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Witness Protection: Hawai’i
Part I
Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Company
Hamilton Struges was an early entry in the Baby Boom after WWII; Ham, as everyone called him. Ham’s father had lost a leg during the liberation of Germany from the Nazi death grip, so Ham’s dad had got to come home months before VE day. Ham’s parents thus got a head start on the surge of post war people making. Obviously, the missing leg was not an important appendage in that process. Despite such a time advantage, Ham’s head start on the Boomer’s boom, accepted success always eluded Ham and thus his father was always disappointed in him.
His father would yell, “You’re always in the right place, at the right time, doing the wrong thing!” Ham’s father reiterated versions of this statement regularly for his entire life.
Ham’s dead dad would still be disappointed with what Ham was doing, especially what he was doing now. Ham was running through the dark jungle on the southern part of the Big Island of Hawai’i with Elisabeth Schultz, an ex-beauty contest winner. A contest that had occurred somewhere on the U.S.A. mainland, some time during the late ‘60s, MS Schultz would never clarify that point. His dad would be mad, not because of the ex-beauty queen, but that Ham was running.
Ham’s dad used to randomly spout off globs of sage advice such as, “Don’t run in the forest at night!”
Well, you can’t really run in this dense of a jungle even during the day and especially not at night. What Ham was doing actually was running away metaphorically, that being escaping with MS Schultz from the Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Factory. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to grab a machete. The bastards had taken all of the sharp and potentially dangerous tools away from him.
The Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Factory was actually an extension to Ham’s home in the H.O.V.E., the failed 1960’s Hawai’ian Ocean View Estates real estate project. In 1971, Ham and his druggie surfer dudes of friends scraped up the $1,000 needed to buy one of the most isolated one-acre lots in the H.O.V.E. They were all selling drugs to finance their surfing habit, so the more isolated the better. Thirty four years later and it was still isolated, accessible only by the one road that they had built slowly over the years. Chopping and pulling and grading the path by hand, at first. Only later with the success of the Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Company would it become paved with asphalt. It was more an extended driveway, for it only had two outlets, one at each end of the road, starting at the house and then going all the way to the Island Belt Highway. All of the original group had drifted off except Ham. Now, he was running away from his home like a coward. Ham was certain his dad would emphasize that last word. Coward was a commonly used descriptive noun for his dad for almost any male, not excluding Ham.
His dad would shout, “Never let fear get the best of you! All that anyone sees of a coward is his ass running off into the distance!”
Ham had been a lover not a fighter, well, back in the ‘60s and ‘70’s, at least. Ham was still not a fighter; it was the lover stuff that was in question, presently. MS Schultz only ever seemed tacitly interested. They would both get stoned on weed and things would happen. He always got so stoned it was never clear in his mind what had actually transpired, but he always ended up with having washed his long graying hair. With MS Schultz, cleanliness was of paramount importance, so something had obviously gone on between them. Her hair would also be wet. He was just never sure of what. He has had problems with his memory since he couldn’t remember.
They had to escape by the jungle, they couldn’t take the road, escapes were supposed to be as inconspicuous as possible, not simply convenient. MS Schultz had wanted to take the Hybrid. Its engine was quiet, but it wasn’t as fast as the Cadillac. There were no outlets or turn offs on the road to hide; a driveway by definition. The Caddy could drive right through the back of the Hybrid. The Hybrid was an ecologically sound vehicle but not good for car chases. It was obvious to Ham, at least, that the jungle was the best escape route. City boys could never get through this jungle during the day without getting confused and lost and certainly not at night. Ham had been here for almost forty years. He had helped chop out the path for the road and tried to stay one with nature even as he hacked at it with an ancient, rusty machete. “A life of contradictions!” was another of his dad’s complaints about Ham. When Ham got really stoned sometimes he liked to wander through the Big Island’s excess growth. He never woke up with freshly shampooed hair these times.
Those scumbags that had taken over his house, his company, they were east coast mafia type squealers. Here only because of the Federal Witness Protection Program and the Big Island’s isolation from the main stream of American life. God, they still wore regular shoes. All the locals could recognize a Fed Wit immediately. Most of them were still criminals at heart, just cowardly criminals. Ham’s dad would be pleased with that alliterative terminology. The locals sarcastically joked, “Who was protecting who from whom?”
