by Drew D'Amato
He had the coming weekend off as long as there were no pending cases. That was when he would make his move. Sometime in the early morning he would take a private flight to the Caribbean. They didn’t check your bags on private flights, and he had the money now to pay for one. He’d be out of the country by noon, and no one would suspect anything until Monday. Let them try to figure out what happened, let them guess I took the money from the bust and ran. From the Caribbean he would go to Europe, after he secured the money in some off shore account. He might spend the rest of his days running, but he wouldn’t spend them working.
He just had to keep Marco from wanting his half of the money. He had to keep Marco cool. He had to act like nothing was amiss. Show up at work, do his job, act cool to Marco. But that night he couldn’t resist playing a little poker.
Doc ran a card game at the bar The Brick in West Haven. West Haven was a town that loved to gamble. Almost every bar (and there were twenty of them on Campbell Avenue alone) had some kind of sports pool going on—NFL and NCAA football picks, March Madness, golf majors, 13-run baseball, and even 6 dice pools with jackpots as high as $10,000 were common. The cops were very lax as far as gambling went, and the town was a great place for Doc’s line of work. Running the poker game was a great way to get more players. He saw all the angles.
O’Keefe showed up at the game. O’Keefe rarely played, Doc made notice of his presence. It was a $1/$2 no limit hold ‘em game with $100 buy-in at the back of the bar. O’Keefe showed up with a grand. He played recklessly. He chased flushes, he bluffed, he even once went all in chasing an inside straight. He also drank. The game closed up a little after midnight. Doc collected the chips and gave out the money quickly. O’Keefe ended up with $475. Doc gave him his money last.
“O’Keefe, come have a cigarette with me.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Neither do I.”
O’Keefe dug his vibe. They went out the back door away from everyone else.
“What’s up, Doc?” O’Keefe said with a smile.
“Those Cincos really fucked things up. Those Ecuadorians are going to be mad, real mad.”
“For burning them. Yeah. That’s better for you guys though. The Ecuadorians will not want to do business with them, and you guys can probably get in on that action.”
“Oh don’t worry, things are already in motion. What should be of more concern for the Cincos is when those Ecuadorians send their enforcers up here to collect that ten million they lost. Word is they are already on their way and they don’t waste much time.”
“The Cincos are going down.”
“It might destroy some other people too.”
Now Doc had O’Keefe’s attention.
“Those three Cincos you and Marco killed went rogue. They were never given the order to double cross the Ecuadorians. They acted on their own. They planned to skip town that night. Two of them already had convictions. They wanted to get out of the game and they saw their chance.”
O’Keefe tried to laugh like he had not any concern in the matter. “Good luck with the Cincos selling that story to the Ecuadorians.”
“Well they’d like to just give them the ten million they had planned to. The Cincos got burned in that deal too. They gave that ten million to those three idiots. They are very curious as to why that money didn’t show up in the police report.”
Doc didn’t say anything more. He let those words sink in with O’Keefe. There weren’t many other possibilities. In fact there was only one.
“I don’t know…”
“Don’t waste my time with bullshit, O’Keefe. We don’t give a shit if you stuck your hand in the candy jar, but we know you did. The way you acted tonight assured me of it. All we ask for is a finder’s fee. If it wasn’t for our intel, this bust would have never happened. I think three million dollars is fair.”
“Three million dollars?”
“You’ll also get our protection against the Cincos. They’re going to make moves. They know that you two were the cops on the scene. It was in this morning’s paper. They concluded you two made off with it, and I’m sure they are right in that estimation.”
“We’re the cops, they’re—”
“It’s ten million fucking dollars! The Cincos don’t have much money. They’re not as established as the outfit, the syndicate, or the two other major families. They were just starting to make some real money. They don’t give a fuck if you’re a cop.”
“Doc, I don’t have—”
“Kid! You’re new to this world of hustles so let me give you a free tip. Don’t get greedy. It’s bad juju.”
O’Keefe smiled. “Doc, I don’t have the money.”
“Well then, Marco does. But Marco just moved into his first house. Just moved in, like his address in the phone book is still that old apartment he and his wife had since their marriage. He’ll take some time to find if anyone was looking for him, but you, they could find real quick.”
O’Keefe picked up what Doc was laying down. “I’ll talk to him soon, Doc.”
“You do that.”
O’Keefe walked off to his car and drove away. Doc shook his head. He saw all the different ways this was going to play out. None of them were good for O’Keefe.
O’Keefe was nowhere near as calm in his car as he had acted in front of Doc. He drove straight to Marco’s place, with the $10 million dollars still in the trunk of his car. It was the most anxious drive he ever had in his life. Who knew when the Cincos would make their move? $7 million dollars still wasn’t a bad take for the protection Doc offered, but who could say the mob would stop there? What if they took the three, then sold him out for the sake of their relationship with the Ecuadorians? O’Keefe saw just one play where he could still keep all of the loot, and he was going to play it.
