The Big Gamble

by Michael McGarrity

  Quinones gave Dillingham a heads up on the plan, followed Clayton to the cabin, kicked in the front door right above the lock set, and went in first. The place was empty, but Staggs had cleaned out his clothes, all his small personal possessions, and whatever cash he had on hand. They found no papers or documents of any value.

  While Quinones kept searching Clayton punched the last-number-called buttons on the telephone, jotted down the information and ran it. It came back listed to the El Paso company owned by Luis Rojas. He told Quinones.

  “Well, well,” Quinones said, “duped we were, so it seems. I’ll fill Hewitt in, and let him know you’re heading to El Paso.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, Clayton.”

  At the door Clayton paused and looked back. “Yeah, Sarge.”

  “This is a mother of an investigation. You nail the perp’s ass and believe me nobody’s gonna sweat the small stuff. Talk to Captain Vincent Calabaza with the El Paso PD before you go to see Rojas. He’s an old friend of mine. Maybe he can give you some inside skinny on the guy. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

  Clayton felt himself loosen up. A grin spread across his face as he waved good-bye to Quinones.

  Harry Staggs was petrified, almost unable to speak in complete sentences. Sitting in Luis Rojas’s living room, he got the story out in spurts, telling him about Ulibarri’s murder, the police SWAT team, and his interrogation by the local sheriff and the sidekick Indian deputy.

  While Staggs gulped and talked Rojas asked no questions, made no comments, showed no sign of annoyance. He sat on a pale green couch and listened thoughtfully, occasionally lifting his hand to brush an imaginary stray hair away from his forehead.

  Seconds ticked off in silence after Staggs concluded his monologue. Desperate for a reaction, he said, “What d’ya think?”

  Rojas decided it wasn’t a stray hair on his forehead, it was an itch. He scratched it. “Ingenious,” he said, “but it would have been better if you’d left the girl out of the story.”

  “I was thinking on my feet,” Staggs replied, “trying to cover for you.”

  Rojas smiled at the stupid little man who had told the police too much. He stood up and patted his flat stomach. At six two and two hundred pounds, he still had the body of the wide receiver he’d been in college, although he’d lost a step or two over the years. “I appreciate that,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

  Staggs nodded and felt some of his apprehension fade. Maybe Rojas wasn’t gonna grind him up and feed him to the dogs after all. “Yeah, Scotch, neat.”

  Rojas poured two drinks at the built-in bar and brought one to Staggs. “The police already know that I was gambling at your place, and that I was in my office at the time of the murder, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Except I’m out of business,” Staggs said after he knocked back the Scotch, “and it’s gonna take me a while to sell the cabins and get the money I need to relocate permanently and set up shop again. By that time, I’ll have lost all my regulars.”

  “Are you going back to Ruidoso?”

  “Not a chance,” Staggs replied. “I gave my lawyer a power of attorney to handle the property sale. He says it’s best if I don’t show my face around there again. The cops would be all over me.”

  “Can you trust him?” Rojas asked as he poured Staggs another shot.

  “As much as you can any lawyer. I get to review and approve any offers before he can close the deal.”

  “That’s smart,” Rojas said, returning to the couch. “Did you tell him where you were going today?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why don’t you set up shop here, in El Paso? The Indian casino outside of the city is starting to draw a lot of high rollers. I’m sure many of them would find their way to you, once the word got out.”

  “Like I said, it takes money.”

  “Let me help you with a loan. When you sell your property, you can pay me back the principal with no interest.”

  “We’re talking two hundred fifty thousand, minimum.”

  “I’ll still come out ahead,” Rojas said with a shrug. “Some of your customers are going to want some female companionship, right?”

  Staggs smiled. “Like always.”

  “So, let’s do it.”

  “That’s damn good of you, Mr. Rojas.”

  Rojas raised his glass. “Then it’s settled. Do you need a place to stay?”

  “I thought I’d get a motel room for the night.”

