Triple Cross
Harris Masters, as he is known in the Witness Protection Program, is on the run – from the mob and the government.
The first trial of New Orleans mob kingpin Sonny Falco, for which Masters, Falco’s former lawyer, had provided the evidence used by the government, ended in a mistrial. Now Falco wants to make certain Masters doesn’t live to testify at his retrial.
Masters can no longer trust the Marshal’s Service or the U.S. Attorney to protect him, so he turns to Lucius White for help.
Whatever White can do, it won’t be easy, but it will be dangerous. There is now a contract out on Parker, but White and Masters must return to New Orleans to find the documents that might save Masters’ life. The risks are great, the chances of success are small, and Masters and White can’t completely trust anyone whose help they need. But it is the only way Masters can get his life back.
SAMPLE CHAPTER
The sad fact is that I lie some. That is, I lie in the interest of self-preservation and noble causes and, to be perfectly honest, whenever else it suits my purposes.
My name is Harris Parker, but everyone seems to call me Parker. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t make a lot of difference – it isn’t my real name. Like I said, I lie some. But, in the case of my name, the need to lie was forced on me by the Department of Justice. They want people in the witness protection program to have new names and identities. I can understand their thinking. Besides, I believe that lying to stay alive is an exception to the Commandment – I forget which one – that says it’s a bad thing. In any event, I’ve grown accustomed to my new name. It’s too bad that I may have to change it again. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Fall had come suddenly to the Smokey Mountains. At least it seemed sudden to me. It was my first autumn away from New Orleans, so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Mountains covered with trees, green or any other color, never held much interest for me. They still don’t.
I’m not even sure how long it took for the trees to change color. All I know is that when I stumbled into bed at some ungodly hour one night a month ago the trees were green, and when I woke up they were vibrant reds, oranges and gold. It probably wasn’t an overnight occurrence, but that’s how it seemed. I could have been asleep for more than one day. I probably was. That happens occasionally. It probably has something to do with the fact that I also drink a lot. That’s one of the reasons I was disbarred. I’m sure that my heavy drinking wasn’t the only reason the State of Louisiana decided to yank my law license. If that was a disqualifying personal flaw, there wouldn’t be many attorneys in Louisiana. I think there was more to my disbarment than just my drinking. Punching out a judge might have had something to do with it.
It’s just as well. I never really wanted to be a lawyer, but some things are inevitable. Three generations of doctors, lawyers and honest politicians — I know it’s an oxymoron, but it’s true — defined my future long before I had a choice in the matter. I always thought JFK Jr. had the right idea. Go to law school, graduate and take five tries to pass the bar exam. By that time, his family had gotten the message and he was free to do something else. I don’t know what he did after that, but that’s not the point.
I had been practicing law for a couple of years when my aunt and uncle, both very successful surgeons, were killed in an automobile accident. I wasn’t really a very good lawyer, but I was family, so the family decided I should handle the case. I think it had something to do with the fact that the driver of the truck that killed them was high on crack and had a suspended driver’s license when he ran the red light in front of thirty witnesses. The family must have thought that even I, as inexperienced as I was in handling such cases, couldn’t lose that one. My fee from the settlement pretty much set me up for life. From then on, I was just going through the motions.