The Mongoose Deception

by Robert Greer

  Thin, wispy clouds had blocked out the late-afternoon sun, and the mile-high air had turned late-summer crisp as Damion and his Colorado State University basketball teammate Shandell Bird, affectionately known as Blackbird to his friends and teammates, walked off the basketball court, winded. Damion wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand before slipping back into his sweatpants.

  “You figure we got what it takes?” asked Shandell, moving his basketball from arm to arm.

  “What for?”

  “The NBA.”

  “I’ve told you, Blackbird. I’m not headed there,” Damion said emphatically.

  “Yeah. I know, you’re gonna be a doctor.” There was a note of disbelief in Shandell’s tone. “You’re crazy, man. You got the whole damn package. You got somethin’ against money?”

  “Nope. Just want to do my thing in life, not what somebody else thinks I oughta do. Got a problem with that?”

  Shandell shrugged. Damion had been acting odd ever since they’d hooked up earlier in the day, strangely nervous and his shots had been off, way off. And that wasn’t Damion. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, especially since you been spoutin’ off about wantin’ to be a doctor since the frickin’ fourth grade,” he said, unwilling to argue. “But why not a lawyer like your mother? At least that way you’d get the chance to earn yourself 15 percent off one of my big fat contracts.”

  “One lawyer in the family’s enough,” Damion said with a shrug. “Besides, I don’t have the makeup for it.”

  “The hell you don’t. All it takes is a killer instinct, and you sure as hell got that. Least on the court.”

  Damion thought back to the three rounds he’d fired at Mario Satoni’s would-be assailant a few hours earlier and grimaced. He’d spent nearly every minute since then trying to forget that he’d actually tried to kill someone. The primary reason he’d called Shandell and asked him to hit the courts had been to try to push that reality to the back of his mind. It hadn’t worked. “What are you getting at, Shandell?” he finally asked, frowning.

  Surprised by Damion’s curt response, Shandell’s answer came slowly. “Guess I’m just gettin’ at the fact that you got a whole lot of shark in you, man. Why else you think I would ever have saddled a New Jersey Puerto Rican transplant like you with a nickname like Blood?”

  Damion smiled. “Could’ve been because I’m meant to be a hematologist.”

  “A what?”

  “Nothin’, forget it. What time have you got?”

  Shandell fished in the pocket of his sweatpants for his watch. “Five past six,” he said, rubbing the grease-stained watch face with his thumb.

  “Wanta head over to Mae’s and grab somethin’ to eat?”

  “No need to ask me twice. You got any money?”

  “Twenty bucks.”

  “Hell, man. You’re flush. Let’s hit it.”

  As they headed toward the bicycle rack where Damion had dropped his gym bag earlier, Shandell glanced toward the side street where cars filled with onlookers often parked to watch the high-powered college basketball players who frequented the court. “I think we mighta had a pro scout watching us,” Shandell said as they reached the bike rack. “You know how they hang around here in the summertime lookin’ to pluck themselves a gem?”

  “What?” Damion’s eyes widened with surprise.

  “A scout. There was some guy watching us from inside a car the whole time we were scrimmaging.”

  “From where?” Damion’s eyes narrowed into a squint.

  “From over there on Kentucky, just north of the stop sign. Where else? You feelin’ all right, man?”

  “What did the man look like?” Damion’s words came out rapid-fire as he found himself thinking about what CJ, who’d earlier rushed to his aid at Mario’s, had said to him after the three of them had stood talking and assessing the situation, post shoot-out, in Mario’s basement for nearly an hour. Keep your eyes out for anybody who looks the least bit suspicious to you, Damion, no matter where you are. Call me and tell me about it right off. Whoever you took those shots at more than likely saw your SUV parked outside Mario’s, and that means they might be able to peg who you are. Remember, call me about the least little thing, no matter what.

