Mob Rules

by Marc Rainer

  “Jesus, Jeff. You’re leaving quite the body count here. Let’s try and get some convictions while we’re at it, okay? Take the rest of the day and clear your head. You’ve had a weird twenty-four hours.”

  Trask told Cam he was leaving for the day, even though it was still before lunch. Something called him back to the Liberty Memorial.

  He’d always loved the study of history. There’d been a short time at the Air Force Academy when he’d tried to be a political science major, but he’d found the attempted applications of mathematic and marketing theories to human behavior to be misplaced and a pseudo-science. He had become a history major his second semester, and had overloaded in the discipline, taking every course the department offered over the course of his four years.

  He wandered through the halls of the Memorial again, not really stopping to take in any of the narratives.

  I could probably lead these tours myself.

  Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” started playing in his head.

  Millions of not-so-fortunate sons had to fight in this mess.

  He stopped at one panel showing a series of horse-drawn artillery carts.

  Poor devils. I wonder how many horses died in that conflagration. The imbecile generals got them slaughtered as well as their troops. Cavalry charges into machinegun cross-fire made no more sense than infantry charges. The mounted dead just got to the bullets faster, taking their mounts with them.

  He passed an unoccupied tour guide who asked whether he had any questions.

  “Just the usual one,” he replied. “How could this have happened?”

  The guide just nodded.

  They call it the “Liberty Memorial.” Millions got liberated from the hardships of life. Permanently.

  The cell phone buzzing in his pocket stopped his tour. It was Lynn.

  “Your secretary said you’d gone for the day,” she said.

  “Yeah. Our defendant decided he didn’t want to go home to prison, so he went home to hell. A .357 to the temple.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes, it is. I forced myself to say a half-hearted prayer for his soul, and an even less sincere one for the Silvestris.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Just walking around the Liberty Memorial trying to clear my head.”

  “The vet just called and said we could pick up Boo. Would you like to do that, or do you want me to go get her?”

  “I’ll be happy to do it. It would sure be the bright spot in my day. I’ll head that way now.”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  He was at the veterinary clinic in twenty minutes. He paid the bill with a credit card—given the amount due—and waited until a technician walked Boo out into the lobby.

  The big dog trotted happily over to see him, her bright blue eyes glistening. She put her front paws into his lap and gave him a sloppy face bath with her tongue.

  “Somebody loves her daddy,” the tech said.

  “Her daddy loves seeing her up and about,” Trask replied. “Please thank the doc again for us.”

  He led Boo to the car and lifted her into the back seat, not wanting to tax her energy with any attempted jumps. “Let’s go home, big dog,” he said. “Your mom is waiting for you.”

  Paul Beretta leaned back in his chair in the office at Bottoms. The online edition of the Kansas City Star was reporting the suicide of a defendant in a major federal drug case. Beretta smiled and shook his head in near-disbelief.

  Little Dom told me that Papi knew nothing. Maybe so, maybe not. If Papi ever actually was a loose end, that’s been solved, too. It’s been a good day. It’s been a helluva good day.

  He left the office to see if Denise had arrived yet to start her shift.

  Kansas City, Missouri

  John Foote was waiting for him in the hallway when Trask arrived for work. Trask unlocked the door to his office and Foote followed him in. Foote shut the door behind him.

  “I thought we might need to talk,” the FBI agent said.

  “Happy to,” Trask replied. “I’m going to make another cup of coffee. Want one?”

  “Nah, I’m good. Already had two this morning.”

  “Okay.”

  Trask went to a credenza behind his desk where a Keurig machine was warming up. When it stopped whirring, he put a capsule in the unit and waited for it to finish pouring into the cup below. He dumped a couple of packets of sweetener in before stirring it.

  “No sugar?” Foote asked him.

  “Borderline diabetic,” Trask responded. “Type II.”

  “That’s surprising,” Foote said. “You don’t look like you’ve ever been overweight.”

  “I’m about 180 at the moment,” Trask said. “Used to be 225.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were. I watched the disease kill my dad, and now I have to give insulin shots to one of our dogs twice a day. I’m trying to stay off the needles myself. I have to work out harder now than I ever wanted to, but it keeps the weight off.”

  “How are your pups?” Foote asked.

  “Better. We dodged a bullet with our big dog the last couple of days; she had some kind of auto-immune disease, a tick bite-related thing. We had her on some flea and tick prevention, of course, but one must have gotten through the barrier. I picked her up yesterday from the vet, so she’s better.”

  “Great. They’re family.”

  Foote paused. It was time for substance. No more small talk.

  “I need to apologize for the phone call with Fat Tony.”

  “Accepted,” Trask said. “And I’m sorry to have come down on you so hard in front of everybody else. I just never saw the point in giving the mob the opportunity to put things in motion on their terms. Now we have two fewer defendants and two corpses instead.”

  “I understand,” Foote responded. “I’m not going to be mourning those two, though.”

  “I won’t be attending their funerals, either,” Trask said. He sat back behind his desk, sipping the coffee. “I had some similar experiences in D.C., and I had hoped to avoid more of them here. In some ways, I think hard time is harder on these thugs than a bullet in the head. I hate to see them getting off easy. The other part of the equation is that we all took an oath to try and work within the system. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of times that the system sucks, but we still promised to try and work inside it.”

