House Revenge

by Mike Lawson

  “Can I finish my dinner first?” DeMarco said, gesturing at the foie gras.

  The guy who’d spoken to him just stared at him.

  “Well, okay then,” DeMarco said. Shit. He got up, dropped a hundred bucks on the table—hoping that would be enough to cover the wine and an appetizer he hadn’t touched—and followed the two guys to an SUV with tinted windows parked outside the restaurant.

  One of the men drove. The other sat in the backseat with DeMarco.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  The guy in the back with him didn’t answer his question. Instead he said, “I need to frisk you to make sure you’re not armed.”

  “I’m not armed,” DeMarco said.

  The man didn’t say anything. Just like he’d done in the restaurant when DeMarco had asked if he could finish his dinner, the guy just stared at him.

  “Frisk away,” DeMarco said, raising his arms above his head.

  The bodyguard patted him down; he was very thorough. Embarrassingly thorough. When he finished, DeMarco asked again, “Where are we going?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  DeMarco’s imagination kicked into overdrive. He could see himself, kneeling in front of a shallow grave, a gun pressed to the back of his head. Then he thought: Get a grip on yourself! Castro isn’t going to do anything until after you’ve talked to him—which wasn’t particularly comforting. It had been a bad idea coming to Mexico.

  Twenty minutes later, the SUV pulled up to the gate in front of Castro’s house. The gate opened when the driver used a remote, then he drove up the long tree-lined driveway and parked near an oversized redwood door with elaborate black wrought iron hinges. The bodyguards didn’t take DeMarco into the house, however. Instead they led him around the house to an outdoor courtyard paved with colorful ceramic tiles. The courtyard contained a burbling stone fountain and was surrounded by green and red broad-leaved plants; purple and pink fuchsia overflowed pots hanging from support posts. In the background, music was playing, some classical piano number, which DeMarco could barely hear. It was an incredibly tranquil place although he wasn’t feeling all that tranquil.

  Javier Castro was seated at a patio table, drinking a glass of wine. The bodyguards took up positions, standing a few feet away, far enough not to be able to hear a conversation but close enough to shoot him.

  Adele Tomlin had told him that Javier Castro looked like a telenovela star, and DeMarco supposed he did. Unlike DeMarco and his bodyguards, Castro was dressed casually in a white guayabera shirt, gray slacks, and tan dress sandals. DeMarco knew he was close to sixty as Adele had said that he was about ten years older than Callahan, but he looked younger than sixty and appeared to be in excellent shape. He wasn’t as tall as his bodyguards—he was about DeMarco’s height—but like his guards he was lean and muscular. He had curly dark hair streaked with gray, a strong square chin, and a thin mustache. He was a handsome man.

  He gestured for DeMarco to sit. He didn’t offer him a glass of wine but got right to the point.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. DeMarco?” he said. He had just a trace of a Hispanic accent. Whoever taught him English had done a good job.

  “As I’m sure you know,” DeMarco said, “Sean Callahan is spearheading a large development in Boston called Delaney Square. Building the project required knocking down an apartment building where an old lady named Elinore Dobbs lived, but Elinore refused to vacate. When Callahan couldn’t buy her out, he tried to force her to move by shutting off her power and water and air-conditioning, and doing anything else he could think of to make her life miserable. So she went to my boss for help and he sent me to help her, but before I could make Callahan leave her alone, Callahan had two thugs make her fall down a flight of stairs. She hit her head hard and is now suffering from dementia.”

  “Why are you telling me all this, Mr. DeMarco?” Castro said. “I know Sean Callahan socially, but I have nothing to do with his business.”

  Now DeMarco had to figure out a way to call Javier Castro a liar without calling him a liar.

  “Mr. Castro, my boss is determined to make Callahan pay for what he did to Elinore Dobbs. So one of the things I did was look into the financing associated with Delaney Square. I was frankly hoping to find something that could cause Callahan a legal problem, and that was when I learned that you’re a substantial investor in the development. Specifically, I discovered that money originating from you passed through an investment company in the Caymans and was loaned to Callahan.”

  At least that was what Adele Tomlin had told him, and he could only hope she’d gotten the facts right.

  Castro’s only reaction to DeMarco’s statement was to take a sip of wine. Then he said, very calmly, “Assuming what you say is true, I still don’t understand why you’re talking to me.”

  The good news was that Castro was no longer denying being invested in Delaney Square.

  “Mr. Castro, Congressman Mahoney doesn’t want Sean Callahan to profit from Delaney Square, and he wants you to make sure that he doesn’t. And the congressman doesn’t care how you do it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Castro said.

  “For example,” DeMarco said, “you could have the Cayman company that invested in Delaney Square call in the loans they made to Callahan, and when he can’t repay the loans, you can use that as an excuse to force him out and put your own man in charge.”

  “Even if I wanted to do such a thing,” Castro said, “I don’t know that I could. A company with many investors invested in Delaney Square, not me personally, and I don’t know that they can arbitrarily call in their loans.”

