you look at the camera and just talk. Act naturally. You’re a nice-looking guy and I think the camera will like you, but it’s important to just be yourself.”
“I’ll try,” he says, and it’s obvious Nathan is really looking forward to this.
“One last thing, and I should have mentioned it yesterday. If this film does what we hope, and blows the cover off the DEA, then there could be some retribution, some payback. I don’t trust the DEA for one second-a bunch of rogue thugs-and they might do anything. That’s why it’s important for you to be, shall we say, out of the business.”
“I’m clean, man,” he says.
“You’re not dealing in any way?”
“Hell no. I’m not going back to prison, Reed. That’s one reason I moved over here, away from my family. They’re still cooking meth and selling it, not me.”
“Okay. Just think of Gene.”
Cody puts the mike on him and we get situated. We’re on a set, in folding chairs with lights and wiring all around us. The camera is over my shoulder, and for a moment I feel like a real kick-ass investigative journalist. I look at Gwen and say, “Did you forget the still shots? Come on, Gwen!”
She jumps as I bark and grabs a camera. I say, “Just a couple of stills, Nathan, so we’ll have a clear record of the lighting.” He frowns at first, then smiles at Gwen as she snaps away. Finally, after we’ve been here for an hour, we start filming. I hold a pen with my left hand and scribble on a legal pad.
Malcolm Bannister was right-handed, just in case Nathan might be suspicious, which he does not seem to be.
To loosen him up, I start with all the basics: name, age, employment, education, prison, criminal record, children, no marriages, and so on. A couple of times I tell him to relax, repeat something, we’re just having a conversation. His childhood-different homes, schools, life with his big brother, Gene, no father, a rocky relationship with his mother. At this point, he says, “Look, Reed, I’m not going to say bad things about my mother, okay?”
“Of course not, Nathan. That’s not at all what I intended.” And I quickly change the subject. We get around to the meth culture of his youth. With some hesitation, he finally opens up and paints a depressing picture of a rough adolescence filled with drugs, booze, sex, and violence. By the time he was fifteen, he knew how to cook meth. Two of his cousins were burned alive when a lab blew up in a mobile home. He was sixteen when he first saw the inside of a jail cell. He dropped out of school and life got crazier. At least four of his cousins have served time for drug distribution; two are still locked away. As bad as prison was, it did get him away from the drugs and alcohol. He was sober for the five years he was incarcerated and is now determined to stay away from the meth. Beer is another matter.
We break at noon. The sun is overhead, and Slade is concerned about the brightness of the conditions. He and Cody stroll around, looking for another spot. “How long can you go today, Nathan?” I ask.
“I’m the boss,” he says smugly. “I can go in whenever I want.”
“Great. So a couple more hours?”
“Why not? How am I doing?”
“Terrific. It took you a few minutes to settle down, but now you’re very smooth, very sincere.”
Gwen adds, “You’re a natural storyteller, Nathan.” He likes this. She’s back with the makeup routine, wiping perspiration from his forehead, brushing, touching, flirting, revealing. He craves the attention.
We brought sandwiches and soft drinks and eat under the shade of an oak tree next to the toolshed. Slade likes this spot and we decide to move the set. Gwen whispers to Nathan about using the restroom. This makes him uncomfortable, but by now he can hardly keep his eyes off her legs. I walk away and pretend to be on the cell phone, talking to important people in Los Angeles.
Gwen disappears into the back door of the house. She will later report that the house has two bedrooms but only one with furniture, nothing in the den but a sofa, a chair, and a huge HD television, one bathroom in need of a good scrubbing, a kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes and a refrigerator filled with beer and cold cuts. There is an attic with a fold-down staircase. The floors are covered with cheap carpeting. There are three doors-front, back, and garage-and all three are secured with thick dead bolts that have obviously been added recently. There appears to be no alarm system-no keypads or sensors over the windows and doors. In his bedroom closet, there are two rifles and two shotguns. In the closet in the spare bedroom, there is nothing but a pair of muddy hunting boots.
While she is inside, I continue my fake phone chat while I watch Nathan from behind large sunglasses. He keeps his eyes on the back of his house, nervous that she is inside, alone. Slade and Cody are getting the set rewired. When she returns, Nathan relaxes and apologizes for his sloppy housekeeping. She coos and works on his hair. When everything is in place, we plunge into the afternoon session.
He mentions a motorcycle accident when he was fourteen, and I dissect this for half an hour. We delve into his sketchy employment history-bosses, co-workers, duties, wages, dismissals. Back to the drug trade with details about how to cook meth, who taught him, key ingredients, and so on. Romances, girlfriends? He claims to have impregnated a young cousin when he was twenty, but has no idea what happened to the mother or child. He had a serious girl before he went to prison, but she forgot about him. Judging by the way he looks at Gwen, it’s obvious this boy is wired.
He’s thirty years old, and other than the death of his brother and a prison sentence his life has been unremarkable. After three hours of prodding and poking, I extract anything and everything of interest. He says he needs to get to work.
“We have to visit the place where Gene was killed,” I say as Slade turns off the camera and everybody relaxes.
“It’s outside of Bluefield, about an hour from here,” he says.
“Bluefield, West Virginia?”
“That’s right.”
“And why were you there?”
“We were making a delivery, but the buyer was an informant.”
“I have to see this, Nathan, to walk through it all, to recapture the scene, the violence, the moment, the place where Gene was shot and killed. It was at night, right?”