  “I know. I feel the same way,” Foote said, nodding. “I did ask Minelli to have the punk turn himself in, but I should have realized that he—or someone else, like Big Dom—might not honor that request.”

  “We took our oaths; they have their own,” Trask said. “There’s very little common ground between the two.”

  “I know, I know.” Foote nodded again. “I should have coordinated our response before I answered the call. I’ll do that in the future.”

  “That’s all I can ask,” Trask said. “I actually hope that he doesn’t reach out to us again.”

  Foote scowled. “I won’t go that far. I do think that there are times when those channels can be productive, and that they should be kept open. I promise that we’ll talk before we use them. I’ll let you know when we think it’s an appropriate time to use them again.”

  “Fair enough, then,” Trask said. “Heard anything more from Velasco?”

  “I’m flying to Dallas in a couple of hours,” Foote said. “Jose called me last night and said that the GPS on Cannon showed him prowling around some parts of town where he might have scored some more heroin. There’s nothing specific enough for the locals to act on yet, but we figured that if he headed north in his truck, that would be a good tip-off. If he goes to his favorite motel again to switch cars, we’ll be waiting for him.”

  “If that happens,” Trask said, “let’s make sure we don’t get burned on the surveillance until he gets into the area here, or close to it.”

  “We can put a plane on him
and follow the GPS we stuck on the Camry. We have a couple of planes and pilots assigned to our division. That way, we don’t have to be anywhere close to him.”

  “Good. What do you think about pulling him over before he gets a chance to make any deliveries here? We pitch him and see if he’ll cooperate, then we do a controlled delivery to the mob guy—Collavito—and if Cannon identifies targets in other towns, we can do the same there. If we wait until he’s on this side of the state line, we won’t have to coordinate with any of our other offices or any other local police agencies. We will have to call ahead if we’re going to deliver to other cities.”

  “Sounds like a plan. We can try and make any arrest of Collavito as quiet as possible, in case there are other players here we don’t know about. Velasco already has a pretty thick file on the Dellums, so you can add them to your indictment even if Collavito wants to keep his mouth shut. Then we road trip it with Cannon to any other delivery spots he wants to give up.”

  “If we don’t hit a dry hole with this, we can also get a search warrant for Cannon’s house in Dallas through our office there,” Trask said. “I’ll brief Barrett. Have a good flight.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let my guys know at the Bureau, and I’ll call Tommy Land, too. I’ll call you when we know something.”

  “I’ll be out of town for a few days,” Beretta said. “When’s our next load due in?”

  “He should be here tomorrow or the next day,” Collavito replied on the other end of the call. “I just talked to him. He’s got the stuff, and he’ll probably be leaving Dallas tonight.”

  “I should be seeing you by the end of the week, then,” Beretta said. “I’ll call you when I get back. I gotta go—have to run catch my flight.”

  “Have a nice trip.”

  Beretta ended the call and got out of his car. He had parked it in the short-term lot, so it was a short walk through a covered, underground tunnel to one of the Kansas City International Airport’s three mini-terminals.

  He had booked his usual direct flight on Southwest. His “A-List” status got him on and off the plane quickly, he was able to pick his own seat, and the rates were good, with no baggage fees. Beretta smiled to himself as he realized that he was about to launder more than twenty-grand through the Vegas casinos, but had shopped online for a discount airfare.

  Gotta play the game. Nothing conspicuous. No need to draw any attention to myself with first-class tickets or limo rides. Everything’s on track. The money now will buy the power later.

  Following a three-hour flight, he was getting off the plane at McCarren, the Las Vegas airport. He took the shuttle bus to the rent-a-car center, where he had “Fastbreak” status as a Budget frequent renter. His car—a Kia Optima—was ready and waiting. Ten minutes later he was on the Vegas beltway heading west and then north.

  Beretta exited Highway 215 at West Charleston Boulevard and parked in the VIP section of the Red Rock Casino and Hotel’s East Garage. He checked in at the VIP lounge and took the elevator to his suite on the 18th floor. Unpacking took only a few minutes, then he was back on the elevator and heading down to the casino.

  Beretta liked the Red Rock property for several reasons. The service was good, the buffet was excellent, and there was a top-notch steak house if he wanted something a little more upscale for dinner. The place was well-lit, and the air circulation was decent, unlike some of the older downtown properties along Fremont Street. It was also never quite as crowded as the tourist traps on The Strip, especially if he avoided the weekends.

  Best of all—since it was a Station Casinos property—the Red Rock offered the best odds in town in all the games, from slots and video poker to the table games. He could usually at least break even if he stayed in control and played smart. He was always careful to have federal income tax deducted off-the-top of any major jackpots he hit, all to make everything look even more legitimate. His winnings helped to explain the cash deposits he made into his bank account. They were gambling winnings, many declared officially on IRS Forms 1099G, and—on paper—showed nothing about their original sources as the proceeds of trafficking in heroin or money skimmed from his Bottoms strip joint. He often came out ahead, and the gaming points he piled up in the players’ club were always enough to allow him to both stay and eat for free. He smiled again.

