Long Time Gone

Say what you will about Tommy Mack, but from the time he was in grade school, he knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. Other kids in his class talked about being astronauts, or firemen, or President of the United States. By the time they reached high school, those same kids daydreamed about becoming a hip-hop artist, or an airline pilot, or a professional athlete. Brainier kids saw themselves becoming doctors, or teachers or maybe a veterinarian. Not Tommy. He couldn’t hit a baseball, or sink a free throw, and he was a lousy student, in part, as it turned out, because he suffered from dyslexia. And so, from his earliest years, he had only a single goal. Tommy’s dream was to become a career criminal.

In retrospect, Tommy’s vector shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Tommy’s father was killed in a military training exercise during the lead-up to the Gulf War, when Tommy was just four years old. His mother, BeeBee Mack, never remarried, and as a single mom lacking even a high school diploma, she was stuck working shitty jobs that paid next to nothing. As a result, her primary resource for child care was the television set in her cramped apartment, and a downstairs neighbor whom she depended upon to babysit her son three days a week. At about the same time, she took up with a series of no-account boyfriends, some of whom were abusive, and others who stole what little money she had, before disappearing into the Tennessee night.

BeeBee herself began staying away for longer and longer periods of time, until one night, she didn’t come home at all. What remained of her bloated body was found several weeks later, floating in the Cumberland River near Pegram. According to the medical examiner’s report, the COD was manual strangulation. No suspect was ever apprehended nor even identified. After BeeBee’s death, Tommy went into the system, bouncing from one temporary home to another, skipping a lot of school, and getting his primary education from re-runs of “Kojak,” “Dragnet” and “Hawaii Five-O” on cable TV. He always rooted for the bad guys, trying to figure out whether there was a way they might have gotten away with their crime.

Tommy was an eager student, and he began honing his craft for real in high school, shaking down younger kids for their lunch money. On the street, just to see if he could get away with it, he tried his hand at more serious offenses, including vandalism, tagging neighborhood garages and businesses, keying cars, skipping classes, and staying out most nights after curfew. As he got older, to raise money, he took a shot at just about any penny-ante hustle you could think of: shoplifting, clouting vending machines, garage burglaries, selling street-corner drugs, and even going door-to-door, rattling a collection can partly filled with gravel at his neighbors. Years later, he even took a shot at Internet crime, posting a bogus GoFundMe page where he was able to raise a few hundred dollars to pay veterinary bills for a nonexistent pet ferret. You name it, Tommy was willing to give it a go.

In the early days of his professional life, Tommy occasionally worked with a partner, usually someone who would act as either a lookout or a wheel man. Running with the crowd that he did, it was never much of a challenge to recruit accomplices, but then there was always the problem of how to split up the take. His partners wanted half, but Tommy felt that since he was the one who was actually committing the crime, the partner should be happy with less. And then, on one particular job, a late-night burglary at a small-time pawnshop, the partner, feeling justifiably underappreciated, turned up stoned, and crashed the getaway car into a utility pole that he was absolutely certain hadn’t been there a few hours earlier. The result was that Tommy suffered a fractured patella and a broken tibia, and was unable to get away on foot. He was pinched, tried, convicted and sentenced to two-year jolt in the county jail. By the time he was released—after fifteen months, thanks to time off for good behavior—he had determined that in the future, his would be strictly a solo act.

The only problem for Tommy was that, despite his unswerving dedication to his craft, he simply wasn’t very good at it. Over the years, he tried using a few aliases, including Tony Martin, Travis Maxwell, and Trevor Morris, mostly in the hopes that if he was arrested in one jurisdiction, his name wouldn’t appear in some centralized database that would end up flagging him as a predicate offender. It worked for a while, but eventually the Tennessee Department of Corrections modernized its recordkeeping system, and then Tommy, regardless of his alias, was easy pickings for local law enforcement. Not that he was ever very difficult to spot. He was a fidgety guy, small, easily intimidated, and a terrible liar under pressure.

And whether he committed a burglary or stole a car, sooner or later—usually sooner—he got caught. His early arrests, while he was still a juvenile, nearly always resulted in probation, or community service, or a three-month stay at a youth facility. Once, he even drew six months at a state-sanctioned honor farm, called Crossroads of Life, that was run by a retired Army chaplain. The idea was to take at-risk young men and put them through a structured regimen of strenuous physical work, fresh air, academic studies and a heaping helping of religious instruction. None of it took, and within a month of being released, Tommy was up to his old tricks, committing petty crimes whenever the opportunities presented themselves.
In his adult years, he never confronted anyone directly, because the one or two times he tried it, he ended up getting face-planted in the sidewalk. And because he never got picked up carrying a deadly weapon, he drew light sentences, mostly county time lasting no more than a year or two, and nearly always with time off for good behavior. Still, by the age of fifty, he had spent roughly half his life in one kind of custody or another. And then, on a warm spring night in late April, Tommy stepped over the line.

What started out as a no-brainer B&E at a gaudy McMansion on a warm May evening in Mount Juliet quickly turned into a potential career-ender when he stole some antique jewelry that had belonged to the homeowner’s grandmother. The homeowner in this case was one Robert Edward (“Just Call Me Red”) Cherry, head of the largest organized crime family in the Mid-south. As luck would have it, two days later Tommy was arrested on an old outstanding Davidson County warrant for some damn thing or other. And while he was in the tank awaiting his arraignment, he foolishly chirped to his cellie about a big score he thought he’d made as a result of a burglary he’d pulled off several nights earlier. Unfortunately, his cellie, looking to trade information for a sentence reduction, snitched. And by the time Fat Wally Sadler, the go-to guy of Nashville bail bondsmen, showed up to bail him out, word had already gotten back to Tommy through the jailhouse grapevine that “Just Call Me Red” had, in fact, paid for his bond and was eager for a word with him when he got out. Reading between the lines, the minute he hit the pavement, Tommy headed for parts unknown.

