Pronto

by Elmore Leonard

  Pronto (1993)

  ELMORE LEONARD

  *

  SUMMARY:

  The feds want Miami bookmaker Harry Arno to squeal on his wiseguy boss. So they're putting word out on the street that Arno's skimming profits from "Jimmy Cap" Capotorto which he is, but everybody does it. He was planning to retire to Italy someday anyway, so Harry figures now's a good time to get lost. U. S. Marshal Raylan Givens knows Harry's tricky the bookie ditched him once in an airport while in the marshal's custody but not careful. So Raylan's determined to find the fugitive's Italian hideaway before a cold-blooded Sicilian "Zip" does and whacks Arno for fun. After all, it's a "pride thing"... And it might even put Raylan in good stead with Harry's sexy ex-stripper girlfriend Joyce.

  Chapter One.

  One evening, it was toward the end of October, Harry Arno said to the woman he'd been seeing on and off the past few years, "I've made a decision. I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone before in my life."

  Joyce said, "You mean something you did when you were in the war?"

  It stopped him. "How'd you know that?"

  "When you were in Italy and you shot the deserter?"

  Harry didn't say anything, staring at her.

  "You already told me about it."

  "Come on. When?"

  "We were having drinks at the Cardozo, outside, not long after we started seeing each other again. You said it the same way you did just now, like you're going to tell me a secret. That's why I knew. Only I don't think you said anything about making a decision."

  Now he was confused.

  "I wasn't drinking then, was I?"

  "You quit before that." Joyce paused and said, "Wait a minute. You know what? That was the second time you told me about shooting the guy. At Pisa, right? You showed me the picture of you holding up the Leaning Tower."

  "It wasn't at Pisa," Harry said. "Not where I shot the guy."

  "No, but around there."

  "You're sure I told you about it twice?"

  "The first time, it was when I was working at the club and we went out a few times. You were still drinking then."

  "That was what, six or seven years ago."

  "I hate to say it, Harry, but it's more like ten. I know I was almost thirty when I quit dancing."

  Harry said, "Jesus Christ," figuring that would be about right, if Joyce was around forty now. Getting up there. He remembered her white skin in the spotlight, dark hair and pure white skin, the only topless dancer he ever knew who wore glasses while she performed; not contacts, real glasses with round black rims. For her age Joyce still looked pretty good. Time went by so fast. Harry had turned sixty-six two weeks ago. He was the same age as Paul Newman.

  "You ever hear me tell anyone else?"

  Joyce said, "I don't think so." And said right away, "If you want to tell it again, fine. It's a wonderful story."

  He said, "No, that's okay."

  They were in Harry's apartment at the Delia Robbia on Ocean Drive listening to Frank Sinatra, Frank and Nelson Riddle driving "I've Got You Under My Skin," Harry speaking quietly, Joyce looking distracted. Harry all set to tell her about the time in Italy forty-seven years ago and then ask -- this was the decision he'd finally made -- if she would like to go there with him the end of January. Right after the Super Bowl.

  But now he wasn't sure he wanted to take her.

  For as long as he'd known Joyce Patton -- Joy, when she was dancing topless -- he had always wondered if he shouldn't be doing better.

  Harry Arno was grossing six to seven thousand a week running a sports book out of three locations in South Miami Beach. He had to split fifty-fifty with a guy named Jimmy Capotorto -- Jimmy Cap, Jumbo -- who had a piece of whatever was illegal in Dade County, except cocaine, and he had to take expenses out of his end: the phones, rent, his sheet writers, various incidentals. But that was okay. Harry Arno was skimming a thousand a week off the top and had been doing it for as long as he had wiseguys as silent partners, going back twenty years. Before Jumbo Jimmy Cap there was a guy named Ed Grossi and before Grossi, going all the way back forty years, Harry had worked for S & G Syndicate bookies as a runner.

  The idea originally was to get out of the business at sixty-five, a million-plus socked away in a Swiss bank through its branch in the Bahamas. Then changed his mind when the time came and kept working. So he'd quit at sixty-six. Right now the football season was in full swing and his customers would rather bet the pros than any other sport except basketball. Put down anywhere from a few hundred to a few grand -- he had some heavy players -- and watch the games on TV that Sunday. So now he'd wait until after the Super Bowl, January 26, to take off. Three months from now. What was the difference, retire at sixty-five or sixty-six, no one knew how old he was anyway. Or his real name, for that matter.

