Fatal Odds

by John F. Dobbyn

  “I know. Then what?”

  “I just broke. I even screamed out loud, ‘To hell with those bastards.’ I took my horse to the front and never looked back. Even if they disqualified my horse on a foul, I had to win. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know till after the race that Roberto had been hurt. That’s when you and I went to the hospital.”

  I thought back to that race. “They must have wanted insurance in case you decided not to be a good boy. It was clever. Having your horse cross into Roberto’s path would eliminate both of you in the same move. What happened after I left you at the hospital that night?”

  “I was burning up inside. I couldn’t tell you about any of this. All I could think of was, you know, Roberto may not make it, and I caused it. After you left the hospital, I got a call from Fat Tony. He was all condolences about Roberto, which was bullshit. He told me he wanted to see me at a place in the North End that morning. Something important.”

  “Did he tell you what?”

  “No. Not then. When the doctor told me Roberto died, I went loco. I was going to meet Fat Tony, but not like he thought. I was going to take a gun and kill that bastard. I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  “So what happened?”

  “When I came out of the hospital, the two FBI guys were there. They took me into their car. We started driving around till I could cool off enough to listen. They told me this thing was a hundred times bigger than that fixed race. If I wanted to get Fat Tony, there was a better way.”

  “Which was?”

  “It sounded crazy. They said that for the first time, two old enemies, the Italian mafia and the Puerto Rican insectos, were working together on a big deal. The Italians would raise the cash to finance it by betting on that fixed race with bookies all around the country. That way they’d get the best odds and no taxes. The insectos would then use the money here in Puerto Rico, in Mayagüez, to buy a big shipment of smuggled illegal wild animals coming in from Brazil. They could make millions in profit by getting the wild animals past customs in Florida and selling them around the U.S. The mafia and the insectos would split a big profit.”

  “Did they say how they’d get them past customs?”

  “I don’t know. Bribes, I suppose. They didn’t say.”

  “What did all of that have to do with you, Victor? I mean, besides the fixed race. You’re not into either gang.”

  His voice dropped another notch. “This is the first time the insectos have gotten into this business with wild animals. There’s a gang here in Mayagüez that’s been trafficking in illegal animals on a big scale for years. They have all the contacts to buy the animals here and smuggle them into the mainland. It’s not that easy without the contacts.”

  “So?”

  “So Roberto and I came from here. You know, Mike. About eight years ago. We have a cousin who’s one of the big shots in the animal trafficking gang. Chico Mendosa. We were a close family when I was growing up. I’ve kept in touch with him ever since I left here. The FBI guys told me they had an informant inside the insectos. He told them about their plan. The informant heard the head of the insectos saying they needed to get me to talk to my cousin about letting them buy into the next big shipment of animals that was coming in from Brazil. They’d use the profits from the race to pay for the shipment. The insectos would take the risks in smuggling the animals into Florida. They’d pay a big profit to my cousin’s gang just for putting them in touch with the contacts. The gang would get a cut of the profits off the top with no risks, financial or otherwise. But they needed me to arrange it with my cousin, Chico.”

  “What did the FBI want you to do?”

  “They wanted me to play along. Set the deal up for the insectos with my cousin. I could let the FBI know when and where the animals were being smuggled into Florida. The FBI would move in and knock over the whole operation in one big roundup, mafia and insectos. Otherwise those big profits to the insectos would pay for a flood of guns and men to start a shooting war with the other gangs, the Russians, the Irish, the Vietnamese, even the Nyetas, all of them. Maybe even the Italians if the insectos pulled a double cross. They could take over territories from Boston to Miami. Drugs, weapons, human trafficking, pornography, everything big-time and wide open.”

  My mind was finally taking in the full dimensions of what Billy Coyne had sensed from the beginning was a hell of a lot bigger than a fixed race.

  “So what happened?”

  “I cooled off. I went to see Fat Tony at D’Angelo’s Restaurant in the North End like he wanted. He was still all apologies, and what a great kid my brother was, and all this crap. I pretended to swallow it. Then he made me the deal. If I set it up with my cousin in Mayagüez, neither me nor my family would have to worry about anything ever again. There’d be a big payoff.”

  “How much?”

  “For me, a hundred thousand if it worked this time. Maybe more if we did it again later.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I bit my tongue and said that would be good for Roberto’s family. I said I’d call my cousin, Chico. They said, ‘The hell you will. You’ll be on the next plane to Mayagüez this morning. You gotta be there to set this up in person.’ That’s why I had no time to contact you, Michael.”

  “So you came to Mayagüez and hooked up with the insectos.”

  “Right. But I also contacted Nestor Ruiz. He and I had known each other here from when I was with the Nyetas.”

  He paused, I think to check his watch. “And my time’s up. I told the insectos I just wanted time to come to church. They let me, but they’re waiting for me outside.”

  “Just one more question, Victor. When does all this happen?”

