"No."
"Let's give it a go, then. What gives you the right to keep it?"
I stare at a button on his shirt and say, clearly, "I don't know what you're talking about. I do not have any gold. Period."
"How about the three mini-bars in the photo you e-mailed last week?"
"That's evidence, and in due course I'll give them to you, along with the cigar box in the other photo. I suspect these little exhibits are covered with fingerprints, both Fawcett's and the killer's."
"Great, and the big question will be, Where's the rest of the gold?"
"I don't know."
"Okay. You must agree, Max, that it will be important to the prosecution of the killer to know what was in Judge Fawcett's safe. What got him killed? At some point, we'll have to know everything."
"Perhaps you won't know everything; you never will. There will be ample evidence to convict this killer. If the government botches the prosecution, it will not be my problem."
Another sip, a look of exasperation. Then, "You don't have the right to keep it, Max."
"Keep what?"
"The gold."
"I do not have the gold. But, speaking hypothetically, in a situation like this it seems to me the loot belongs to no one. It's certainly not the property of the government; it wasn't taken from the taxpayers. You never had possession of it, never had a claim. You've never seen it and you're not sure, at this point, if it even exists. It doesn't belong to the killer; he's a thief as well. He stole it from a public official who obtained it, we assume, through corruption. And if you could possibly identify the original source of the loot and tried to return it, those boys would either dive under a desk or run like hell. It's just out there, sort of in the clouds, like the Internet, owned by no one." I wave my hands at the sky as I finish this well-rehearsed response.
Westlake smiles because we both know the truth. There's a twinkle in his eye, as if he wants to laugh in surrender and say, "Helluva job." Of course, this doesn't happen.
We make our way back to the suite and are told that the judge in D.C. is still occupied with more important matters. I'm not about to lounge around the table with a bunch of federal boys, so I go for a walk on the beach. I call Vanessa, tell her things are proceeding slowly, and, no, I have not seen handcuffs or guns. So far, it's all aboveboard. Quinn should be released soon. She tells me Dee Ray is in Dusty's office waiting for their brother.
During his lunch break, the judge who had sentenced Quinn to seven years for trafficking reluctantly signed a Rule 35 order of commutation. The day before he had chatted with Stanley Mumphrey, Victor Westlake and his boss, George McTavey, and to underline the importance of what was before him, the Attorney General of the United States.
Quinn was immediately taken from the jail in Roanoke to the law offices of Dusty Shiver, where he hugged Dee Ray and changed into some jeans and a polo. One hundred and forty days after being arrested as a fugitive in Norfolk, Virginia, Quinn is a free man.
It's almost 2:30 by the time all the orders and documents are properly signed, examined, and verified, and at the last minute I step outside the room and call Dusty. He assures me we've "got 'em by the throat," all paperwork is in order, all rights are being protected, all promises are being fulfilled. "Start singing," he says with a laugh.
Six months after I arrived at the Louisville Federal Correctional Institution, I agreed to review the case of a drug dealer from Cincinnati. The court had badly miscalculated the term of his sentence, the mistake was obvious, and I filed a motion to get the guy released immediately with time already served. It was one of those rare occasions in which everything worked perfectly and quickly, and within two weeks the happy client went home. Not surprisingly, word spread through the prison and I was immediately hailed as a brilliant jailhouse lawyer capable of performing miracles. I was inundated with requests to review cases and do my magic, and it took a while for the buzz to die down.
Around this time, a guy we called Nattie entered my life and consumed more time than I wanted to give. He was a skinny white kid who'd been busted for meth distribution in West Virginia, and he was adamant that I review his case, snap my fingers, and get him out. I liked Nattie, so I looked at his papers and tried to convince him there was nothing I could do. He began talking about a payoff; at first there were vague references to a lot of money stashed somewhere, and some of it might be mine if I could only get Nattie out of prison. He refused to believe I could not help him. Instead of facing reality, he became more delusional, more convinced I could find a loophole, file a motion, and walk him out. At some point, he finally mentioned a quantity of gold bars, and I figured he had lost his mind. I rebuffed him, and to prove his point he told me the entire story. He swore me to secrecy and promised me half of the fortune if I would only help him.
