The Financial Lives Of the Poets

He points a few slots up the sentencing guidelines to 100 kilos or 100 plants. Then his finger goes to the mandatory sentence: twenty years. “I’d guess right about now you’re thinking: Gosh, these guys have me over a barrel. Well, ask yourself what would happen if we’d waited and arrested you tomorrow, when you had, what, two pounds?” He points to a column that ends with five years in prison and a $100,000 fine. “So ask yourself, why would we do that? What do we gain by keeping you from becoming a big fish?”

Small fish make better bait?

Then a new page appears, a spreadsheet that reminds me of Monte’s business prospectus. “You were a reporter,” Randy says. “So I’m gonna be straight with you. There’s an institutional side to all of this.” He points to the bottom line, the operating budget on this spreadsheet: $1.18 million. “We’re at the end of a four-year budgetary period, and the lieutenant and I are charged with coming up with a budgetary proposal and rationale for why, with all the cuts we’re facing, regional drug interdiction remains a priority. We’re setting goals for the next biennium, and our primary target, the trend we’re seeing out there…”

And now he looks at me. “…is indoor domestic grow operations. So you’re probably thinking, ‘That’s all fine, Randy, but where do I come in?’”

I don’t mind someone telling me what I’m thinking. It’s nice.

Randy’s budget disappears and taking its place is a flow chart of drug prosecutions for the last two years, in both state court and

federal court.

“Those big fish I talked about, they end up in this pond.” He points to federal court. “The little fish we just turn over to local police and prosecutors. That puts us in a unique position. We can…overlook some of these cases. See, Matthew? We’re not compelled to turn over all of our little fish.” He holds up my file folder. “These files can remain sealed. They can even just…go away. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nod.

He smiles gently. “Good.” He takes a deep breath. We are apparently through some number of steps. “Now, it probably feels like you don’t have any choice here.”

I nod.

“I hate that. I always ask the Lieu, why do we back people into a corner this way?” He shakes his head, as if he’s sorry for all of this unpleasantness. “I mean…what’s the point if we don’t give people a choice? By the way, I like that name…Matthew. It’s Biblical.”

I nod. Don’t tell him I’m named after my dad’s drunk-a-day brother.

“Listen, Matthew,” Randy says. “Do you know Jesus feels the same way, that he doesn’t like backing people into corners either?”

“Jesus?”

Randy nods. “Why else would He give us free will? He could make us robots. But He wants us to choose to be good. Our good works are empty if we don’t choose them.” Then Randy looks up at the door, to make sure his lieutenant hasn’t come back into the room. It occurs to me that he might be off-script here. He speaks quietly: “Remember, before, when I talked about big fish and little fish? Do you know who else was a fisherman?”

I take a stab: “Jesus?”

The Up-With-People smile returns. “That’s right, Matthew. Metaphorically, Jesus was a fisherman. And his disciples were actual fishermen, many of them plying the seas of Galilee. They all came to work for that great fisher of men, Jesus.”

Oh. My good cop is a born-again Christian. Sure. Randy nearly whispers: “Matthew, have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

“Well,” I say weakly, “…I’ve been thinking of becoming Catholic.”

Randy looks stung. “I’m afraid that’s a false doctrine…not His true church.” He puts his hand on his heart. “But at least you’re looking for something deeper. If your heart is genuinely open, Jesus will find His way in. Don’t worry. Now watch closely. I want to show you something.”

And he suddenly raises the slender criminal file he’s created on me-the sample of weed and whatever form I just signed-higher and higher it goes above the conference table…and then he tosses the whole thing into a garbage can, which I hadn’t seen before, but which seems perfectly placed for this display. “Those are your sins, Matthew. How does that feel?”

“Uh…” I stare at the garbage can. “Good?”

“Did you know it can be as simple as that?” He leans in, practically whispers. “Jesus doesn’t want anyone in heaven who doesn’t want to be there. And we don’t want anyone on our team who doesn’t want to be here.”

I stare at my file in the garbage can. For the first time in my life I understand the power of religion. What if you could take all of your trouble, put it in a file folder and throw it away? Maybe the Catholics have a big sin Dumpster outside the Vatican.

“Matthew, don’t you want to choose to do the right thing, on your own, without being motivated by the threat of punish

ment?”

“Yes?”

“Excellent. So tell me, which do you choose? The darkness? Or the light?”

“The…light?”

“Yes.” He smiles beatifically. “Good,” he says. “Good. I thought you might say that. I told the Lieu I had a good feeling about you.” And then he pulls my file from the garbage can, smiling-as if we both know he couldn’t really throw my file away. He puts the folder on top of the conference table, and he pulls out a little tray and a sheet of paper from below the table, and says, “Welcome to the righteous side, Matthew!”

Randy takes my hand and pushes my thumb down on the desk between us, and I imagine this is some bizarre rite of initiation, but of course he’s just fingerprinting me. “Just in case,” he says, and he winks, and I think, just in case, what? Just in case I decide not to cooperate, or I do it wrong and they have to prosecute me, or just in case they need to identify the hands that Eddie-Dave the legalistic and brutal drug lord has whacked off after discovering that I’m a snitch? “And let’s keep your pending salvation between us,” Randy says, and he winks.

Then Lt. Reese comes back in with another round of paperwork for us to fill out; these appear to be more like employment contracts. All in all, they are extremely efficient, smiley righteous Randy and shit-heel Reese. This whole scare-the-poor-bastard-into-working-for-us (and-save-his-soul-while-we’re-at-it) process has taken just over an hour, less time than it took me to buy my car, or my house, less time than it took to meet with Drug Dealer Eddie-Dave the first time. And not once has anyone tried to look up my ass.

My shattered nerves begin to calm. Maybe this is one of those

classic good news-bad news situations. Good news: I have a job! I am a confidential informant. Lt. Reese explains that there are two kinds of CIs-(1) lifelong criminals who get arrested and charged and who cooperate to eventually lessen their own long sentences (these CIs tend to make imperfect witnesses because of their long criminal records and penchant for lying) and (2) basic non-criminals like me, who tend to make better witnesses because they tend not to have…oh, for instance, killed someone. Some CIs even get a taste for it and work as paid contract agents, like professional undercovers. “You can even get paid,” Lt. Reese says.

“How much?” I ask, a little too eagerly.

Lt. Reese admits that it’s not much-there are federal guidelines governing it-but that agencies are allowed to award bonuses after successful prosecution. My new handlers explain that as long as I’m honest with them, do what they say, follow the rules-I’ll be the latter sort of CI. They’ll try to get me paid and no one need ever know how my employment came about.

And the bad news? Lt. Reese holds up the file that was, until a few minutes ago, safely in the garbage can. “Fuck around on us one time, you shit-sack, and we’ll charge you with possession with intent to deliver.” During this part, I notice, Randy won’t meet my eyes.

Then Lt. Reese explains that the paperwork I’ve just signed stipulates that I have agreed to: (A) work as a CI, infiltrating domestic grow operations by posing as the point man for a consortium planning to purchase and run said grow-ops (B) continue purchasing and selling marijuana in this grow-operation for a period of two (2) years as a