That’s How I Roll: A Novel (5 page)

They could even fix it so I’d never spend another night behind bars.

When the locals were trying to get me to hand over the honey,
they called it “cooperating.” That word tastes foul in the mouth, just saying it. Like collaborating with the enemy.

The Feds were much smoother. They called it “debriefing,” like I’d been out on an undercover mission. That didn’t taste as bad. If I’d been with them all along, all the talking they wanted me to do wouldn’t be a killer pointing the finger at the people who’d hired him. No, it would be a special kind of federal agent, reporting in from the field.

They even said they’d get that put in the papers, so everyone would know what a hero I’d been.

I knew that what people would think of me had nothing to do with what they might read in the papers.

Maybe that’s why the Feds can never get in deep enough—all they ever have is a bunch of paper reports. If they needed someone to infiltrate a terrorist network, they had to recruit one who was already inside. Never occurred to them that they should put their own terrorists out there, and let the networks recruit
them
.

It’s not just that they aren’t patient enough, they’re too … disconnected, I guess is the best way to put it.

They know how to put their own people in with certain groups, but they can only pull it off when their agents are the same as the people in the group. White, I mean.

Maybe that’s why it never crossed their minds that I might have killed some of those people for my own reasons.

t least the Feds were honest enough to tell me that they were determined to fill their basket, and they had a whole shopping list. But my name wasn’t on it. Never been on it, they swore.

I did believe that last part.

When I say “Feds,” I’m using that blanket to cover a whole slew of them. It seemed as if a new agency hatched every day. FBI, DEA, IRS, ATF … the only one they always called by its full name was Homeland Security.

Way too many of them to accomplish anything. All they did was get in each other’s way. They kept telling me how they were all on the same side, but they kept going at each other like they were blood enemies … even right in front of me.

I started seeing them all the same way I do preachers: real good at telling other people how to act—but they had some special, private deal with God, so they were exempt from those same rules.

You want to buy yourself a real chance at salvation, well, you make sure you throw something in the collection plate. And chip in to buy the preacher his new car every year, too.

I guess it sounds like I hate men of the cloth. I don’t, not really—I generally liked those I met personally. Except for the fat old swine who had hinted that what had happened to me and Tory-boy was God’s punishment for some sin.

If any of the people I’d done work for had wanted that one killed, I would have given it to them cut-rate.

The more I thought about that man, the more hate came into me, like lungs gasping for air when you’d been underwater too long. Whatever sin had been committed didn’t belong to me or Tory-boy. Anyone who couldn’t see that was too dirty in his own mind to be allowed to call himself a man of God.

he way it ended with all those different Feds was when one of them told me that their task force was being disbanded because of “cooperation issues.” That was pretty funny.

What happened was what always happens: the strongest bear drove the rest of them off.

You’d think that would be Homeland Security, but it was the FBI team who came out on top. Didn’t even break a sweat doing it, either. It wasn’t a blood-drawing fight; hardly a tussle, in fact. You could see who had the real muscle just by listening to them say “good morning” to each other.

ATF was the toughest to push out. They only left after telling the
FBI team that they “expected a complete report.” But the way they said it, it was the same way some guys mumble threats under their breath as they’re walking away after backing out of a fight.

tep Three was revealed to me as soon as they trimmed down to one agency. The FBI couldn’t stop saying “RICO.” They soft-spoke it, like it was sacred.

They told me I would be serving the people. Protecting thousands, all over the country. Doing the right thing.

One of the older agents even told me that giving them what they wanted was my only path to forgiveness.

I knew I was past any forgiveness. And if forgiveness was going to come from them, I didn’t even want it. Had this same government that now was trying to make me talk done the right thing when it had the chance, none of this would have happened at all.

For that, I could never forgive
them
.

ne of them was a black guy. He said if I told them everything I’d be a kind of savior. The people they wanted me to inform on were killing my community. Sucking the life out of it, parasites feeding on decent people. You could tell he hadn’t done any more research about this place than looking it up on a map.

At first, nobody paid any real attention to me. They all had some routine they believed in, so that’s what each one went with. None of them even waited to see if I was buying it, just kept talking. Talking and nodding to themselves … like senile old men do in nursing homes.

