Raw Deal

by Les Standiford

  “Osvaldo used to work for the Broward sheriff’s office,” Driscoll said. “Until somebody ratted him out, reported his own fornicative habits. Now he stays at home and dreams up ways to use computers illegally.”

  “Fornicative habits.” Osvaldo sniffed. “I like that, Driscoll. All these years there’s been an intellectual hiding behind that lumpen façade.”

  Deal stared at the tiny man, trying hard not to imagine what the “fornicative habits” were that had gotten him tossed from his job.

  “All that shit over there, he uses to make phony ID for teenagers,” Driscoll continued. He pointed at another bank of equipment in a corner: there was a camera on a tripod, a color copier, a laminating machine, bins of different-colored paper.

  “I’m an industrial surveillance consultant,” Osvaldo said to Deal. “Your friend is just upset because I’m doing well.”

  “He does do well,” Driscoll said agreeably. “A seventeen-year-old kid’ll pay a couple hundred bucks for a phony driver’s license.”

  “I should have left the public sector years ago,” Osvaldo said. “I had no idea what was waiting for me out here.”

  The computer had started to beep. “Aha!” Osvaldo said, smiling behind his thick glasses. “That didn’t take so long.”

  Deal craned his neck, trying to see the computer screen, but the little man held his hand up to block his view. “You can’t tell anything from this. We’ll get better resolution on the scanner. I’ll just download…”

  He broke off to type more commands, then flipped another switch. Another sizable piece of equipment hummed into electronic life. He waited until the thing began to feed out a sheet of paper, then consulted his little book, tapped his keyboard again.

  He smiled up at Driscoll. “Won’t they go crazy,” he said, “trying to figure out why the Smithsonian Institution was running a ballistics test?”

  “You’re a genius, Osvaldo,” Driscoll said dryly, pointing at the sheet that had dropped into a tray near the man’s tiny hand. “What’d we match up with?”

  Osvaldo flipped the paper over, exposing a facsimile of the battered slug they’d taken from Tommy’s head. Beneath it was a regularly shaped bullet, its riflings clearly defined. Deal shook his head. He didn’t see how it was possible to tell anything from the few discernible markings on their slug. Osvaldo glanced up as if he’d read his mind.

  “The computer does it,” he said. “Extrapolates from what we’ve fed in. Either it can figure it out or it can’t. There’s no maybe. If it gives us a match, then it’s a match.”

  “Well, what the hell does it say?” Driscoll demanded.

  Osvaldo turned calmly back to the text beneath the images. He made a sound that Deal guessed signified satisfaction. “Ivan and Ivan special,” he said to Driscoll.

  Driscoll shook his head.

  “You know,” Osvaldo insisted. “The same kind of handgun they did Neon Leon with.”

  “Yeah?” Driscoll said, surprised. He turned to Deal. “It’s a Kalashnikov. A rare one, a pistol they used to issue to Russian army officers. We had a hell of a time getting a make on it.”

  Deal shook his head.

  “The Russians mothballed them years ago,” Osvaldo said. “Later a few of them turned up in Angola and then Cuba, part of the military aid package. Only time I saw it used around here was the case I mentioned.”

  “Guy ran a restaurant down in South Miami,” Driscoll said by way of explanation. “A place he used to launder his drug money. Everybody figured it was just another drug deal gone bad until they found out what kind of gun was used. The Feds’ve been harping on it ever since. They’re using it as part of the drug thing they’re trying to pin on Castro.”

  Deal stared at them. “Are you saying the bullet that came out of Tommy was fired by this same gun?”

  Osvaldo shook his head. “There’s no way to know, not with what you brought me. We can be certain what kind of gun was used, but you’d need to be able to identify some anomaly within the pattern to prove it was the same weapon. There’s just not enough to work with here.” He gestured at the computer, helpless.

  Deal stood in the frigid blast of AC, trying to make sense of it all. Tommy shot by a Russian pistol, the same kind used by drug-dealing Cuban nationals. Tommy with another bullet in his head, one he’d fired himself, or hadn’t. How would they ever know which universe was operating here? Who was Tommy? Where had he come from? How long had he been living on the streets before Homer found him, nearly frozen to death beneath an underpass?