  “When that ship full of animals gets here from northern Brazil. I’ll know a short time before it happens. I’ll get word to Nestor. He also needs me to find out which of the insectos is in charge of running this operation. Nestor’s my only contact with the Nyetas. He’s also my only real hope of getting out of here. When this deal is finished and that ship gets to Florida, they don’t need me alive anymore.”

  “Nestor’s outside. He’s in the back of the church. Come with us now, Victor. He can hide you till we get a plane home.”

  “No. Not yet. I’m going to see this thing through for Roberto. I need you to contact the FBI agents and the U.S. attorney in Boston. I’ll give the name of the top insecto involved to Nestor and you when I get it. Tell the FBI guys this thing is much bigger than we thought. If I live through it, I’ll testify against all of them.”

  “What else can I do?”

  “Just wait. I’ll get word to Nestor when I hear the ship from Brazil is coming in. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Should we contact someone in the government here?”

  “Hell, no. The insectos could never pull off anything this big unless the government people here are on the payroll. The problem is, we don’t know who or how far up the line.”

  “All right. I’ll stay at the hotel for whatever I can do.”

  “I know, Mike. Thanks. No better place than this cathedral to say God bless you for doing it.”

  “I say it back.”

  “Go on now, Mike. Get out of here. They don’t know you, but they know Nestor. They may have men waiting for him. Adios.”

  * * *

  I thought of the two tattooed goons at the front door of the church. I left the confessional and walked to the rear pew where I had left Nestor. He was nowhere in sight. When I looked back I saw the crippled old priest come out of the confessional I’d left and walk toward the altar. He ducked into a vesting room. In a minute, a short young man that looked like Victor came out and left by a side door.

  They were just closing the large doors of the church when I left and walked down toward the square. The crowd had thinned, but I noticed that those who were left were clustered around the pool by the Columbus statue. They were buzzing about something.

  I passed close enough to the pool to catch a glimpse of w
hat was drawing the crowd. Two bodies with their necks and heads at an acute angle were floating face down. I didn’t need to see their faces. I recognized the tattoos of the two who were standing outside the church.

  As Billy Coyne would most certainly have noted, the body count was still increasing wherever I go. Lest my own be added to the count, I took an oblique path to my rental car on a side street. By midnight, I was in the bar of my hotel, nursing three fingers of Famous Grouse Scotch before calling it a day—one hell of a day at that. And in Boston, it occurred to me, the members of the bar were still living by the words, “The lawyer always goes home.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING

  The Mayagüez Resort Hotel

  THE FAMOUS GROUSE had helped me to put the vision of those two distorted bodies in the pool somewhere in the bottom drawer of my mind and get a night’s sleep. An excellent breakfast on the sunny patio of the hotel dining room gave me a false expectation of a glorious day ahead.

  Around ten o’clock, a call came in the clipped phraseology I’d come to recognize as that of Nestor.

  “We need three things—a date, a time, and a name.”

  “Good morning, Nestor. It is a nice morning. Did you sleep well?”

  “When this business ends, we’ll have a nice long chat over a bottle of rum. Right now, we’re about to do something you and I may or may not live through. For the survival of both of us, you need to know exactly what you’re doing. Do you still give a crap about my night’s sleep?”

  “When you put it that way.”

  “Good. Then get this the first time. We need the date and time the shipment of the animals from Brazil is due in port. We also need the name of the man in charge of the insectos’ operation. They haven’t given Victor the details we need yet, and time’s getting close. They only keep him alive because they’re afraid if they kill him, his cousin Chico will kill the deal.”

  “So who has the information?”

  “Victor says we can get it from the informant we planted with the insectos.”

  I wanted to ask if it could be the same informant who Victor said was working with the FBI. It could well have been the same man, working for the Nyetas for loyalty and for the FBI for payment.

  “So why not ask him?”

  “Because they found him out. He’s . . . inaccessible.”

  “You mean dead.”

  “Not yet. They need time to confirm who he’s really working for. He’s tough. It’ll take them a while.”

  “Then what does ‘inaccessible’ mean?”

  “That’s for me to worry about. The less you know about that for now the better.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Do you know how to play dominoes?”

  “You want to play dominoes?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes. Of course. I grew up in a Puerto Rican—”

  “Just listen. At nine o’clock, I want you to go to a pub. El Garabato. It’s on the Calle Post, 102. It’s in a strip of bars beside the university campus. There’ll be a mob of students in there. But they’ll be gone by then until about midnight. The only ones there at nine will be the die-hard domino players. It won’t be hard to get into a game. Bring some cash. They play for money.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “Because by nine thirty, you’ll look like part of the scenery. They still don’t know you. I need you to be there but invisible.”

  “Then what?”

  “Listen to this. You’ll have one chance to get this right. At exactly nine thirty, I want you to go out the door of the pub to the sidewalk. The Garabato’s on a corner. I want you under the Medalla sign at that corner at exactly nine thirty. Smoke a cigar or something so you look casual. There’ll be other gringo tourists there. Blend in.”

  “I’m technically not a gringo.”

  “You look like one. That’s enough. I’m meeting someone across the street from that corner. Do not recognize me. One wave and you’ll probably never see the sun come up. Are you listening?”