  Harry Arno believed he was a hip guy; he kept up, didn't feel anywhere near sixty-six, knew Vanilla Ice was a white guy; he still had his hair, parted it on the right side and had it touched up every other week where he got his hair cut, up on Arthur Godfrey Road. Joyce now and then would arch her back, look up at him, and say, "We're almost the same height, aren't we?" Or she'd say, "What are you, about five seven?" Harry would tell her he was the height of the average U. S. fighting man in World War Two, five nine. Maybe a little less than that now, but in fairly good shape after a near heart attack, a blocked artery they opened with angioplasty. He jogged up and down Lummus Park for most of an hour every morning, the Delia Robbia and the rest of the renovated Art Deco hotels on one side of him, the beach and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, hardly anyone outside yet. Most of the old retired people were gone, the old Jewish ladies with their sun hats and nose shields, and the new inhabitants of South Beach, the trendies down from New York, the dress designers and models, the actors, the stylish gays, didn't appear on the street before noon.

  One day pretty soon now his players would be making phone calls asking, "What happened to Harry Arno?" realizing they didn't know anything about him.

  He'd disappear and start a new life, one that was waiting for him. No more pressure. No more working for people he didn't respect. Maybe have a drink now and then. Maybe even a cigarette in the evening looking out at the bay at sunset. Have Joyce there with him.

  Well, maybe. It wasn't like there weren't any women where he was going. Maybe get there first and settle in and then, if he felt like it, send for her. Have her come for a visit.

  He was ready. Had passports in two different names, just in case. Saw a clear field ahead, no problems. Until the afternoon Buck Torres told him he was in trouble. October 29, outside Wolfie's on Collins Avenue.

  Wolfie's was the only restaurant Harry knew of that still served Jell-O. A friend of his at The Miami Herald said, "And with a straight face." There was a "Harry Arno" on the sandwich menu he couldn't eat anymore. Pastrami and mozzarella with tomatoes and onions, a splash of Italian dressing. Harry could eat deli and he could eat Cuban if he was careful, not load up on the black beans. What he couldn't get used to were all the new places that served tofu and polenta, pesto sauce on everything. Sun-dried cherries and walnuts on grouper, for Christ sake.

  October 29, Harry would remember, he had vegetable soup, a few crackers, iced tea, and the Jell-O, strawberry. Stepped out into the sunlight in his beige warm-ups with the red piping, his Reeboks, and there was Buck Torres standing by an unmarked car, a blue '91 Caprice. Harry had been arrested by Buck Torres a half-dozen times or so; they knew each other pretty well and were friends. Not socially, Harry had never met Buck's wife, but friends in the way they trusted one another and always had time to talk about other things than what they did for a living. Buck Torres had never asked Harry about his business with Jimmy Capotorto, trying to get to Jimmy Cap through Harry.

 
This time was different, this October 29th afternoon. Harry could feel it. Torres said, "Man, you're looking sporty as ever. Get in, I'll drive you home."

  Harry told him he had his car.

  "That's all right," Torres said. "Get in anyway, we'll drive around."

  They started south on Collins and pretty soon turned west toward Washington, not much traffic yet. By December it would be bumper to bumper down here. There was a stale cigarette smell in the car. Harry opened his window.

  "What I'd like you to do," Buck Torres said, "is happen to take a look at the papers on the seat."

  Harry already had.

  A stack of legal sheets with the heading:

  APPLICATION FOR WIRE INTERCEPT OF WIRE COMMUNICATION

  Addressed to the Circuit Court, Criminal Division, of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for the County of Dade, Florida. Below that was the name of a judge and below the judge Harry saw the wording become personal, requesting authorization to hang wires on the telephone numbers of his three sports-book locations, "subscribed to by HARRY JACK ARNO," his name in there big.

  He said, "Why're you going to all this trouble? Everybody knows what I do."

