The Racketeer Page 0,121

clerk. She studies my passport, then leads me into the depths of the bank. During my first visit nine weeks ago, I rented two of the largest lockboxes available. Alone with them now, I leave some cash and worthless papers, and I wonder how long it will be before they are filled with little gold bars. I flirt on the way out and promise to be back soon.

I rent a convertible Beetle for a month, put the top down, fire up a Lavo, and begin a tour of the island. After a few minutes, I feel dizzy. I can't recall the last time I smoked a cigar and I'm not sure why I'm doing so now. The Lavo is short and black and even looks strong. I toss it out the window and keep driving.

FedEx wins the race. The first packages arrive Monday around noon, and because I have been anxiously roaming the grounds of Sugar Cove, I see the truck when it pulls up. Miss Robinson, the pleasant lady who runs the office, has by now heard the full version of the fiction. I am a writer/filmmaker, holed up in her villas for the next three months, working desperately to finish a novel and a screenplay based on said novel. My partners, meanwhile, are already filming preliminary scenes. Blah, blah, blah. Therefore, I am expecting approximately twenty overnight packages from Miami: manuscripts, research memos, videos, even some equipment. She is visibly impressed.

I'm really looking forward to the day when I can stop lying.

Inside my villa, I open the boxes. A backgammon set yields two bars; a toolbox, four; a hardback novel, one; and another backgammon set, two. A total of nine, all apparently untouched during their journey from Miami to Antigua. I often wonder about their history. Who mined the gold? From which continent? Who minted it? How did it get into this country? And so on. But I know these questions will never be answered.

I hustle into St. John's, to the Royal Bank of the East Caribbean, and put the precious ingots to rest.

My second e-mail to Messrs. Westlake and Mumphrey reads:

Hey Guys:

It's me again. Shame on you for not responding to my e-mail of two days ago. If you want to find Judge Fawcett's killer, then you need to work on your communication skills. I'm not going away.

I'll bet your initial reaction is to trump up some bogus indictment and come after me and Quinn Rucker. You can't help this because you are, after all, the Feds, and it's just your nature. What is it about our prosecutorial system that makes guys like you want to put everyone in jail? It's pathetic, really. I met dozens of good people in prison; men who wouldn't physically harm anyone and men who would never screw up again, yet, thanks to you, they're serving long sentences and their lives are ruined.

But I digress. Forget another indictment. You can't make the charges stick, not that that has ever slowed you down, but there is simply no section of your vast Federal Code that you can possibly use against me.

More important, you can't catch me. Do something stupid, and I'll disappear again. I'm not going back to prison, ever.

I have attached to this e-mail four color photographs. The first three are of the same cigar box, a dark brown wooden box handcrafted somewhere in Honduras. Into this box, a worker carefully placed twenty Lavos, a strong, black, rich, near-lethal cigar with a cone tip. The box was shipped to an importer in Miami, and from there sent to Vandy's Smokes in downtown Roanoke where it was purchased by the Honorable Raymond Fawcett. Evidently, Judge Fawcett smoked Lavos for many years and kept the empty boxes. Perhaps you found a few when you searched the cabin after the murders. I have a hunch that if you check with the owner of Vandy's he'll be well acquainted with Judge Fawcett and his rather rare taste in cigars.

The first photo is of the box as it would appear in a store. It's almost a perfect five-inch square, and five inches in height - unusual for a cigar box. The second photo is a side shot. The third is of the box's bottom, clearly showing the white sticker of Vandy's Smokes.

This box was taken from Judge Fawcett's safe shortly before he was executed. It is now in my possession. I would give it to you, but the killer's fingerprints are most certainly on it, and I'd