By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 9:  A Slight Change of Plans

While I was at breakfast—very early, very light–the hotel slaps came to my room and picked up my bags.  I didn’t need to do anything to get them from there to the back of the limo.  The only things I had to carry were the real estate leaflets I’d picked up from the concierge.  There were lots of glossy pictures of “elegant Wellingtons” and “baroque Bee hives,” each with “intimate facilities for family, grand space for entertainment, and bountiful St. Bevons gardens.  Barracks for 5-10 staff.”  The prices were not unreasonable, especially considering the current exchange rate.

When the airport slap opened the door of the limo, I had nothing to do except walk through security; the slappies would see that my bags got through.  It all happened so smoothly, I didn’t think about the backpack until I got to the boarding area.  I guess that’s where you usually remember stuff you forgot.  It would be ridiculous to go back to the hotel to turn the thing in—and who cared about it anyway?  Besides, I didn’t really know where it was.  Probably the hotel slappies had found it in the room and shipped it to the airport along with the other bags.  It was silly, but I had that uneasy feeling I got whenever I thought I’d lost something.  The item might not be important, but loss of control was always disturbing.  It was a tendency I’d been trying to conquer.  The only thing to do was just ignore the “problem.”  I sat near my gate, reading about St, Bevons properties and ignoring the stupid backpack.

“Are you Mr. Thomas Lansing?”  The voice dropped out of the sky.  I looked up—there were two men beside me and one in front, all wearing the white uniforms of the St. Bevons Police.  It was one black man, one white, and one Indian.  Completely multicultural.

“Why, yes,” I said, and immediately I was hauled out of my seat, handcuffed behind my back, marched through the airport, and shoved into a police car.  Driver up front, the other two in the back, on each side of me.  It would be pointless to relate my loud threats and protests—as pointless as it was to make them. “What is this about?  This is an outrage!  I’ll have you fired for this!”  And so forth.  They said nothing.  Next stop: police headquarters, in a grimly Victorian building downtown.

The following two hours were a blur to me, which I’m sure was the effect the cops wanted to create.  The point was to make me confess.  To what?  Eventually I learned that my crime was the attempt to smuggle five ounces of ADQ, the popular new drug.  I pieced the story together from the questions being shot at me.  I had carried a large—a “lethal”—amount of the drug in my backpack, intending to pass it to unnamed locals who would market it to other St. Bees, “in violation of the laws of our country, and of humanity.”  I had apparently failed to make contact with my fellow criminals and was now returning to the United States with the “illegal substance” still in my possession.  The drugs had been found, disguised as toiletries, in the baggage that was checked at the airport.

I told them the history of the pack and the gangies who tried to steal it.  “And when did you report the crime, Mr. Lansing?”  “I didn’t.  I was meaning to tell the . . . the uh, hotel . . . but I seem to have forgotten.”  “You must know, Mr. Lansing, that failure to report a felony is a violation of the laws of the Dominion.”  It was also a sign, apparently, that my story wasn’t true.  No trace of my own backpack had been found, and when I tried to describe it, all I could do was provide an exact description of the smuggler’s pack.  I had my theory about what had happened: somebody in the bowels of the Chicago airport had switched my bag with a look-alike drug container, and his confederates had arranged for some shy-looking young slap at the airport in St. Bevons to snatch it for them.  He had failed.  Then the gangies had been told to lie in wait and take it from me.  Thanks to my efforts, they too had failed.  But the airport screeners had not failed.

A complicated story–too complicated to be believed.  The airport in Chicago reported no bag belonging to me in its possession.  The slappies that stood by the hotel doors said they knew nothing about any fight in the street.  My claim that a man named Roger, a respected investor and welcome visitor to St. Bevons, would be able to vouch for my integrity was met with skepticism, especially because I could not provide his last name.

Clearly, I was in trouble.  I needed a lawyer, and of course I could pay for one.  I had a lot of cash and numerous credit and debit cards in my wallet, if they would let me have access to my wallet.  They did let me call my brother back in the States—a messy conversation, but he contacted the American embassy, which contacted a local lawyer, a Mr. Raskins, who showed up as promptly as if everything had been planned in advance.