  Then Deal stopped. He turned to Driscoll, who’d been studying the printout Osvaldo had handed him. “Tommy would’ve been in a hospital for that first gunshot wound, wouldn’t he?”

  Driscoll nodded. “I’d say it was a safe bet.”

  “And any hospital would have to make a police report, wouldn’t they, on any gunshot wound?”

  “Sure,” Driscoll said. “But it could have happened anywhere in the country. We don’t even know when he was shot the first time. It’d take forever to run down.”

  “Okay,” Deal said, his excitement growing. “But let’s try the most obvious possibility first, just for the hell of it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Driscoll asked.

  “Tommy was found last December, right? We could work backward from there, check the local hospitals. How hard would it be?”

  “There’s only one trauma center down your way,” Osvaldo offered.

  Deal and Driscoll looked at each other. “The same damned place where he is right now,” Driscoll said.

  They started for the door together. Abruptly, Driscoll turned back to Osvaldo.

  “How about cranking your machine up for one more favor?” he asked.

  Osvaldo gave him a suspicious glance. “As long as I don’t have to go back into the same data bank anytime soon. Those particular guys are smart—I don’t want to press my luck.”

  “No problem,” Driscoll said. “This is easy stuff.”

  He bent down and scribbled something on a pad by Osvaldo’s keyboard. “Check him and the assumed names register for anything this guy’s connected with. Cross-check the probate listings, from West Palm on down through Dade County. Any holdings he’s got his fingers in, I want to know about it.”

  Osvaldo glanced at the pad and nodded. “It’ll take a while,” he said. “Where can I reach you?”

  “That’s okay,” Driscoll said. “I’ll call you.” And then they were gone.

  Chapter 38

  “You ever think of computerizing all this?” Driscoll said as the clerk dropped another set of patient files on the table of the tiny room where they were working, combing last winter’s admissions logs hour by hour, day by day.

  The clerk, a thin, pale man in his thirties with a tattoo of footprints on the web of his thumb, gave Driscoll a look, waved a hand at the paint-peeling walls around them. The musty records had given the room a hopeless, claustrophobic character. Deal wondered what it would be like, coming to work there most of the days of your life.

  “Sure, we’ve thought of it,” the clerk said. “But the hospital’s still a little short on bed space and bedpans. The records room is going to have to wait awhile.”

  Driscoll nodded, turned to a new ledger dourly. They’d already checked a dozen gunshot-to-the-head victims, discounted each one. Half had died or were of the wrong race, a few were in jail, the rest were citizens who could be accounted for.

  “I can’t believe so many people get shot,” Driscoll said. “And I’m a cop!”

  Deal resisted the urge to correct Driscoll. He still had not been able to shake the notion that real policemen were about to burst into the room, drag them off to a cell somewhere.

  “It’s a rare day we don’t get at least a couple,” the clerk said. “Gives you a new perspective on life, doesn’t it?”

  “Take a look at this one,” Driscoll said, handing a patient folder across the table to Deal
.

  “Anthony Everett,” Deal read, flipping the file open. “White male, five eleven, one sixty-five. Admitted November 11, possible gunshot wound.”

  Driscoll took the file back, flipped on through, looking for something. Finally, he glanced up at the clerk. “How come there’s no compliance report on this guy?”

  The clerk took the file from Driscoll, scanned through it. “The incident was never confirmed.” He shrugged.

  “What do you mean, never confirmed?” Deal said.

  “You have to have an attending physician perform an examination,” the clerk said. “Apparently the examination on this guy was never completed. He walked.”

  Driscoll stared at the clerk in disbelief. “He came in here with a gunshot wound to the head and walks out under his own steam before a doctor ever sees him? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  The clerk glanced at the file again, then shrugged. “Dr. Hassan saw him, he just didn’t finish up with him before he disappeared.” The clerk looked over at Deal. “People wander out of here all the time, right in the middle of treatment. They calm down, realize they’re not going to die, maybe they start to worry they’re going to get in trouble.”

