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Henry McCarty slid his black late model four-door sedan to the curb at the arriving flights pickup area at JFK airport. The unassuming Toyota Camry was one of the most common cars on the highway, thus making it almost invisible to everyone. However, the passenger he was expecting today had all the pertinent information that would enable him to find the right vehicle. You see, Henry was on the job and responding to a reservation made by a particular client coming into New York today from Chicago. Prearranging a ride wasn’t the way things were usually done, but it did happen from time to time for people who wanted to have all their ducks in a row. Henry McCarty respected that because he was a busy, hardworking Uber driver. However, the young entrepreneur had other irons in the fire as well. In his spare time he was also a hitman for hire.The Toyota idled for less than a minute before a middle-aged man in a well-cut dark suit stepped forward pulling a Louis Vuitton piece of carryon luggage behind him. Henry hopped from behind the wheel and met him midstride.“Mr. Smith?” he inquired as he sized the man up.“You’ve got the right person only if your name is Henry,” was the terse answer.“It is, Sir,” Henry answered as he opened a rear door for his fare. “Any more luggage that I can retrieve for you?”“No, I always prefer to travel light.”Henry gave the visitor a smile and slid behind the wheel once again. He turned off the pop music station playing on the radio and glanced toward the rear of the car. “I hope you had a pleasant flight. Is your destination still the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan?”“It is.” Another short answer.The route from Jamaica, Queens into Uptown Manhattan was only approximately 30 miles, normally a half-hour ride in other cities. But in congested New York, you needed to double that estimate. After Henry had detoured around construction on Interstate 678, and then crawled his way through heavy traffic to access Interstate 495 West, almost 40 minutes had elapsed before his passenger made a move. The less than chatty man had simply leaned across the backseat to hand his driver a small slip of paper with just a man’s name written in block letters. Henry gazed at it passively until another slip of paper followed it with a six-figure number.Henry finally broke the silence. “I’m assuming this Peter Burke fellow is a Fed since the word ‘Agent’ is in front of his name. That’s a pertinent piece of information that was omitted during the preliminary negotiations.”“Is that going to be an issue?” the passenger wanted to know.“A G-man is not the issue, but the amount on this piece of paper is. An assignment like this seriously ups the ante,” Henry made that clear.The man in the backseat finally responded. “We’ve been told you’re the best at what you do, so we realize you don’t come cheap. That number could be just a downpayment for services yet to be rendered. Get the job done, and we can double that. I trust that a half million dollars will suffice?”“I do like seeing lots of zeros,” Henry answered quietly. “What’s my timeframe for the job?”“Your target is scheduled to testify before the grand jury regarding the Monroe indictment tomorrow afternoon. You need to shut him down before he manages to do that.”“Those are tight parameters, but I guess it’s doable,” Henry remarked quite casually as if they were talking about getting last minute tickets to a popular Broadway show.“Don’t guess!” the passenger snapped. “You accepted this assignment, so make it work. Otherwise, you’re going to make my associates quite annoyed. Trust me, that won’t bode well for your health.”“Now don’t go getting all testy or try to spook me with your threats,” Henry said calmly. “That might not bode well for your health. I’ll make good on my word. So, when we get to your hotel, I’ll give you my bank routing number in the Caymans so you can forward the first installment of our deal. But I’m not going to trust that your word is also good at the conclusion of our business. I want the remainder available in cash after I wrap things up. When Burke bites the dust, I’ll expect prompt payment.”“That’s a lot of folding money to acquire on such short notice,” the man in the suit replied peevishly.“I’m sure you’re quite motivated so you can make it happen, Mr. Smith. You came to New York not only to be a delivery boy, but also to witness firsthand that I carry out a directive. So, I don’t see a lot of trust being bantered around. After you see what you came to see, I’m going to pay you an in-person visit at your hotel to collect the second installment. I just want to make sure that you understand how this is going to go if you and the people you represent expect to move forward. Now, are we on the same page?”“I’m going to be watching,” the man from Chicago threatened.The Uber driver smiled. “I’m sure you will, so I’ll provide you with a ringside seat for the event. Make sure to be close to the courthouse tomorrow.”