  Another nice, paid vacation.

  He checked in with his player’s club card at one of the kiosks to see if he could boost his point multiplier for the day before taking a seat at a table just outside a bar on the right side of the casino. He ordered a drink and waited.

  He had it all lined up now. The money from the dope was making him financially fat. He had enough banked in Kansas City to take on Minelli when the time was right. Fat Tony was stupid enough to take Beretta’s word for the accounting on the cuts of money that he passed up the line to the don. Minelli had no idea that Beretta was pocketing the lion’s share of the profits from the Bottoms, and that the money was leaving the country with Beretta on his trips to Europe.

  We’ll take Fat Tony out with a quick hit, no notice, like the one Gotti pulled in New York. He did that one right, he just got stupid later. “Teflon Don,” my ass. He might as well have worn a suit with a target on the back, the way he kept challenging the feds. Not the way to longevity or to stay out of jail, John. You should have studied your history.

  In case things went wrong for some reason—any reason—Beretta also had a contingency plan. He’d been taking frequent trips to the old country—Italy—for years now, often making the journey once a quarter. On each trip, he’d taken a minimum of $7,500 in cash—sometimes more—in his carry-on luggage. He knew the game and played it well. You only had to fill out a form if you were carrying more than ten grand. There really wasn’t any limit on the amount you could take out of the country, you just had to declare anything above ten-thousand.

  He’d only been asked about the money on two occasions. He had told one nosy TSA agent that he was an art dealer and had some purchases to make in Rome and maybe Florence. He had simply told another that “Europe is expensive.” The simple explanation had earned a shrug, a nod, and a wave to go ahead.

  It was always a short and usually pleasant trip across the Alps to Zurich or Geneva. His Swiss bank had branches in both cities. In the winter, he liked to ski the Alps, both in Italy and in Austria. In the warmer months, he would see the old country, taking his time, meeting distant relatives, working on his proficiency in his mother tongue. His travel and savings plan had pushed more than seven figures into his Swiss accounts, and—with the interest earned—there was enough for him to live comfortably for years, if that became necessary.

  Ten minutes after he sat down, someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind. The man pulled the chair out on the other side of the table.

  “Paulie, how ya been?”

  “Good, Vic. How ’bout yourself?”

  “Can’t complain. Have a good flight?”

  “Sure. Southwest’s snack service sucks—nothing now but bad pretzels—but otherwise it’s a good company. I miss the peanuts, ya know? Some kid or two or three squawks about an allergy, and—all of a sudden—no peanuts. I wanted to tell ’em I was allergic to pretzels, just to see what would happen.”

  Vic laughed. “Then you’d get nuthin’.”

  Beretta laughed with him. “You’re probably right. You headin’ back to New York tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Vic said. “Gotta go into LaGuardia, so it’ll take forever to get the hell out of there, with them having to tow the planes to the jetways and all that stupid shit, but that’s what was available. I just hung around today to see your ugly mug. How’re things on your end?”

  “Another load should be leaving tonight or tomorrow, so you should see the guy in three or four days.”

  “You mean we should see the product in three or four days. I ain’t seen the guy yet, and don’t want to. He makes the drop, we pick up the package. Everything’s cool, everything’s all nice and compar
tmentalized. We pay you, you send the money back down. I like your system, Paulie.”

  “Glad it’s workin’ for ya.”

  “I heard you had some trouble down there in KC.”

  “The Silvestri thing?”

  “Yeah, them.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s not a problem for us. It turns out that Dom’s idiot kid whacked Fat Tony’s sister and her husband without getting an okay. Dom shot his kid, then he shot himself. I had already pushed Little Dom out of our arrangement anyway. I got a new guy there handling things, and he’s doin’ a good job.”

  “How’s Minelli taking all that?”

  Beretta shrugged. “It settled his sister’s death. That’s the big thing. What he doesn’t know about our business won’t hurt him, at least ’til it’s time for him to get hurt. He thinks he’s like one of the Commission members from the ’57 meeting in Apalachin, and he won’t let anybody have anything to do with dope. He sits on his fat ass and just collects from the rest of us. We run the bars, do the work, and pass the cash up the chain. All Minelli does is spend the money we give him. If it wasn’t for our little business on the side, we’d have trouble makin’ ends meet in the clubs. The strip joint business ain’t what it used to be with all the free porn on the internet.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “How about your end? You getting enough product? Need any more?”

  “We could maybe handle a little more next load,” Vic said. “Keep this one the same. Business is good; we’re just tryin’ to be careful.”

  “Good, good,” Beretta nodded as he spoke.

  “Okay, then.” Vic stood. “Don’t want to hang with you too long, in case somebody’s around takin’ pictures. Glad to hear everything’s still cool. Have a good stay, Paulie. Try that Megabucks machine or somethin’. Hit a big one.”

  Beretta stood and shook Vic’s hand. “I’ll throw a twenty in it; nothing more than that. The odds on those things really suck. It’s like Powerball with sound.”

  Vic laughed. “Stay in touch.”