Finally, they stopped. All of them. Like they’d heard the same alarm clock go off.

The next morning, they all sat around in this horseshoe, forming
a wall around me to the front and sides. My back was already against the wall, so I was surrounded.

They just sat there, waiting.

I moved my head around the horseshoe, so each and every one of them would know I was including him in my deliberate silence.

It was graveyard-quiet. I couldn’t hear them breathe. I guess they misunderstood my message—if I was ready to open the floodgates, they wouldn’t want to miss a drop.

So I went around the horseshoe with my eyes again. Even slower this time. I had every molecule of their attention.

“You know what’s lower than a maggot?” I said. “That would be a man who informs on his own partners. Everyone on a job takes some kind of risk. But if you’re caught, a man’s meant to play his own hand.”

“How do you think we found
you
, Mr. Till?” one of the agents said.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, surprised it took them so long to try that sorry trick.

“You want it spelled out, we can do that,” another one spoke up. “Would that do it? If we gave you the name of the man who gave us yours, would you be ready to—?”

I stomped on the hand he’d been using to deal the marked cards from the bottom of the deck. I’d known enough men who’d been through this same game before to know exactly what to say to them.

“If somebody gave you my name, why don’t you just ask
him
what you want to know?”

They went quiet again. I let their silence settle before I said: “Sure. So you’re either bluffing, or the guy you got was some little messenger boy. Like a FedEx driver who knows where he dropped off a package, but couldn’t tell you what was in it, never mind who had it sent.”

They just kept looking at me.

“Anybody you got to talk to you, he doesn’t know anything,” I said. “A guy like that, he wouldn’t do any heavy lifting. All he’s good for is sticking up gas stations, running errands, getting
drunk, and beating his wife. Probably has a long enough sheet so another felony would put him under the jail.”

Watching their eyes was like reading a newspaper.

“Sure … that’s probably it. You got this guy—the one you say gave you my name—but you got him for something else, didn’t you? Nothing to do with this other thing you keep asking me about.

“Maybe he had warrants out. Maybe he was already on parole. But whatever it was—if you’re even telling me the truth—that would have been for his own crimes, not anyone else’s. So he can’t give you a thing. You could drill as deep as you wanted, you’d never hit a vein.”

They still kept quiet. I guess it was some kind of technique: let me talk enough, maybe I’d drop something they could use.

That wasn’t going to happen. But all that silence had already told me I was right, so there was no harm in telling them some more of what they already knew.

“A man like that, he’d tell you everything,” I went on. “Spill his guts … if he had any to spill. Enough for a search warrant? Sure. But you already found enough stuff in my place to connect me to all kinds of things, didn’t you? Your problem is, there’s too much space between what you found and what you want. Especially what you want the most—names.

“So you used your computers. Probably, by now, you can tell each other you know who hired me. At least you think so. Only problem is, you can tell each other all you want, but you can’t ever tell a jury.”

An older guy with a short haircut—not like it was “styled” or anything, more like he didn’t want to be bothered with going for haircuts too often, so he told them to take off as much as they could—he had one of those ripsaw voices. He didn’t have to speak loud, because when he opened his mouth everybody else shut up.

“You have to admire a man who won’t inform on his friends,” he said. A jab, just to watch my response.

About ten seconds passed. When I still didn’t say anything, he threw the sucker punch he’d been storing up all along.

“But the people we want aren’t your friends,” he said. “They
aren’t your ‘partners,’ like you called them. You’re a hired hand. A day laborer. They don’t think any more of you than someone they’d hire to cut their lawns. Or scrub out their toilets.”

I looked in his eyes—twin flecks of the ground we have around here, dark brown and rock-hard.

“I know that,” I told him.

That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. His face didn’t move a muscle, but I could feel the words hit him just the same.

But this guy was too much of a professional to be taken out with one punch.

“Then just tell me something, Esau,” he said. “Tell me why a man with your intelligence wouldn’t take this incredible opportunity. The opportunity we’re offering you, right now, here, today. Can you tell me that much? Just for my own understanding.”

My hands rested on the wheels of my chair. Rested lightly. “That’s not how I roll,” I told him.