>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<< Peter Burke had purchased a new suit and a pristine white shirt in anticipation of giving testimony before 20 men and women who currently were impaneled as a Grand Jury in Manhattan. The State’s District Attorney had gone over Peter’s testimony again and again in preparation of him reciting the facts that could put Joseph Monroe on trial for racketeering and drug running if those New York citizens believed the allegations and returned an indictment.This current state of affairs was unusual for a man who worked in the White Collar division of the FBI. The perpetrators he usually had in his sights were art thieves, forgers, Ponzi schemers, and con artists with a talent for defrauding their marks by pretending to be someone they weren’t. Being instrumental in taking down a big fish with ties to organized crime was a rarity in Peter’s bailiwick. But in this instance, it had happened because ferreting out a crime tied to a man named Joseph Monroe had serendipitously fallen in his lap, courtesy of a snitch on the street who had gotten himself into a bit of trouble.This low life was looking at jail time for a holdup, and since his latest crime would make him a three-time loser, he was scrambling for a lifeline to prevent a life sentence. The local police had passed on the word that the prisoner they had in custody might have intel useful to White Collar, so Peter had paid him a visit.Hal Johnson looked cagey when he had been brought into the interrogation room in cuffs. He peered at Peter suspiciously before imparting anything. “I can hand you a big case on a silver platter, Mr. FBI, but first I want something in return,” he opened the discussion cautiously.“Don’t waste my time, Buddy,” Peter said sternly. “If you have something that’s of value to me, we can open the negotiation about what you’ll get as a reward.”“How about if I tell you about a business that’s producing stuff that isn’t what it seems?” the prisoner countered.“That’s a bit vague,” Peter snorted. “Care to be more specific?”The felon weighed his options and eventually decided to be more forthcoming. “There’s a business called ‘Monroe Technology’ working out of a warehouse up in Red Hook that makes stuff like fancy vases and figurines. They ship the products out to Chicago so they can be sold by people to other people who aren’t buying them to put in their living rooms.”Peter sighed because this was like pulling teeth. Maybe what the guy was referring to was some company that was mass producing replicas of valuable porcelain like rare Imari vases or Capodimonte antique pieces and passing them off as the real thing. That was fraud, pure and simple.“So, are you saying that you have actual knowledge that the items are fake?” Peter tried to cut to the chase.“I’m saying that it isn’t the items that people want. It’s what’s hidden inside of them.”Now Peter became very intrigued. “Go on, Mr. Johnson. You have my attention.”“Not so fast, Fed. If I tell you what I know, I’m a dead man walking. So, I want to be taken care of for putting my ass on the line. I want this robbery charge dropped and I want a new start in Witness Protection. Take it or leave it, but just keep in mind this lead could really boost your career.”“Maybe something can be arranged along those lines if what you have is as valuable as you claim. But I’ll need specifics that can be verified before we move forward. Rumors aren’t going to cut it. What you know should be first-hand knowledge.”“What would you say if I told you that I came by this ‘knowledge’ because I used to work for the dude doing the crime?” Johnson threw out that challenge.“I’d say you have big balls turning snitch,” Peter retorted.“Well, I need help with my current problem, so here I am,” the criminal shrugged.“Okay, I think we can come to a meeting of the minds, so let’s hear it,” Peter insisted rather forcefully.At first the two men seemed to be at a stalemate, but Johnson was out of options unless he took a leap of faith. Reluctantly, he began to spool out his tale.“Joseph Monroe, my former boss, is the dude who runs this enterprise that I told you about. For the sake of argument, let’s call it a type of pottery business. And the way I heard it, he once served as a Marine in Afghanistan where he made some influential friends over there. In case you didn’t know this fact, that desert shithole is the world’s biggest producer of heroin, and Monroe’s pal makes sure that he’s supplied on a regular basis when certain cargo ships come into New York Harbor. Then what is known in the pottery trade as ‘greenware’ becomes a sort of container to hold the stuff. Actually, greenware isn’t really green. It’s just a word for unfired pottery that starts out white until it’s painted and then gets baked in a big oven. So, the white powder incorporated inside the clay molds is undetectable to anybody who might be looking for it.”Peter sat back and kept his expression bland, even though this was something monumental if it was true. It fell under the heading of racketeering when a business enterprise was being operated in order to commit illegal acts, and drug running was as illegal as it comes.“I’ll have to do some investigation into this claim before I can assure you of our cooperation with your problem. But if what you say pans out, the Federal District Attorney can sign off on it and get the ball rolling to get a new life for you with a clean slate.”“Well, get a move on, Mr. FBI. Rikers sure isn’t the Ritz, and I’m looking at the prospect of Attica with even less enthusiasm,” Johnson muttered.