  The clerk turned to Driscoll. “November 11 was a Saturday. You ever been down to the emergency ward on a Saturday night? That’d be the least surprising thing could happen, if you ask me.”

  Driscoll sighed, covering his face with his massive hands. “This Dr. Hassan,” he said finally, giving the clerk a patient look. “How might we get in touch with him?”

  ***

  Deal and Driscoll were waiting in the interns’ quarters, a battered place with a worn carpet and a musty smell that reminded Deal of his high school locker room, when Dr. Hassan arrived for his shift. This time when Driscoll displayed his phony shield, Deal didn’t even flinch.

  Hospital records had already told them that Hassan was an Iranian immigrant who’d studied in London, gone to med school in Madrid, was completing an internship in the States. He turned out to be a slightly built man in his mid-thirties, his face framed by owlish horn-rimmed glasses.

  He removed the glasses a couple of times as he studied the Xeroxed file Driscoll had handed him. Another intern lingered near the locker area until Driscoll fixed his glare on him and the man eased on out of the room. Hassan looked up from the file as the door closed behind his colleague.

  “Yes, I remember this man,” he said finally. “He is the one who vanished.” His doleful eyes reflected wonder as he thought back. “Those men from the raft brought him in and left and then he disappeared as well.”

  “Men from the raft?” Deal asked.

  “Yes,” Hassan said, unruffled. “Unusual men. Quite an outlandish story, really.”

  “Try us,” Driscoll said.

  Hassan glanced at him. “I’m still not sure it was true, of course. And my Spanish was a bit rusty—”

  “Doc…” Driscoll interrupted. “We’re kind of in a hurry.”

  “Of course,” Hassan said, giving him an agreeable nod. “The two men who brought this one in told me that they had floated here on a raft from Cuba. They said to me they’d plucked this man out of the water the night they left. They’d heard shooting, and at first assumed it was meant for them. But then they realized it was something else altogether. They said the sky was filled with planes, the beach behind them full of explosions…” He broke off, shrugging.

  “And then sometime after the firing had stopped, they came upon him, floating in the water, with his arm clutched to a piece of wreckage. They’d argued about what to do, the two of them, but they finally came to the conclusion that since he was an American and they were on their way to America, it was an omen of sorts. They were sure he’d never make it, but he had, in fact. He was still alive when they washed up on shore. By that time they were certain their fate was entwined with his and so they brought the man here.”

  Deal shook his head. “Why didn’t you report all this?”

  The intern gave him a puzzled glance. “To what end? The story was quite incredible. The patient had vanished, as had the men who brought him here.”

  “But still…”

  “You must understand, I might treat fifty persons on a weekend shift.” His eyes grew large behind his glasses. “And in this hospital, one encounters many strange stories.”

  Deal turned to Driscoll, shaking his head in amazement. “It couldn’t be Tommy, Vernon. It just couldn’t be…”

  “There’s one easy way to find out,” Driscoll said. He stood and placed a hand on the intern’s shoulder. “One hell of an easy way.”

  ***

  “Again?” Hassan’s voice was a whisper. He glanced back at them as he bent over Tommy’s inert form. “He has been shot again? How could it be?”

  “That’s him, Doc?” Driscoll gestured for him to take a closer look. “You’re sure?”

  Hassan’s hands moved carefully to Tommy’s head, pushed a shock of his hair aside, inspected something. He stood back, held his hands out like a film director framing Tommy’s face. Finally he turned, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It has been some time,” he said, pointing back at Tommy. “But you see the scar there, just above the ear. That was the location of the wound I saw…”

  Driscoll nodded.

  “Are you certain?” Deal said, impatient.

  Hassan shrugged again. “Yes. In my best estimation. I would have to say yes.”

  “Well, thanks a million, Doc,” Driscoll said, propelling him toward the door.