To Ham, it was pretty clear it was the locals that needed the protection from the Witness Protection Program; two locals, specifically, at this immediate instant.
“Couldn’t we rest?” MS Schultz pulled at her still, mostly blond hair, readjusting it into a pony tail. The white streaks that were in her hair, she would say, were just areas bleached by the sun.
“No, No, MS Schultz. We need to keep with the speed.” Ham pushed a giant fern out of the way. The sliver of a moon appeared above him in the starry sky. The growth here was so extensive that unless you moved it out of the way, the vegetation blocked the entire view of the sky. It was thus very dark where they ran.
“It’s so dark.” MS Schultz said in a normal speaking voice. “This is like the time the generator went down and I had to get out of my walk-in closet in the dark. The clothes racks kept getting in my way. I hit my head twice.”
“Shh, keep it down MS Schultz. We don’t know if they’re out looking for us.” Ham held her hand to assist her in moving past the giant fern frond.
She stepped gently over the mossy ground and turned her body so as not to touch the damp, bent away fern. “They’ve been working their way through your many stashes the whole week. They’re so high they can barely walk on solid ground. I told you you had too much of that stuff around the house.”
“It let us get out of there, didn’t it?” Ham used the weak light from the starry sky and minimal moon to plot his way forward. He grasped MS Schultz by her bare shoulders. He had told her to bring a long sleeved shirt, but she liked the way she looked in sleeveless tops. She had even washed her hair just before they made their escape.
Ham was worried that it would alert the Fed Wits, but MS Schultz simply replied with determination, “I always wash my hair at night. They know that.”
No wet hair for him though. Shit! They would hardly let him take a piss, while they let her walk freely all over the facilities. MS Schultz always seemed to be able to get whatever she wanted. The Power of Beauty, even mature beauty, was fucking amazing. At least, she didn’t do her face before they climbed out the factory’s back window, only putting on some lip gloss.
“It was mostly old shit, anyway.”
“Please! Hamy, watch your language!”
“Too dark to see it, now.” Ham chuckled at his wit. As his dad always said, “Half a wit is better than no wit at all.”
“It is never a bad time for proper behavior.” MS Schultz readjusted her hair again for dignity’s sake.
“Never behaved properly in my life, just ask my dad.” Ham hit his shin on a fallen tree. It crumpled with decay; the tree not his shin. Despite the decay, it still hurt; the shin, not the tree, of course.
“It’s never too late to start.” MS Schultz had stepped over the fallen tree but had not pointed it out to Ham.
“Never understood why you stayed at the Company.” Ham rubbed his bare shin. He should have worn long pants. Shit, he couldn’t even listen to himself.
MS Schultz clicked her tongue at him. The clicking was her reprimand of Ham: click of the tongue for bad language; click of the tongue for inappropriate touching; click of the tongue for a fart; two clicks of the tongue for a belch. She hated burps more than anything else, for some reason.
A lifetime of criticism from everyone he loved. Ham always responded to it like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooch – “Thanks for noticing me.” It was his own private joke, and then he would take another toke. Ham had never smoked cigarettes, but he couldn’t remember when he didn’t smoke marijuana. He wished he could toke one now, a big tubby one. Too many clicks endured, so far.
Even Ham’s successes didn’t seem to change their negative opinion of him. The Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Company had made millions for him and his friends, but his dad thought that it was too sarcastic, too much of an insult to proper society to be considered anything other than a fluke, just an accident; nothing to display any special talents or abilities.
Well, it had started out as a joke. Back in the ‘80’s, Reagan’s War on Drugs had disrupted their supplies, money was getting tight. The group was sitting around, stoned as usual, trying to think of a way to supplement their shrinking income. They were all complaining about the arrogant rich-assed tourists. Someone said, Ham thinks it was himself but he wasn’t sure, “Hell, those bastards have so much money; they must wipe their asses with dollar bills.”
