Sycamore Row - John Grisham

oughly $1.5 million.
It took the police several days to verify records and such, and by then Lonny was
awake and feeling better. The police decided not to approach him about the coke until
he was ready to be discharged. They kept an officer in street clothes outside his room.
Since the only legitimate names in his arsenal appeared to be Ancil F. Hubbard and
Wilson Steglitz, they entered them into the national crime computer system to see what,
if anything, might turn up. The detective began chatting with Lonny, stopping by and
bringing him milk shakes, but there was no mention of the drugs. After a few visits, the
detective said they could find no records of a man named Lonny Clark. Birth place and
date, Social Security number, state of residence? Anything, Lonny?
Lonny, who’d spent a lifetime running and ducking, grew suspicious and less
talkative. The detective asked, “You ever know a man by the name of Harry Mendoza?”
“Maybe,” Lonny replied.
Oh really? From where and when? How? Under what circumstances? Nothing.
What about Albert Johnson, or Charles Noland? Lonny said maybe he’d met those
men long ago but wasn’t sure. His memory was foggy, coming and going. He had, after
all, a cracked skull and a bruised brain, and, well, he couldn’t remember much before
the fight. Why all the questions?
By then Lonny knew they had been in his room, but he wasn’t sure if they had found
the cocaine. There was an excellent chance the man who owned it went to the flophouse
not long after the fight and removed it himself. Lonny was not a dealer; he was just
doing a friend a favor, one for which he was to be paid nicely. So, the question was
whether the cops had found the cocaine. If so, Lonny was in some serious trouble. The
less he said the better. As he had learned decades earlier, when the cops start asking
serious questions, deny, deny, deny.
Jake was at his desk when Portia rang through and said, “It’s Albert Murray.” Jake
grabbed the phone and said hello.
Murray ran a firm out of D.C. and specialized in locating missing persons, both
nationally and internationally. So far, the estate of Seth Hubbard had paid the firm
$42,000 to find a long-lost brother and had almost nothing to show for it. Its results had
been thoroughly unimpressive, though its billing procedures rivaled those of any big-city
law firm.
Murray, always skeptical, began with “We have a soft hit on Ancil Hubbard, but don’t
get excited.” He relayed the facts as he knew them—an assumed name of Lonny, a bar
brawl in Juneau, a cracked skull, lots of cocaine, and fake papers.
“He’s sixty-six years old and dealing drugs?” Jake asked.
“There’s no mandatory retirement age for drug dealers.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway,” Murray continued, “this guy is pretty crafty and won’t admit to anything.”
“How bad is he hurt?”