We could. Agent Marcard had brought in coffee and donuts, which seemed awfully cliché, but tasted fresh and delicious. The FBI were housed in fresh, shiny digs way out where the last of the housing estates crushed up against the Everglades. It was still only nine o’clock and the suburb was still. Miramar doesn’t rise early. On hot days it doesn’t rise at all.
We were joined in a conference room by a woman in a pinstripe suit who could have been a banker but introduced herself as Special Agent Kerns. She wore long hair in a bun, and had an easy smile that didn’t quite match the pinstripes. Marcard was also in a suit, which would have made me feel awkward about my palm tree print shirt, if I gave a damn. Kerns gave us a high-level overview of her operation that didn’t really tell us anything. Sometimes there was corruption in sporting organizations, just like everywhere else, and she was tasked with rooting it out. She had broad remit to investigate any organization she chose, but only limited subpoena power. Some bodies, like the NFL, had provided open access, while others, like certain European organizations, had remained a closed book, open only to federal warrants.
“And all this is happening out of Miami?” I asked.
“No, Mr. Jones. I am based in Washington, DC.”
“You came from DC. this morning?”
She smiled. “No. I happened to be in Miami. We have information regarding irregularities with the athletics world championships bid. That was why I wanted to meet. Your information was timely.”
“Well, I have solid intel that Winston will be in Lauderhill today. I don’t know for sure he’ll be up to no good, but . . .”
“I’d like to watch him, all the same,” said Special Agent Kerns. “And you say he’ll be at a cricket game? So, at a public place. We don’t need a warrant for that.” She looked at Marcard and he looked at Danielle.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll get a team together.” He looked at me. “I know your other guy, Richmond, will be there. He is not of interest to this operation, unless he does something wrong. So we’ll have eyes on him, but that’s all. Winston is our focus. Okay?”
“Crystal.”
“And I trust this intel is on the up-and-up. That Winston is what you say he is.”
I leaned across the table toward him. “Agent Marcard, I don’t like what either of these guys are doing, so if you take out one of them, I’m not fussed which one. I also know that Danielle is a great deputy who has a hell of a career ahead of her, and it won’t do her any good to have me hoodwink the local FBI chief. Stuff like that sticks. I wouldn’t do that to her, so I won’t do that to you.”
Marcard watched me but gave nothing away, and then he turned to Kerns. “Let’s get our ducks in a row.”
She nodded and looked at me. “What time is this game on?”
“Two o’clock.”
“We have work to do. I need to make some calls.” She stood, as did Marcard. I took that to be the end of the meeting. I stood, and Marcard turned to me.
“You stay. I’ll get Special Agent Kerns a desk.” The two FBI agents left us alone.
Danielle smiled at me. “That was nice, what you said. About my career.”
“Nothing but the truth.”
“It’s nice anyway.”
“Anytime, Deputy.”
Agent Marcard came back alone and sat down.
“First, Mr. Jones. Let me say I appreciate your candor. You’re dead right. Deputy Castle isn’t going to be a deputy for long. She’s too good.” He didn’t look at Danielle, and kept his gaze on me. “Second. I’m in charge of this operation, but I know you’ve been thinking about this for a while. So tell me. What’s your plan?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
CENTRAL BROWARD REGIONAL Park and Stadium was a large park and athletic area off West Sunrise Boulevard, smack-bang in the middle of Lauderhill. The stadium itself reminded me of a small-town minor league ball park, one of those ones that had been bought out by a local private group and redeveloped with new facilities and a fun family atmosphere. I played in many parks like it, including two years at Port St. Lucie. But the Broward stadium had one big difference. The playing area was an oval shape and the game took place right in the middle of the space. The whole structure had that new build feel to it that lots of places had in South Florida. An inviting and open boulevard swept toward an out-of-place clock tower, then beside it a grand pavilion that surrounded one-half of the field. The crowd was bigger than I thought it would be. An attendant told me the stand held five thousand fans, and it looked like they might fill it. It was like a community festival: lots of flags, mostly Jamaican but also other West Indian nations, like Guyana and Barbados; food trucks with jerk chicken and booths selling foam fingers and cricket caps that looked suspiciously like baseball caps; even a group dressed in black, drinking cans of beer and doing what I assumed was supposed to be the haka.
