the Viking Funeral (2001) (43 page)

Whatever caused her disappearance, he now knew it hadn't been her fault. His mother had loved him, and with that realization, a piece of the darkness that had always haunted him finally slipped away.

He closed his eyes and tried to see her again. He could almost create the vision, but not quite. Yet in its place there was a memor
y o
f her love..
. G
entle and pure and full of warmth.

"So what is love, anyway?" Jody had scoffed. "Just a lotta horseshit and a four-letter word. "

Boy, Shane thought, poor Jody. Jody had missed out on everything. Suddenly, Shane felt sorry for him--sorry he couldn't have found a way to fix that.

Jody might not have been able to love Shane, but Shane had loved Jody, and in his memory he still did.

He closed his eyes and wondered if the gift Jody promised to him had been the bullet that took him to the edge but gave him a chance to meet his mother, to feel her warmth, to finally experience her love, if only for a few precious seconds. Seconds that had changed him and taken away his painful darkness.

Before he fell asleep, he decided that was it. That was Jody's gift.

From the very beginning, that must have been God's plan.

*

All-American Tobacco is a fictitious company, but some of the underlying events of this story were inspired by national headlines. There is currently a billion-dollar civil case pending against Phillip Morris, filed by the Colombian government, over alleged lost cigarette taxes. In 1998 a Reynolds Tobacco subsidiary settled a case involving taxes on cigarettes transported from Canada and paid fifteen million dollars in fines and penalties. A former executive of that company went to jail. Hundreds of other Fortune 500 companies were investigated by the U
. S
. government. Finally, Bonnie Tishler, Assistant Commissioner of U
. S
. Customs Service, in a statement before the Congress of the United States, on June 19, 1999, stated that the Treasury Department had elected not to pursue prosecution. "It is very difficult, with a large Corporate structure, to get your hands around exactly who may or may not be facilitating the business of money laundering.... By punishing the U
. S
. Corporations, we may in turn be punishing..
. T
heir ability to sell their products to countries such as Colombia. It coul
d h
urt our ability to export and cost us jobs, while at the same time not really making any progress against the drug cartels.... The object of our investigation is not to put U
. S
. companies in jail.
"

Instead of prosecuting corporate officers, the federal government elected to mail out warnings to hundreds of U
. S
. companies that helped launder billions in Colombian drug dollars.

To date, no further action has been taken.