In about twenty minutes, I was parking my replacement Corvette in Hyde Square, Jamaica Plain, in about the same spot I had parked that morning about a hundred years ago—or so it seemed. I figured that the twelve-year-old kid who showed up to watch my car that morning had claimed that stretch of sidewalk as his private turf for car-watching. Sure enough, he was there sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for me to pay tribute so that his implied suggestion of the possible desecration of my car might be magically averted.
I doubled the fee, which lit up his larcenous little eyes.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Armando. Why?”
That told me just one thing. Of all the Latino names in the register, his was not Armando. But at least I had something to call him. I needed five minutes alone with him away from spying eyes that could be in any window of any building.
“How would you like a ride in a Corvette, Armando?”
To any twelve-year-old in almost any other neighborhood, that would sound like fun—and, being a car ride with a stranger, just the thing their mothers had warned them against. I could see enough of myself at twelve in little Armando, or whatever his name was, to see his mind calculating a profit.
“Why not. Can I drive?”
“Just get in the car, Armando.”
We drove in silence the ten minutes to the lonely Jamaica Pond area. I pulled over to the curb by the shore. I looked over. Armando sat there with the slight grin of one who is about to get an offer that could only result in ready cash.
“I need some information, Armando.”
“Don’t we all, boss?”
“About a week ago, you watched my car.”
“Who could forget? It wasn’t this one, though.”
That surprised even me. I thought they were identical. That was good news. This little bundle of precocious greed had an eye for detail.
“Two funny things happened that day.”
“That a fact, boss?”
“The old man, they call him ‘Paco.’ He came out of Pepe’s bar. He gave you a note and told you to slip it into my pocket when I picked up the car.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. And you did just that.”
“Amazing I don’t remember that, boss.”
“Don’t worry about it. We haven’t gotten to the cash part yet. You read the note before you put it in my pocket.”
“Hey, man, you think I don’t respect people’s privacy?”
I pitched my tone to the twenty-year-old attitude of a street-educated kid that had been my attitude too at his age.
“Let’s get real, Armando. I have no intention of doing you any harm whatsoever. In fact, I feel rather protective for reasons I’m not about to explain. I want you to start ringing that cash register in your head. All I want to hear at the end of this is the total charge in cash for one bit of information. Can we cut the preliminaries?”
I could see what looked like a bit of surprise in his frozen grin.
“Hey, man, you supposed to be some big-shot lawyer. How come you talk like that?”
“Not so much ‘big shot’, Armando. But someday the fact that I’m a lawyer might do you a lot of good. That’s for another day. Today, we’re doing business like two muchachos. You read the note because you figured there may be a buck to be made with the information. I’d have done the same thing at your age right there on that same street. Let’s move on.”
He just looked at me. The brick wall between us seemed a bit softer.
“And you did make a buck on it. Someone asked you what the note said. Now you’re going to make another buck on it. I need that name.”
I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the two twenties, neatly folded, that I had put there when I first saw Armando on the sidewalk. I held them out. I knew he saw them. He just kept looking out the front window.
I knew the language. I took the other two twenties I had folded out of the same pocket. Now he was looking at the ceiling. I took out one more twenty. He turned away to look out of the side window. Again I read him. I slipped all of the bills into his shirt pocket.
I put the car in gear and drove back to where I had picked him up without either of us exchanging a look or a word. He got out of the car and took up his position on the sidewalk. I drove off without attracting any more attention than necessary.
I was on the outskirts of Jamaica Plain when I pulled over. It was no surprise that I had felt nothing. And yet, when I reached into the same pocket where I had found the previous note, there was another. It had just three words written in juvenile handwriting.
“Pepe’s bartender, Manuel.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
IF I’D NOT been too distracted to give it a few seconds thought over the past week, I could have narrowed it down to Manuel. The only ones who might have known about that meeting at Jamaica Pond were Paco, me, the boy . . . and Manuel. It was disturbing to think that I’d missed that. In this game, that kind of lapse could easily prove terminal. Lesson learned.
* * *
Pepe’s Bar was dark and devoid of any of the Coyote or Nyeta members who tended to hang out there. The Puerto Rican salsa that was playing in the background kept Manuel from hearing me approach the bar from the side. I slipped under the break in the bar and came up behind him.
One tap on his shoulder triggered two reflexes. The first was a spinning jump backwards away from this intruder. The second, when he saw my face, was a stab of the left hand into the shelf area under the bar. His eyes were riveted on mine, while his hand ran like a windshield wiper over the shelf.
I gave him a few seconds to search.
“Is this what you want, Manuel?”
I held up the snub-nose pistol that I’d lifted from the shelf before I got his attention. His eyes went from the pistol back to me. The fire that burned in those eyes could have started a barn fire.
I moved around to a point where I had him facing me and pinned against the bar. For the first time in recent memory, I had the advantage of a good five inches of height, fifty pounds, thirty years in age, and possession of the only gun in the house. It inspired the sense of control I needed.
“What the hell you doin’ here? You get outta here. You made your choice a long time ago.”
