by Mike Lawson
He realized now—now that it was too late—that he should not have killed Callahan; he should have just forced him to walk away from Delaney Square as DeMarco had suggested. Furthermore, he should never have tried to intimidate Mahoney by showing how easily he could frame DeMarco for Callahan’s murder. Mahoney clearly didn’t care about what happened to DeMarco; DeMarco was just hired help to him. All Mahoney cared about was proving that he was too powerful to be intimidated. The man was a dangerous egomaniac, and his egomania was going to cost Javier Castro his life, just as it had caused Sean Callahan his.
After the Americans began seizing money and real estate, his cousin went berserk, calling him and screaming at him that it was Javier’s responsibility to reimburse everyone who had lost money. He tried to tell Paulo that that was not only unreasonable but also impossible. He didn’t have enough money to reimburse everyone—he’d be a pauper if he did, and he had no intention of becoming one. Furthermore, he told his cousin, it wasn’t his fault the Americans had been able to identify assets the cartel and the cartel’s friends had in the United States. The blame for that lay with the Cayman investment company and the cartel’s accountants. He did offer to reimburse Paulo the fifteen million he’d lost on Delaney Square, but that did nothing to mollify the maniac—so he fled to Belize, not knowing what he was going to do next. He’d been hoping he might get lucky and that his cousin would be arrested or killed before too long and he wouldn’t have to stay in hiding forever—but luck had not been on his side.
Javier hadn’t seen Paulo Castro in almost two years, and when his cousin finally walked into the barn, Javier couldn’t believe how bad the man looked. Paulo was tall, almost six four, and when he was young, he’d had the build of a weightlifter who used steroids. Now he just looked like a fifty-year-old fat man. But it wasn’t just his body that had declined. Javier had heard rumors that his cousin had started drinking heavily and using cocaine. His face was now bloated, his skin red and blotched, his eyes looking as if he hadn’t slept in days. He’d also heard that his cousin had become even more vicious and unpredictable. The slightest annoyance would send him into a towering rage, and Javier had been told that Paulo beat one of his own men to death with a golf club, a man who’d worked for him for years, just because he was late for a meeting. He’d also become extremely paranoid, the paranoia most likely a result of the heavy drinking and drug use, and he’d killed several people because he was convinced that they were talking to the federales about him even though it was highly unlikely that anyone would take such a risk. Paulo Castro had become like a wounded grizzly bear, terrifying everyone within range of his long, sharp claws.
He was surprised, therefore, when Paulo walked into the barn and then just sat down on a bale of hay. He’d expected his cousin to walk up to him and smash him in the face and start screaming at him, but he didn’t. He just sat, breathing heavily, and Javier realized the man was so drunk that if he hadn’t sat down he would have fallen.
With Paulo were two more bodyguards, bringing the total number of armed bodyguards in the barn to four. Following Paulo into the barn was Maria Vasquez, still dressed as she’d been when she kidnapped him. She looked over at him—sympathetically, he thought—then went and leaned against the wall near the pitchfork. The combination of the pitchfork next to her honey-blond hair, her black attire, and the bright red lipstick she wore made Javier think: The devil’s mistress.
The last person to enter the barn was Ignacio Rojo. Rojo was in his late sixties, slightly built, wore glasses, and his hands were gnarled from severe arthritis. He was wearing a black suit, as he almost always did, and a white dress shirt with the top button buttoned, no tie. Rojo was the one who managed the cartel’s day-to-day operations, Paulo not being a person who had the patience for details. The thing that Javier had always appreciated about Ignacio Rojo when Rojo worked for him was that he was content with his role. He had no desire to be in charge of the cartel, being wise enough to know that the man who wore the crown also wore a target on his back.
Rojo went and stood next to Maria Vasquez but Maria, sensitive to the man’s age and arthritic joints, snapped her fingers and said to one of the bodyguards: “Bring that box over here for Señor Rojo to sit on.” When Maria spoke, the bodyguard moved like he’d been poked with a cattle prod.
Paulo started to say something, then started sneezing violently. Javier had forgotten about his cousin’s allergies. When he stopped sneezing, Paulo said, “Fucking hay. Why are we doing this here?”
“It was convenient,” Maria said.
“Convenient for who?” Paulo said.
Maria didn’t apologize, which surprised Javier, but then Paulo turned his head to look back at him.
“Cousin,” Paulo said. “You’ve cost me a lot of money. You caused me a lot of aggravation.”
Although he knew it was hopeless, Javier said, “Just tell me what I can do to make things right, Paulo.”
