The arrangement we’d finally settled on was that Car would accompany Teddy, Tamara, and Carly to Disneyland, ensuring that they traveled in safety and, to the extent possible, that they maintained anonymity at all points of exposure. Like most negotiated compromises, this one made everybody unhappy.
“I’m a PI, not a bodyguard,” Car told me with frustration when I first suggested the idea to him. “I don’t even have a concealed-carry permit. And even if I did, I don’t own a gun.”
“I can’t let them go without knowing someone I trust is watching them,” I said over coffee. “Can you? Because the alternative is they go alone, or with some kind of hired security guard who’d cost a fortune. As for going alone, I don’t even know if they’re up for a simple trip like this under normal circumstances, much less when they might be walking targets. They’re going to need help.”
“Well, that goes for all of us. Shit, Leo, you know how your cases usually go down. You get some brainstorm at the last minute, you need an investigator to run out and work a miracle for you. That’s my job. Who’s going to do my job if I’m down in Anaheim playing Mickey Mouse?”
“I’ll do it myself. I’m not asking you because I want you out of the way. You’re right, I need you here for the trial. But Teddy needs you more. Remember what you said to me at Wendy’s that night? We’re going to want someone on our side as ruthless as the people who’re going to be coming after us. Your words. You may not own a gun, but whatever the situation, I know you’ll do whatever you have to do. Shit, you don’t have to stay with them. Just be there.”
Car gave in, as I’d counted on. “But you’re the one who’s going to have to explain to your brother why he needs a chaperone to take his family on vacation. You’ve got to find a way to make it right. The old Teddy, he never would have been able to stand the idea that he couldn’t take care of his own family. I hate to think how it’s going to make him feel.”
“Let me worry about that,” I told Car. In truth, my brother’s pride wasn’t high on my list of concerns.
When I broke the news to Teddy, however, his response wasn’t what I’d expected. If anything, he seemed relieved to share some of the responsibility, not just for the safety of his wife and daughter but also for the ordinary trials of travel. This, I reminded myself, was a man who, because of the risk of seizures, the DMV didn’t trust behind the wheel of a car.
Teddy’s acceptance of the new reality affected me deeply. Seeing him nod, clear his throat, and look down, I felt my throat seize, my eyes sting, and I had to stand and busy myself pretending to wash my hands at his kitchen sink.
I’d had plenty of reminders of my brother’s diminishment, so I ought to have been used to the new Teddy by now. When I looked at him, however, I still saw, at first glance, the bearlike figure of my youth, the brother I’d looked up to with such a tangled regard that he’d seemed almost mythic to me, remote, inaccessible, and fiercely talented. When I’d begun my career, I’d merely been seeking my brother’s approval. The last thing I’d expected was to feel pity for Teddy Maxwell.
Despite all the ways that he’d been diminished, however, I’d come to believe that his loss was outweighed by his gains: a loving wife whom he loved in return, a beautiful daughter, a caring regard for others that, to the old Teddy, would have seemed a sentimental indulgence.
Now, everything that mattered in his life and mine was at risk through my actions. My only solution was to send them away for a vacation that, even if my plan worked, would do little to guarantee their long-term safety.
I shut the water off but still didn’t feel ready to face them.
It was Teddy who finally spoke. “We’ll be all right,” he said. “This situation isn’t your fault, and you’re doing your best to get us out of it. I’m more worried about you, staying here. Who’s going to be looking after you if Car’s with us?”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said.
I heard a rustle of fabric, then felt a hand on my shoulder, turning me. Tamara drew me toward her, pulling me into a silent embrace. I met my brother’s eyes over her shoulder as I hugged her.
She released me, and Teddy put an arm around each of us.
“Carly wants her uncle to go in and say good night,” Tam said.
I had one more stop to make. Sitting in my Saab outside Teddy’s place, I thumbed Braxton’s number into a burner phone. He answered on the second ring.
“This conversation isn’t happening,” I said, not bothering to introduce myself.
“That’s right. You and I don’t have a single word to say to each other. I plan to let a federal grand jury do my talking for me where you’re concerned.”
“You haven’t indicted anyone in fifteen years. You’re not going to start with a lawyer who’s trying to salvage the life of a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“I’m sure you believe your intentions are upright and noble. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve chosen to lend your talents to the furtherance of a criminal racketeering enterprise.”
“I didn’t call to argue. I have a proposition.”
“I’m the one who makes the propositions here.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not ambitious where snitching’s concerned. I’ll let you take the credit, or you can always blame me if we crash and burn; odds are, if that happens, I won’t be around to say any different. I’ll be in People’s Park in half an hour. Oh, and, Braxton, try not to look like a narc.”
Half an hour later, as promised, I’d taken up a position between two homeless camps, sitting with my back against a young redwood tree, the hood of my sweatshirt up, like a college kid who’d smoked too much bud and needed to chill until it wore off. Braxton, awkward in running clothes, jogged up on the sidewalk, circled the park under the streetlights, then rested with his hands on his knees, gasping somewhat, before walking into the relative darkness beneath the trees and stretching against a neighboring trunk.
I spoke quietly: “I can give you Jack Sims on the murder of Russell Bell, in furtherance of the AB’s goal of having my father working for them on the outside. But I think you already know all about that. You know because my father knew.”
Braxton went on stretching.