“I don’t think so, Manuel. You and I are going to talk to each other. We should have done it that first day. It could have saved a good man’s life.”
“I don’t know what you talkin’ about. But you go ahead and hang around. You stay till our boys get here. Won’t be long. Then you get what you shoulda got a lot of years ago.”
He was locked onto the bar with both fists. Beads of perspiration started appearing on his balding head. I could sense his every nerve and muscle on high alert. It was not what I wanted. I needed to deactivate the bomb ticking inside of him.
I dropped my voice an octave lower, just above a whisper, and filled it with a soothing balm. “Go easy, Manuel. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re just going to talk like two rational people on the same side.”
“The hell we’re on the same side. When my boys walk through that—”
His eyes fell on my hand holding up the key that he recognized as being from the front door. They flashed back to the window with its blind drawn and the sign I’d turned outward to read “Closed.”
“I’m giving you the afternoon off, Manuel. We’ll have a talk. Then I’ll leave. You can reopen. Nothing more than that. Yes?”
It took a few seconds, but the intense heat seemed to subside. I emphasized my calming goodwill by backing off and walking around the bar to a table. I laid the gun in the middle of the table and sat down. He watched the whole performance before he followed me to the table.
“Sit down, Manuel. We’ve got things to talk about.”
“Yeah.” He said it quietly, but I caught an instant’s glint of the old passion rekindling in his eyes. He leaned over the table as he pulled out the chair. I looked away for a second. I heard the chair
tumble backward. I looked back to see him move faster than I thought he could. He snatched the gun off the table and backed off a step.
I froze in position. His right arm was straight out. The gun was shaking, but never leaving the target of my face.
“This is for Paco!”
There were expletives with it that poured out of him like fifteen years of pent-up rage that was about to be fulfilled in one final act of revenge. I forced myself to keep calm.
“Don’t do it, Manuel. We need each other.”
“Like hell!”
The hand and gun were shaking violently now.
“You can do more for Paco if you let me live. You don’t understand. You kill me and you’ll be helping the ones who killed Paco. There’s nothing the insectos want more.”
That seemed to buy me a few more seconds. He was caught between two hatreds, undecided which trumped the other.
“It was an insecto who got to Jamaica Pond ahead of me. He cut Paco’s veins till every drop of his blood was drained. Listen to me, Manuel. Paco loved us both. You know that. Would he want this? You answer that. And be honest.”
I just looked into his eyes in silence. The battle raging inside of them seemed to give way slowly by inches to more rational thought. Whatever I said that tipped the balance seemed to help settle the waters. I could see the gun fall away by inches. When it was by his side, I picked up the chair from behind him and held it open to him.
“Just sit, Manuel. Talk to me.”
“Talk is cheap. You walked away from the gang. Paco stood in your place. He took the beating that should have put you in the grave. You did that to him.”
He pointed the gun back in my direction, but his finger was off the trigger.
“Yes, Manuel. Now I know it. I didn’t then, but that was my fault. I have to live with that.” I leaned across the table, closer to the gun, but also closer to his face.
I put all the intensity I could into the words. “But you did worse. You found out about my meeting with Paco. You told someone about it. And that—listen to me. Listen to the truth. That caused Paco’s death. I may have hurt him, but you killed him. Which is worse?”
The gun hand fell to his side. The moisture was not sweat now but tears. His head hung down. He seemed lost in the guilt he had been able to suppress under his hatred for me.
“Sit down, Manuel. Guilt is no good for either of us. It just eats us up. Let’s do something together for Paco. Let’s see that he didn’t die for nothing.”
He dropped into the chair. He was staring straight ahead, but I sensed that he was listening.
“Manuel, that day that I came here, Paco left a note for me with the boy. You paid the boy to tell you what was in the note. You heard that Paco and I were meeting that night at midnight at Jamaica Pond.”
He looked over at me. There was no denial in his expression.
“You told someone. It might have gotten Paco killed. I know it’s not what you intended. I’m not blaming you. But for Paco’s sake now, whom did you tell?”
I leaned closer to hear what I expected to be the name of one of the heads of the insectos. It was my turn to be stunned when he barely whispered the name. “Ramon Garcia.”
It took me a second. “Why Ramon Garcia? He loved Paco.”
“That was why. I didn’t trust you. I figured you asked for the meeting. I thought you might be setting a trap for Paco. I told Mr. Garcia about the meeting so he could protect Paco. I don’t know what happened after that. The next day, I heard Paco was dead.”
It took me a few seconds just to sort out the possibilities. Like every other time I got an answer in this quagmire, it just led to more questions.
I stood up and put my hand on Manuel’s shoulder. “If I get this thing sorted out, Manuel, I’ll come back and tell you what happened. Just don’t shoot me the next time I come through that door.”
I started to leave, but he caught my arm. “You trusted me.” He held up the gun. “You left the gun where I could grab it. Why? I was ready to kill you.”
“I had to get you to trust me. Otherwise you wouldn’t have told me what I had to know. Would you?”
He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t.”