  Looking around in every direction, Damion began to second-guess himself. Maybe he should’ve called his mother after the shooting incident and filled her in, like CJ and Mario had insisted. Maybe instead of picking up Blackbird and heading for the courts, he should have fled to the safety of his mother’s arms. Or maybe he should have simply sat down and thought things out. But he hadn’t. He was twenty years old, a fully grown man, and he was tired of being Julie Madrid’s baby-faced kid. He couldn’t go running to his big-time defense-lawyer mother every time a problem cropped up. Besides, she would’ve insisted that he call the cops, and that would’ve put him at odds with Mario and maybe even CJ. So he’d chosen to remain silent and handle things like a man. Now he had the feeling that maybe he’d done the wrong thing. Suddenly he found himself thinking about something his mother had said to him two years earlier when he’d headed off to Colorado State to begin his freshman year. Book smarts and street smarts aren’t polar opposites, Damion. You’ll learn one day that most of the survivors in this world have a healthy share of both.

  He shot a glance at Shandell and found himself wondering why Shandell had noticed the man in the car when he hadn’t. “What made you spot the guy in the car?” he asked finally.

  “What?” Shandell asked, busy reading a text message that had been left on his cell phone.

  “The guy in the car—what made you zero in on him?”

  Shandell shrugged. “Easy. He was white bread, man. Never seen him around here before. And the whole time we were playin’, he never once eased up out of his slouch, took off his hat, or removed his shades.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s what you do when you don’t want nobody peepin’ you, Blood. You don’t sit in a car with your lid capped tight, hidin’ behind no shades and with most of your windows rolled up in 90-degree heat, unless you don’t want people peepin’ who you are.” Shandell shook his head. “Damn, Blood. For somebody so smart, you sure as hell missed a lot.”

  “Yeah,” said Damion, his mother’s words ringing in his ears.

  “We still on for Mae’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, ’cause for a second there I thought you were, how do the white kids say it, lost in space.”

  Shrugging off the remark, Damion said, “Come on, let’s hit it. My stomach’s startin’ to talk to me.” He slipped his athletic bag over his right shoulder. As they walked along the edge of the court toward Damion’s Jeep, Damion asked, “Where was that car with the weirdo parked?”

  “Right behind yours, Blood. A couple of feet more and he woulda been kissin’ your bumper.” Shandell draped his arm over Damion’s shoulder and shook his head. “You need to start checkin’ out your surroundin’s a little closer, man.”

  Damion nodded without answering, aware that, perhaps for too long, he’d had his eyes glued on too singular a prize.

  It hadn’t been difficult for Randall Maxie to find out who owned the late-model Jeep that had been parked in Mario Satoni’s driveway. The license plate info had been all he needed. He’d only had to make one phone call to run down the vehicle’s owner. The name Damion Madrid had been passed on to him by a well-placed source in the DMV, a plump little Latina, originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, to whom he slipped a couple of hundred bucks every month to service his many needs.

  He’d scored another valuable piece of information when he’d circled back to Satoni’s after passing on a face-to-face meeting with Ornasetti. Still fuming at almost having been shot, he’d eased back into Satoni’s neighborhood and parked behind a Dumpster that sat in the midst of a mountain of construction debris in the front yard of a house just down the street from Satoni’s. He hoped that Satoni or the SUV’s driver might telegraph their next mov
e.

  Ten minutes into his stakeout, an immaculately restored 1957 drop-top Chevrolet Bel Air sped up to Satoni’s. When the driver stepped out, Maxie broke into a round-house grin. Even from a half block away, he had no trouble recognizing CJ Floyd, Satoni’s longtime guardian angel.

  He’d watched Floyd, Satoni, and a lanky-looking man child, whom he now knew to be Damion Madrid, talk briefly on Satoni’s front porch before disappearing inside the house.

  A little over an hour later, Floyd and the kid had reappeared. Floyd had scanned the street thoroughly and flashed Satoni a thumbs-up before he and the kid headed for separate vehicles and drove off. Maxie had followed the white SUV, first to a gas station and then to a house in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. Nervously looking behind him with every step, the kid had gone inside the house and stayed for nearly an hour. He’d reemerged dressed in sweats, carrying a basketball under one arm and toting a gym bag. Maxie had followed him and a black kid he’d picked up to a basketball court in the Denver suburb of Glendale, the court he’d just left.

