"Your middle name is Angus?" Mikeé inquired. "Heh... heh... heh." Riley smiled and said nothing. No one else dared laugh.
Mikeé was not as intimidated by Riley's presence as the other parolees. Although they had met and become friends in the prison kitchen, Mikeé knew all about Riley through his own connections in the New England and New York criminal underworld. Mikeé had served just two years of a seven year sentence for racketeering after being caught running a very lucrative gambling enterprise on behalf of a New York strip club owner. (Mikeé insisted he was framed.) He knew Riley's name from the scuttlebutt on the street but didn't meet him until they were both assigned to slice bread one morning at SBCC. Mikeé was never one for watching much television or reading newspapers, so he had missed most of the sensationalized trial that made Riley Lynch a local, and notorious, celebrity. And although friends, both men were intelligent enough not to trust the other.
Following the news report, Mrs. C wasted no time leaving the room, zipping about the three story house closing windows and securing the door latches. She knew what would happen next. It wouldn't take long for the reporters to figure out where Riley was staying, and she assumed that at least one of the fine, upstanding young men at her breakfast table would no doubt already be dialing their cell phone.
"What do you think, Mr. Lynch? What are they going to say?" One of the men inquired.
"Don't know... don't care," he responded, with a terse and unemotional demeanor. "The AG never did get much right anyway. It's just more grandstanding. He's going to explain how it's possible that a convicted murderer gets released and it's not his fault."
"So whose fault is it?"
"It's not anybody's fault. But that is one hell of a good question."
Riley's brief early morning moment of contentment was gone, replaced by the sudden anxiety of notoriety. He never wanted to be famous, never mind infamous. He had started to accept the permanence of his life behind bars and didn't expect to ever see true freedom again. Hope, in all forms, had been abandoned. And these mood swings were now exhausting him.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" Mrs. C whispered peering into the street from the front door, wringing her cupped hands high on her chest. Three black Lincoln Town Cars had appeared along the curb at the front of the Center. Two large men with the letters FBI emblazoned on their sweatshirts hustled toward the building and glided through the Center's doorway, dusting by Mrs. C as if she was cloaked in invisibility.
"Mr. Lynch, come with us." One of the agents demanded.
"Am I being arrested? I'm not going anywhere without my lawyer."
"I am Agent Manning, This is agent Wills. You are not under arrest, but it would be in your best interest to come with us now. Mr. Ward will be waiting for you when we arrive."
From the moment he was notified of his impending release, Riley had been trying to reach his defense attorney, Malcolm Ward, but could only get through to his answering service. Riley surmised Ward was off on some Jamaican holiday with a sassy new office paralegal -- again -- and wouldn't be heard from for a long while. Ward had represented Riley in the murder trial, and although he lost the case -- with intense public scrutiny -- his willingness to be perceived as a brash mob lawyer, along with his flowing white hair and a dark, mysterious avant-garde look, guaranteed his future professional, and financial success.
"You've heard from Malcolm? Where are you taking me?"
"That's classified, sir. We'll tell you when we get there."
The rhythmic purr of a news helicopter could be heard near the Center, it was getting louder, and was the only encouragement Riley required to go along with the agents. Outside, a gathering storm of vehicles in all shapes and sizes were assembling along the boulevard including a limousine, several police cruisers and then a second deafening helicopter. A news truck with a satellite dish mounted on the roof, so large it wanted to capsize, drove up onto the sidewalk, scattering bewildered pedestrians and the leftover bus stop moms. With one hand, Agent Wills grabbed Riley by the back of his pants and tossed him into the back seat of the Town Car like a sack of dirty laundry. Through the frenzy of blowing snow flurries, lying on the back seat, Riley could see what looked like a police sniper stationed on top of the factory across the block.
"Like vultures circling over a fresh kill," Mikeé muttered as chattering reporters with microphones popped up like April tulips all along the sidewalk. Mrs. C had bolted the door, but the others struggled to peer through whatever grimy window they could find. One of the men unbuckled his pants, pirouetted, and mooned the TV cameras from the dining room window, and was able to watch his pale, pimpled bottom across the room on the new widescreen TV, in high definition.
"Looks like Mr. Lynch gonna have a busy day. Heh... heh... heh." Mikeé declared.
The three black Town Cars sped away.
CHAPTER TWO