Sassafras, Part 2



Rick

I didn't think anything when I heard Jennifer Bota died. She was just an accident victim. I knew her from the diner down at the overpass, Don's. She was a server there. I heard about it from Detective Mark Sneider, one of the cops in Sassafras I was watching. I didn't think I would ever forget the first time I met him. One of his deputies pulled me over for speeding and took me to jail instead of just giving me a ticket. I knew my plan was working.

I already knew the drill, fingerprinting and picture taking, Miranda rights and a phone call, but they skipped right over all those. Even my old friend Miranda. I had been sitting in the cell for about an hour when the deputy came back and told me to get up. I walked out the cell and followed the deputy to an interrogation room.

Sneider was waiting in the room when I got there. I had never met him, but I recognized him from surveillance pictures. He introduced himself, and asked me if I knew why I was there.

"Because I'm a thoroughly dangerous man," I said.

He answered by punching me in the mouth. He wore a large ring on his index finger, and it hurt like hell, but I had to keep from smiling. "You're here because I want you here," he said. "You're going to do what I tell you, or I'm going to violate your parole."

"You can't violate me, you dickhead. I didn't do anything. I want my lawyer."

"Shut up! I can do whatever I want. You can't do shit. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can go home," he said. "You're just an ex-con. A nobody. Nobody cares about you, and nobody would miss you if anything happened to you. Don't ever forget that."

"Is that a threat?" I asked. "Because if you think you scare me you are sorely mistaken.

"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just making sure you understand your position."

"And just what is my position?" I asked.

"I have a business proposition for you," he said.

And that was my official introduction to Sassafras justice. He needed help. The police had a lot of money and merchandise that needed to be taken care of. They had been taking payoffs from drug couriers, keeping drugs and money they get from traffic stops, generally scraping the bottom of the police barrel.

They needed my professional expertise. I was an accountant. An accountant that did 7 years for assorted computer crimes. I had been in love with computers ever since the first computer I owned, a Commodore 64. I learned how to work on computers, write computer programs. I learned all the computer languages that came out; C, FORTRAN, COBOL, and BASIC. When the internet developed I learned the thrill of hacking into other people’s computers. My grades in college were always impressive without looking suspicious, and my parents would never have approved of the ways I found to make money. When I graduated from college and got an accounting job I skimmed from just about every client, even my less than legal clients. I created credit accounts with no monthly bills from several different banks, even stock market transactions magically appeared in cyber space.

Then one day I looked up from my desk and saw four men walking into my office. It wasn’t until they showed me their badges that I realized I was in trouble. For some reason it had never occurred to me that anybody would notice what I had been doing. I was way too smart to ever get caught. At least that’s what I used to think. Now I wonder how I made it that long without getting busted.

I had been out of prison for about four months when the DEA came to me. They needed somebody they could put inside the cop's circle. There had been a man inside, a drug dealer named Richie Santos, who they cut a deal with when he got arrested in Chicago, but he was missing and they needed somebody else. They really didn't want to use another civilian, but didn’t have any choice. They didn't know if Santos just ran off, or if the cops took him out. If the cops had discovered he was working with the DEA it would be hard to get an undercover agent in. The DEA needed somebody who didn’t need a cover, who already had a vulnerability the cops would be able to exploit, somebody with a specialty that the cops needed.

That somebody was me. My name is Rick Gilbert. At first I didn't want to get involved with the whole deal. I just wanted to lay low until my parole was over and then leave the state. Missouri could kiss my ass. But they had a deal I just couldn't refuse. I did 7 years in jail, but now I was stuck on parole for another 5 years. Until I was off parole I couldn't move or get a decent job because I wasn't allowed to touch a computer. The DEA could change that. I just had to do a little snooping and sneaking, maybe spend 6 months or a year tops, in some shitty little town in central Missouri called Sassafras. Then my life was all mine again.

I moved to Sassafras and got a job running forklifts at a dog food plant in Kelly, a town about 25 minutes from Sassafras. Not very impressive, but it was all I could get with my criminal record. There weren’t any jobs in Sassafras. Even the diner didn’t want me to wash their dishes. I think the factory must have gotten a tax break for hiring me because there were four other ex-cons working there. My apartment was a dump, but my job really wasn't that bad. I used to work summers and part-time during college in factories. I didn’t need the work, but I needed some way to explain where I was getting my money. I usually rode lifts or watched gauges and dials on giant machines. One year I worked at a factory that just made empty plastic bottles they shipped to other factories that filled them with detergent, catsup, chocolate syrup, whatever.

I worked swing shifts, some days, some nights, some weekends. I had been living there for a couple of weeks when John Boyd, the agent I was working with, told me I had to get the cops' attention. He suggested speeding. Once a cop pulled me over and ran my name, they would see my record. Santos said they had tons of money and needed a way to transfer it to some form they could enjoy. My record should make them drool. It worked. That was the night I met Sneider.