The Racketeer

The Racketeer Page 26

I sleep with a gun, a Beretta 9-millimeter, legally purchased by me and duly licensed by the State of Florida. I haven't fired a weapon in twenty years, since my days as a Marine, and I have no desire to start shooting now. It's resting on the cardboard box that passes as a nightstand beside my bed. Another box on the floor is filled with the possessions I need - my laptop, iPad, some books, a shaving kit, a Ziploc bag filled with cash, a couple of files with personal records, and a prepaid cell phone with unlimited minutes and a Miami area code. A cheap suitcase, one that will fit into the Audi's rather small trunk, is packed with my wardrobe and ready to go. Most of these items - the gun, the cell phone, the suitcase - were purchased recently just in case a quick exit became necessary.

Well, said exit is now at hand. Before dawn, I load the car and wait. I sit on my terrace for the last time, sipping coffee and watching the ocean fade into pink, then orange as the sun peeks over the horizon. I've watched this many times and never grow tired of it. On a clear morning, the perfect sphere rises from the water and says hello, good morning, what another fine day it's going to be.

I'm not sure where I'm headed or where I'll end up, but I plan to be near a beach so I can begin each day with such quiet perfection.

At 8:30, I walk out of the condo, leaving behind a refrigerator half filled with food and beverages, a motley assortment of dishes and utensils, a nice coffeepot, some magazines on the sofa, and some bread and crackers in the pantry. For forty-six days I lived here, my first real home after prison, and I'm sad to be leaving it. I thought I would stay longer. I leave the lights on, lock the door behind me, and wonder how many more temporary hiding places await me before I am no longer forced to keep running. I drive away and am soon lost in the heavy commuter traffic going west into Jacksonville. I know they're back there, but maybe not for long.

Two hours later, I enter the sprawl north of Orlando and stop for breakfast at a pancake house. I eat slow, read newspapers, and watch the crowd. Down the street, I check into a cheap motel and pay cash for one night. The clerk asks for some ID with a photo and I explain that I lost my wallet last night in a bar. She doesn't like this, but she likes the idea of cash, so why bother. She gives me a key and I go to my room. Working the Yellow Pages and using my prepaid cell phone, I eventually find a detail shop that can squeeze me in at three that afternoon. For $199, the kid on the other end promises to make my car look like a new one.

Buck's Pro Shine is on the backside of a large assembly-line car wash that's doing a bustling business. My car and I are assigned to a skinny country kid named Denny, and he takes his job seriously. In great detail, he lays out his plan for washing and shining and is surprised when I say that I'll wait. "Could take two hours," he says. "I have nowhere to go," I reply. He shrugs and moves the Audi onto a wash rack. I find a seat on a bench under a canopy and start reading a Walter Mosley paperback. Thirty minutes later, Denny finishes the exterior wash and starts the vacuum. He opens both doors, and I ease over for a chat. I explain I'm leaving town, so the suitcase stays in the backseat and the cardboard box in the trunk is not to be touched. He shrugs again, whatever. Less work for him. I take a step closer and tell Denny that I'm going through a bad divorce and I have reason to believe my wife's lawyers are watching every move I make. I strongly suspect there is a GPS tracking device hidden somewhere in or on the car, and if Denny finds it, I'll slide him an extra $100 bill. At first he is hesitant, but I assure him it's my car and there's nothing illegal about disarming a tracking device. Her slimy lawyers are the ones breaking the law. Finally, there's a twinkle in his eye and he's on board. I pop the hood, and together we start combing the car. As we do so, I explain there are dozens of different devices, all shapes and sizes, but most are attached with a strong magnet. Depending on the model, the battery can last for weeks, or the device can even be hot-wired to the car's electrical system. Some antennas are external, some internal.

"How do you know all this?" he asks, flat on his back, his head under the car, poking around the chassis.

"Because I hid one on my wife's car," I reply, and he finds it funny.

"Why haven't you looked for yourself?" he asks.

"Because I was being watched."

We search for an hour and find nothing. I am beginning to think maybe my car was bug-free after all when Denny removes a small panel behind the right headlight. He's on his back, his shoulder squeezed against the right front tire. He snaps something loose and hands it to me. The waterproof covering is the size of a cell phone and made of hard black plastic. I remove it and say, "Bingo." I've looked at a hundred of these online and have never seen one like this, so I assume it's government issued. No brand name, no markings, numbers, or letters. "Nice work, Denny," I say, and hand him a $100 bill.

"Can I finish detailing now?" he asks.

"Sure." I drift away, leaving him to his labors. Next to the car wash there is a small shopping center with half a dozen low-end stores. I buy a cup of stale decaf and sit in the window of a coffee shop, watching the parking lot. An elderly couple in a Cadillac park, get out, and shuffle into a Chinese buffet. As soon as they're inside, I exit the coffee shop and walk through the lot as if I'm headed to my car. Behind the Cadillac, I quickly bend over and slap the tracking device onto the bottom of the fuel tank. Ontario license plates - perfect.

