:EDUCATED IN THE WEST

[Details of the following story have been changed to protect me and the guilty.]

Does anyone remember the scene from the movie Stripes when the characters played by Bill Murray and Harold Ramis go to the Army recruiting office? In processing them, the recruiter asks a series of questions one of which is something like, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” Ramis and Murray look at each other slyly and say deliberately, “Nope, never convicted.” The implication is, of course, that they’ve been charged with felonies on multiple occasions, but that the prosecutors couldn’t prove their case.

Well, when I was visiting my parents not too long ago, I heard a story from my dad that made me think of this particular scene.

As it turns out, my father has an older male friend who was charged with murder for hire back about twenty years ago. (No, not in this country.) He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and with murder. The prosecutor alleged that he had conspired with another well-connected individual to off a particular civil servant who was taking bribes. Well, this civil servant guy did happen to die in a hail of gunfire directed at his car as it sat in traffic on a bridge.

The police arrested five people in connection with the murder. However, none of these individuals was the actual trigger man. According to the police theory, my dad’s friend and his partner in crime had insulated themselves from the gunman with at least one layer of individuals. These five who were arrested were the ones who, allegedly, knew of the plot against the civil servant. The gunman who did the actual killing, according to the theory, never knew who had hired him. I think the police might have watched Godfather II one too many times.

My dad’s friend was brought in for questioning not long after the first five were arrested. While in police custody, he was apparently threatened with physical harm unless he confessed. The police took him in a van to a very remote place and, while en route, threatened to do very bad things to him once they arrived at their destination. Calling their bluff, my dad’s friend made a move for the van door. He was trying to jump out and kill himself so that the police would be caught with a corpse on their hands. The police knew what he was trying to do and did everything they could to pull him back into the van. Let’s just say that my dad’s friend wasn’t trying to kill himself, but that he has a belly full of guts to beat the police at their own bluffing game. He made it back safely to the station house without confessing anything and was sent off to jail. Not long after, he was charged and posted bail. I know. How does a murder for hire suspect get bail? All I can say is that it wasn’t in the States.

Anyway, back in jail, the five who were arrested were plotting their escape. Lo and behold, they were able to break out of jail not long after they were arrested. What a coincidence that all five made it out! Well, things wouldn’t go well for our five escapees once they had set themselves loose.

Within weeks after their escape, all five had been shot dead mysteriously, one by one. Yeah, Michael Corleone style, bitches. No one knows who did it and no one knows if the murders were related to the case. Well, at least I don’t know who did it or if the five deaths were connected. The bottom line is that those five guys were sleepin’ with the fishes and could tell no tales.

And, of course, without these five key witnesses, the case against my dad’s friend and his alleged partner in the scheme crumbled. All charges were quickly dropped.

I’ve met this particular friend on multiple occasions and I can say that he’s not a bad guy. He is, like me, a lover of Asian cuisines. He shares with me all sorts of secrets about cooking and preparing good food. He is generous to a fault once dropping a c-note on me for driving him around Las Vegas for a couple of hours. He’s also gotten me into the VIP grandstand at the horse track on several occasions and made sure that I was stuffed with food and quenched with drinks while I was there. Oh, and he got me in to observe a session of Parliament when usually no one without official business is allowed inside. When you consider all of that, you almost forget that he brandished a gun at his son’s school teacher a few years back. Hey, no one’s perfect, right?

What, you ask, does this friend do? Well, he’s actually a lobbyist, or so says my dad. The guy sure does very little lobbying for being a lobbyist, though. What’s that they say about “no visible means of support.”

Anyway, before you start thinking that my dad is a bad guy who hangs around with thugs, just know that this friend is kind of special and unlike the others. And, after all, he’s innocent until proven guilty, right?