  "It's serious this time," Torres said. "We've had pen registers on your phones since the beginning of football season. We know what numbers've been calling you and who you've called, twenty-four hours a day. Look at page fourteen."

  "I believe you," Harry said.

  "Last Sunday your phones had like a hundred and eighty incoming calls during action time, right before the pro games got started."

  "I have a lot of friends," Harry said.

  "Use that in court," Torres said, "you get a laugh and maybe a five-hundred-dollar fine. This's different."

  Harry was still looking down at the legal papers.

  He said, "This judge bets college games through a buddy of his, a lawyer. All Southeast Conference. He lays it on the hot side, the favorites, every time. He'll pick Florida, Florida State, and Miami, no matter what the line is."

  "Turn to page twenty-eight," Torres said. "Look at the date and the signature."

  "You already have me tapped?"

  "The wire was okayed weeks ago. Those three numbers but not your residence."

  Harry said, "Don't you know I record all my transactions? I could've given you my tapes, saved you the expense."

  Torres turned right on Washington to head north past white storefronts that looked closed in the sunlight. The pastel colors and neon kitsch taking over South Beach not up this far yet. "It's a Bureau operation," Torres said. "They want Jimmy Cap, like they do every year or so, make a lot of noise. We do the legwork and they take what we come up with to a federal grand jury."

  "What you're telling me," Harry said, "I could go down with Jimmy on a racketeering charge?"

  He saw Torres glance over, Torres serious, and that began to bother him.

  "That's how it started out," Torres said. "You go down unless you testify, help them put Jumbo away on a RICO indictment. I said to the agent in charge of the investigation, 'How you going to turn Harry Arno, hold six months over his head? He doesn't cross state lines. What he does is a misdemeanor.' McCormick, the agent in charge, goes, 'Yeah, he'd have to be desperate, wouldn't he?' So he thinks about it and he says, 'Okay, what if this guy Arno believes Jumbo wants him taken out?'"

  Harry frowned. "Why would he?"

  "Keep you from putting something on him."

  "What do I tell, the guy's a fucking gangster? Everybody knows it."

  Torres said, "You think I'm kidding?" No, he was serious, he was anxious, but took time now to pull over to the curb and park. He turned enough in the seat to face Harry and lay it out.

  "The idea is to set you up. You think Jumbo is going to have you whacked and you go running to the Justice Department for protection."

  "What I've always wanted to be," Harry said, "a fink."

  Torres said, "Listen to me. McCormick says, 'Or work it so Arno does get whacked and you bring Jumbo up on a homicide.' He says, 'What would be wrong with that?' He says after he was kidding, but I'm not sure. He thinks about it some more. Now the idea, he says, 'What if we put it in Jumbo's ear this guy Arno is skimming on him?'" Torres kept talking even though Harry was shaking his head. "'Jumbo makes a threatening move. Arno sees what's happening, he freaks and comes running to Uncle.'"

  "Every wire room I know of," Harry said, "the guy operating it skims. It's expected, just don't be obvious about it. I can take a hundred a week off the top for expenses, Jimmy knows it. Long as he gets his cut he's not going to say a fucking word."

  Torres said, "Yeah, but what McCormick is talking about, the idea, get Jumbo to think you're skimming on him big-time, big amounts." Harry was shaking his head again and Torres said, "You mentioned Jumbo's cut. What's that, half?"

  "Right down the middle," Harry said.

  "He knows how much you gross each week?"

  "Sure he does."

  "How's he know the exact figure?"

  "I tell him," Harry said. "He doesn't believe me he can listen to the tapes anytime he wants."

  "Has he ever?"

  "You kidding? He's too fucking lazy."

  Torres said, "Well, McCormick's had people monitoring all your action-time bets and running totals."

  "Come on, they're listening to all that?"

  "McCormick wants to know if what you make and what you tell Jumbo you make are the same thing."