Everyone giggled for a long while then someone else said, “That’s some exotic toilet paper.”
Then the whole thing fell into place in Ham’s weed-fogged brain. First came the slogan. “Toilet paper so fine, it’s like wiping yourself with a dollar bill.” Ham had taken a hand-made paper class back in the ‘60’s. “All ya need is some wood pulp, old rags and water. Plenty of that here.” Ham had said out loud.
It made everyone giggle for a weed-induced reason, meaning no reason at all. After the giggles subsided Ham finished his thought. “Make some paper cheap, roll it onto some bamboo, saw it into the right sized rolls, and sell it at the resorts at a big price to the rich tourists as . . . Native . . . Exotic . . . Toilet Paper. They’ll love it.
“Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper.”
“Yeah, dats a good one."
And they did. The group made it and the tourists bought it. The more expensive the roll, the more the tourists bought it. Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper was not sold in the stores. That it was exclusive and hard to find was better. The guys just carried rolls of it around with them in original grass woven backpacks. They literally sold it on the streets like they sold their drugs, except this was not illegal. It was always so funny these sales, because, in most cases, the toilet paper customers were the same people they sold drugs to. The bored rich unhappy folks that were always looking for the next new whatever; thrill, fad or life-style thingy to justify their worthless existence. Then they moved to mail order. Now, they had a web-site.
They sent rolls all over the world. Demand was so high, they kept raising their price. Because of economic inflation and the freedom of expression of the Internet, the Company’s slogan was now, “So expensive it’s like wiping your ass with a five dollar bill.”
The paper was still made by hand using whatever pulp they pulled out of the jungle and they regularly cleared out all of the used clothing stores and old Tee shirt overstocks on the Big Island. They made money in buckets. Preferred payment was either in cash or barter. Ham hated the I.R.S. but he hated banks more. Cash was easier to hide from everyone concerned. They kept it in zip-lock bags just like they did their weed. Bags of both were buried, being hidden all over the Company grounds. There were always so much of both; people just took what they needed. Ham had lost count on just how much was buried, but it had to be millions.
Because of all the package deliveries containing wads of cash or expensive, easily sold items, the owners of the FedEx and UPS offices on the Big Island had also gotten rich from the toilet paper business. They, thus, had helped build and maintain a better road to the factory. The Road to El Dorado, they called it.
“Damned Fed Wit scum, they must have smelled the money like the smelly mob dogs that they are.” Ham said to the mossy blackness at his feet. That blackness suddenly got darker and closer until the quiet of unconsciousness followed.
Finally, Ham opened his eyes. It was still dark. Ham was lying face down on the mossy ground. He could feel the primitive plantness on his nose and cheek. He could smell it, too. The back of his head hurt or was it the top of his head? Actually, his whole head hurt. He pushed himself up. There was a large palm frond lying across his back. It must have fallen from above and hit him on the head. This type of plant aerial bombardment had happened to him twice before in the last three decades. Thankfully, it hadn’t killed him, then or now.
Blood rivulets encrusted his cheeks. He must have been out for a long time. Where was MS Schultz? He scanned around the dark walk-in closet of a jungle. She wasn’t there.
“MS Schultz.” Ham whispered then listened. All he heard was the pounding in his own head.
“MS Schultz!” He said, this time in a speaking voice. Nothing, no clicks of a disapproving tongue, even. He had lost her, somehow. Maybe she had thought he was dead and continued on. “Thanks for thinking about me.” Ham muttered, involuntarily.
The intensive pounding pain in his head, the darkness, the lack of a bit of the bud, the missing MS Schultz made Ham panic or allowed Ham to panic. Ham never got upset about anything until now. He stupidly shouted. “MS Schultz! Elisabeth!” There was not silence this time.
“Yeah, ya old jerk off! Get your crazy ass out here!” Came a male voice with a distinct New Jersey accent accompanied by the bright beam of a flashlight. “The old cunt is here in my loving arms. Come get her!”
Ham heard the click of her disapproval. They did have her. “Hamy, I had to get help.” She called out.
“Yeah,” laughed another man. “All da help ya gonna get is us.”