  “I’m sure you can convince them to do whatever you want,” ­DeMarco said. The Cayman company laundered money for drug lords, so ­DeMarco figured the drug lords were in charge. He also figured that if the money flow could be disrupted in any way, then Callahan wouldn’t be able to pay his builders and architects and the suppliers who provided materials. And when he couldn’t pay these people, construction would grind to a halt, the U.S. investment bank wouldn’t give him the money he needed for the next phase of the project, and eventually the bankers would force Callahan into bankruptcy so they could get some of their money back.

  “There’s another solution,” DeMarco said, and this was the solution he really liked. “Callahan can simply walk away from Delaney Square.”

  “Walk away?” Castro said.

  “Yes. Callahan has a company that manages his developments. So Callahan resigns from his company and his general manager, or whoever is his second in command, completes Delaney Square without him.”

  “But how would I make Sean walk away?” Castro said.

  Come on, Javier! You make him an offer he can’t refuse. You hold a gun to his fucking head!

  “That would be up to you, Mr. Castro,” DeMarco said. “But I’m sure you could find a way.”

  “And if I don’t do what you want?” Castro said.

  DeMarco shook his head, as if he hated to be the bearer of bad news. “Then, Mr. Castro, I’m afraid you could end up with some serious problems. As I’m sure you know, the United States government has some rather extraordinary powers when it comes to freezing assets and seizing property belonging to criminal or terrorist organizations. So if you elect not to force Callahan out of Delaney Square, then Congressman Mahoney starts the wheels of the U.S. government spinning. The Treasury Department, the Justice Department, and the DEA will form up a task force, and by the time they’re done, I imagine you’ll lose a lot of money.

  “So, it’s up to you, sir. Congressman Mahoney doesn’t care what you do or how you do it, provided Sean Callahan doesn’t profit from what he did to Elinore Dobbs.”

  As he was speaking, DeMarco had been watching Castro’s face and when he started talking about seizing assets, Castro’s eyes became chips of ice and the expression on his f
ace became harder and crueler. DeMarco was no longer talking to some benign middle-aged guy who hobnobbed with Mexican politicians and movie stars. He was now talking to a man who used to kill people when they got in his way.

  “Before you say anything, Mr. Castro, let me explain something. Congressman Mahoney doesn’t care about you. Furthermore, he knows you’re no longer engaged in your former business and he has no objection to you investing in American enterprises.

  “You see, Mr. Castro, this whole thing is about egos and it’s gotten way out of hand. John Mahoney’s ego was bruised when Callahan disrespected him and refused to leave Elinore Dobbs alone. Then Callahan let his ego get the best of him when he thought he was too rich to have to bend to Mahoney’s will.

  “Well, sir, you don’t want your ego to cause you legal and financial problems you don’t need. I asked a DEA agent about you, and he told me that you’re an analytical man. A man who acts rationally and not emotionally. I’d suggest, Mr. Castro, that this is a time for you to be analytical. If Delaney Square is completed and you make a handsome return, John Mahoney doesn’t have a problem with that. All Mahoney wants is for Sean Callahan to pay for what he did to Elinore Dobbs.”

  DeMarco stood up.

  “With your permission, sir, I’ll be leaving now. Why don’t you think about all I’ve told you and let me know what you plan to do. Soon. I’ll be heading back to Washington tomorrow.”

  Castro fixed his dark eyes on DeMarco’s face for what seemed an eternity, then he said something in rapid-fire Spanish to his bodyguards.

  DeMarco followed the two bodyguards back to the SUV that had taken him to Castro’s home. When the driver opened the door for him, without thinking about it, DeMarco got into the car and sat in the front passenger seat. The other bodyguard sat in the rear seat behind ­DeMarco—and that’s when DeMarco’s imagination went wild again. He could see the guy in the backseat slipping a garrote around his throat, and him thrashing in the front seat, kicking out the windshield, as he was strangled to death. Or maybe the guy sitting behind him would simply take out a gun and shoot him in the back of the head. The drive back to the Marriott was the longest ride of his life.

  When they dropped him off at the hotel—it occurred to him later that he’d never told them he was staying at the Marriott—he went straight to the bar.

  25

  After DeMarco left, Castro closed his eyes and took in several deep breaths to calm himself. When he was a young man first starting out in his chosen profession, he’d had a violent temper and he reacted to any sort of threat or disrespect with violence. When he was eighteen, if ­DeMarco had threatened him the way he had today, he would have pulled out a gun and shot him without thinking twice about it. ­Fortunately—for DeMarco—those days had passed and he’d learned to control his temper. More important, he’d learned that violence was a tool that should only to be used to accomplish some specific objective, and not for personal gratification.

  He poured himself another glass of wine and considered his options.

  What Mahoney’s lackey didn’t realize—and that’s all DeMarco was: a lackey—was that he wasn’t the only investor in Delaney Square. ­DeMarco was not just threatening him; he was threatening a number of very serious people.

  When he first met Sean Callahan and his second wife at the Los Cabos resort, he was already backing out of the cartel and turning it over to his cousin Paulo. He didn’t need to make more money from drugs, nor did he need to take the risks associated with drug trafficking. He didn’t need to remain a target for the American or Mexican police, or rival cartels, or the ambitious people who worked for him—like crazy Paulo. He’d made enough money to last not only his lifetime, but also the lifetimes of his family for generations to come.