“Sims also killed my father and Dot. You know that, as well. The fact that you haven’t moved on him yet tells me that you’re after a bigger target. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and the only conclusion I can reach is that, where the Aryan Brotherhood and similar organizations are concerned, the FBI’s goal isn’t prosecution. Because what good does it do to convict a man of a crime when he’s already serving a life sentence? Hell, Bo Wilder would probably have just as easy a time running his criminal empire from inside a federal prison.”
“There’s always the death penalty,” Braxton said.
“How’s Justice’s record on that? Actual terrorists aside. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that these guys are the worst of the worst, but we both know the death penalty’s no sure thing. You could convict Bo Wilder tomorrow, but there’s very little chance of that sentence ever being carried out. Plus, a trial would just give him a stage to recruit more members and expose any assets that you may still have within his organization.”
Braxton seemed to freeze for a moment. Then he bent to his stretch again, pushing against the tree with one leg braced behind him as if he could push it down. “I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to bring a major investigation to fruition,” he said. “Let’s talk about something you do know about.”
“I know that against an enemy like the AB, justice is an elusive concept, and the normal rules don’t seem to apply. Especially when you’ve lost one of your own. When punishment isn’t possible, when the enemy can’t be any more incapacitated than he already is, then revenge is the only thing left to fight for. But I think you made that decision a long time ago, even before Dad and Dot were killed. I think this ceased being an ordinary investigation—with arrests and indictments and prosecutions—around the time you began to work on it.”
“So what is it, if not an investigation?” Braxton said.
“You’ve been running a domestic counterinsurgency, working to sabotage and destabilize the AB, using informants like my dad. And like Edwards. I know you were present at the scene the day Edwards was killed. It doesn’t take too many inferences to guess why you were there.”
“Did your father tell you that?”
“No,” I said. “But he’s not a snitch. He never was. He was a fighter.”
Finally, Braxton’s shell seemed to crack a little. “That he was,” he said, lowering himself to the ground, now sitting facing me from five feet away.
On the other side of the park, a drum circle was starting up, its insistent, unskilled beat seeming to electrify the chill evening air.
“I know my dad better than you think,” I said. “I just can’t see him pledging fifteen years of his life to snitching on the AB. What I can imagine is his dedicating all that time and more to the mission of sabotaging these fuckers from within.”
“What’s this deal you’re talking about?” Braxton asked. “You’ve got two minutes before I need to break off this extremely insecure meeting and get back to my run.”
The fact that he was here at all had told me what I needed. I knew I’d gained his interest. Now I just wanted to close the deal. “It’s not information you care about,” I said to him, “though you pretend it is. You’re really waiting for just the right opportunity to drop the biggest possible bomb on the Aryan Brotherhood. You figured my brother was your best chance to do that. The thing is, you figured wrong.”
Braxton’s lip curled. “You’re the guy I should be dealing with, huh?”
“My father and Edwards were your best assets in the AB’s organization. Normally, losing them would represent a tremendous blow. But being in a disadvantageous position also brings certain possibilities to light. You’re now in a situation not unlike your targets. The same as these guys running criminal empires behind bars, you’ve already lost everything there is to lose. So, if you’ve learned anything, it should be that the person with nothing left to lose is probably your most dangerous adversary.”
“If you’re trying to get me to confirm or deny that the Bureau still has informants in the organization, it won’t work.” Braxton started to rise. “Tell Bo Wilder I said hello. You may even get to see him in person one of these days.”
“I’m sure Bo and his pals are pretty eager to know whether my father and Edwards were their only rats. I can’t help them. You’re the only one who knows.”
Braxton laughed. “You’re damn right. And I don’t share, not with crooked lawyers.”
It was easy to control my response. That’s because I’d sensed the undercurrent of excitement in his voice, which told me he saw where I was going but was holding back, trying to make me think he didn’t want to play.
“You wouldn’t spill anything,” I told him. “That’s exactly the point.” My tone was even. “It’s why I sent you the subpoena. One of the reasons, anyway. The chief reason, of course, being that you’re the key eyewitness to Edwards’s murder and can testify that Alice Ward was hysterical, in a panic.”
“You’re forgetting one thing. You can’t make me take the stand.”
“No, but you can choose to. Surely your boss will let you if you tell him why. It’ll be just the stage you need to accomplish your goal. Think of the lead: ‘Today, on the witness stand, an FBI agent denied that the FBI currently has confidential sources in place at the highest level of the Aryan Brotherhood.’” I paused, then went on. “Who’s to say that my father didn’t tell me all he knew before he died? My experience tells me that the questions I ask in cross-examination often prove more meaningful to my listeners than the answers a witness gives.”
“It sounds to me as if you’re looking for some kind of understanding that I’ll give testimony favorable to your client. Such an agreement’s not possible. What I say may be favorable, or it may be unfavorable. But if I do agree to testify, I’m not going to lie. You’ll get the truth … and your client may not like it.”
I started to speak, but he held up a hand. “You’re hoping I’ll tell you what I saw. But it’s not going to happen. And whatever I have to say, you’ll hear it for the first time when I take the witness stand—assuming I do. I just want to make sure you comprehend the terms. I’m not your friend, and I’m not your client’s friend. You need to realize, I don’t have the slightest interest in helping your client avoid prison.”
None of this was what I wanted, but I felt my only choice was to go along. “Fine. Ms. Ward’s willing to take her chances. So when will I have your answer?”
He rose from the ground, brushing himself off. “I have to get clearance from the director. This may have to go all the way to the Attorney General’s Office, which puts it above my pay grade. You’ll know I’ve agreed to testify if my name is called and I walk into the courtroom and up to the witness stand. If you don’t see me, then, well, you’ll also have your answer.”