  "Guy's out of his mind," Harry said. "What about what my runners bring in? Hardly any of that's recorded. Or some players that're friends and call me at home? What about the different ways people who've come here from other parts of the country, Jersey for instance, place their bets? The language they use. A guy calls, he says, 'I like the Vikings and six for five dimes.' Another guys calls. 'Harry, the Saints minus seven thirty times.' He loses, what's the juice, straight ten percent? If they forget the juice they won't even get close to the gross. I keep the tapes in case there any disagreements after, who owes who, or I go to collect and the guy claims he never made the bet. It rarely happens, because if there is any doubt about what the player is putting down I ask him. Guy calls up, he says, 'Harry, give me the Lions and the Niners twenty times reverse. Bears a nickel, Chargers a nickel. Giants five times, New England ten times if the Rams ten.' That's twice a day Saturday and Sunday I get straight bets, parlays, round robins, over and under, we got the NBA going into action, listen, I even get some hockey. You're telling me this Bureau guy's people are going to get a read out of that?"

  Torres said, "Harry, we hear you talking to Jumbo, telling him the totals for the week, how you made out, all that. This one time we hear the two of you talking, we hear Jumbo ask you about a guy, this black dude in a suit, gold chains, that came up to him in the lounge out at Calder? Jumbo's having a drink between races. The black dude says, 'Man, you killed me last week.' Says he dropped ten thousand and paid another grand for the vig. We hear Jumbo ask you about the guy. You recall that?"

  Harry took his time. "I told Jimmy it was news to me, right? You heard that? The guy was mistaken, he laid it off somewhere else. I said to Jimmy if he wanted to check my tapes he could."

  Torres was nodding. "Yeah, but the black guy, Jumbo says, told him he laid the bet with you, nobody else. Ran into you at Wolfie's and you wrote it down."

  "It never happened," Harry said. "I told Jimmy, 'Find the guy. Let him tell me to my face I took his bet.' I don't do business like that, with people I don't know. A player has to be recommended." Harry felt himself getting hot again, the same way he did on the phone talking to Jimmy Cap, all that coming back to him and realizing now what it was about. "I told Jimmy, This guy's setting me up, that's all, and I don't even know why.' Well, I do now."

  "The guy's under indictment on a drug bust," Torres said. "He does what McCormick tells him and gets the charge reduced from Intent to Distribute to Simple Possession. See how he's working it? You can't prove the guy didn't put the bet down with you, right? And
now Jumbo's wondering how many payoffs you might've skimmed on him. Okay, then another phone conversation we heard, Jumbo's discussing it with one of his guys. He says if the jig had the nerve to come up to him it must be true and tells the guy to handle it. This was yesterday afternoon."

  Harry said, "Handle it. That's all he said?"

  "He didn't say how he wanted it done, no."

  "Who was he talking to?"

  "Couple of times he called the guy Tommy."

  "Tommy Bucks," Harry said. "Dark-complected guy. He came over from Sicily ten twelve years ago he was Tommy Bitonti."

  "That's who I thought it was, Tommy Bucks," Torres said, getting out his pocket notebook. "He gives you that look, Don't fuck with me. Yeah, dark-complected, but the guy's a sharp dresser. Anytime I've ever seen him he has on a suit and tie."

  "Like in the fifties," Harry said. "You went out at night to a club you wore a suit or a good-looking sports jacket. Tommy came over -- the first thing he learned was how to dress. Always looks like a million bucks. That's where he got his name, Tommy Bucks, but he's still a greaseball." Harry watched Torres enter the name in his notebook. Tommy, Jimmy, like they were talking about little kids. Harry thought of something and said, "You must've wired Jimmy's place, too, if you heard him talking to other people." And saw Torres look up and then smile for the first time.

  "You know his house on Indian Creek? Almost right across from the Eden Roc," Torres said. "We've had him under surveillance from the hotel. We see Jumbo out on his patio, he's wearing this giant pair of shorts -- what's he weigh, three hundred pounds?"

  "At least," Harry said. "Maybe three and a half."

  "We're watching him, we notice he's always talking on a cordless phone. So we put some people in a boat that's tied to that dock on the hotel side of the creek? They use a scanner, lock in on his signal, his frequency, and monitor the phone conversations, whoever he's talking to. Portable handset, you don't need a court order."

  For a few moments it was quiet in the car.

  "What you pick up is in the air," Torres said. "You know, radio waves, and they're free. That's why you don't need authorization."