The Racketeer by John Grisham Page A

military record?”
    “Four years, honorable discharge, fought in the first Gulf War. His father was a Marine and a Virginia state trooper.”
    “What took him down?”
    “You’re not going to believe it. Barry the Backhander.”
    Westlake frowned and smiled at the same time. “Come on.”
    “Seriously. He handled some real estate transactions for Barry and got caught up in the storm. As you’ll recall, the jury nailed them on RICO and conspiracy charges. I think there were eight of them tried at the same time. Bannister was a small fish who got caught in a wide net.”
    “Any connection to Fawcett?”
    “Not yet. We just got his name three hours ago.”
    “You got a plan?”
    “Sort of,” Hanski said. “If we assume Bannister knows the killer, then it’s safe to assume they met in prison. Doubtful that he would have met the guy on the quiet streets of Winchester; much more likely that their paths crossed in prison. Bannister has been in for five years, with the first twenty-two months in Louisville, Kentucky, a medium-security prison with a population of two thousand. Since then he’s been at Frostburg, a camp with six hundred inmates.”
    “That’s a lot of people; plus, they come and go,” Westlake said.
    “Right, so let’s start at the logical place. Let’s get his prison records, the names of his cell mates, maybe dorm mates. We’ll go to the two prisons, talk to the wardens, the unit managers, the COs, talk to anyone who might know something about Bannister and his friends. We’ll begin collecting names and we’ll see how many crossed paths with Fawcett.”
    Erardi added, “He says the killer has nasty friends, thus the desire for protection. Sounds like a gang of some variety. Oncewe start adding names, we’ll concentrate on those with gang connections.”
    A pause, then a doubtful Westlake said, “And that’s it?”
    “It’s the best we can do for now.”
    Westlake clicked his heels together, arched his back, gripped his hands behind his head, and breathed deeply. He stretched, and breathed, and stretched, then said, “Okay. Collect the prison records and get started. How many hands do you need?”
    “Can you spare two men?”
    “No, but you can have them. Go. Get started.”

    Barry the Backhander. The client I never met until they dragged us into federal court one gray morning and read the entire indictment aloud.
    In a ham-and-egg storefront law office, you learn the basics of many mundane legal tasks, but it’s difficult to specialize. I tried to avoid divorce and bankruptcy and I never liked real estate, but to survive I often had to take who and what walked in the door. Oddly, it would be real estate that brought about The Fall.
    The referral came from a law school pal who was working for a midsized firm in central D.C. The firm had a client who wished to purchase a hunting lodge in Shenandoah County, in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, about an hour southwest of Winchester. The client desired great secrecy and demanded anonymity, which should have been the first warning sign. The purchase price was $4 million, and after some haggling, I negotiated a flat fee of $100,000 for Copeland, Reed & Bannister to handle the transaction. Such a fee had never been seen by me or my partners, and we were excited, initially. I set my other files aside and went to research the land records in Shenandoah County.
    The lodge was about twenty years old and had been built by some doctors who enjoyed grouse hunting, but as happens withmany such ventures, the partners had reached a disagreement. A serious one, involving lawyers and lawsuits, even a bankruptcy or two. After a couple of weeks, though, I had things sorted out and delivering a clean title opinion to my still anonymous client would be no problem. A closing date was set and I prepared all the necessary contracts and deeds. There was a lot of paperwork, but then again we were going to earn a rather fat fee.
    The closing was delayed