He banged on Marco’s door. It was half-past midnight. He banged three more times until finally Marco opened the door, half asleep. The sight of O’Keefe as a nervous wreck, and a duffel bag in a hand each, jolted him awake.
“What’s wrong, partner?”
O’Keefe didn’t wait to be invited inside. He stormed through the vestibule of the cape and made his way into the kitchen. He put the money down on the kitchen table.
“Doc came to me tonight. The Cincos know we got the money.”
“How do they know that?”
“Who else could have it? They knew there was ten million dollars at the meet.”
“What did Doc say about it?”
“They are going to come after us. His friends want three million dollars and they will protect us.”
“So what do you think?”
“We have to get out of town, soon. We can’t fly commercial, and you can’t get a private flight at this hour. We gotta do it tomorrow. But we can’t do it together. I have to leave tomorrow. You’re in a better position than me to stay here.”
“How so?”
“They know where I live. They can’t find where you live, you just moved here last month. It’s going to take some time to track you down. I have to leave. So this is what we should do. I’m going to leave the money here in case anyone comes looking for it. Tomorrow, keep a key under the mat. I’ll swing by here during the day, and take the money before I go. The heat will all be on me, man. Everyone will figure that I made off with the money. You had no idea about any of it.”
“I had no idea you made off with ten million dollars? How could I have missed that?”
“I was in the car when you made the call into headquarters. You walked away to make the call. When you came back I told you to look for any witnesses, which you did, and which we put in the report. That was when I put the money in our car.”
Marco did look for witnesses as O’Keefe put the duffel bags in the car. But Marco was looking for witnesses not for the sake of the official report, but to make sure the coast was clear for O’Keefe to move the cash.
“Come tomorrow I’ll be on the lam. It will be the only explanation. You stick to the
story that you had no idea. My disappearance will be in the papers and the Cincos will conclude what everyone else will. I made out with ten million dollars and I didn’t even tell my partner. I have no wife and no kids, I can disappear tomorrow. You will take a little more time, but eventually when the heat dies down you suddenly disappear down in the Caribbean with me. I take the fall and escape quickly—you leave later clean.”
“I’m gonna have to tell Gloria.”
“Forget Gloria. You wanna be married with all this money?”
What O’Keefe wanted to say was we can’t trust your wife with this money. He knew their best bet was to keep this information on a need to know basis. No bullshit. More people involved were more things that could get fucked up. He also knew she was disloyal, and selfish. She would burn both of them and not care about it. He hadn’t cared before about mentioning her disloyalty to him. What can a man really say to another man about his wife? But now it was different. Now it concerned his recently acquired ill-gotten golden parachute. He had to lay all the cards on the table.
“I have to tell her. She’s my wife.”
Marco didn’t like the look he saw in his partner’s eyes. His partner didn’t trust his wife. He had heard those rumors about her and the mayor, too. Not directly, but he sensed what other people were thinking. He didn’t believe them, but now he saw that his partner did. That hurt him.
“Don’t worry O’Keefe. We can trust her.”
“You’re going to trust her with ten million dollars?’
“I trust her with my life.”
Extrapolate, compartmentalize, collude.
Extrapolate.
Marco had a choice before him. He wouldn’t be worth a shit as a detective if he couldn’t figure out that O’Keefe had never buried the money. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on the duffel bags. That meant the story was bullshit, that O’Keefe had been bullshitting him, and that his partner for fifteen years was planning to fuck him over. He only came here with the money because he was scared. Doc put some fear in him. He didn’t want the money in his house in case the Cincos came looking for it. In fact, if push came to shove, he would say Marco took it. Put all the blame on him, he was now a scapegoat, and this was the only reason why he was seeing this money before him.
Compartmentalize.
Fuck him, fuck your partner. If he is going to fuck you over, fuck him first. He’s gonna have the balls to tell you not to trust your wife, while he was trying to pull a fast one over on you. They took the money together, both their jobs, their lives, were on the line. Yet he was just going to take the money and run. Fuck it, and fuck him. $10 million dollars is enough to short change your friend. Well, if O’Keefe was going to fuck him over, why should he feel wrong doing it to him? He didn’t need O’Keefe, he just needed his wife.
Collude.
Work with her. Take the money and run. Take the first flight out of town. Yes, it would be sudden; yes, people would suspect something; yes, people would know he had the money, but fuck them, let them find him. He would have his wife and $10 million dollars. What else did he need in this world? Definitely not a partner that would fuck him over, and he decided that before he got the phone call.
O’Keefe left Marco’s with the knowledge that he too was now trusting Marco’s wife with his $10 million dollars. That was unsettling for him. Financially, he was better off just paying Doc the cut for a little protection. But then he wouldn’t have a shot at all of it. The Cincos either would or wouldn’t visit him by tomorrow. Actually, they had to catch him for the few minutes he’d be home to get his things. He was taking everything he needed—passports, some clothes, and some things of sentimental value one accrues over the years. After he was there he was leaving and never coming back.