  Rojas shook his head. “That won’t do for my newest business partner. I’ve got a nice house that isn’t being used in a good neighborhood in Juárez. You can stay there until you get settled. It’s fully furnished and supplied. I’ll have Fidel drive you there in your car, so you don’t get lost. In the morning, we can talk again to finalize things.”

  Staggs got a little leery, wondering who the fuck Fidel was. “You don’t have to go to any trouble on my account.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Rojas said, reaching for the telephone.

  He asked Fidel to come to the living room and in less than a minute a well-groomed, smiling, skinny kid no more than twenty years old arrived. Staggs stopped feeling wary. Polite introductions were made, Fidel was given his assignment, and Rojas said good night.

  In the car, Staggs asked Fidel if he was from Mexico.

  Fidel smiled at the question. “Nope, born and raised in El Paso.”

  “What do you do for Rojas?” Staggs asked.

  “I’m an errand boy, mostly,” Fidel replied. “I pick up his laundry, get his cars serviced, take him to the airport when he’s flying on a commercial plane—stuff like that. It’s only part-time, because I go to college a couple days a week. I’ve got an apartment over the garage. No rent. It saves me a lot of money.”

  “Sounds like a good deal,” Staggs said.

  “It’s the best.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Business administration.”

  They passed through customs and drove over the Rio Grande into Juárez along a main street teeming with cars. Locals and tourists strolled past gaudy storefronts, neon signs blinked out messages, loud mariachi music blared, and food vendors hawked their specialties on every corner.

  Fidel’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open and said, “What’s up?”

  “Kill him,” Rojas said.

  “That’s cool,” Fidel said enthusiastically.

  “Lose the body, lose the car, and everything in it. Any money he has with him is yours.”

  “No kidding? That’s great. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.” He disconnected and smiled at Staggs. “My girlfriend just found out one of our favorite groups is going to be in concert here soon. She’s already scored some tickets for us.”

  “You got a girlfriend, do you?” Staggs said.

  “Yeah, a real hot chiquita, and smart as a whip,” Fidel said as he made a turn that would take them toward the Juárez dump. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Staggs leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. Everything was going to be just fine.

  Back in Albuquerque late in the afternoon, Detective Ramona Piño sat next to Sgt. Jeff Vialpando in front of a computer screen. A supervisor in the Albuquerque PD vice unit, Vialpando talked as he moved the mouse around and clicked on some of his favorite sites stored in memory. They ranged from adult porno sites to escort services to personal ads.

  “Computers have changed everything,” Vialpando said, “and the day is gonna come when street-walkers will go the way of dinosaurs. Well, maybe not entirely: there will always be guys looking for action on the streets. But they’ll be the real low-end shoppers.”

  A really gross photo of a man and a woman came up on the screen. “This is what you do all day?” Piño asked. “Cruise the Internet and look at dirty pictures?”

  Vialpando chuckled. “Not all day. Not even every day. Some of it’s pretty disgusting. A lot of the porno stars are traveling hookers
. They come into the city for a month or two, sometimes on a regular basis, rent a furnished pad, and ply their trade. The adult sex sites are a good way to get a make on those girls when we get a tip. A john who feels ripped off will call anonymously, a landlord might complain about a tenant, or a neighbor will report unusual activity at an apartment. We’ll go out, take a few photos of the lady in question, or get a name and a good description, and see if she pops up on the Internet as a wet and wild one. Sometimes we get lucky.”

  He enlarged a photograph of a naked woman on a bed with her legs up in the air giving the camera a come-hither look. “That’s Brenda. We got her for soliciting. It was her first bust, so she walked with a fine. But she won’t be back in Albuquerque, at least not anytime soon.”

  “Charming,” Piño said.

  “Did you know that adult porn sites are the biggest Internet moneymakers, worldwide? What does that tell you about civilization as we know it?”

  “There must be a lot of horny sick guys out there,” Piño said.