>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<< Peter returned to his office at White Collar and had his team start looking into a man named Joseph Monroe and his business enterprise in Red Hook. What they found was very interesting. “Monroe Technology” supposedly manufactured greenware, just as Johnson had said, and they did it on a rather large scale. Deep diving into their transport logs showed cartons of unfired pottery was routinely shipped out to the Midwest, specifically to another business in Chicago called “Imports LTD.” That enterprise had articles of incorporation originating in Indonesia, but with dedicated digging and utilizing FBI resources, the man behind the curtain for “Imports LTD” was unmasked as someone named Mario Valente, a well-known Mafia boss. What was also unearthed was the fact that he was Joseph Monroe’s brother-in-law, so apparently, they were keeping their drug running business in the family.Peter decided that he had to follow protocol, and that meant bumping this up to Ruiz’s team in Organized Crime. At first, the little tyrant who ran that division was skeptical.“Let me get this straight, Burke. You want me to jump to your tune and get a warrant to search some smalltime business that’s never even been a blip on our radar,” the hotheaded Latino sneered.“I have a witness who’s solid,” Peter argued.“How solid? Is he willing to swear in a court of law that Monroe Technology is really a drug distributor if we do this, but down the road it comes back to bite me in the ass?”“My informant has a lot to lose if he’s lying, so I’m willing to go out on a limb and back him,” Peter insisted.Ruiz looked at the reams of intel Peter and his junior agents had amassed, and the leery department head finally concluded that if it looked like a duck and quacked like a duck, then it probably was the real deal. The Organized Crime boss was suddenly salivating.“Okay, Burke, I’ll get on this here in Manhattan, and I’ll make my counterparts in Chicago aware of the situation. Maybe they’ll decide to do a similar raid on ‘Imports LTD’ while we’re doing our thing here in New York. But this is our baby now, so White Collar can stand down and live vicariously through us.”“I thought we were all on the same team,” Peter seethed.Ruiz produced a smirk that was taunting. “Listen up, Burke. You do what you do best and rise to that challenge. That means that you continue to chase down Prada knockoffs and artsy-fartsy stuff while me and my crew take care of the real bad guys.”Peter knew he was outgunned, so he refused to argue with the little megalomaniac who wanted all the fame and glory for himself. And Ruiz wasted no time amassing his troops, and with a questionable warrant in his hot little hand, descended on Monroe Technology. It was a win for the good guys that fine day because it was just as Peter’s snitch had said. All the greenware seized held shrink-wrapped packets of pure heroin incorporated into the clay structure of what, at first glance, appeared to be assorted vases, tea pots, and innocuous figurines of cats and birds.Monroe and his workers were arrested, and a case against them was pending before the Grand Jury. Of course, Hal Johnson, Peter’s informant had to testify to justify Ruiz’s actions, and he was agreeable because he had been promised that he would disappear into the ether after he told his tale in court. However, the songbird’s luck ran out before that happened when he was mortally shanked in Rikers before he ever got a chance to experience a rebirth of sorts in another city.Now it was time for Peter’s moment in the sun. The District Attorney had argued before a judge that Agent Burke could testify to what Johnson had told him. Monroe’s slick, high-priced lawyer countered that tactic. He claimed that what the FBI agent had been told was considered to be hearsay and, by the letter of judicial law, was therefore inadmissible. Ergo, the raid was not properly sanctioned, and whatever had been seized had been grabbed illegally. It was a technicality that could be used as a legitimate loophole that he hoped would free his client. Thankfully, the presiding judge felt otherwise, and ruled that Agent Burke’s testimony was valid and allowable. The proceedings would go on, and Peter was going to be on the hot seat this afternoon.The proceedings were slated for 3 PM, and Peter was standing on the courthouse steps with Diana at 2:45 waiting to be summoned inside. Meanwhile, hours before, Henry McCarty had set up his sniper’s nest across the wide street on the 30th floor of an empty building undergoing renovation. The weather was clear with no discernable wind, and the cavernous space gave him a perfect unobstructed vantage point to carry out an assassination. Afterwards, he could escape undetected after he disassembled his weapon and toted it out in his backpack. Seated on a bench at a bus stop at the foot of that very building was a man named Mr. Smith from Chicago, who had a vested interest in seeing Burke go down hard and stay down.Henry looked through the scope of his weapon and took careful aim at someone standing unnaturally still as if posing for a photo op instead of lingering in the crosshairs of someone about to ensure his death. Henry was very proficient with firearms, so when the sharp crack of the shot echoed through the canyons of the surrounding tall buildings, it traveled