Danielle and I wandered up into the stand. There were trumpets and more flags and a lot of people, a throbbing mass of humanity, all waiting for the game to begin. Many of the eyes were pointed skyward, and the gray clouds that had come in overnight grew black. There was torrential rain to the south in Hialeah and north in Boynton Beach, and it was just a question of probability as to whether we saw a tropical downpour in Lauderhill. Cricket, like baseball, was not a game played in the rain, but it didn’t feel like a cancellation of the fixture would dampen the festive mood.
We stood by the steps leading up the stand and scanned for any faces we knew. I found Markus and we made eye contact, so I waved and smiled, and he replied with a nod. Danielle slapped my shoulder and directed my attention to a spot high in the stand on the opposite side, where Desmond Richmond sat surrounded by a cordon of bodyguards and hangers-on, truly a man of his people.
I noted two crow’s nests hanging off the roof of the stands. Cameramen were perched inside, taking shots of the vacant field, a sound engineer in each playing with cables and parabolic microphone dishes. I looked back to our side of the stand, and at the back I saw Cool-aid, bopping to his own tune, surrounded by his posse. He was on one side of the stand and Richmond on the other. I was reminded of that childhood story about the two cities at war over which side of an egg should point up.
I didn’t see any evidence of Cornelius Winston, but I didn’t expect to. Not out here. Unlike Richmond, Winston was comfortable among a different class of folks. I gave Danielle the nod, and she went to sit with Markus, while I wandered back down the steps to the concourse. Behind the stand there was an administrative office and section called the Field House. I had purchased access to the Field House with a two hundred dollar donation to the Broward Rotary, and I flashed my badge to gain access to the VIP lounge.
This was the kind of air that I figured Cornelius Winston would prefer to breathe. There were linen-covered cocktail tables and a bar, and well-dressed folks mingling with casual yet important conversations. While my palm tree print shirt got a couple of sideways looks, it wasn’t as many as would happen anywhere else in the world. Large glass walls provided an excellent view of the ground and the plebs out in the stand.
I gave myself a wee mental back slap when I saw Cornelius Winston helping himself to a platter of sandwich rounds. I wandered up and grabbed a plate, picked up a turkey and cheese quarter and feigned my surprise that I should end up standing next to old Cornelius.
“Mr. Winston,” I exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Indeed, Mr. Jones. I didn’t realize you were a cricket fan.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m a huge fan. Go All Blacks.”
He nodded. “I think New Zealand calls their cricket team the Black Caps.”
I shrugged. “Everything’s black with them. What brings you to the US?”
“Official business,” he said. “I have some important meetings.”
I gave him my impressed face. “By the way, I owe you a debt of gratitude for your letter.”
He looked rather pleased with himself. “I hope it was of use.”
“Well
, I don’t think Mr. Richmond will be bothering Markus again.”
“I’m glad.”
I leaned into him. “Or anyone else,” I said with a wink.
Winston frowned but didn’t say anything, so I looked around the room like I was a spy in a Pink Panther movie. Still Winston said nothing, so I nudged him.
“You haven’t seen Mr. Richmond in here, have you?”
“In here?” Winston scoffed. “These are not his class of people. Why do you ask?”
“It’s the whole Markus thing. The police are involved.”
He didn’t give much away. Not much, but enough. He’d have been a tough guy to beat at poker, but it was possible, because he had a tell. A subconscious tick, a raising of his left eyebrow that told me all I needed to know.
“The police?”