  “And women.” Vialpando clicked on another favorite, an escort service. “We check escort services all the time. There are some local sites we keep an eye on, but the really big ones are out of state. They offer the full menu: fetishes, S and M, bondage, domination, threesomes, bisexual encounters, and your straightforward heterosexual party girl. Some of these women work part-time, usually away from their home territory. If you’ve got the cash and are willing to pay, they’ll fly in for an overnight or even for a week. It can cost anywhere between a couple of thousand for a night, to fifteen grand or more for a week of intimate companionship.”

  “That’s what I paid for my car,” Piño said as she read the bio on Tammy the Temptress, who was twenty-four and was studying for an advanced degree. Tammy was proud to be a courtesan, and loved romantic evenings with generous, virile gentlemen.

  “Tammy the T is out of Houston,” Vialpando said. “We missed her by a day last time she was here, but we’re hoping she comes back soon. The airport cops are keeping a watch out for us. Want to visit her photo gallery?”

  “No thanks,” Piño replied.

  “Next up are the Internet personal ads.” Vialpando clicked one up. “There are two types we scan: the blatant come-ons and the intimate encounters. Just about every site has both.”

  “Why do you look there?” Piño asked.

  “The escort services and sex sites are getting more sophisticated in their marketing strategies. They know cop shops are monitoring them. Placing personal ads for individual girls not only gives them another venue, but it also makes our job tougher. There’s gotta be millions of women looking for love or whatever through the Internet.”

  “So, how do you score a hit?” Piño asked.

  “You’ve never cruised the personals?” Vialpando asked.

  Piño shook her head.

  Vialpando looked her over and smiled. “I guess you don’t need to.”

  Piño had noted the absence of a wedding ring on Vialpando’s hand. “Do you?”

  “No way,” Vialpando said, laughing. “Anyway, you can narrow the field if you’ve got a make on a subject. Just use the subject’s physical description as your preference for what you’re looking for in a woman. Height, weight, age, hair and eye color, body size. For location you can search city, state, region, or you can go national or international if you like.”

  “It’s as easy as that?”

  “It gets you closer. Then you scan the ads, looking for suggestive content. A lot of them come with pictures. You can forget the ones that are posted with casual snapshots, unless they’re just totally shameless. Instead, concentrate on the professional or slightly provocative photos. We put two freelancers out of business last month by mining the personals.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “By responding to their ads. Would you like a hard copy of the Web sites we use the most?”

  “That would be a big help. Do you keep tabs on any local smut photographers?”

  Vialpando printed out the hard copy, signed off, and shut down the computer. “Give me a name.”

  “Thomas Deacon.”

  He reached over, got the sheets off the printer, and handed them to Piño. “I’m not familiar with the gentleman’s work.”

  “How should I proceed with Cassie Bedlow?”

  “If she really is a front for a prostitution ring, she’ll be looking for girls who are vulnerable—down on their luck, out of a job, hurting for money. Girls that are estranged from their families or far away from home.”

  “That’s good to know. I told her I was divorced, I’d just moved here from Durango, didn’t have a job yet, and was pinching my pennies,” Piño said.

  “Nicely done,” Vialpando said with genuine sincerity. “Are you?”

  “Am I what? Pinching pennies? What cop doesn’t?”

  Vialpando laughed. “Are you divorced?”

  Piño studied Vialpando. In his early thirties, he was way beyond average looking, with intelligent brown eyes, no receding hairline, and a slightly turned-up nose. She shook her head. “You have to get married to do that, and I’m not. How about you?”

  “You know the old saying: become a detective and get a divorce.”

  “That must have been tough,” Piño said.

  Vialpando shrugged. “Fortunately, it ended before we’d started a family.”

  Piño waited a beat for more, like perhaps an invitation to grab a cup of coffee. Nothing came. “Thanks for the tour of the wonderful world of vice,” she said.

  “Any time,” Vialpando said with a laugh. “Will you need backup tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What time are you coming down?”

  “I’ve made an appointment with Bedlow for ten o’clock.”