  Hassan held back, as if he’d be glad to put off his rounds to stay and chat. “It is quite some story, no?”

  “You bet your boots,” Driscoll said. “We appreciate all your trouble.”

  “There is something else I can do?”

  “Just tell the ladies down at the nurses’ station to give us a couple more minutes. We won’t bother him,” Driscoll said, guiding Hassan on out into the hallway. He gave the intern a reassuring nod, then closed the door and hurried to the phone without a word to Deal.

  “Yes,” he said, dialing an operator. “This is Dr. Hassan. Can you get me a Broward County number, please?”

  Driscoll waved away Deal’s inquiring look as he waited for a connection. After a minute his face lit up. “Yeah, Osvaldo, it’s me, Driscoll.” He paused, waiting for a moment, then took out his little pad and made a couple of notes.

  “That’s great, Osvaldo. But there’s just one more thing…”

  He held the phone away from his ear, letting Deal hear a stream of high-pitched curses. When Osvaldo’s voice had calmed, Driscoll took up again.

  “I appreciate it, Osvaldo. All you have to do is check out a guy named Anthony Everett. I’ve got a Social Security number and a Maryland driver’s license with an address.” Driscoll repeated the information they’d taken from the hospital’s admissions form, listened while Osvaldo repeated it. “Yeah, just verify that stuff, run him for outstanding warrants, call up a credit report, anything that’s easy.” He held the phone away from his ear again at Osvaldo’s reply, then thanked him and hung up.

  Driscoll studied the notes he’d made for a moment, then looked up at Deal. “Seems our buddy Torreno’s been busy,” he said.

  “Doing what?” Deal asked.

  Driscoll tapped his little pad in his hand. “Osvaldo says he’s dumped about thirty-five million dollars into real estate over the past six months, and that’s just what the computer was able to pick up on the quick.”

  “So?”

  “So, all of these transactions are recorded in Torreno’s name, or companies controlled by him. Five’ll get you ten most of the money for those deals came out of the Patriots’ Foundation coffers.”

  “What did he buy with it?”

  “Some of it’s parcels of land over in Collier County. That’s where they busted a couple of paramilitary training camps tied to the foundation last year.”

  “M
aybe he’s just buying the land in his name to keep things quiet.”

  “Maybe,” Driscoll said, tapping his notebook. “But that only accounts for a small portion of it. What do you think the Patriots’ Foundation cares about American Amalgamated Industries,” he said, pausing for emphasis, “for which Torreno forked over twenty-seven point one million dollars.”

  Deal stared. “Twenty-seven million? What is American Amalgamated Industries?”

  “American Sugar,” Driscoll said. “Big sugar, up by Lake Okeechobee. It’s the biggest single processor in the U.S. It used to be controlled by a family named Carbonell. The old man died recently, his kids finally got to sell.”

  “Osvaldo told you all this?” Deal’s eyes were on Tommy, his waxy skin, his slack mouth, the tubes and lines that held him to the world.

  Driscoll shook his head. “Naw. I met Carbonell a couple years back. He was a real independent old cuss, a guy who came over here long before Castro. His family had been in the business down there for a hundred years. He read the handwriting on the wall, came to the U.S., built his sugar empire, never looked back. He hated Torreno and his activities. Somebody put me on to him, thought he might be able to give me some leads on some of the things we were looking into.”

  Deal glanced up from Tommy with a sigh. “And did he?”

  Driscoll shook his head again. “He didn’t know shit, really. Torreno had come to him for money to support the foundation early on, Carbonell threw him out on his ass. Old guy talked my ear off about making your own way, America the land of opportunity, all that. What he knew about was growing sugarcane.”

  “How did he die?” Deal said. He was tired. Funny how that worked. Get beaten down to the bone, things made more sense than when you were rested, your mind firing on all cylinders.

  “He drowned,” Driscoll said, giving him a look. “Slipped into one of the canals on his farm. Couple of his sons found him, that’s the story, anyway.”

  “A guy that only cared about one thing dies in an accident, now Torreno owns his pride and joy,” Deal said.