Paulo laughed—then he started sneezing again. In different circumstances, this might have been comical. This time when he stopped sneezing, he said, “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“You,” he said, to one of the bodyguards. “Do you have a knife?”
“Yes, sir,” the bodyguard said.
“Go put out his eyes, and cut off his ears. His nose, too. Do it quickly.” To Javier, he said, “When he’s done with your face, I’m going to have him cut off your head and mail it to your wife. She always treated me like I was a servant.”
But the bodyguard didn’t move. Instead, he looked over at Maria Vasquez.
“Why in the hell are you looking at her?” Paulo said to the bodyguard. “Do what I told you.”
No one answered Paulo, but Ignacio Rojo said to Maria, “Let’s be done with this.”
“Yes,” Maria said. She looked at one of the other bodyguards, a man standing behind Paulo, and nodded. Before Paulo could react, the man pulled out a Beretta and shot Paulo in the back of the head. Fat Paulo landed face-first in the straw on the barn floor.
Javier closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. Maybe he would survive after all. It appeared as if Maria, with Rojo’s concurrence, had decided it was time for her to take over the cartel and Javier was sure that everyone in the organization would appreciate the change in management. The best news for him was that Maria and Rojo were people who could be reasoned with and he might be able to come to an accommodation with them. Maria had already stolen 120 million from him but if she wanted more, he would gladly give it to her.
“Maria, thank you,” he said. “Now please tell me what I can do to make things right.”
Maria looked at him for what seemed an eternity, then shook her head. “Give me the gun,” she said to the man who had killed Paulo. He handed it to her and she walked slowly over to Javier. She was almost forty now but as beautiful as ever, he thought.
“Maria,” he said. “I don’t care about the money you took from me today. I really don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Javier,” she said. “You say you don’t care now, but you’re an intelligent man, and a ruthless one. I’m afraid I just wouldn’t feel secure with you around.” She smiled that sad, sad smile of hers and said, “So much misfortune because of one stubborn old woman.”
And then Maria answered Javier’s earlier prayer—and shot him in the head.
DeMarco was shoveling the two feet of snow that had fallen on Washington the night before off his front sidewalk. It had been the third heavy snowfall in January, and he wished he could afford to spend the winter in Florida. He was wearing a heavy wool sweater, jeans, and Gore-Tex-lined boots. On his head was a black stocking cap that he knew made him look like a thug. Which made him wonder if the romance writer who had taken his photo in Boston because she thought he looked like Bruno, her menacing villain, had ever published her stupid novel.
As he bent his back to dig another shovelful of snow, he heard snow chains c
lanking on a vehicle’s tires and looked up to see a D.C. Metro Police car coming down the street in his direction—and his heart started beating faster. In the last seven months, ever since Mahoney had convinced the DEA to go after Javier Castro, DeMarco’s heart rate increased every time he saw a cop. He wondered if this was the day they were going to arrest him for Sean Callahan’s murder. But the cop car didn’t stop, and continued along on its noisy way.
His phone rang just then, and by the time he yanked his gloves off and dug the phone out of his jeans, it rang for the fifth time; after the next ring it would go to voice mail. He said hello without looking at the caller ID.
“Joe?” a woman said, her voice low and sexy.
“Yes,” he said, wondering who it was.
“It’s Maria. You remember me from Boston?”
DeMarco couldn’t speak for a moment. “Maria, trust me when I say that I’ll never forget you. What do you want?”
“I just wanted to let you know that you can stop worrying.”
“You mean about being framed for murder?”
“That’s right. You can also tell Mr. Mahoney that he’s made his point, and that no one will bother him at any time in the future, no matter what the DEA uncovers in their investigation. As far as the cartel is concerned—or maybe I should say, as far as I’m concerned—what’s happened in the last few months is just the cost of doing business. It’s time to move on.”
“Really,” DeMarco said. “And Javier Castro is okay with this? I mean, from what I’ve heard, he’s lost a lot of money.”
“Where Javier is now, Joe, he doesn’t need money.”
That took a moment to sink in. “I see,” DeMarco said. “And the gun that was used to . . . You know.”
“Oh, the gun. It’s been, shall we say, recycled. Don’t worry about the gun.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Well, that’s all I called to say, Joe. But if you ever come to Mexico again—it’s beautiful where I am right now; the temperature’s about eighty, not a cloud in the sky—give me a call. For some reason, I have a hard time getting a date down here, and I’d love to see you again.”
Then she laughed and disconnected the call.
Notes and
Acknowledgments
The idea for this book came from a photo in the Seattle Times of an elderly woman wearing yellow rain gear and protesting against a developer trying to evict tenants from a building in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. She was the original Elinore Dobbs.