  “I sure as hell heard that. Who’re you meeting?”

  “I got a message to the head of the insectos. I made him an offer. He’s meeting me on the opposite corner at nine thirty to talk about it.”

  “What offer?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Will he accept it?”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Then why bother?”

  “Sometimes the only way in is by the back door.”

  “Oh. Well, that clarifies everything. What am I doing there?”

  “You’re bringing a video camera. Use your cell phone if it has one. Like any other tourist, you’re just filming a quaint section of town. You got that?”

  “What am I actually filming?”

  “Everything that happens with me on the opposite corner.”

  “That won’t look suspicious?”

  “If this goes the way I see it, all eyes will be on me. You just get the pictures. No matter what happens, you stay out of it. Go back to your hotel and wait for my call. If I don’t get back to you within two days . . .”

  “Yeah? What then?”

  “Fly back to Boston.”

  “And do what there?”

  “I don’t give a damn. It’ll mean I’m dead, and there’s nothing you can do down here without me.”

  * * *

  At about two minutes before nine thirty, I took a time-out from the hot domino game I’d struck up with a local. He used the break to get a beer from the bar. I walked out the front door and took a position with a good view of the corner across the street.

  I set my cell phone to camera-video and waited. At exactly 9:30, as anticipated, I saw Nestor walk out of a bar and stand still on the opposite corner. I looked for someone who could be the head of the insectos to approach him. A few tourists passed him, but no one stopped.

  At 9:32, every nerve in my body spiked to full alarm. Four city police officers were walking straight toward Nestor from four separate sides. It was their unified focus on Nestor that put me on alert. They were moving with a deliberate pace. If it caught my attention, I was stunned that the warrior, Nestor, wasn’t bracing for action.

  I played the tourist and started the cell phone video. The four police reached him at the same moment. The actions of all of them together seemed almost choreographed. I nearly dropped the cell phone when the cop coming from behind him swung a nightstick that caught Nestor in the small of the back. It doubled him over to the side. The one in front of him rammed his night stick into the middle of his stomach. That brought Nestor to his knees. I was stunned. Nestor still took no action to protect himself.

  By now, the passing tourists were scurrying like rats away from the violence. It gave me a clear view to film the punches and kicks thrown by all four cops. Nestor was on the ground. He seemed unable or unwilling to defend himself. This man whom I’d seen dispatch three brawny card players in one motion just buckled without resistance under the blows.

  I couldn’t take it another second. I ran straight across the street. I was no physical match for any of the four cops, but I grabbed the one hitting him from behind around the neck. It took the cop by surprise. Big as he was, I was able to throw him off balance to the ground. I knew it was a useless gesture. One of the other cops spun around and planted a kick just below my ribs. Unlike Nestor, I went down with just one blow.

  I couldn’t get my breath back to fully stand up, so I just started yelling my head off at the cops. That brought blood in my mouth from an open-handed smack across my right cheek from another cop. It sent me tumbling back down on the pavement.

  The next few minutes were a blur. I finally came back to seeing things in color with my hands in cuffs, riding in the back of a patrol wagon. I looked over to see Nestor. He was also in cuffs, propped up on the wagon’s bench. He was still leaking red liquid from various openings. His voice had a raspy bass sound to it.

  “Damn
it, Michael. Why the hell can’t you follow directions? You look like crap.”

  “Thank you. You’re a thing of beauty yourself.”

  “So now they’ve got both of us.”

  “I couldn’t just let them kill you.”

  I could swear I saw him start a grin, until it reopened the cracks in his lips. He just shook his head.

  “Gringo, you’re a piece of work. They could have killed you like stepping on a bug.”

  “I’m not a gringo. Besides, we’re still alive. So that went pretty well.”

  Another head-shaking, this time with no grin. “Maybe I should have told you more. You might have royally screwed up any chance of this thing working out. I needed that video you were supposed to get.”

  “Why?”

  He wiped some of the red streaming from both sides of his mouth. “I’ll tell you what I should have told you before. The spy we planted with the insectos, they found him out. I’m sure they tortured him to find out how much we know.”

  “Did they get him to talk?”

  He thought for a few seconds. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I know him like a brother. I don’t think he’d talk no matter what. But we all have limits.”

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “Victor told me that our informant has the information we need about the ship.”

  “You said he was inaccessible. What does that mean?”

  “It means the cops are the insectos’ muscles. They have our informant in jail. I need to talk to him.”

  “So you need to get inside the jail. That’s what this is about.”

  “I set up a meeting with the head of the insectos. He knew where I’d be at nine thirty. He wouldn’t be there himself, but I figured he’d have his crooked cops there to take me out. The gamble was that they wouldn’t kill me in public. I was hoping they’d take me in. Once I was in their jail, they could do what they wanted with me.”

  “And maybe you could contact the informant.”

  “That was the plan. The other half was that I needed your pictures of them beating me without any cause. I figured I could threaten to take it to the federal prosecutor. It could give me some leverage in jail to stay alive. Unfortunately for both of us, you chose to fight instead of film.”