“Come out ya out fool. I don’ have ta tell ya why.”
More tongue clicking. Ham couldn’t think of anything else to do but walk to them. His dad would have attacked them even with only one leg. Ham knew he would. “Coward! Coward!” His dead dad shouted at him in his head. Ham needed something to smoke, a gentle toke and then, hopefully, no one would notice him.
What should he do? What could he do?
It was still very dark and the Fed Wits were looking in the direction of Ham’s original shout. They couldn’t see him. They didn’t know where he was. Maybe he could sneak up behind them in the dark? Ham picked up a moss covered tree branch from beside his foot. He moved sideways, slowly and quietly. He kept an eye on the one beam of light that scanned back and forth from the side of the road / driveway where they, obviously, stood. He and MS Shultz hadn’t gotten more than a hundred meters from the back of the factory. Damned palm frond! Ham’s head pounded. His eyes flashed each time he blinked. He had to save Elisabeth. His one-legged dad would do it. Could do it!
Ham exited the jungle behind them. They kept shouting for him to come out. Their shouts had covered up the sound of his not fully controlled movements. The Fed Wits were not thinking straight, either. They had smoked up all of his shit. Ham even got angry at that. He let his anger come out to give him strength. Ham held the mossy branch high over his head as he advanced on them. “Protect Elisabeth.” Ham mumbled in a thick voice.
The man holding her turned toward the noise. Ham brought the branch down as hard as he could over the man’s turned head. The decaying old branch shattered as it impacted at the center of the man’s skull.
The man shook his head slowly, “What da hell?” But he didn’t respond to the blow in any other fashion.
The flashlight beam swung toward Ham’s face. The flashlight struck Ham in the left temple. Light exploded in Ham’s head. Ham heard Elisabeth’s clicking. He saw his one-legged dad hopping with rage or was it disgust? Ham didn’t feel himself hit the asphalt of the road he had helped construct. Ham didn’t smell the still hot asphalt from the day’s sunny afternoon. Ham didn’t hear Elisabeth shout out his full name, “Hamilton!” Ham was dead.
“Fuckin’ asshole, old codger.”
The other man let Elisabeth go. She ran crying toward Ham. She cried out. “You’ve killed him!” Her tongue clicked with frantic disapproval of the entire situation.
“Fuck! We’re fucked!” Said the man with the flashlight.
“Nah!” The other man said and he shot Elisabeth in the head. She dropped down over Hamilton’s lifeless body as if it were her last attempt to protect him.
“Yeah.” The man with the flashlight said.
“Let’s get what cash we can find and get da hell out of here.”
“You betcha. I’ll get the dope too.”
Part II
Lost in Paradise
Harold’s black suit was completely out of place on the Big Island. Everyone had told him that before he came out here. Everyone was right. Even in the mid-morning breeze of the south Island it was too hot and too confining, just too much of everything. This certainly wasn’t the Mid-Atlantic States; the black suit had been fine there, but this wasn’t there. He was supposed to be an Investment Counselor. He was trying to look the part. Bankers and Black, Harold thought it was the rule. A lot of people had been wrong so far. The Bureau wanted him to have a believable cover, but so much for that too. The Sheriff certainly wasn’t buying the banker bit, because now, Harold kneeled in front of the lifeless bodies of an older couple. It looked like the woman had attempted a protective maneuver that got her shot in the back of the head. The man underneath her looked as if he had been beaten to death. Harold had thought he had seen too many dead bodies in his life already, in the first Gulf War and his ten years with the F.B.I. Wrong again, here were two more; needless and, likely, innocent deaths.
Harold stood up and wiped his shaved head with his white handkerchief. He should get a hat. “So senseless, but I’m only an investment consultant. I don’t know how I can help you Sheriff.” Harold spoke directly to the tall, large-sized Japanese-Hawaiian that stood on the other side of the unfortunate couple.