directly towards its mark and appeared to hit center mass. Burke immediately grabbed his upper chest and fell gracelessly across the courthouse steps.When New Yorkers heard that sound, they knew exactly how to react. They immediately began scrambling for cover or putting distance between themselves and someone wielding a gun. However, in the ensuing chaos, one man remained firmly in place. Mr. Smith retained his composure and his seat until he saw a female companion kneel down beside her fallen comrade and peel back his suit jacket to reveal a large red stain marring a previously unblemished white shirt. He watched her check for a pulse in Burke’s neck, then sit back down beside him in apparent anguish and pull out her phone, probably to report a fatal shooting. That meant that McCarty had fulfilled his contract, so only then did Mr. Smith rise from the bus bench and begin walking away from the pandemonium. He’d meet with the young hit man later at the Waldorf, pay him the rest of his fee, and be on the first plane back to Chicago.McCarty took his time, and it was over an hour and a half before Mr. Smith heard a knock on his hotel room door. He opened it, finding not the expected assassin, but instead the same woman he had seen earlier at the courthouse. She boldly strode into the room along with a scowling African American male by her side. They both produced FBI badges and told him he was under arrest for soliciting a hit man to kill an FBI agent. He tried to bluster his way out of this tense situation, claiming ignorance as well as innocence. When they found the small valise containing $250,000 in currency, he tried to play that off as well.“I’m a legitimate visiting businessman meeting clients here in the city who insist on only dealing in cash,” he tried to look persuasive.“Well, we know the truth, Sir. You were sticking around to make sure a job had been done and then paying for services rendered,” Diana snarled as she cuffed him tightly and began dragging him from the room.“I want to talk to a lawyer,” he all but bellowed at this Amazonian creature who was showing no mercy.“And someone wants to talk to you as well,” Diana answered with great emphasis.Once in an FBI interrogation room, they let Mr. Smith stew for a while awaiting his lawyer’s arrival. But then an impatient agent grew tired of waiting because this was personal. It was now White Collar’s show, and Ruiz, along with his Organized Crime cohorts, had been shut out and forced to sit on the sidelines.The detained suspect’s eyes widened in disbelief as he saw a familiar person stride into the room like an unwelcome apparition. That individual provided a cold, taunting introduction. “Agent Peter Burke, at your service, alive and well. I’ll bet you’re surprised to see me!”Maintaining a poker face was difficult for the shocked prisoner because the man now glaring at him should have been dead. Mr. Smith had watched him fall and saw the blood over his heart with his own eyes. Had that whole scenario been a sham conducted for his benefit? Smith managed to gather his wits and respond with denial.“Why would you think that I have feelings one way or the other? I don’t even understand why I’ve been arrested. Your agents said something about me contracting with some hit man to do you harm, but that’s ridiculous. I’ve never even met you, so why would I possibly want you dead?”“Let’s not play this game and waste everybody’s time,” Peter sneered. “We know your name isn’t Smith. It’s a much more ethnic name, and we know you’re working for a Mr. Valente in Chicago who’s got a big stake in this drama. He wants to keep himself afloat while trying to protect his brother-in-law, Mr. Monroe, here in New York. And the way that he intended to get himself and his relative off the hook was to prevent me from testifying. Tell me I’m wrong.”“I’m not telling you anything until my lawyer gets here,” the man who called himself Smith snarled.“Fine, don’t talk. Instead, just listen,” Peter said almost amicably as he pulled out a little flash drive and plugged it into a laptop sitting on the table. After a few seconds of static, it began spewing out the entire conversation that had taken place between himself and Henry McCarty on the drive in from the airport.“I think you pretty thoroughly implicated yourself in a plan to fund the assassination of a federal agent which, by the way, carries the death penalty in a federal court.”“So, this McCarty person was a plant? You sent in one of your guys in an attempt to entrap me?” Smith snarled, thinking the faux Uber driver was dead meat when his boss found out the truth.“Nah, McCarty wasn’t one of ours, but he was on our radar for a long time. We had heard chatter he wasn’t just some dumb schmuck driving passengers all over New York. He had another more serious hobby on the downlow. So, we placed a bug in his Toyota, and after weeks of eavesdropping, we finally got lucky and hit the mother lode when you blew into town.”“Did you arrest him? I think I should know what he’s saying about me so I can defend myself.”Peter set the record straight. “Actually, Mr. McCarty isn’t saying anything because he’s disappeared like smoke. Maybe he has some kind of psychic sixth sense when he’s being hunted because he does a pretty good invisibility act. So, without our star player in the drama, we were forced to improvise. I trust that my performance as a dead man looked authentic. Did you like the props we used? My bloodstained shirt was courtesy of an avant-garde FBI fashionista. I think it sold the illusion that I was a fatally wounded corpse.”