That was when I got the call.

I regularly did work for Fat Wally, and in fact, tracking down bail skips is a big part of my business. I also find missing persons, runaways, and deadbeat ex-husbands. Other times, I provide 24-7 security for visiting celebrities, run background checks on prospective employees and marriage partners, investigate identity theft, and occasionally act as a bag man buying back stolen property, incriminating documents, and indiscreet photos and videos that surface at inconvenient moments. On the other hand, and although I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, I don’t do divorce work, strongarm stuff, or murder for hire.

I had rounded up Tommy on a couple of other occasions, and from talking to people who knew him, I learned that when he took it on the run, he never went very far. The last time I found him, he was holed up with a former acquaintance from his juvenile detention days, now living just up the road in Goodlettsville. On the way back to the lockup, Tommy told me he’d never in his life been more than a hundred miles from the place he was born, which was in an older neighborhood just north of the river. He didn’t give me any trouble after I scooped him up, and in fact, I found him to be affable and charming, to the point that he even sprung for lunch before I handed him back to the cops. Perhaps for that reason, I was happy to accept Fat Wally’s call, figuring I wouldn’t have to go very far to pick him up, and that there wouldn’t be much risk involved in bringing him back.

And so, I started looking.

I found out Tommy had only one living relative, an older sister. But she lived in California with her husband, a Marine top-kick, currently billeted at Miramar. I doubted Tommy would travel that far, and if he did, I was equally certain he wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms. I had to make a few telephone calls, but I was able to learn the identity of Tommy’s cellmate while he was in the city lockup. The guy’s name was Cletus Duffy, and with almost no effort at all, I managed to get the go-ahead to see Cletus on visitor’s day. Since Cletus was on his way to Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville for a parole violation, and since the corrections officers knew me, and also knew I wasn’t there to orchestrate a jailbreak, I was permitted to meet with him in an ordinary interview room. I brought along a carton of cigarettes and a box of Mr. Goodbars, items I knew Cletus could use to trade for protection, or for money to use in the vending machines in the common room once he was back in stir.
When we met, Cletus was handcuffed and shackled, and dressed in a jailhouse orange jumpsuit and a white t-shirt. Like Tommy, he was a little guy, a bit under five-six with stringy blond hair and a couple days’ growth of patchy beard. I was already sitting down when a CO escorted him into the room. Since his cuffs were attached to a chain around his waist, I didn’t offer to shake hands.

“The fuck are you?” he said, giving me a look that I guessed was supposed to be scary, but mostly just looked like he was squinting into a bright light. Some guys never get it right.

“My name is Jackson Gamble,” I told him. “I’m a PI and I’m trying to get a line on Tommy Mack. Also,” I said, “I brought you some swag.”

“I get it,” he said brightly, as if he had just discovered the cure for cancer. He snatched the Marlboros and the Mr. Goodbars over to his side of the table. “You’re working for that fat fool what threw his bail.”

“No flies on you,” I said. “I just figured since you guys were cellies for a few days, he might have said something about where he’d be likely to go when he got out.”

He leaned back in his chair and gave me a look that I guessed was supposed to convey that he was wise to my game. “Why should I tell you anything? I don’t know you.”

“Couple reasons. One, I’m a nice guy, and I brought you candy bars and some smokes. They’re good as gold in here. You already know that, and you ought to be grateful. Two, snitches get stitches—which you also know. Red Cherry may appreciate that you ratted Tommy out, but I’m guessing some of your other besties here at the lockup may not be so pleased to know you’re a squealer. I’ve got one or two contacts hereabouts, and I’d be happy to let them know you’ve updated your resume.” I paused to let that sink in. “That happens, you’re going to want to ask for protective custody, at least until you get back to Hartsville.”

He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, but finally, he gave me the names of a couple people Tommy said he was tight with, including the friend in Goodlettsville where he had holed up the last time. I made a few notes, thanked Cletus and went on my way.

Unfortunately, the leads proved to be dead ends, as none of the contacts I got from Cletus panned out. And so, after a couple more days of looking, with no results, I called Fat Wally and told him I hadn’t been able to track down his guy, but that I’d keep looking.

Back in the old days, when a John Dillinger, a Baby-Face Nelson or a Pretty Boy Floyd could simply slip across a state line to evade capture, Tommy Mack might have been able to disappear without too much trouble. In today’s world of electronic surveillance, what Tommy was trying to do—take it permanently on the lam from both the cops and the crooks—was, for all intents and purposes, simply not possible. Nowadays, to stay under the radar, a fugitive would have to give up his car and his phone (both have GPS); not use any credit cards; not get sick enough to require a doctor’s care; stay out of airports, bus terminals and passenger rail stations (all have CCTV); don’t cross any toll bridges, or use any tollways, or stop at a gas station (that pesky CCTV again); don’t return to any former residences, or old-school hangouts; don’t contact any old lovers, friends or family, because somebody will eventually throw you under the bus for the reward money. Somewhere deep in the Nevada desert or the hills of Appalachia there may be a safe haven, but at what cost? Better to plea-bargain your way into protective custody, or, if you have accomplices, rat them out and cut some kind of a deal to get into witness protection. In Tommy’s case, this time around, the only party that wanted him badly was the one that likely wanted to put him in the ground.

And in Tommy’s mind, that did not make for a promising outcome.