I looked in his eyes that no longer seemed to burn with hatred. I figured one last shot of honesty couldn’t hurt. I took his hand. I turned it over, and dropped into it the bullets from the gun that I had removed before I put it on the table.
I saw the faintest trace of a smile. He just shook his head. “Never trust a lawyer.”
“Except this one, Manuel. You can trust this one.”
* * *
It was about three in the afternoon when I parked a block away and walked to the Puerto Rican Restaurant, El Rey de Lechón, off Roslindale Square. I’d parked there before on Ramon Garcia’s instructions. This time it was out of pure self-preservation. I figured the less known about my whereabouts, the more likely my continuing to breathe.
I walked through the alleyway to the kitchen entrance. The door was open to exhaust the heat. The aromas of whatever magic Ben Capone, the chef, had performed for the lunch menu flowed out as well. I caught the unmistakable scent of huaraches de Nopalitos.
Ben was alone in the kitchen. I caught his attention as he was drying the last frying pan. It was good to see someone who flashed an instant smile when he saw me.
“Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
We shook hands, and I held his hand as I asked, “Huaraches, right?”
“You have a good nose.”
“Damn. And I missed it. If you ever tell my mother, I’ll deny I said it. She’s the best, but you could take her to school. You sure you’re not full-blood Puerto Rican?”
“Not unless a few muchachos landed on the east shore of Sicily. Come on in, Michael. He’s inside.”
I walked into the otherwise empty dining room. Mr. Garcia was at a far table, back to the wall. He was on the phone, but I caught the blossoming of a smile when he saw me. These welcomes were good for the soul. I had to do this more often.
I accepted the hand-wave invitation to sit opposite him. He signaled something to Ben as I sat down. Whether for privacy or courtesy, he cut the call short. We had a few minutes of warm casual conversation before I heard Ben’s footsteps behind me.
Before I could look around, Ben set in front of me a plate of hot huaraches that took my breath away. Mr. Garcia could only grin when he saw the expression on my face. He gave a nod of approval to Ben, who retired with a grin of his own to his kitchen chores.
Mr. Garcia held his hands out in invitation. “We’ll talk while you eat, Michael. You’ll never find better.”
And I never will. I tried to follow the casual conversation, but my mind was clearly savoring every nuance of flavor Ben had woven into the magic he had set before me. Since I’d been too pressed for time to order anything at the Parker House, every corner of my empty, growling stomach was pleading for the next bite. I finished with regret the last morsel on the plate and just sighed. Mr. Garcia caught my meaning.
“Now, Michael, we have more serious matters. I’ve heard from Nestor Ruiz. He called me from Mayagüez. I’d say you and he had an adventure or two.”
“There were some interesting moments.”
“So he said. Enough to convince me that if there were any doubt of your . . . commitment, shall we say loyalty, there could be none now. I hope you feel the same. We need to share information so all the pieces will fit. Do you agree?”
“More than I could say. Let me begin, Mr. Garcia. Without any more vague hints, I believe I can assume that you are the head of the Nyetas in Boston, perhaps Massachusetts, perhaps New England.”
I paused while he leaned closer in silence. When he spoke, it was in a voice that seemed to say that he was crossing a difficult threshold. “I wouldn’t say this to another living soul, Michael. Even the men I command. I hope you appreciate the level of trust.”
My eyes never left his. “I do.”
“And I
hope you realize that if one word of this reached the ears of any number of people, my death would be assured.”
He said it calmly, but the weight of it suddenly descended on my shoulders. I held his eyes and spoke with the same deliberate calm. “I do understand, Mr. Garcia. As I heard recently from the bartender, Manuel, words are cheap. These words are not. You’ll never feel the pain of betrayal from me.”
“So I’m told by our friend Nestor. Then to your assumption, I’ll say a simple ‘Yes.’ Now, you first. What can you tell me?”
“You probably heard at least part of this from Nestor. The informant you had with the insectos in Mayagüez was discovered. I was there when Nestor rescued him from a jail cell. He was close to death. God willing, he’s recovering.”
“And so he is. Nestor says he’s growing stronger every day.”
“Good. He was tortured by the insectos to the extreme. Nestor might have told you, but I can confirm it. He said he told the insectos nothing. For what it’s worth, I believe him.”
“It’s worth a lot, Michael. I trust Nestor with my life. But two opinions are better than one. What else?”
“I talked to Victor. The insectos keep him involved because they need his influence with his cousin in Mayagüez. His cousin’s gang has the contacts for shipment and smuggling of the animals into Florida.”
“Who will they sell them to in Florida?”
“I don’t know. Victor’s cousin says he has contacts there, too. I only know there’s a great deal of money involved.”
In the disconnect of Mr. Garcia’s gaze, I could see that he was calculating the threat of open warfare with the insectos that infusion of that kind of money would make inevitable.
“There’s more, Mr. Garcia. Victor says the insectos don’t have enough money to pay the full price of the animals yet. They made a lot on that fixed race, but not enough. They need to fix another race to get the rest. They sent Victor back to Boston to help pull it off.”
Fatal Odds Page 22