The story in the book about a multimillionaire landlord given hundreds of citations for not maintaining apartments—while suffering no serious legal or financial consequences—was inspired by an article I found online. I included this story in the book to make the point that in real life developers/landlords like Sean Callahan can often act with impunity when it comes to tenants’ rights.
The fictional Delaney Square in this book is modeled after a real development in Boston called Boston Landing, which is a five-hundred-million-dollar development occupying fourteen acres, and includes a corporate headquarters for New Balance, a hotel, a sports complex, and four office buildings. As far as I know, the developer didn’t do anything nasty and underhanded like Sean Callahan.
I particularly want to thank Gerry LaCaille. Gerry has been involved with developments in Seattle and he was incredibly generous with his time, educating me on the financial aspects of large projects. The whole process is a whole lot more complicated than the way I describe it in the book and if any of what I’ve written is incorrect, the fault lies with me and not Mr. LaCaille.
I also want to thank Robert Kirschner, a friend and civil engineer, for advising me on large construction projects and such things as fall protection violations. Bob also gave me some advice recently on adding a few strategically placed two-by-fours under my deck to keep it from moving around when folks walk on it—which is a whole different story.
Regarding drug cartels laundering massive amounts of money and the U.S. government seizing assets, a lot has been reported on this subject. A 2008 NPR article reported that the Justice Department, in a four-year period, seized $1.6 billion in assets related to drug trafficking. Even better, my wonderful editor at Grove Atlantic, Jamison Stoltz, sent me a link to an article in which HSBC Bank, which is headquartered in London and has offices in eighty countries around the world, was fined $1.9 billion for charges related to Latin American drug cartels laundering billions of dollars. Specifically, the article noted that the bank “failed to monitor”—whatever the hell that means—$670 billion in wire transfers and purchases of more than $9.4 billion in U.S. currency. So, as noted in the book, we’re talking big bucks—and, as always appears to be the case, the bankers get fines that are a drop in the bucket to them and the bankers themselves never seem to go to jail.
Regarding the Stolen Valor Act, I was shocked that people lying about military service and unearned military medals occurred so frequently and so blatantly. Can you even imagine walking into a room wearing a Congressional Medal of Honor you never earned? I wasn’t so surprised that people were committing fraud through bogus claims of military service—like the guy I mention in the book who scammed the VA for two hundred grand—as someone out there is always finding a clever way to commit fraud. I also wasn’t so surprised that Congress could come together to pass the first Stolen Valor Act. Who in their political right mind would vote against such a law? Then after the Supremes overturned the law in 2012, I was amazed at how a Congress that can’t seem to agree on anything worked so rapidly to pass a second Stolen Valor Act in 2013. How come these guys can’t ever come together on other really important things?
One other item of interest. I was asked recently at an event if I really believed that folks in Congress are as corrupt as I often make them out to be in my books. Well, just as my editor and I were working together to finish this book, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was arrested for lying to the FBI about paying someone over $1 million (of a promised $3.5 million) in hush money to apparently cover up some sort of sexual misconduct. At the time I wrote this paragraph, all the facts weren’t in, but three things about the Hastert case interested me. First, although my character Mahoney is based in many ways—his appearance, being from Boston, being a Democrat—on former speaker Tip O’Neill, former Republican speaker Hastert also bears a striking physical similarity to my Mahoney. Second, when Hastert started in Congress his net worth was said to be only about $270,000. How did he amass enough money to pay someone $3.5 million? Lastly, Hastert was just the latest in a long line of politicians to be indicted for one thing or another. While researching this book I came across one congressman (a Democrat) indicted on sixteen federal counts for “solicitation of bribes, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, racketeering, and conspiracy.” Just reading the counts of the indictment, you’d think the person arrested was a Mafia hood, not a United States congressman. So is Congress the bed of corruption I seem to think it is? Maybe not, but the institution is corrupt enough that I may never run out of ideas for books.
Lastly, I want to thank my son, Keith, for flying to Boston with me and assisting me with my research as we walked about the city and looked at the places mentioned in this book: the Park Plaza Hotel, Copley Plaza, the Warren Tavern, the Lansdowne Pub, Christian Science Plaza—and Fenway, of course. We also drove to Rhode Island, where I found Pine Orchard Road after driving around for about three hours, although I modified the locale somewhat for DeMarco’s encounter with the McNultys. The most memorable part of the trip may have been the Italian dinner in the North End, where my son spoke in Italian with all the waiters while I stuffed my face.
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