The sun was shining and it was also hot as hell in Alabama on that July day. It was always like that the old timers said, but I couldn't swear to it of my own knowledge. Since it was only my second July in Alabama, I would have to take their word for it. I expected it to be my last one.
My handler had assured me the federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force base was by far the best of the federal prison. The year I had just finished in the prison was a big part of my new identity. It was a part I had insisted on. I wanted a year to pass without any hoopla, but with also no chance for Pablo or his boys to find me.
Prison with a new name and new identity seemed like just the ticket. From con man to embezzler wasn't all that big a stretch. The year gave some teeth to my new identity. Inmates of the prison camp would remember me and all my stories. As a con man I was very well eauipted to sell the false background cover. I had, for 30 of me 50 year, been a performance artists. I performed daily playing someone else. I had done it so long that the real me was pretty much gone.
The blonde with the small chest and almost no ass at all, waved at me from the parking lot. I recognized her of course. She had been my only visitor in the joint, as we laughingly referred to the prison camp. Her cover name was something I could never hope to pronounce. She claimed to be Russian but that was part of her cover story for the prisoners and guards. She was in fact my federal marshal handler. She didn't much like meeting me in the prison pretending to be girlfriend, but she had gone along.
When my testimony against the drug cartel was finished, I began my new life as Edward Wilson inmate at the federal prison camp located at Maxwell Air Force Base Alabama. Now that my time was done, Lucy was planning to be actively involved as my handler. I did hope she didn't plan to be too involved in my life. I had a lot of time to make up.
"So Eddie, you ready to meet the world again?" Lucy asked in a soft voice. It was the same voice I had heard in the visitors area of the camp once every couple of months during my stay at Maxwell. She had visited me exactly five times.
"I need to know more about you, so that I can set you up with a new life?" That was during her first visit. It was also in response to my "What the hell are you doing here?"
"You didn't think you were going to be abandoned did you. Oh no Eddie, we are going to help ease you into a new life." She slipped me an envelope during that first visit. It contain photos of her and a short biograph of my new girlfriend. I was supposed to use it to sell her to my prison buddies.
Lucy at least didn't drive her company car to pick me up. She had a very nice red convertible. "So did you get this in a drug bust?" I asked it waving my arms toward the car.
"Actually it isn't drug related, but it is an forfeiture. If anyone happens to spot it, and run it back somehow, it will come back to a shell company that used to be owned by a gambler."
"So now you own the car?" I asked.
"And the shell company too. It comes in handy now and then."
"Very nice. So why all the mystery about my new life."
I had no idea what she thought she had learned about me as a person but I supposed I was about to find out in the choices she had made for me. She and her bosses had been careful to give me no details whatsoever. I suppose it was to keep me from leaking them to the other prisoners should I be that stupid.
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