“Why isn’t my lawyer here yet?” Smith demanded to know rather than critiquing Peter’s dying swan routine or his wardrobe.Peter shrugged. “If you called Chicago in the hope that your boss, Mario Valente, would take care of that, well think again. He’s kind of busy because he’s in custody as well, being arraigned as part of a plot to have some people murdered here in New York. That includes me as well as Hal Johnson. I’m not sure who the next don is in the pecking order, so until that gets sorted out, would you settle for a public defender?”>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<< Later that evening, Peter had settled back on his couch with a bottle of beer in his hand. It had been a gratifying day and he was feeling quite mellow. When there was a knock on the door, he trundled over to find Henry McCarty on his doorstep.“I was waiting for you to show up tonight,” Peter said boldly.“Is that so? Well, I had an assignment to do and now it’s time to wrap things up and end it,” the hitman smirked as he pushed past the FBI agent to claim Peter’s vacated seat on the sofa. “But I am curious to know my status.”“Your status?” Peter wanted clarification from someone who looked kicked back and comfortable instead of predatory.“Yeah, like am I now Numero Uno on the Mafia’s hit parade of favorites out in Chicago?”Peter didn’t answer immediately. He had drifted into the kitchen for a minute to retrieve some items. When he came back into the room and sat across from his late-night visitor, he held out another bottle of beer and a tracking anklet.“No worries, Buddy. I had your back. As far as anyone knows, Henry McCarty is in the wind, so now my clever and sometimes intimidating CI can resume his normal duties with no one being the wiser.”“So, I take it that all went well and as planned. I saw your performance on the courthouse steps before I cut out.”“Impressive, wasn’t it?” Peter bragged.“C’mon, Peter, anybody can fall over and play dead, even Satchmo.”Peter grinned. “Well, I may not win an Oscar, but it was enough to convince our Mr. Smith. Diana and Jones took him into custody with a bag full of money in his hotel room. I guess I should thank you for doubling my face value on the ‘assassins for hire’ marketplace. Smith’s been made aware that help isn’t coming from his boss in the Midwest since Mario Valente has suffered a big hit to his little empire and he’s going to be out of commission for quite a while.”“Um, increasing the price on your head was just a ploy to keep Smith here in New York like a sitting duck just waiting for you to arrest him,” Neal explained. However, when the young con man encountered his handler’s dark scowl, he quickly added, “But, of course, no one can accurately put a value on your life, Peter, because you’re an extraordinary individual.”“You got that right, Buddy, and don’t you forget it,” a less than pacified man groused.Neal thought it was prudent to change the subject. “I’ll bet Ruiz was pissed that he couldn’t do the honors and grab all the glory,” Neal theorized.“He was livid that we stole his thunder, and that really made my day,” Peter laughed.“Ruiz doesn’t like me very much,” Neal said with a puzzled frown. “I’ve always considered myself to be a people person, so I can’t understand his hostility.”“He doesn’t like me either, but neither one of us should lose any sleep over it,” Peter shrugged indifferently. “But let’s talk about something else, like your latest alias. I always let you pick them, and I know they’re like old friends to you with different attributes and distinct personalities. But I’m not familiar with Henry McCarty, so who was he, Neal?”“You really don’t know?” Neal seemed surprised. “I thought someone who does difficult crossword puzzles in ink and can’t get enough of trivia would recognize that name. So, I guess I know something you don’t know and that makes me an extraordinary individual as well.”“Well, aren’t you special! Nonetheless, enlighten me, Neal,” Peter demanded with an attitude.A cheeky partner couldn’t suppress a gleeful smile as he complied. “Henry McCarty was the name of that infamous Old Wild West gunslinger, Billy the Kid.”“I thought his name was William Bonney,” Peter claimed with a frown.“Actually, Peter, the person who became legendary Billy the Kid was born right here in Manhattan and baptized with the name Patrick Henry McCarty in one of the city’s Catholic churches way back in 1859. His family eventually migrated to Kansas where young Henry began a life of crime. Perhaps to elude the law, he took on the alias of William H. Bonney, and, as they say, the rest is history.”“Are you being serious, or just yanking my chain by spinning a tall tale?” Peter seemed suspicious.“Peter, you know I never lie to you. Google it if you want, just to confirm that I’ve bested you at your own game for once,” Neal smirked.“Well, just don’t go spreading that around, Buddy,” Peter threatened. “Now put that anklet back on so we can return to the status quo of life as it should be.”“Sour grapes,” Neal mumbled as he reluctantly did as his handler ordered.