  Maxie now had everything he needed—the entire Damion Madrid–Mario Satoni–CJ Floyd connection. More importantly, he also had Damion Madrid’s home base. Now he’d be able to kill Madrid at his leisure. And if it came down to it and Ornasetti gave him the green light, he’d finish up with Satoni. All in all, a day that had started out badly had blossomed with sunshine. Not a bad turn of events, he told himself as he turned north on Colorado Boulevard and headed for Shotgun Willy’s, a Glendale strip club just west of the Denver city line, to enjoy an end-of-the-day lap dance. Reaching down and stroking his testicles, he smiled and said softly, “Not a bad day at all.”

  PART IV

  The Search

  Chapter 15

  The word harassment kept ringing in CJ’s ears as he walked up the sidewalk to Carl Watson’s house. Aside from a windblown strip of yellow crime-scene tape that had partially wrapped itself around the base of a massive ash tree in the front yard, there were no lingering signs to indicate that a murder had taken place on the grounds not quite twenty-four hours earlier—and except for a couple of overturned trash cans and a tricycle parked in the driveway, the house looked deserted. A stiff, chilly breeze out of the west and a bank of rain clouds capping the Rockies signaled that the weather would soon change. CJ hadn’t called ahead to warn the Watsons that he’d be dropping by to talk to them about a murder. He was savvy enough to realize that if they were home, the element of surprise would work to his advantage. If they weren’t, he’d keep coming back until they were, because he needed to have at least a half-step lead on the boys in blue when they began sniffing out Mario and scratching the dirt for a link between the onetime Denver don, Antoine Ducane, and Cornelius McPherson. He was surprised that the cops hadn’t already pounced, but for the moment, time and the unsuspecting Watsons were on Mario’s side.

  CJ rang the Watsons’ doorbell a little after 7, hoping his visit would be brief because he had an eight o’clock dinner date with Mavis. As he stood at the front door, shaking the bottom of an unruly pant leg off the top of his boot, he caught a glimpse of someone peeking out through a shutter-clad bay window. The silhouette of the person’s head disappeared within seconds. Before he could pull his finger back from ringing the doorbell a second time, the front door swung slowly open and he found himself staring through a deadbolted screen door at a slender, gaunt white man. The man’s quick glance over his shoulder and into the hallway behind him told CJ the man wasn’t alone.

  “Like to speak with Carl Watson, if I could,” CJ said politely.

  The man in the doorway cleared his throat. “I’m him,” he said, sounding unintimidated by the fact that a six-foot-three-inch, 240-pound, Stetson-wearing black man was standing on his doorstep.

  “Glad I caught up with you,” said CJ. “I’m an antique dealer, and I’m hoping you can help me, ah … how can I put this … help out a friend.”

  “Help them out how?” asked Watson, glancing over CJ’s shoulder toward the street.

  Thinking that perhaps he should have been better prepared, CJ shot a quick glance back toward the street. “I understand a man was shot on your front lawn last night. I’m hoping to find out if the man might have had a connection to my friend.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Watson demanded.

  “Name’s CJ Floyd.”

  Puzzled, Watson paused to look CJ up and down. As if thinking, Two black men on my doorstep in as many nights, he asked hesitantly, “You another friend of Sheila Lucerne’s?”

  Far better schooled than Watson in the game of gathering information, CJ said, “Yeah, Sheila.”

  Beads of perspiration broke out on Watson’s forehead as he peered past CJ again. “You’re lying, buddy. Sheila’s dead.” Watson almost yelled the words as if he wanted the whole world to hear him. “She died in a wreck on the Boulder Turnpike back in 1973.”

  Surprised by the absolution-sounding outpouring, CJ glanced again over his shoulder, and asked, “Expecting somebody?”

  Before CJ could ask the question a second time, the reason for Watson’s repeated glances toward the street became apparent. Two Denver police cruisers appeared from opposite directions and pulled up nose to nose in front of Watson’s house. Two uniformed cops burst from the cars and, with 9-mm pistols drawn and aimed directly at CJ, walked slowly toward him.

  The taller of the two men shouted, “Stay right where you are, bub. And hands above your head.”

  CJ slowly extended his arms skyward as the cop screamed, “Above your fuckin’ head!”