Sheriff Tanakami rolled his eyes back into his head so only the white of his eyes could be seen. “Oh shut up!” He scratched his cheek with the knuckles of his right hand. “I know who you actually work for.” The Sheriff popped his eyes back, quickly. This eerie habit had started back when the Sheriff was still small, short and an adolescent. It freaked out his friends and everyone else, just what an adolescent boy wanted to do. So he had perfected his technique to a regular, almost unconscious, routine. He pointed at the jumble of shoeprints in the mud on the side of the road leading only to the Hawai’i Exotic Toilet Paper Company. “No locals wear shoes like that. Only misplaced mainland jerk offs. No tourist would come down this far, even if they were really lost.” The Sheriff pointed with both hands at the shoeprints. “These . . .” Then he pointed at the two bodies between them. “And these were caused by your lawless Fed Wit bastards. I know it so don’t attempt to deny it and I want,” Now, he pointed with both hands at Harold. “You to fix this before I have to.”
Harold shook his head. “I don’t. . . .”
“God, shut the fuck up! I know you’re new here but . . .”
“How do you know that?” Harold truly wanted to know.
“Even though this is a big island, it’s still an island.” The Sheriff shook his massive head violently. Large sweat droplets leapt from his head like a sprinkler. It was the heat and the humidity and the frustration. “Here, everyone eventually knows everything and I know it, first.” The Sheriff pointed to his own chest with only his left hand. “This is your mess. You clean it up before I have to. I know your Fed Wits are beyond prosecution, being protected and all and I try very hard to work with you Feds, but I don’t want to have to fix your problems.” The Sheriff put his right hand on his service revolver. “And if I have to fix it, you haole bastards won’t like it.”
“Hapa haole, actually.” Harold insisted on getting in a few words. “My mother was white, my father was black.”
“Wuppty fucking do. Lucky you. You’re good at both Basketball and accounting. So I guess you can keep accurate score of all the baskets you make. Great!” The Sheriff was trying to get Harold angry and succeeding. “I know all that and don’t give a fuck. We’re not on Oprah.”
Harold wiped his entire head again with his now sweat soaked handkerchief. “Yeah, a good hat.” Harold muttered as he counted his own breaths ten times; getting angry won’t help anything. The Sheriff only wanted to protect his community, a reasonable desire. Harold wanted that, too.
“Ham there. Hamilton Struges, the old guy on the bottom.” The Sheriff sighed deeply. “He was a good old guy. A raging pot head but so are half the people ‘round here and I don’t care about that. He and his toilet paper brought a lot of money into the area. God’s pockets, I told him to put it in the bank. Everyone knew he buried cash all around here. That’s likely why they were killed. Your bloodless beauties smoked all his stash too. Stayed in the house while doing it. Brazen bastards. They know I can’t touch them. They’re under federal protection.” The Sheriff kicked at the ground and then pointed to some obvious tire tracks at the side of the road. “And their Mob-mobile, Jesus on a jet ski, I didn’t know you were protecting their cars, too.”
Harold sighed. “Could you get a copy of the report and all the forensics to me? Send it to the office.”
“I’ll bring it over to your apartment myself.”
“Okay.” Harold’s shrugged in what felt like a wet blanket, a hot heavy sweaty horse blanket. “I’ve got to get out of this suit.”
Harold stood at the kitchen counter in his new, very air conditioned, Kona apartment. It had been a long drive down and a long frustrating drive back, over two hundred miles round trip. The Big Island was really big. Bigger than Harold had first thought. He hadn’t been here more than a month and already his cover was blown. Wonderful! He was so shocked at the Sheriff’s summons this morning that hadn’t stopped to eat breakfast. He had forgotten about lunch while mulling over what had happened to those poor people. The world was so polluted with low lives but it was why he joined the Bureau. He got into a tee shirt and cut off shorts as fast as he could and was making himself a peanut butter and jam sandwich to quench his roaring hunger when his personal mobile phone rang. It rang like a phone, no show tunes or moaning porn star. The screen announced “Mom!” Harold rolled his eyes mimicking the Sheriff’s habit and said. “Hi Mom. Anything new?”
“Just that you never call me.” Said the assured female voice of his loving mother.
“I talked to you yesterday.”
“But I called you.”
