Lorn, Tom, and Agent Terry gathered before the TV/VCR
in the living room. Front row seats. The others sat in back.
Terry inserted the tape in a Play Pack cassette and pushed it in.
“Okay,” said Lorn. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Terry thumbed the remote. The blinds were pulled. A pack of Red Hot Blues corn chips was open on the coffee table.
Diet Cokes had been set out.
The mosaic of static on the screen transformed into a basement still life featuring a couch, a coffee table and an easy chair. One minute passed. Two. Garrison cleared his throat. Tom began to see himself employed by Prison Industries at Stillwater Prison. As Garrison started to turn to Tom-
Keith Angland walked onto the screen followed by a short older man. Keith sat on the couch against a background of dark paneling. His knobby elbows jutted from a polo shirt and rested on his knees. He smoked a cigar. So did the husky balding man in a cardigan who took the chair across from him. The older man had a scarf thrown shawl fashion around his throat and shoulders. Little white numbers ran in the corner of the screen establishing the time and date.
A bottle and glasses sat on the coffee table between them.
Angland poured two shots of clear liquor and they downed their drinks. The other man set down his glass, leaned forward and placed his hand on Angland’s shoulder. “Fuck ’em. What did they do for you. They never appreciated you. It’s hard, I know, Keith. But you’re doing the smart thing,” he said in a gravel voice.
“Bingo, that’s Kagin,” said Lorn quietly.
On the screen they made small talk. Then they both stood up. Caren’s ghost appeared. Her fixed smile looked like a still photograph pasted in the animated footage. She had on the same fashionably baggy denim jacket she’d worn on the day she died.
Terry shook his head sympathetically. “Goddamn man, goddamn,” he said softly.
“Shhhh,” said Lorn.
Voices bantered, tinny amateur audio.
“I’m going to Hudson. Do you need anything special?” she asked.
“Nah, we’re good,” said Keith.
Caren departed, and they made more small talk, about remodeling basements. A third man entered the frame. He was heavyset, with ringlets of dark hair, and he wheezed when he said, “She’s gone.”
“Bring it in,” said Kagin.
The third man continued to wheeze as he hauled a large suitcase onto the carpet in front of Angland. The same suitcase Tom buried in the woods.
The older guy, Kagin, chided the Wheezer. “Shit, Tony, you’re outa shape, ain’t that fuckin’ heavy.”
“Twenny-five bricks is always heavy,” protested the Wheezer.
“Bricks?” said Tom aloud.
“Shhh,” said Lorn again. But he came forward in his chair and reached for the telephone.
On-screen, the wheezing man popped open the suitcase and proceeded to stack compact bundles on the coffee table. “Your five,” he said to Kagin. “Rest is for you,” he said to Keith. “Now who’s the rat?”
While Kagin stacked the money bundles into a gym bag, Angland reached down and flipped a magazine open on the coffee table. He tossed some papers to Kagin.
A photograph. Stapled sheets of paper.
Angland explained. “Transcript of the wiretap the task force put on your organization.” He tapped the photograph. “I told you not to do any business with this guy on his phone line, or in his living room.”
Kagin picked it up. “Alex, Alex.” He pursed his lips and shook his head sadly.
Lorn was talking on the phone in high spirits. “Sharkey, Yeah. I’m watching it. Forget Angland. Grab your dick, boy.
This is Chicago, big time. I got Kagin and guess who? Only Tony fucking Sporta giving a suitcase full of money to Angland for Gorski’s ID. I shit you not. They are dividing it up before my eyes.”
Tom listened to Lorn with one ear and the tape with the other. On the tape, Kagin studied the picture. “Who are these other guys?”
“FBI agents,” said Angland.
“And they pose for pictures like this, huh. Lookit them. All grins, like they shot a big deer or something?”
“Right. Celebrating after taking down a big score. Except it’s a lot of product, your product they confiscated in Chicago.
Before I threw them some curves.”
“An’ we ‘preciate that, Keith, all you done. Shepherding through those three shipments,” said Tony the Wheezer.
And Kagin, still staring at the picture, shook his head.
“Somebody should tell those guys it’s not real smart to be taking pictures,” he grumbled. Lorn and Terry exchanged incredulous expressions and burst into laughter.
On the screen, Angland said, “They first squeezed him in Brighton Beach. He was stooling on you regular in Chicago and kept doing it when you brought him up here.”
Kagin said, “This is all good stuff here. But before the others will accept you, you gotta take a blood test.” He tapped the THE BIG LAW/147
picture with a stubby finger. “If you’re coming in with us, you gotta whack this creep.”