Denny is washing windows, sweating profusely, lost in his work. I tap him on the shoulder, startle him, and say, "Look, Denny, nice work and all, but something's come up. I need to hit the road." I'm peeling off cash and hand him three $100 bills. He's confused, but I don't care.

"Whatever you say, man," he mumbles, staring at the money.

"Gotta run."

He pulls a towel off the top of the car. "Good luck with the divorce, man."

"Thanks."

West of Orlando, I take Interstate 75 north, through Ocala, then Gainesville, then into Georgia, where I stop in Valdosta for the night.

Over the next five days, my wanderings take me as far south as New Orleans, as far west as Wichita Falls, Texas, and as far north as Kansas City. I use interstate highways, state routes, country roads, and national parkways. All expenses are paid in cash, so, to my knowledge, there is no trail. I double back a dozen times and become convinced there is no one behind me. My journey ends in Lynchburg, Virginia, where I roll in just after midnight and once again pay cash for a motel room. So far, only one place has refused to do business because I claim to have no ID. Then again, I'm not lodging at Marriotts or Hiltons. I'm tired of the road and eager to get down to business.

I sleep late into the next morning, then drive an hour to Roanoke, the last place anyone who knows Max Baldwin would expect to find him. Fortified with that knowledge, and a new face, I am confident I can move around with anonymity in a metro area of 200,000 people. The only troublesome part of my package is the Florida license plates on my car, and I contemplate renting another one. I decide against this because of the paperwork. Plus, the Florida angle will pay off later.

I drive around the city for a while, checking out the landscape, downtown, the old sections, and the inevitable sprawl. Malcolm Bannister visited Roanoke on several occasions, including once as a seventeen-year-old high school football player. Winchester is just three hours north, on Interstate 81. As a young lawyer there, Malcolm drove down twice to take depositions. The town of Salem adjoins Roanoke, and Malcolm spent a weekend there once at a friend's wedding.

That marriage ended in divorce, same as Malcolm's. The friend was never heard from again after Malcolm went to prison.

So I sort of know the area. The first motel I try belongs to a national chain and has rather strict rules about registration. The old lost-wallet ruse fails me, and I am denied a room when I cannot produce an ID. No problem - there is an abundance of inexpensive motels in the area. I drift to the southern edge of Roanoke and find myself in a less than affluent part of Salem where I spot a motel that probably offers rooms by the hour. Cash will be welcomed. I opt for the daily rate of $40 and tell the old woman at the front desk I will be around for a few days. She's not too friendly, and it dawns on me that she might have owned the place back in the good ole days when blacks were turned away. It's ninety degrees, and I ask if the air-conditioning is working. Brand-new units, she says proudly. I park around back, directly in front of my room and far away from the street. The bed linens and floors are clean. The bathroom is spotless. The new window unit hums along nicely, and by the time I unload my car, the temperature is below seventy. I stretch out on the bed and wonder how many illicit hookups have occurred here. I think of Eva from Puerto Rico and how nice it would be to hold her again. And I think of Vanessa Young and what it will be like to finally touch her.

At dark, I walk down the street and eat a salad at a fast-food place. I'm down twenty pounds since I left Frostburg, and I'm determined to keep losing, for now anyway. As I leave the restaurant, I see stadium lights and decide to take in a game. I drive to Memorial Stadium, home of the Salem Red Sox, Boston's Class High-A affiliate. They're playing the Lynchburg Hillcats before a nice crowd. For $6, I get a seat in the bleachers. I buy a beer from a vendor and soak in the sights and sounds of the game.

Nearby is a young father with his two sons, T-ballers, I suspect, no more than six years old and wearing Red Sox jerseys and caps. I think of Bo and all the hours we spent playing catch in the backyard while Dionne sat on the small patio and sipped iced tea. It seems like yesterday that we were all together, a little family with big dreams and a future. Bo was so small and cute, and his father was his hero. I was trying to turn him into a switch-hitter, at the age of five, when the Feds entered my life and wrecked things. What a waste.

And, other than myself, no one really cares anymore. I suppose my father and siblings would like to see my life made whole again, but it's not a priority. They have their own lives to worry about. Once you go to prison, the world assumes you deserve it, and all pity comes to an end. If you polled my former friends and acquaintances in my hometown, I'm sure they would say something like, "Poor Malcolm, he just crawled in bed with the wrong people. Cut some corners. Got a bit greedy. How tragic." Everyone is quick to forget because everyone wants to forget. The war on crime needs casualties; poor Malcolm got himself captured.

So it's just me, Max Reed Baldwin, free but on the run, scheming some way to exact revenge while riding off into the sunset.