“Yeah, you never give me a chance.” Harold practiced the Sheriff’s eye rolling in the mirror. It was like trying to see if the refrigerator light stays on when you closed the door. Just when you get to the very thing you want to see you can’t. Harold had been mimicking people’s odd behaviors every since he could remember. If he hadn’t gotten involved with the Bureau after leaving the Navy Seals, he knew he would have been an actor, for sure.
“Why won’t you tell me where you are?” Harold’s mother asked this every call.
“Can’t! You know that.” Harold popped his eyes back just like the Sheriff did. He startled himself.
“Well, I can ask, can’t I?”
“And I can not tell you. Can I?” Harold realized he was dizzy, either from lack of food or the heat or the eye rolling. “Mom, could we talk some other time, I really need to eat something before I pass out.”
“Oh, you haven’t had dinner yet; well you should eat more regularly.” Her voice revealed the satisfaction she got in giving advice. “I just wanted to know if you got my e-mails.”
She was on the East coast of the mainland and five hours ahead of Hawai’i. Harold wanted to keep their relationship on Eastern Standard Time. It was easier to keep his whereabouts unknown to her.
“Haven’t checked my computer yet, been busy all day.” Harold’s Mom was prolific with her e-mails. Harold got at least three e-mails a day from her, sometimes more. He had begun to think of her as his own personal spammer, just what someone needed. “Got ta eat something, later then.”
“Yes, always later Dearest. Bye for now.” She got satisfaction from sarcasm too.
Harold drank long from his carton of milk before putting his mobile back down on the counter. He lived there all alone, so he never used a glass.
The witness protection database was generally updated weekly. There were only three Bureau handlers that had a rotating surveillance schedule for all of the Federal Witnesses in the State of Hawai’i. It contained mostly comings and goings and other data that was readily observable like the type of car they drove. They had no direct contact. Direct contact was Harold’s job, now, contact but not official contact. He was their anonymous caretaker from afar. They weren’t supposed to know he was there. Harold’s acting ability was supposed to help keep him close but anonymous to the Fed Wits as the locals called them. But as the Sheriff pointed out, it was an island, everyone eventually knows everything. That was why the last guy was replaced. Of course, the Fed Wits really didn’t get a chance to mix with the locals. The locals were always on guard against strangers. It looked like it was a good idea to be just that.
The database had only one entry with a Cadillac. Harold waited till past midnight to get a look at the Cadillac’s tires. He was scanning the left rear tread, now. He used the document scanner he bought from Radio Shack with his own money. He had set it up to wirelessly download directly into his hand-held computer. This set up had come in very handy for his investigations in the past. The Sheriff had dropped off the file at seven in the evening. The Sheriff had known where Harold lived without Harold telling him. This was an island, alright. Harold had scanned in the crime scene tread marks before leaving for the Cadillac tire inspection. The hand-held was slow but the image compare program had already given a positive match on the left front tire tread. Harold did the left rear just as verification. It was a match too. Harold liked as much verification of evidence as he could get before he acted.
There had been two sets of unknown shoeprints at the crime scene. Two male Federal witnesses lived at this address. Unusual, but sometimes done if the witnesses are relatives, like these two being brothers. Harold used his dark light visor to examine the lawn beside the driveway. There was one shoeprint that matched the crime scene impressions. These brothers were a pair of admitted small time hitmen that got caught in the middle of an internal organizational power struggle. Instead of being killed out right, they both ran for cover into Witness Protection. Cowardly criminals certainly, but most criminals were cowards in Harold’s experience. There was nothing noble about them. It looked like they hadn’t changed their ways at all, just their location, all too common a problem. Surveillance said they hadn’t seen the brothers for over a week. It all fit together, too well. Harold needed to get some direction from the main office.
“Damn it, that poor old couple. They didn’t have a chance. What did the Sheriff call the killers? Brazen bastards, damn them!” Harold stuck the one GPS-locator he had under the Caddy’s rear bumper and slung off into the bushes and the dark beside the car.
Harold’s field coordinator always got into the office early so Harold called him before going to bed. Harold needed to take care of this A.S.A.P., for the old couple, also Sheriff Tanakami was not going to let it sit either. Harold didn’t want to be on his bad side right out of the chute.
