“Wait, wait, wait— I don’t understand at all!” I yelled as I stood up from the couch too, and now everybody in the room except for Sam was standing up like some sort of fight or flight response to the hypothetical danger. It seemed ridiculous that their house would be bugged or that a flower van would be an FBI van, but they were all so convinced it was hard not to feel threatened all the same. “Why would your phones be tapped or your house be bugged? What do you think is going on?”
They all looked around at each other, wondering if they should tell me or if anyone else was going to say it for them. No one did.
After a prolonged silence, Hunter finally said, “A lot of shit happened this week, man. A lot of bad shit. I’ll tell you about it later. But you heard that beeping noise right?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“It was a high-pitched whine. Like microphone feedback. We shouldn’t talk here, and, Max, it wasn’t a good idea to come here. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Theo and I will take the stuff and stash it somewhere, and, Max, you leave after us.”
“Wait a minute,” I hissed. “Why do I have to carry that stuff? I don’t have anything to do with this!”
“Theo, listen!”
He took Amalia’s school notebook off the coffee table and a pen and started hastily scribbling something on the first page he opened to. He showed it to me. It said:
We aren’t taking the stuff, Max is. We’re the decoy.
I looked at him incredulously. Was he really so paranoid that he was saying things out loud for the benefit of a hypothetical FBI bug? What the hell had I gotten myself into?
“Alright,” he announced, “Theo and I will bring everything illegal we’ve got in this house and get rid of it. Okay?”
He showed Max and Lee what he’d written on the paper, and they both nodded to say that they thought it was a good idea. Amalia started to say something, but Max put a finger to his lips and hushed her before she spoke.
“Sounds good,” Max said, as loud and clear as he could. “You guys take all the illegal stuff, and we’ll stay here. We’ll see you boys later.”
As Hunter and I walked out of the house I expected to be ambushed by a SWAT team at any moment. We squeezed past the BMW in the driveway, said hello to the old lady on the porch out front, then we exited through the gate and started walking down the sidewalk toward Meeting Street, scanning all around us as we went. I noticed that there wasn’t any flower van around anymore, but that the store on the corner was a legitimate flower shop. I looked at all the parked cars I could see, and none of them besides a taxi had anyone in them.
Finally assured that no one was listening in on him, Hunter started to tell me what was going on and why everyone was so on edge. He told me about the coke deal, the FBI raid, and the kid that got murdered, Andrew Fitzpatrick . It turned out I’d met him once before, freshman year, though I remembered him more from seeing him from afar or passing him on the street and giving a nod. A short, blonde haired South Carolina kid that looked for whatever reason like he was into surfing and probably had a good relationship with his parents.
The most upsetting thing about it all was that his roommates apparently knew what was going to happen to him but did nothing to stop it. According to Hunter, the same kid Joey who had been the FBI informant had also called the hit on Andrew to keep him from snitching on the Atlanta people. Joey paid Andrew’s roommates to stay out of the house or in their rooms around 5 P.M., the time at which the two thugs kicked the door down and murdered Andrew in the middle of his living room. The three Judases had taken the money, ten grand a piece, and done nothing to help their friend avoid his fate. Now they were feigning innocence and, by all accounts, going about their lives as normal, and Joey had supposedly fled the country to avoid any blowback.
All of this was hearsay of course. No one really knew anything except that there had been an informant, and that this informant was as big a drug dealer as anybody and connected all throughout the Charleston coke scene. The cops would have the whole network worked out by now, and it was a virtual certainty that they were aware of Hunter and Lee. Why they hadn’t arrested them, though, was anyone’s guess.
In the meantime, Hunter felt that it would be unwise for me to stay at his house or Lee’s house. There was no telling what might happen in the next few days, and he didn’t want me to get caught up in something like that. I agreed. I’d only been in town for two hours, and I was already scared as hell. Three more days of this sounded like it would be a nightmare. Hunter suggested I go and stay at Bobby’s house on Rutledge, and though I had always found Bobby insufferable I had to admit I didn’t have any other options besides overpriced hotels, so if Bobby would let me crash on his couch then I might as well take advantage of the southern hospitality wherever I could find it.
TO BE CONTINUED