“
Yeah, long after midnight.” Gwen is tapping his face with a cloth, removing the makeup. “You’re really good on camera,” she says softly, and he smiles.
“When can we go there?” I ask.
He shrugs and says, “Whenever. Tomorrow if you want.”
Perfect. We agree to meet at his house at 9:00 a.m. and caravan through the mountains into West Virginia, to the remote, abandoned mine site where the Cooley brothers walked into a trap.
We’ve had a good day with Nathan. He and I got on well as filmmaker and actor, and at times he and Gwen seemed ready to strip and have a go. Late in the afternoon, she and I find our way to Bombay’s on Main Street in Radford, next to the college campus, and take a table by the dartboard. It’s far too early for the college crowd, though a few rowdies are at the bar enjoying happy-hour discounts. I ask the waitress to inform Nathan Cooley that we are having a drink, and within seconds he appears with a big smile. We invite him to have a seat, which he does, and we start downing beers. Gwen drinks little and manages to sip on a glass of wine while Nathan and I knock back a few pints. Coeds straggle in and the place gets louder. I ask about specials, and there’s an oyster po’boy on the chalkboard. We order two and Nathan disappears to yell at the cook. We have dinner and stay until after dark. Not only are we the only blacks in the bar, but we are also the only patrons over the age of twenty-two. Nathan stops by occasionally to check on us, but he’s a busy man.
CHAPTER 31
At nine the following morning we return to Nathan’s house, and once again he’s in the front yard playing with his dog, waiting. I am assuming he meets us outside because he doesn’t want us inside. I explain that my little Audi is in bad need of service, and it might be best if we could ride over in his pickup. An hour each way will give us two hours alone with Nathan and no distractions. He shrugs and says okay, whatever, and away we go, with Slade and Cody following in their van. I’m in the front seat; Gwen is folded into the backseat of the club cab. She’s wearing jeans today because Nathan couldn’t keep his eyes off her legs yesterday. She will be a bit more aloof, just to keep him guessing.
As we head west toward the mountains, I admire the interior of the truck and explain that I’ve never spent much time in such vehicles. The seats are leather, there is an advanced GPS system, and so on. Nathan is really proud of the truck and chatters on about it.
To change the subject, I bring up his mother and claim to really want to meet her. Nathan says, “Look, Reed, you’re welcome to try, but she doesn’t like what we’re doing. I talked to her last night again, and I explained the whole project, and how important it is, and how much you need her, but I got nowhere.”
“Can’t we at least talk, say hello, you know?” I almost turn and smile at Gwen now that we know Nathan deems the project “important.”
“I doubt it. She’s a tough woman, Reed. Drinks a lot, nasty temper. We’re not on good terms right now.”
Being the pushy investigative journalist, I decide to plow into sensitive matters. “Is it because you’ve gotten away from the family business, that you’re making money with your bar?”
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?” Gwen scolds from the rear. Nathan takes a deep breath and glances out the side window. He grips the wheel with both hands and says, “It’s a long story, but Mom has always blamed me for Gene’s death, which is crazy. He was the big brother, the leader of the gang, the head chef in the meth lab, plus he was an addict. I was not. I used the stuff occasionally, but I never got hooked. Gene, he was out of control. This place we’re going to was a run Gene made once a week. Occasionally, I tagged along. I shouldn’t have been there the night we got busted. We had a guy, I won’t use any names, but he was running meth for us on the west side of Bluefield. We didn’t know it, but he got busted, flipped, told the DEA when and where. We walked into a trap, and I swear I could do nothing to help Gene. As I’ve told you, we surrendered and they were taking us in. I heard gunshots, and Gene was dead. I’ve explained this to my mother a hundred times, but she won’t hear it. Gene was her favorite and his death is all my fault.”
“Terrible,” I mumble.
“Did she visit you in prison?” Gwen asks sweetly from behind.
Another long pause. “Twice.” Nothing is said for at least three miles. We’re on the interstate now, headed southwest, listening to Kenny Chesney. Nathan clears his throat and says, “To tell you the truth, I’m trying to get away from my family. My mom, my cousins, a bunch of deadbeat nephews. Word’s out that I own a nice bar and I’m doing okay, so it won’t be long before these clowns start begging for money. I need to get farther away.”
“Where would you go?” I ask with great sympathy.
“Not far. I love the mountains, the hiking and fishing. I’m a hillbilly, Reed, and that’ll never change. Boone, North Carolina, is a nice place. Somewhere like that. Someplace where there are no Cooleys in the phone book.” He laughs at this, a sad little chuckle.
A few minutes later he rocks us with: “You know, I had a buddy in prison kinda reminds me of you. Malcolm Bannister was his name, great guy, black dude from Winchester, Virginia. A lawyer who always said the Feds got him for no reason.”
I listen and nod along as if this is of no consequence whatsoever. I can almost feel Gwen seize up in the rear seat. “What happened to him?” I manage to ask. My mouth has never been drier.
“I think Mal’s still in prison. Couple more years, maybe. I’ve lost track. It’s something, something in the voice, maybe the mannerisms, something, can’t quite put my finger on it, but you remind me of Mal.”
“It’s a big world, Nathan,” I say, in a deeper voice, thoroughly unconcerned. “And remember, to white folks we all look the same.”
He laughs and Gwen manages an awkward laugh too.
While I was mending at Fort Carson, I worked with an expert who videoed me