“Yes.” The field coordinator was always cautious and answered this number directly. He insisted that Harold be cautious, too.
“Albert Cummings speaking.” Harold said calmly. They were also to always be calm; calm and cautious. Still, Harold wanted to scream sometimes despite his extensive training.
“One moment please.” The coordinator said. There was a click as a circuit shifted over and a slight hum became noticeable in the background. It was the scrambling microprocessor, two encrypting – decrypting chips talking to each other. Harold used a special receiver that he plugged directly into the phone. “Continue.”
“FW-E56 and FW-E57, have, well, presented, generated a problem.” Harold said this not as calmly as he would have liked.
“The E-list, yes, the high risk individuals. Potential problems are why there is an E-list.” The coordinator paused. The clicking of his computer keyboard was encrypted and decrypted, automatically. “Oh, yeah, those fellows. A high probability for trouble was predicted for this pair. They have already served their purpose, for us, at least.”
“Meaning they had lost their asset status.” Harold had to practice the Bureau speak. Being in field ops for the last decade gave him few chances to use it.
“Yes, yes indeed. A decisive meeting was held last year after that loss of status.” The coordinator’s voice drifted to inaudible. It then drifted back up to audible. “Whatever is the problem with E56 and E57, you are authorized to eliminate it.”
“Excuse me?” Harold blinked with surprise. He hadn’t been given such operational leeway since he was in the Seals.
“Make it disappear. Take care of it. That’s why we put you there anonymously. Just so you can take care of unnecessary problems.”
“Take care of it?”
“Yes, take care of it.”
“Completely take care of it?” Harold’s insistence on verification always annoyed the management.
“Of course, completely and thoroughly.”
“Oh.”
“I repeat, you are there to make certain the program has no rough edges and remains as inconspicuous as possible. As you yourself are supposed to remain.”
“Yes, sir.” Harold cleared his throat. He never seemed to be too far away from such business.
“Understood?”
“Understood.”
“You’re a smart lad. You’ll do what’s needed, what’s appropriate, what’s justified. I know you have no problem with that.”
“Ah, no and thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anything else?”
"Just have a good day, sir.”
“You get some sleep, first.” And the coordinator cut the connection.
The wig itched less than the moustache which made no sense but what in a disguise did? Harold was trying to minimize his height by slouching as much as he could. Being so tall made him routinely conspicuous. He wore his clothes loose and large; casual but flashy. Better to draw attention to the clothes than your face. An orange and tan flowered shirt and tan pants with tan flip-flops. Wrap around reflective sunglasses completed the ensemble. Well, he also made changes in his voice, he raised it timbre and increased his speaking rate; higher and faster. No discernible Spanish accent just a few mispronounced words. Let people make their own assumptions on his disguise personae’s place of origin. It added to the confusion later in peoples’ recollections.
He caught up with the brothers at a popular beach bar. Harold removed the GPS-locator from the Caddy before entering the bar. He didn’t want to lose such a useful device. The bar was not that crowded considering it was well into Happy Hour. The brothers had started drinking early and had added a few weed aperitifs to assist in their prolonged happiness. Harold had just sat down with them and started talking about women, a favorite topic of almost any male. The brothers hadn’t objected. They acted like Harold was an old friend. There was a packet of twenties sitting on the table between them. The waiter would peel off a twenty with each new drink order delivered. The brothers didn’t seem to care about the money either. Why should they, it wasn’t theirs.
“So ju guys are tourists, ah?” Harold’s disguise personae asked.
“Hey, nah, well, yeah.” Answered one of the brothers.
“Long visit, dat’s it.” Aided the other brother.
“Longer than a visit, dat’s it.”
“Not touriste though.” Harold’s personae added. “Interesting.”
“Not interestin’ at all. Boring ‘round here.”
“So ju guys want some fun, oh?” Harold visually examined the brothers carefully. Only one of them seemed to be carrying a gun, but that was not a sure thing. Extra caution was needed as was more drinks for them.
“Okay, fun would be real good.” Said one of the brothers.