As a child, Nattie was an accomplished petty thief, and in his teenage years drifted into the world of meth. He moved around a lot, dodging drug enforcement agents, bill collectors, deputies with warrants, fathers with pregnant daughters, and pissed-off rivals from other meth gangs. He tried several times to go straight but easily fell back into a life of crime. He was watching his cousins and friends ruin their lives with drugs, as addicts and convicted felons, and he really wanted something better. He had a job as a cashier in a country store, deep in the mountains around the small town of Ripplemead, when he was approached by a stranger who offered him $10 an hour for some manual labor. No one in the store had ever seen the stranger, nor would they ever again. Nattie was making $5 an hour, cash, off the books, and jumped at the chance to earn more. After work, Nattie met the stranger at a pre-arranged spot and followed him along a narrow dirt trail to an A-frame cabin wedged into the side of a steep hill, just above a small lake. The stranger introduced himself only as Ray, and Ray was driving a nice pickup truck with a wooden crate in the back. As it turned out, the crate contained a five-hundred-pound safe, too much for Ray to handle by himself. They rigged a pulley with a cable over a tree branch and managed to wrestle the safe out of the truck, onto the ground, and eventually into the basement of the cabin. It was tedious, backbreaking work, and it took almost three hours to get the safe inside. Ray paid him in cash, said thanks and good-bye.
Nattie told his brother, Gene, who was in the vicinity hiding from the sheriff two counties away. The brothers became curious about the safe and its contents, and decided to investigate. When they were certain Ray had left the cabin, they attempted to break in but were stopped by heavy oak doors, unbreakable glass, and thick dead bolts. So they simply removed an entire window in the basement. Inside, they could not locate the safe but did manage to identify Ray. Riffling through some papers at a worktable, they realized their neighbor was a big-shot federal judge over in Roanoke. There was even a newspaper article about an important trial involving uranium mining in Virginia, with the Honorable Raymond Fawcett presiding.
They drove to Roanoke, found the federal courthouse, and watched two hours of testimony. Nattie wore glasses and a baseball cap in case the judge might get bored and look around the courtroom. There were plenty of spectators and Ray never looked up. Convinced they were onto something, the brothers returned to the cabin, reentered through the basement window, and again searched for the safe. It had to be in the small basement because that was where Nattie and the judge had left it. One wall was lined with shelves and covered with thick law books, and the brothers became convinced there must be a hidden space behind the wall. They carefully removed each book, looked behind it, then replaced it. It took some time, but they eventually found a switch that opened a trapdoor. Once it swung open, the safe was just sitting there, at floor level, waiting to be opened. But that proved to be impossible because there was a digital keypad that, of course, required a coded entry. They toyed with it for a day or two, with no luck. They spent a lot of time in the cabin but were always careful about not leaving a trail. One Friday, Gene drove to Roanoke, about an hour away, went to the courtroom, checked on the judge, then hung around long enough for him to adjourn for the weekend, or until 9:00 a.m. Monday. Gene followed him to his apartment and watched him load his truck with what appeared to be a brown paper sack of groceries, a cooler, several bottles of wine, a gym bag, two bulky briefcases and a stack of books. Ray left his apartment, alone, and drove west. Gene called Nattie and said Ray was on his way. Nattie tidied up the cabin, replaced the basement window, swept away any boot prints in the dirt by the porch, and climbed a tree fifty yards away. Sure enough, an hour later Judge Fawcett arrived at the cabin, unloaded his truck, and promptly took a nap in a hammock on the porch as Nattie and Gene watched from the thick forest surrounding the A-frame. The following day, a Saturday, Judge Fawcett dragged his canoe to the water's edge, loaded two fishing rods and some bottled water, fired up a short, dark cigar, and shoved off across Lake Higgins. Nattie watched him with binoculars while Gene removed the window and hurried inside the cabin. The trapdoor was open, the safe was visible, but it was closed and locked. Out of luck again, Gene quickly left the basement, reinstalled the window, and retreated to the woods.