Angland shrugged. “Understood. I’ll handle it.”
“Bingo,” crowed Lorn. “Tom, buddy, you just swept the Oscars.”
Tom grinned. Best Actor.
On the screen they were now talking about money.
“It’s hunnerd percent pure. No fluorescent, unmarked; it’s all washed through the Red, White, and Green Pizza chain in Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan,” said Tony Sporta.
“They just opened up here,” blurted Tom.
“Yeah,” said Terry. “We think that’s their distribution network for powdered coke. They did it that way in Jersey.”
“Shhhh,” said Lorn.
“You count it all yourself?” asked Angland.
“Shit no,” said Kagin. “We run it through a currency counter and weigh it. Ten bricks is what-Hey, Tony. What is ten bricks?”
“Twenny-two pounds. Ten thousand one-hunnerd-dollar bills is twenny-two pounds; pile about thirteen inches on a side and four and a half inches deep. That’s ten bricks,” wheezed Sporta.
“Yeah,” said Kagin, with a profligate wave of his palm. “We only handle fifties and hundreds. The fives, tens and twenties we burn. Just not worth it at this level.”
“Burn. No shit?” said Angland.
“Yeah, I got this fifty-five-gallon drum at the summer place I got on Lake Michigan. You know. Roast wieners. Have a few beers. I’ll show it to you when you come down to Chicago to pick up your next load.”
Angland poured another round of drinks. Kagin opened a slim portfolio and slid sheets of paper across the coffee table.
“This is where the niggers are shipping that crack bullshit to in St. Paul out of L.A. and Detroit. You go bust their animal asses. Make you look good at work, eh?”
“This is fine, thanks,” said Angland, carefully folding the sheets of paper.
“Good,” said Kagin. He coughed and waved his cigar. “Let’s go up for some air, huh-my eyes are burning up down here.”
The three men walked off screen. Tom stared at the couch, the table, the paneled wall and the suitcase full of money.
“Twenny bricks” remained in the suitcase. According to Sporta, that was forty-four pounds of hundred-dollar bills.
Two million dollars.
Tom squirmed in his chair and crossed his legs. He was actually getting a hard on. Terry stopped the tape and thumbed rewind. Lorn was saying, “…and bring some equipment so we can copy this thing.” He turned, one hand over the receiver and spoke to Tom. “Sharkey says you done good. I got a feeling you’re flying first class.”
Tom endeavored to look like a dutiful citizen. Lorn was back talking to a U.S. attorney in charge of a midwestern task force.
“Tony doesn’t have Kagin’s balls. He’s too old to do more time. He’s got a bad ticker. He definitely could flip. Come over here and have a look at this thing. Get a search warrant for Angland’s house to see if that money is still there. Right.
See ya.”
An hour and a half later, Tom watched a dozen justice department attorneys huddle around the VCR after viewing the tape. A crew was making duplicates. The Minnesota U.S.
attorney was there grinning his slightly bucktoothed grin.
But Joe Sharkey, the prosecutor out of Chicago, was the one cloud walking.
Sharkey was the man to make the deal. Short, intense, with pinstripes on everything he wore, including his socks, he strutted, with his thumbs hooked in his pinstriped sus-penders. The other suits in the room congratulated him in awed voices, “Joe, this is a career-defining case.”
Sharkey set his narrow jaw in his knife-edged face.
And he’d say, “If Sporta flips on Kagin, we’ll be into the Italians and the Russians. Jesus…they’ll have to build a whole new Marion, we’ll get so many bad guys.”
The lawyer gave off an unholy glow, like, boy, am I gonna look good at the press conference when I spring this one.
Already dreaming of a corner office at Justice.
Tom continued to stand quietly, meekly, reverently. Until finally, the attorney let Lorn Garrison lead him across the room to meet the man who delivered the tape into his hands.
“Homage is due,” said Sharkey, throwing a wiry arm over Tom’s shoulders and hoisting his can of Coke.
“Here, here,” saluted the room full of feds.
The attorney smiled broadly. “You want to disappear, Mr.
James-shazam. I personally sprinkle you with pixie dust.”
“But I still have to pass with the Marshals,” Tom wondered aloud.
“Hey, you’re not some bottom-feeding thug,” said Sharkey.
“The tape is pure platinum. You’re going to be flying up there right behind the pilot, trust me. You’re gone.”
Tom smiled modestly.
Twenny bricks.
That night Agent Terry escorted Tom back into St. Paul, so he could remove clothes and toilet articles from his apartment. When Terry used the bathroom, Tom slipped into the corridor and dropped his letters down the mail chute. Then Tom packed a single bag and never looked back.
Shazam.