They were keeping me in a little locked room.  Antonio Raskins, a small, punctilious black man, entered, introduced himself, and informed me of my brother’s attitude.  “Your brother, my dear sir, conveys to you his greetings.  We had a conversation.  He said he had no idea that you were involved with drugs.”

“Neither did I,” I said, “my dear sir.”  Mr. Raskins was immaculately dressed, whereas by now I was rumpled and dirty around the edges.  So I resented him, all right?  “My brother and I are not close friends.  But he has all my powers of attorney, so he is able to pay you.”

“So he informed me, sir,” Mr. Raskins replied, unperturbed.  “Your brother left me in no doubt that my fee will be paid, ‘no matter what happens,’ as he said.  But I have also been speaking with the prosecutor and I have reviewed the evidence.  This case will be difficult for us.  The best course is to see if we can get you expelled from the country.”

I did not object.  I was not going to fight to live in a country in which I could be treated like this.

“All right,” I said.  “Just get me out.”

“That m-a-y be done,” he said, drawling his words in a local way that was no longer charming.  “But if we take the case to trial, and lose, as is very much to be feared, you will not be expelled.  Your punishment will take place here.  And I am sure you know what the nature of that punishment will be.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dear sir, you will be entrusted to the State Labour Program.  You will spend your life in penal labor.  In brief, as a slappie.”

I swear, I hadn’t seen that coming.  Being arrested was enough to worry about; I never dreamed they could turn me into a slap boy.

“But I don’t even live here!  I’m an American.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised.

“According to the prosecutor, you are known to have made particular in-quire-ies into our penal labor system.  You must have noticed that many of the slappies are Americans.”

Yes, I remembered the kid from Kalamazoo.

“But . . . .”  I was about to bring up the matter of my innocence, but he continued with his thought.

“Your status as an American does not protect you here.  And make no mistake: the American embassy did all that it intends to do for you when it facilitated my appointment.  They have made the remark that ‘we are not here to get the hippies and the druggies out of trouble.’  Take my advice, Mr. Lansing.  Do not risk a trial.  Throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.  That tactic has a much higher probability of success.  If you do not wish to plead guilty, perhaps from fear of some repercussion, some unwelcome notoriety back home, you may plead nolo contendere.  This means ‘no contest.’”

“Yes, I know.  But . . . . ”

“Here are the papers that will allow me to submit that plea.  They are very standard.  Simply sign and date them.  If you wish, you may, of course, read them.”

The “papers” were a series of forms totally composed of legal jargon.  I was apparently “praying” the “majesty of the court” to “have mercy and relieve me of distress, deigning to accept my most humble plea,” etc.

“This will be best,” Mr. Raskins was saying.  “Juries in this country can be remarkably . . . decisive, especially with regard to outsiders, whereas judges feel themselves more constrained, at least by their professional dignity.  There is also the time factor.  Pleas are easy for the court to rule upon, and drug cases are, as I have repeatedly noticed, expedited.  These cases tend to be open and shut, you know.  Either one possesses drugs or one does not.  There is one judge especially who is experienced in these matters and who ordinarily acts with great speed.  I hesitated to tell you this before, because I did not wish to prejudice you in favor of the nolo contendere option, merely because of the shortened procedures associated with it, but naturally I do not want you to stay on St. Bevons a moment longer than is necessary.”

“Thank you.  And you think this plea will work?”

“It is by far the best alternative, Mr. Lansing.”

“But do you think it will work?”

“I think it will work, Mr. Lansing.”

I saw no other way.  I signed the documents.

“Very well,” Mr. Raskins said, folding the papers and putting them quickly in a place in his briefcase that I was sure would be exactly the right place.  “With a view to an early departure from the island, I have already taken the liberty of speaking informally to the various parties, and your hearing has been scheduled for 2:15 p.m.  It is now 1:40 p.m.”

“Thank you, I . . . .”

He was already turning to leave.  “I am sure that all will turn out for the best.  Good bye, Mr. Lansing.”

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