“Aha. They’re here. All eyes on this pavilion, as long as he’s in it. Apparently he’s hurt kids here as well, and they’re going to pick him up during the game.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
He nodded and looked at the platter but decided against more sandwiches.
“Anyway, enjoy the game. And thanks again.”
“Anything to help a Jamaican athlete.” He smiled and turned away, and I wandered over to the window. The crowd started clapping as two teams of men took the field, one in burgundy uniforms and the other dressed in black. Not just their caps; head to toe. I glanced back and saw Winston put his plate down and fire up a cell phone. He made a call with a frown on his face, and then he ended the call and stayed at the back of the room, away from the game.
There’s a rule in juggling bowling pins. You can throw one up in the air, but to juggle, you have to put all your pins in play. I had ruffled Winston’s feathers, so I left him to do or not do, as he would choose. I stuffed a couple of little sandwiches in my mouth and wandered out of the Field House, back out onto the concourse, and turned away from where I had come, around the other side of the stand. People were streaming in, taking up their seats in preparation for the game. I got to the bottom of the steps up into the stand.
It looked like the burgundy team, which I took from the flags around me to be the West Indies team, were batting. Two of their guys walked out to the middle of the ground, wearing padding and helmets, and carrying those bats that I remembered so well from my beating in a roadside ditch in MoBay. The black-clad team, New Zealand, was already on the field, waiting in a tight circle. The crowd cheered the batters onto the field with trumpets and drums and flags and noise to rival a Seattle Seahawks game. There was a lot more dancing than I usually saw at the baseball, save the seventh innings stretch. The crowd was having a lot of fun, and I resolved to come and check out one of these games when I wasn’t on the clock.
The batters made it to the middle and set up, one at each end of the pitch, and the crowd subdued some, a few people sitting down. The steel drums continued and showed no sign of stopping. I turned to the crowd and saw Markus chatting with his new college buddies. Danielle sat next to him, trying to hide a frown but failing, her eyes scanning the throng of faces for danger.
I headed up the steps at the side of the stand. Toward the back there was a cordon of thick-necked men, one of whom stepped in my way. He didn’t look like most of the Jamaicans I’d met, who were predominantly thin and wispish. This guy was either from a different island, like Samoa, or he was the victim of the standard American diet. He didn’t smile either. In Jamaica, even the guys who wanted to smash my head with a cricket bat gave me a smile. I nodded toward where Desmond Richmond sat, and the big guy shook his head.
I didn’t want to cause a scene, not yet, so I didn’t push it. I just leaned against the railing at the side of the stand and waited. I kept my focus on Richmond, while everyone else rose to cheer what I imagined was the first pitch of the game. I wished Garfield were there to explain it to me. I recalled the pitcher was actually called the bowler, and the batters were batsmen. The rest was Chinese arithmetic to me. It didn’t matter—I wasn’t watching it.
It took a minute but eventually one of the cronies sitting with Richmond saw me. I wasn’t the only white face in the crowd, but I was the only one with my back to the game. The crony slapped the arm of the guy next to him, who clocked me then leaned and whispered into Richmond’s ear. Richmond frowned and looked at me. I gave him my best Magnum PI cheesy grin. I don’t have dark hair or a mustache, so the effect was more an internal thing, but regardless it was cocky as all hell. Richmond snarled but made no moves. He didn’t invite me up, which was a bit rude, but he also didn’t send anyone down to bang me on the head, so that more or less evened things out.
I was waiting for a text message, and I didn’t understand cricket, so I really didn’t mind standing with my back to the game, watching the crowd. It’s a universal truth that most people don’t like being stared at. A biker might start a fight over it, and an accountant might just get itchy in his seat, but no one enjoyed it. Richmond was no exception. He tried watching the game but just couldn’t resist looking my way every so often to check if I was still looking at him. His bodyguard contingent starting doing it too, until there was a line of them looking out, looking at me. Looking out, looking at me. It was like a Jackson Five routine. People in the crowd picked up on it, and others down near me, noticing that I was focused on the back of the stand, wondered what the hell I was looking at and turned in their seats to see. Half the stand was twisted one way, half the other, all eyes focusing on Richmond, then back on the cricket, and then back on Richmond.