  Sergeant Jeff Vialpando smiled shyly. “If you’d like, I’ll buy you lunch and you can tell me what you’ve learned about my backyard.”

  “That would be very nice,” Detective Ramona Piño said demurely.

  Clayton didn’t like El Paso very much, not even with a pretty sunset in full view on the western horizon. A hundred and twenty miles south of Ruidoso, it was sandwiched between the New Mexico state line and the Mexican border city of Juárez, across the Rio Grande. In spite of new shopping malls, spreading residential subdivisions, and a partially revitalized downtown area, El Paso held no appeal for him. Perhaps it had something to do with geography. It was the westernmost city in Texas, much closer to the New Mexico state capitol in Santa Fe than to white-bread Austin. It was a gateway city, heavily populated by native Hispanics, as well as a growing number of both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It was a desert city with blistering wind-storms, little rain, and brain-deadening hot summers. But most of all, it was an industrialized city, filled with warehouses, freight companies, NAFTA maquiladoras just across the border, wholesale distribution centers, and major drug runners operating out of Juárez.

  The interstate and major railroad tracks cut through the city. Endless truck stops, gas stations, and vast, fenced storage yards lined the highways. Squalid barrios on both sides of the border spread way beyond city limits. All of it gave Clayton a dismal feeling.

  Captain Vincent Calabaza of the El Paso Police Department headed up an intelligence unit that was part of a multiagency drug interdiction task force. Housed in a new building built with federal funds, the task force consisted of agents from DEA; FBI; Immigration and Naturalization; Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and a host of state and local officers.

  A heavyset man in his fifties, Calabaza listened while Clayton asked about Luis Rojas, and ran down the reasons for his inquiry.

  “Are we talking about the same Luis Rojas?” Calabaza asked when Clayton finished.

  “He owns a trucking company,” Clayton said.

  “And you think he may be a party to a homicide?” Calabaza asked. “Or running whores in Ruidoso?”

  “Is he a friend?” Clayton asked, reading
Calabaza’s skepticism.

  Calabaza snorted a laugh. “I don’t travel in such heady social circles, Deputy. Rojas chairs the citizen advisory board for the police department and serves on the mayor’s downtown redevelopment committee. If he’s dirty, it’s a big surprise to us.”

  “You’re that sure?” Clayton asked.

  Calabaza opened a desk drawer, removed a file, and gave it to Clayton. “Take a look yourself. Everyone on the citizen advisory board goes through a thorough background investigation before being appointed by the chief.”

  Clayton read the intelligence report on Rojas. He was single, never married, born and raised in El Paso. Father was a construction worker, mother a hotel maid. Played high school football, made all-state his senior year as a first team wide receiver, attended the University of New Mexico on an athletic scholarship, and graduated with a degree in marketing. Parents deceased, five siblings—two brothers and three sisters. The brothers, two sisters, and a brother-in-law worked for the trucking company Rojas owned. One sister lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico—forty miles north—and currently served on the county commission.

  Clayton scanned the financial data. Rojas had an eight-figure personal net worth, and aside from the trucking company, was a one-fifth partner in a privately owned local bank, owned an office building leased by a state agency, and held shares in an investment firm.

  “A real rags-to-riches story,” he said, studying Rojas’s photograph. He didn’t come close to matching Harry Staggs’s description. Light brown hair, full nose, no mole on the right cheek, wide, full lips.

  “That’s right,” Calabaza replied.

  The report documented that Rojas liked to gamble occasionally at the nearby Indian casino and enjoyed piloting his own plane. Interviews with women Rojas had dated revealed nothing out of the ordinary in his personal relationships. The list of Rojas’s friends and associates included corporate executives, area politicians, civic leaders, and wealthy patrons of the arts, all of whom gave Rojas high marks as a businessman, friend, and upstanding citizen.

  After college and before returning to El Paso, Rojas had lived in Denver for a number of years working for an advertising agency that was no longer in business. A criminal- and traffic-records check in Colorado had come up empty, as had inquiries to various federal law-enforcement agencies.