Winter Counts(53)
AFTER HIS RETURN HOME, Nathan put his head down and worked in school to make up the ground he’d lost while he was locked up. I tried to talk with him about the arrest and his incarceration, but he wouldn’t say much. I asked if he’d shared anything with his friend Jimmy, but he just said, “Not really.” I assumed that word had gotten out at his school about the pills and his arrest, and wondered if he was getting any grief there. Knowing Nathan, I’m sure he wanted to speak out in his own defense, but he’d been instructed by the lawyer to keep absolutely quiet about all of these matters.
To my surprise, Marie started volunteering at the casino restaurant, where Lack was working to train the kitchen staff and design a new menu before leaving for New Mexico. I was wary of this arrangement, but what could I do? She said she wanted to learn more about indigenous cuisine, so she worked a few nights a week in the kitchen as an unpaid trainee. The good news was that I got free food at the buffet on the nights she was there. Because I didn’t want to be a freeloader, I helped out by washing dishes if I’d had a meal. I got to hang out with Tommy as well, as he’d started working on the evening shift as a prep cook and dishwasher.
Besides that, I took on a couple of day jobs in Rapid City for my friend Ernie, who ran a construction company—roofing work, construction cleanup, anything that needed to be done. Ernie paid me under the table, which kept me in gas money. I got a few calls for what Ann had called “hired thug” jobs, but it didn’t seem smart to take those on. I don’t know if it was because of Nathan’s situation or something else, but my gut told me to lay off the beatings—for now.
FINALLY, I HEARD BACK from the lawyer. He called and told me to come to his office and bring Nathan. When we got there, I was surprised to see not only Charley but also Dennis, the cop from Denver, the one who’d nearly shot me, and another person I didn’t recognize. It was strange to see Dennis in South Dakota; it felt like he didn’t belong here, or like maybe I was the one who was in the wrong place.
Charley led us to a conference room. “Virgil, you know Dennis.” He nodded at me. “This is Stan Dillon, the AUSA for our region. And this is Nathan, gentlemen.”
“AUSA?” I asked.
“Assistant United States attorney,” Stan said. “I’m based in Pierre, but I came down to help out. We want to go over some things, make sure everyone’s on the same page.”
So this was one of the feds, the guys who couldn’t be bothered to prosecute the vast majority of violent crimes committed on our rez. The reason I made a living. But of course he was eager to go after a foreign drug cartel, a bust that would get major news coverage. The arrest of a child abuser or rapist wouldn’t bring the same publicity, so those cases went unprosecuted. I wanted to ask how he was able to sleep at night after letting countless criminals go free, but—again—I forced myself to stay quiet.
Charley pulled out a red folder. “Couldn’t agree more, Stan. Let’s get it all in writing. You gentlemen have had a chance to read this. You know the deal: Nathan does one buy as a CI—one buy only—and his case stays in the state juvenile system, no transfer to federal.”
The expressions on the two government men’s faces told me they didn’t like the deal that had been struck. It also told me that I’d done the right thing by bringing Charley Leader Charge in as Nathan’s attorney.
“Charley, we’ve been over this,” said Stan. “We need Nathan to do a trust buy before we give him the device. How do we know they’ll even sell to him now?”
“What’s a trust buy?” I asked.
“They want Nathan to make one purchase before putting the wire on him,” said Charley. “To gain their confidence.”
“I don’t understand. Why not just wire him up for the first buy, then arrest the guys?”
Dennis jumped in. “Because these guys aren’t stupid. They may have heard that Nathan was arrested at school, and they may not sell to him at all. Or if they do, they may use somebody else to make the sale, someone that’s not in their group. We’d be wasting our time.”
I was beginning to grasp the problem. “What if they won’t sell to him? The deal’s still on, right? Because he tried.”
Charley looked over at me and shook his head. “That’s the bone of contention here. Our position is that we’re cooperating fully, and we expect the government to honor their side of the deal. If the dealers won’t sell to Nathan, he can still provide valuable information—”
“You know it doesn’t work that way,” said Stan. “We can only reduce the charges if there’s full compliance, and that includes a trust buy and controlled buy. Otherwise, no deal.”
Charley, Stan, and Dennis all started speaking at once.
“I’ll do it.”
Everyone stopped talking and looked at Nathan.
“I’ll do the, uh, trust buy. It’s no problem,” Nathan said.
HIS UNEXPECTED WILLINGNESS to cooperate threw everyone for a loop, and Charley asked to meet with Nathan and me in private. We had the government people leave the room while we talked it over. Nathan was willing to make two buys from the dealers; he said he didn’t care. Charley made some changes in the written agreement to reflect Nathan’s willingness to take part in several purchases as a CI, and the feds came back in.