Richmond shifted in his seat. He liked the spotlight, but now he felt like a bug under a magnifying glass in the sun. He was getting seriously antsy, and I could feel the tension rise in the crowd. Then my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out and glanced at it. I considered the message I had been waiting for, and then I looked one last time at Richmond, who was watching me, no doubt wondering what the hell I was doing. So I gave him my little I know something you don’t know grin. I had used it now and then on the pitching mound, and I knew it got in a lot of batters’ heads. So I showed it to Richmond, and then I spun and jogged down the steps and out of the stand like I had somewhere better to be.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE VAN SAT on the outer concourse between the clock tower and the stand. It wasn’t marked as a gardening services business or a television crew or something clever. In fact, it had no markings on it at all. A plain beige van with blacked-out windows. It looked ready to offer drugs out the back after the game. The inhabitants of the van saw me coming because as I was about to bang on the back door it swung open, and I got inside.
It looked like something out of the movies. Steel shelving had been installed on both sides, and on the shelving sat all manner of electronic surveillance equipment. What I realized was that in the movies they didn’t really shoot inside vans. The space was cramped, just enough for four FBI agents and their stuff. I stayed against the rear door mostly because there was nowhere else to go.
“He’s on the move,” said Agent Marcard. “You think he’ll bite?”
“He thinks we’re all looking elsewhere right now,” I said.
We watched a video monitor showing a picture from one of the cameras hanging off the stand in the cricket ground. It drifted off the cricket to capture an older gentleman taking a walk. He wandered away from the stand, eyes casually on the cricket game, as he walked the perimeter fence. The camera followed him until he stopped on the far side of the ground.
“He’s not coming out this way,” said Agent Marcard.
“Just keep the video on him,” said Special Agent Kerns.
Winston looked across the ground and I was amazed how clear the picture was. I could see the pores on Cornelius Winston’s face. From a distance he looked like he was watching the game, but in our close-up shot we could see that he was scanning from side to side, his body language forced casual, his eyes focused. Then something happened.
There
was a roar from the crowd that we heard both through the audio equipment and through the side of the van. The camera panned quickly back out, a wide shot, and we saw one of the West Indian batters walk from the ground. Evidently he was out, and the crowd was making a hell of a lot of noise about it. A replacement batter was walking out. Special Agent Kerns sat at one of the small chairs, and she pointed at the screen.
“Winston,” she said.
Agent Marcard spoke into the microphone attached to his wrist, secret service-style. “Back to Winston, back to Winston.”
The camera zoomed back into the outfield shot and panned along the fence. Winston was gone.
“Find him,” said Marcard, a tad redundantly, as the camera had already pulled back and was scanning the open space behind the ground. It was the part of the area that in a minor league park would have been outfield bleachers and the scoreboard, and in a lot of grounds either open space or the parking lot. Here it was more parkland, well-maintained tropical grass, and white concrete sidewalks, cutting paths alternately to nowhere or somewhere. Far beyond the cricket game was another red-roofed structure, matching the design of the stand in the cricket ground, but much smaller. It looked like a gas station from a distance, high roof and open space underneath. Then I realized what it was.
“The picnic shelter, red roof,” I said. Marcard repeated my direction, and the camera panned around as the operator searched for the building, then found it and zoomed in. It was part of the park facility, a roofed picnic shelter with rows of picnic tables underneath. Grills had been set up just out from the shade, smoke wafting toward the clouds above. In the winter it was hired out for groups to enjoy a picnic, and in summer it could make you feel like you ended up on the losing side of a clambake. The camera moved in on a person walking toward the shelter. He looked skyward, and then started walking faster. Then I heard it on the roof of the van. I looked at Special Agent Kerns.
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