Two suits drove onto campus, went directly to the kid’s dorm room, arrested him, picked up his computer as evidence, and no one at the university ever saw him again. I don’t know if they charged him or let him off with a warning, but as far as I can tell he never came back to Sam and Dave. James’s theory is that the kid is in solitary confinement at a secret prison a mile underneath Washington D.C. I just hoped that James wasn’t joining him.
The second time the FBI showed up, it was in the form of a semiattractive woman recruiter. She had blond hair, kind of swept up, and she set up at a job fair and I picked up a brochure. I talked to her for a while but I think they were looking for someone with a lot better grade point average, and probably someone with a little more motivation. I just thought it would be cool to have a job where you wore a suit and a shoulder holster. They wanted someone with a business and accounting background. It never would have worked.
I guess I shared a healthy, or unhealthy, fear of cops and officers of the law, just like James, even if they used attractive women as recruiters. I’d seen what they could do. So I figured that if the FBI was really tailing Em, if they really did have a plant on the park grounds, and if Thomas LeRoy really thought that James and I were plants, things were pretty serious. I was even more worried about James. As far as I knew James was on the grounds. But where, I had no idea. No idea at all.
Em looked at Styles with uncertainty. They stood, leaning against the truck, warily watching each other. “So you’re saying that this guy trusted you with the information that he worked for the FBI?”
“Look, I’m telling you what I know.”
“And you know about the FBI? You can get license plates tracked, you know about FBI plants? Excuse me for questioning this, Daron, but you seem like the least likely person to have any knowledge of the FBI."
“Yeah. I would normally act offended, but I know what my reputation is. And I’ve fostered it to a certain extent. You probably have every right to question my qualifications. I’m very close to the core of this situation. And I’ll tell you why. But I don’t want this to go any further. Do you understand?”
I couldn’t wait to hear this one.
“Do you know what I do for a living?”
Em stared back. “As far as I can tell, you steal suitcases and try to sell women’s shoes.”
She’d figured it out.
“No. That’s a sideline. I sell knockoff stuff. Basically from the trunk of the Buick.”
“Knockoff stuff?”
“Louis Vuitton handbags, I’ve got ’em. Coach purses, you can’t beat my price. Fendi, Chanel, Versace, they’re my specialty.” He talked with his hands. Dramatic, like a cheap hustler. Which I guess he was. “All cheap imitations. Although,” he paused, “they’re not as cheap as they used to be. These knockoff companies are getting pretty damned good, and a good fake costs a little more than it used to. You take the Emporio Armani sunglasses, I mean — ”
“What the hell does this have to do with the FBI?”
Styles dropped the sunglasses story. “More than you think. The FBI investigates intellectual property crimes.”
“What kind of crimes?” I had no idea what he was talking about. When someone mentioned intellectual I was usually lost.
“Intellectual property crimes. Trademark and copyright infringement.”
Em nodded. “So you, selling knockoff purses — ”
“Purses, watches, DVDs, perfumes.”
“You could get arrested by the FBI?”
“I could.”
“For a couple of purses out of your trunk?”
“The cops are involved too, and they’re a bigger worry. But, the FBI is in charge of that shit, and when they are trying to bust one of the big warehouses where we get our stuff, or they’re trying to track down some importers and arresting people at the port authority, then I’m in a lot of trouble. They can take me in, arrest me, get me a federal conviction if they think it helps their case.”
“Really?” I had no idea I was dealing with a Federal criminal. I thought he was just a two-bit crook. I wondered if James knew. It would elevate Styles in his book.
“Yeah. You’d think they’d all be working on terrorists, but there’s some of ’em who work the DVDs and watches and purses. So I’m always looking over my shoulder. If I see a suspicious car, there’s a friend of mine who can run the plate. If I see a suit approaching my stash, I wrap it up, real fast. I can be gone in about twenty seconds. I have a healthy respect for the cops and especially the FBI.”
“I didn’t realize you had job hazards like that.”
“That and shoplifters. I hate those people. No respect for what I go through to get the merchandise in the first place.”
Em looked up under the brim of his hat. “I suppose you could go legit. Get a real job? No?”
Styles turned his head and ignored her.
“So you think they killed Michael Bland because he was an FBI informant.” This was getting to be very surreal.
“I do.”
“And this Bland, he trusted you to call the FBI. What were you supposed to say?” I couldn’t imagine trusting Styles with anything.
“We never discussed it.”
“What did you say? When they answered ‘FBI Miami’ what did you tell them? That he’d died. That you suspected he was killed?” Em was on the same page as I was.
“I said ‘wrong number,’ and I hung up. Are you kidding me? I can’t have anything to do with those people.”
It was obvious that Styles was not going to be a help from this point on. He was paranoid, possibly with good reason, and he’d told us most of what we needed to know. If it was true. And I still wasn’t sure if any of his stories had one element of truth.
“Guys, if these people here think that James and I are FBI, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing they did to Michael Bland?” I tried to figure out how they would give James and me a drug overdose.
“Nothing. Nothing would stop them.” Styles walked a couple of steps from the truck then turned. “There is nothing stopping them from finding a way for you two to have an accident. Or, just shooting you.”
Em patted my leg. “You know, Skip, we’ve given them a great reason to shoot you.”
“What’s that?”
“Somebody broke into their office. I suppose in the course of trying to find the culprit they might have to shoot — ”
“My God. Have you both lost your minds?” This just wasn’t registering. “I’ve played cards with these guys. While I wouldn’t trust any of them, any more than I’d trust Daron, I don’t think they are murderers.” Really.
“Well, there’s a chance you could be wrong.” Daron kept his gaze steady, looking at me through narrow slits. “And I think we should all be worried about James. Let’s make that the primary focus. James. I don’t want to find him this morning with a needle sticking out of his arm.”
James would be proud. He’d elevated himself to a top-tier position, and he’d had nothing to do with it.
“I can tell you with some certainty, that someone on the full-timer roster is a killer. Bland was killed to protect that person’s identity. He apparently had information about the senator’s killer.”
“You don’t know that. Not for sure.”
“Skip,” It was the first time he’d called me Skip instead of Skipper so I figured he was serious, “Michael Bland died not twenty feet from my tent. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t that he accidentally took too many drugs. Someone fed him too many drugs. And I have a good idea of who it was. A newcomer to the group. Someone who was brought in to get rid of the plant. They knew Bland was the plant. And remember, they think you are a current plant.”
“Who was it?” I had my favorites, but I wanted to hear it from him. “Who fed him the drugs? Who was brought in, because whoever it was, they’re still here? There aren’t any new full-timers are there? And whoever it is might be planning my demise.”