He was out. Gone. Overnight at a random hotel, book the first private flight tomorrow, go to Marco’s, grab the money, then leave…and never speak to Marco again. I take the fall and escape quick, you leave later clean. All he needed was them to not come by while he was home.
He pulled into the west of the two parking lots for his condo colony. He liked the safety in numbers. More of a chance of someone calling the cops if something happened, or of they saw some odd character lurking about. People walked their dogs there all the time. Since he was in a rush, he pulled into his own spot, not a visitor’s—assured no warrant would be served in the next twenty minutes. He got out and one look at his front door told him there was no sign of entry. He walked around back to the glass door and everything was clean. He knew all his windows were locked. No lights on anywhere. No sign of them. His anxiety dropped by a slight percent.
He still pulled his gun out. He anxiety boiled back up as he put his key in the lock. He exhaled. He never thought, out of all the houses he barged into during his tenure as a cop, that his own door would be the one he was most scared to go through. He came in like he was trained. Flashed his lightswitch on, hid behind his doorjamb, and scanned the room with his gun drawn. If he was with his team, he would have given the “all clear.” He checked out the rest of the house, every room. He was alone. He felt his anxiety decrease. His house was safe.
In the east of the two parking lots for the complex, amongst the full lot of cars owned by the residents, two Cincos sat in their car, armed to the teeth.
Jose and Hiram stared intently through the window of their grey Accord. They had to get this money back. Their asses were on the line. They told Martin, Edgar, and Diego that this was the big deal. The agreement between the Cincos and the Ecuadorians was going up in stakes. The Cincos were going to take over New Haven. This was their biggest deal. This was the move to make. Ten million dollars split five ways. They could all go back to Puerto Rico, rich.
Jose and Hiram were senior Cincos; Martin, Edgar, and Diego were new. Stick up men, local hoods, but in the gang, and still tough enough for this job. They also had more loyalty to Jose and Hiram, who got them into the Cincos, than Javier Rios who ran the gang. Their loyalty to him was shit. They were down for the plan. The three were supposed to take the money and hit the road: the Tex-Mex border in a little more than a day. Those Mexican rivers and tunnels that Mexicans used to cross into America, they were going to use to cross out. They learned of them from some Mexicans in the hood. Jose and Hiram would rendezvous with them in Puerto Rico by plane. That was the plan. Instead, those three just got dead.
Jose and Hiram were alive for now, but the money was on them. They recommended these three to make the deal. The Ecuadorians would want someone dead if no money was returned. Nevermind the fact that the relationship was also terminated. These Ecuadorians were big time—they didn’t deal with bullshit. They were so big that pretty much all the coke sold in New Haven came from them. It was just how many hands touched it in between.
The drug game was just a game of middlemen. Someone produces it, someone travels with it from one country, someone brings it into another country, someone transports it, someone distributes it, someone smaller distributes it, someone even smaller distributes it, someone buys it, and then someone blows somebody to have a taste of it. The price of it grew exponentially, and these Ecuadorians were tops on the chain, the producers of it. And to a special few in the major cities of the US, they got the “direct line.”
The Ecuadorians had a legit business that imported to various ports in the United States. Sometimes a small amount could get smuggled through, no questions asked. It is not an excessive amount by their standards, but since they sold it straight to a distributer they got much more value per kilo than normal, and those on the other end paid far less per kilo than normal. Everyone won in the deal, except for the countless middlemen in between.
This was the first direct line shipment the Cincos got. It would also be the last. Rios knew the Ecuadorians would want revenge. He had already spoken to them.
The Ecuadorians believed him that he wasn’t involved. It would have been a dumb move. He stood to gain a lot more off a continued partnership. Still, fault lied with him and he
turned to who had suggested these cabróns for the deal—Jose and Hiram. They had expected that.
Jose and Hiram had also expected Diego, Martin, and Edgar to disappear and then they would be sent to look for them. That would explain their absence as they boarded a plane to Puerto Rico. But that didn’t happen. Those three got dead, the ruse was exposed, and there was nowhere to run. The dirty cops were the worst possible scenario. Had they reported the cash along with the coke, the Ecuadorians might have just believed that the cops fucked everything up and wouldn’t ask for the head of some Cincos. Instead though, the cops just reported the coke.
Extrapolate.
The Ecuadorians extrapolated that the Cincos never showed up at the meet with the cash, because it was not mentioned in the newspaper. They knew there was a double-cross in play. To them the Cincos were behind everything, and they would have to pay.
The Ecuadorians didn’t believe Rios when he told them the cops had taken the money. If the cops were behind it, then the Cincos would have been found dead with their men. They would have all been busted and killed together. Not on separate blocks down the road.
Extrapolate.
The Cincos killed them, the cops heard the shooting, busted the Cincos soon after and there was no money. Rios couldn’t persuade them, and they were correct on some points. Like the Cincos killed their men. But they were still businessmen, so when Rios said he would get the money back, plus another three million for their lost men, they listened. And if he did, they would drop the matter. With an epilogue of an extra $3 million dollars more than they expected, it was worth it for the loss of three men that were expendable anyway.