“Some lady fun? Wouldn’t that be best?” Harold’s personae handed them their refreshed drinks as another twenty disappeared.
“Oh yeah, Polynesian Pussy would be a lot of fun.”
“Not fat one’s though. I can have fat broads, I can have fat ones back in Jersey.” One of the brothers shook his head slowly. “No fatties.”
“No, no, only slim and trim.” Harold’s personae nodded with a smile that annoyed Harold.
“Trim trim makes me grin.” Both of the brothers laughed loud and unruly.
“Well, let us go to my place.” Harold’s personae stood up and waved. “Place of the trimmest but most beautiful of ladies.”
One of the brothers tried to stand but failed and fell back heavily into the chair. “Really . . . fucked up.”
“Not yet, ju aren’t.” Harold’s personae smiled annoyingly again and pulled the brother up.
The other brother pushed himself up. “Ya drivin’?”
“Most assuredly. I will have the honor of driving ju fellas to your rightful destiny.”
“Yeah! Great!” One of the brothers yelled.
“Whatever ya mean, just get me some trim trim . . . Ha . . . Ha.”
The brothers walked carefully out into the parking lot. They walked directly to the black Cadillac. “Oh, wait. He was gonna drive.”
Harold’s personae shouted standing over by the side door of a white SUV. He waved at the brothers. “Over here fellas. Ju too smashed to walk, not drive.”
The brothers pushed each other into the SUV. “What’s with the plastic wrap?”
“Shit! It’s trying to get me.” The other brother giggled and smacked violently at the black plastic on the floor and covering the seats.
“'Cuse please. Some client fella last night spilled a Mia Tie. Sticky all over. Not got a moment to clean up, yet.” Harold’s personae hopped into the driver’s seat. He pulled the SUV out onto the dark back street. “Just relax and we’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The brothers quieted down almost immediately, soothed by the SUV’s motion just like a crying baby would be calmed. They both dropped into sleep, easily.
Harold drove up a road he knew that was totally dark and totally empty. He stopped at a Stop sign, looked both ways and front and back, no one at all. He reached down beside the driver’s seat. Quickly pulled out a 9 mm automatic with silencer, turned and shot the brother that was carrying the gun first and then the other brother. They didn’t and would never again wake up.
Harold sighed and rolled down all of the windows. Although he had been around it too much in Iraq and with the Bureau, death was still messy and smelled. That was why he covered the floor and seats with trash bags. Death was all too human and unselfconscious for Harold’s liking. Now, he just had to follow through with the disposal plan A.S.A.P. before his stomach started to object.
Harold’s mom was an early riser too. He would call her before he went to sleep tonight. It would be nice to hear her voice. Really, it would. He used to call her from the middle-east after situations like this. He never told her anything, but she was a very smart woman.
Harold walked into the Sheriff’s office wearing a tight grey tee shirt, cut off jean shorts, black flip-flops and a pork pie hat. He carried a blue sports bag. He waved at the Sheriff through the glass walls of the office. The Sheriff waved for him to come on back.
“So casual for an Investment Consular?” The Sheriff laughed, but didn’t stand up or offer to shake hands.
“Can’t work all the time in Paradise.”
“A pair of dice is right.” The Sheriff looked down at the sports bag.
As if to answer the unspoken question, Harold plopped the sports bag down on the Sheriff’s desk. “Found this. Thought you would know what to do with it.”
The Sheriff unzipped the bag. Ziplock bags of money were inside. “Ham’s money?” The Sheriff looked up at Harold.
“Seems so.” Harold shrugged and rolled his eyes like the Sheriff was about to do.
The Sheriff blinked and frowned. “You take care of the other thing?”
“Seems so, yeah.” Harold popped his eyes back in place.
“Hummm.” The Sheriff deepened his frown and zipped up the bag. “I’ll get this back to the Company.” The Sheriff rubbed his nose with his open palm. “Gettin’ the feel of the place are ya?”
“Seems so.” Harold rubbed his nose just like the Sheriff. “I hope so.”
THE END
Copyright 2006 - MWC
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Just to be perfectly clear!
All Rights to this piece reside with the Author