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Suddenly, her mother was close, so close that the blurring could no longer conceal what the Traveling Man had done to her. When she spoke again, she sounded almost human.

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CLASSIFIED

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

File Number:REDACTED

Requesting Official(s):REDACTED

Task Numbers and Date Completed:1000210, Work Request Number 1000210, 3/11/24

Source File Information/Name of Audio File:031124_0638_pm BERN_Phone_Call.wav

VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION

Participants:Aldo Bern B

Devin Vaughn V

Abbreviations:Unintelligible UI

031124_0638_pm BERN_Phone_Call.wav

BERN:The Mexican didn’t make his medical appointment.

VAUGHN:Maybe he had second thoughts about the treatment.

B:For lung cancer?

V:He had a hard road ahead.

B:And went to a lot of trouble to be able to afford to walk it.

V:If I were him, I’d want to take a few days to enjoy myself before they started poisoning me. Once they got going, I might not have the chance again for a long time, or not ever.

B:I never met him, but from what I hear, he wasn’t that kind of guy.

V:I never met him either, but you hear the clock ticking and you become that guy. Have you tried calling him?

B:It goes straight to the machine. He doesn’t own a cell phone. He’s old.

V:The fuck does that have to do with it? Your mother’s old, and she has a phone.

B:He’s real old, like his stock.

V:If something happened to him, how would we know?

B:Maybe it would make the papers, and maybe it wouldn’t. Depends.

V:On what?

B:On what happened.

V:We have someone we can ask?

B:You mean to knock on his door? No, we keep our distance. Right now, nothing links him to you, but if I go asking people to ask other people, that changes.