  Looking smug, Carl Watson waved for his wife, Janet, to join him. She had called Lieutenant Gus Cavalaris in near hysteria moments after peering through her shutters and seeing another black man standing on her front porch. The Watsons had done exactly as Cavalaris had instructed them to do if anything suspicious occurred, and their teamwork had landed Cavalaris a second—and very much alive—fish.

  The tall cop shouted, “Hands behind you, friend, and I don’t wanta see one smidgen of a quiver.” He grabbed CJ’s wrists with one hand, slipped a set of handcuffs off his belt with the other, and quickly cuffed CJ before patting him down. “No weapons,” he called out to the other cop. Then, blowing onion breath in CJ’s face, he spun CJ around and shoved him back against the house, never losing his grip on CJ’s right arm. “You’re trespassing, friend, and as luck would have it, you’re trespassing on a crime scene. Now, what are the chances of that happening? Got a name?”

  “CJ Floyd.”

  “Real name, friend,” the cop said gruffly. “I don’t do initials.” He tightened his grip on CJ’s arm.

  Thinking that ten years earlier he would’ve jerked his arm out of the insipid patrolman’s grip, CJ glanced out into the fading light of day and saw the plainclothes-clad Gus Cavalaris approaching. CJ didn’t know Cavalaris, but recognizing him as the ranking officer who would soon be in charge, CJ said to the cop gripping his arm, “First name’s Calvin, sonny.”

  It was almost dark and there was a dampness in the air by the time Gus Cavalaris, after speaking with the Watsons, got into the meat of his interrogation of CJ. He’d already asked CJ about any possible ties he might have had to Antoine Ducane or Cornelius McPherson, but he’d avoided asking CJ about links to the murder of JFK.

  The entire interrogation took place with the handcuffed CJ seated in the back seat of Cavalaris’s unmarked patrol car, feet dangling out in the street, while Cavalaris hovered curbside on a strip of grass. CJ stonewalled, claiming that he’d never heard of either Ducane or McPherson, and since Cavalaris had no real way of connecting CJ to the two dead men, he found himself trolling unsuccessfully for a lucky connection.

  Twenty-five minutes into what he thought of as a no-gain situation, Cavalaris shifted his weight onto one foot, leaned down and forward until he was almost nose to nose with CJ, and said, “I’d love to slap you with a criminal t-t-trespass charge or at least a harassment charge, Floyd, but somehow you’ve caug
ht yourself a br-br-break.” Cavalaris glanced toward the orphaned strip of crime-scene tape in the Watsons’ front yard and shook his head. “Looks like either the wind or some ea-ea-eager-beaver crime-scene technician hoping for a quick wrap-up fiddled with our cr-cr-crime-scene tape. A good lawyer might even argue you never saw the tape, and since the Watsons cl-cl-claim that all you did was knock on the door and a-a-ask a couple of questions, I’m afraid I’m going to have to release you. But guess what, friend. Now I know who you are and where you live.” Cavalaris smiled, showing off a bottom row of crooked front teeth. “Antique dealer, my ass. Save that for the f-f-funny papers, Floyd.”

  “That’s what I do, Lieutenant,” said CJ, realizing that the longer the interrogation lasted, the more the very astute but obviously self-conscious Cavalaris stuttered.

  “S-s-sure, Floyd. Strange that when I called in for information on you, the word I got back was that you’re more of a bounty hunter and a bail bondsman. Odd background for an antiques peddler.” Cavalaris glanced back toward the house, where the Watsons were taking turns peeking through half-opened shutters. “You sc-sc-scared the shit out of the people who live here, Floyd.”

  “Didn’t intend to.”

  “Well, you did. So here’s a little food for thought. I don’t want to hear of you setting foot within twenty square blocks of this neighborhood for a long, long time. If you’re d-d-driving down University and you get hungry, keep on going and f-f-find yourself somewhere else to eat. If you’ve suddenly gotta go to the b-b-bathroom and you’re in the area, hold it. ’Cause guaranteed, if you come back and try to talk to the Watsons again, I’ll consider that harassment, and even in this golden age of criminal-coddling, I’ll make sure that you spend at least a couple of nights in jail. Got it?”