The Racketeer

CHAPTER 23

Pat Surhoff’s replacement is Diana Tyler. I meet them for lunch after a long morning at the hospital, where I was examined and was told to return in a month. Ms. Tyler is a tall, pretty woman of about fifty, with a short haircut, little makeup, a navy blazer, and no wedding band. She’s pleasant enough and over salads gives me her spiel. She lives “in the area” and works with a few others who share my situation. She is available 24/7 and would like to have a chat by phone at least once a week. She understands what I’m going through and says it’s natural to keep looking over my shoulder. With time, though, those fears will go away, and my life will become quite normal. If I leave town, and they stress this is something I can now do whenever I want, she would like the details of my trip in advance. They want to keep close tabs on me until long after I testify against Qui

They mention the two job interviews, and I throw a curve by explaining I’m not ready for employment. With cash in the bank and unrestrained freedom, I’m just not ready to start a new career. I want to travel some, take long drives, and maybe go to Europe. Traveling is fine, they agree, but the cover works best if I have a real job. We decide to talk about it later. This leads to a conversation about a passport and an updated driver’s license. Another week and my face should be ready to be photographed, and Diana promises to arrange the documentation.

Over coffee, I give Pat a letter to my father. The return address is the federal correctional facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He will send it to the prison there, and someone will mail it to Henry Ba

Pat and I say our farewells. I thank him for his courtesies and professionalism, and he wishes me well. He assures me my new life will be rewarding and secure. I’m not sure I believe this, because I’m still looking over my shoulder. I strongly suspect the FBI will monitor me for some time, at least until the day when Qui

The truth is I ca

During the afternoon, I open another checking account at Atlantic Trust and move $50,000 from the SunCoast account. Then I do the same thing at a third bank, Jacksonville Savings. In a day or two, once the checks have cleared, I will begin withdrawing cash.

As I putter around the neighborhood in my little Audi, I spend as much time looking in the mirror as I do watching the road. It’s already a habit. When I walk the beach, I check out every face I see. When I walk into a store, I immediately find cover and watch the door I just came through. I never eat in the same restaurant twice, and I always find a table with a view of the parking lot. I use the cell phone only for routine matters, and I assume someone is listening. I pay cash for a laptop, set up three Gmail accounts, and do my browsing in Internet cafés using their servers. I begin experimenting with prepaid credit cards I buy at a Walgreens pharmacy. I install two hidden cameras in my condo, just in case someone drops in while I’m away.

Paranoia is the key here. I convince myself someone is always watching and listening, and as the days pass, I fall deeper into my own little world of deception. I call Diana every other day with the latest news in my increasingly mundane life, and she gives no hint of being suspicious. But then, she would not.

The lawyer’s name is Murray Huggins, and his small Yellow Pages ad a

We go through my biography, and I, for the most part, stick to the script. A couple of ex-wives in Seattle and so forth. I add my own new wrinkle of being a fledgling screenwriter who is polishing up my first script. With a lucky break here and there, the script has been optioned by a small production company that does documentaries. For various business reasons, I need to establish a small front in Florida.

For $2,500, Murray can build a few firewalls. He’ll set up an LLC—limited liability company—in Florida, with M. R. Baldwin as the sole owner. The LLC will then form a corporation in Delaware with Murray as the sole incorporator and me as the sole owner. The registered address will be his office, and my name will appear in none of the corporate documents. He says, “I do this all the time. Florida attracts a lot of folks who are trying to start over.” If you say so, Murray.

I could do this myself online, but it’s safer to route it through a lawyer. The confidentiality is important. I can pay Murray to do things the shadows will never suspect and be unable to trace. With his seasoned guidance, Skelter Films comes to life.

Two and a half months after the arrest of Qui

The swelling is gone. The nose and chin are a bit sharper. The eyes look much younger, and the round red tortoiseshell glasses give the look of a pretty cool, cerebral documentary filmmaker. I shave my face once a week so there is always some stubble, with just a touch of gray mixed in. The slick scalp requires a razor every other day. My cheeks are flatter, primarily because I ate little during my recovery and I’ve lost weight. I plan to keep it off. All in all, I look nothing like my former self, and while this is often unsettling, it is also comforting.

The suggestion is that I return to Roanoke to meet with Stanley Mumphrey and his gang, but I flatly say no. Diana assures me that the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office do not know where I’m hiding, and I pretend to believe this. I do not want to meet them in Florida. After some haggling, we agree to meet at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Diana books our tickets, and we fly out of Jacksonville, on the same flight but nowhere close to each other.