  So at the time he met Callahan, he already had money invested in other legitimate businesses and was looking for other opportunities. Although he didn’t need to make more money, if he could do so safely, he would. When Callahan told him about the Boston project, he’d been intrigued and had his financial people research Callahan. They concluded that Callahan was an astute businessman, had been successful many times in the past, and Delaney Square would likely generate a substantial return.

  Callahan had also been very honest with him, and maybe that was because of who he was. Callahan had warned him that real estate development could be very profitable for key investors, but at the same time, it was an extremely risky business in that unexpected events, completely out of his control, could cause a project like Delaney Square to fail.

  Callahan had said that he needed a hundred million from private investors, and once he had those investors in place, he would get the remainder he needed from American banks. Castro, however, had no intention of putting a hundred million into a single project. That would be too many eggs in one basket. What he did instead was talk to several men in Mexico to see if they wanted to invest. Some of those men—like his cousin—were still involved in drug trafficking. Others were men like himself, men no longer in the business but looking for opportunities. In the end, he and six other men invested in Delaney Square, each putting up approximately fifteen million.

  The problem with these other investors was that they would not react well if Delaney Square failed to show a profit—and they’d blame him. A man like his cousin would have the most violent reaction and, blood ties aside, was likely to take his anger out on him in an irrational way—such as kidnapping his wife and daughter for ransom to recoup his fifteen million. Paulo now controlled the army he used to control.

  The other problem—and it was really the larger of the two ­problems—was that none of these men wanted the Americans looking into their finances. As DeMarco had said, if the Americans discovered that drug money had been used to finance Delaney Square, they might freeze assets and seize properties. The fact was he didn’t really know what might happen if the Americans started looking closely into the financing of Callahan’s project. All he knew for sure was that he didn’t want them looking.

  His long-range plan had always been to move away from Mexico, most likely to Europe. Mexico, thanks largely to men like himself and his cousin, was simply too dangerous a place to live. He wanted to become a simple rich man. An anonymous rich man. He wanted to protect the money he had and make money in the future in a legitimate way for his family, and the last thing he needed was this nonsense with Mahoney and Callahan.

  The other thing he realized was that DeMarco would have to be some sort of financial genius to have uncovered his investment in Delaney Square—and he doubted that DeMarco was a genius. The cartel used people with MBAs from Stanford who worked with experienced international bankers to launder money through multiple shell corporations. It would be hard, if not impossible, for experienced Treasury agents to trace the money in Delaney Square back to him.

  Therefore, the only way DeMarco could have known that he’d invested in the Boston project was if someone had told him. None of Castro’s fellow investors would have told him, and Sean Callahan certainly wouldn’t have, leaving only one other person that he could think of: Callahan’s ex-wife, Adele. The other thing that convinced him that Adele was DeMarco’s source was that Adele had called Danielle just a day ago to chat with her—and the coincidence of DeMarco showing up at his home following that phone call was certainly not a coincidence.

  So. What should he do about all this?

  There was no way that he was going to make the Cayman group call in its loans to Callahan. There was no way he was going to disrupt the project in any way that could adversely affect its completion and eventual profitability. Which meant that he’d have to exercise the second option that DeMarco had given him and force Callahan out of the project so Callahan didn’t turn a profit, which was apparently all Mahoney wanted. The problem with that solution, however, was that it was too complicated. He knew Callahan wouldn’t walk away from Delaney Square without a fight, and he might involve l
awyers and even law enforcement if Castro tried to force him out.

  Which led to a third option, one that DeMarco apparently hadn’t considered. He really preferred not to exercise the third option but unfortunately Mahoney and DeMarco weren’t giving him any other choice.

  And then one other thing occurred to him: he couldn’t let DeMarco or Mahoney have this sort of hold over him. He certainly wasn’t going to do anything to John Mahoney; he would never be so foolhardy as to directly threaten or kill a United States congressman. At the same time he needed to send Mahoney a message, one that would convince him to leave him alone in the future.

  He recalled DeMarco’s little speech about egos and how he shouldn’t allow his own ego to cause him to do something foolish. So was taking some action against DeMarco ego driven or was it a pragmatic thing to do? He finally decided he didn’t care, and by the time he finished his wine he’d devised a way to make DeMarco pay for meddling in his business.

  He left his lovely, peaceful courtyard, walked into the house, and headed toward his den. On the way he passed the media room and could hear his wife talking to their daughter in New York. He shook his head. His wife and his daughter talked almost every day.

  From the desk in his den, he removed one of several prepaid cell phones. He doubted anyone was monitoring his calls but he preferred there not be a record of him making a call to DeMarco. He took out the note DeMarco had sent him and called DeMarco’s number.

  “I’ve decided to accommodate your employer,” Castro said.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” DeMarco said.

  The smugness in DeMarco’s voice made Castro squeeze the phone so hard he was surprised he didn’t crack the screen.