by Jerold Last
“It sounds pretty brutal to me,” volunteered Suzanne. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”
“Yes I am,” I replied.
“Things change, including my opinions. I’ve got a son now who needs his mother and father to grow up with,” Suzanne replied. “I’m not the slightest bit squeamish about doing whatever is necessary for us to get home safely, to use your word. I agree.”
In less than an hour we were taxiing away from the terminal and into the air heading east over the Andes back to Montevideo.
“What have we learned on this trip?” Eduardo asked, rhetorically.
“I’ll be darned if I know,” was my answer.
Suzanne was a good deal more thoughtful than I had been. After a few moments of silence she spoke up. “A lot, I think. Octavio and Bernardo confirmed that there is a civil war going on between the old establishment, which was tightly connected to the Santiago distribution network, and some unidentified new guys in the Montevideo drug market. Both Bernardo and Octavio felt it was self-serving to give us whatever help they could, at least with regard to the background. I think we can safely assume that they are more aligned with the old group, but not to the point where they want to intervene. It seems clear that they are welcoming our intervention, which suggests that they aren’t rooting for the new guys. On the other hand, they could live with the new guys if all they want to do is sell their product in Uruguay, so there has to be more to it than who buys drugs from them. I suspect that may have to do with the other half of the equation, the money laundering that the old man, Sanchez, was also doing for the Chilean cartel.
“We know about five murders in Montevideo. In chronological order, they are two anonymous drug dealers, Martin’s former partner the other Detective Gonzalez, the guy who probably shot Jose Gonzalez, and the banker, old man Sanchez. We can guess that there have been other killings, and should ask Martin to collect the files on all of the unsolved murders in Montevideo in the last year or two and see if any of them fit this pattern. Maybe matching up any bullets left in any bodies to the bullets from our three corpses would also be worthwhile. Montevideo is normally a pretty peaceful place with a very low homicide rate, so the kind of gang war going on now is a complete anomaly. My guess is any recent unsolved killings will match up with our three.”
Eduardo leaned forward in his seat and asked Suzanne, “Who do you think arranged to have us followed from Sanchez’s apartment?”
“Well, there seem to be only two possibilities. The old gang, which would have been led by Andres Sanchez, or the new gang, whose leader we can continue calling Mr. X for now.”
“So,” continued Eduardo settling back into his seat, “we need to get our hands on someone high enough up in the new gang to know who Mr. X is, and to persuade him to tell us what he knows.”
Chapter 13. Return to Montevideo
We arrived at Carrasco airport on time, quickly cleared immigration and customs, exchanged our leftover Chilean pesos for Uruguayan pesos, and walked out through the darkness to the SUV, which had been parked conveniently close to the terminal in the airport parking lot. In just a few minutes we were driving towards downtown.
"I think I'll stay off of the Ramblas, which is where anyone looking for this particular SUV would expect us to be on our way downtown," Eduardo explained to us. "I know Montevideo well enough to do this trip on the less traveled route."
It happened suddenly, with no warning. We were driving along a particularly deserted dark city street in a light industrial area when they hit us. A large, dark vehicle came roaring up from behind our car. Our SUV was forced off the street by an even larger model of SUV with four big men in it. All four of the hoodlums spilled out of their vehicle with knives showing in their hands. We were all out on the street by then. Eduardo moved in front of me and spoke quietly so that only we could hear him.
"I'll take the first guy, who should be the leader. We want him alive long enough to tell us what he knows. Suzanne, you take the last one, and try not to kill him either, just in case we need a backup option to interrogate. Roger, you get the two in the middle and they should just be dead as soon as possible."
Things progressed very quickly, but time seems to slow down when you're in that kind of fight so I saw almost everything that happened while I was getting into position for my part of the action. Eduardo charged directly at the leader while he let out a huge roar to distract him, and got him into a bear hug. Eduardo parried the first knife thrust with his arm and was strong enough to lift the would-be attacker off the ground a foot or more into the air, and squeeze his body tighter and tighter while bending him backwards. The other three crooks slowed down a bit to get a better look at what was happening in front of them.
Suzanne quickly circled around the pack and did some kind of roundhouse kick that took the legs out from under the man in the back, followed by a blur of other kicks as he went down that thoroughly incapacitated him.
By that time I had gotten into position to become a tempting victim, out in the open and defenseless. Two large men with knives came at me together from the front. Lousy tactics on their part, but this seemed to be amateur night. The one on the left got a straight kick with all of my power directly into, and through, his solar plexus. A little fancy footwork and I was lined up to deliver a roundhouse kick with my hard shoe and a lot of leverage to the second guy's head as he ran into my space. I actually heard the crack as guy number two's neck broke, and he stopped being a concern. I returned my attention to the first would-be knife artist, who was writhing on the ground trying to breathe with little success. I kneeled down and chopped at his exposed throat with the side of my hand, crushing his trachea. Adios, slowly and painfully.
I looked up in time to see Eduardo bending his assailant backwards further and further until his back broke. The crook screamed and the one-sided struggle was over. Suzanne's would-be attacker lay still on the ground.
Eduardo interrogated his attacker, who was in incredible pain.
"I need a few answers, then we can get you some medical help," he told the leader with apparent, if insincere, sympathy. The answers were forthcoming and useless. They had been hired over the phone to watch our car after each flight arrival from Santiago (there were only three scheduled today), follow us from the airport, and kill us as soon as they had an opportunity. All of their instructions were typed on a sheet of paper in an envelope that had come under a convenient door, which also contained car keys for the rental SUV, descriptions of each of us, and cash for doing the job, with more cash promised for successful completion of our assassinations. Eduardo made a quick move with his hands around the leader's head and neck, there was a loud crack, and we were done with him.
After a quick check it was apparent that nobody carried a wallet or any I.D. in any of the possible pockets. Suzanne, who had disabled, but not killed, her man had a suggestion.
"Eduardo, I just can't kill someone in cold blood. On top of that, I think you should try interrogating him to see what he can tell us. He's all yours."
It was the same as the first guy. He gave us the answers, but no useful information. Eduardo repeated the trick with his hands, we had our final dead hoodlum with a broken neck, and it was time to get out of there. Except for a superficial wound on Eduardo's arm and lots of blood on his sleeve, we weren't noticeably damaged.
"They obviously were waiting for us here at the airport, just like the leader told you. Do you think one of our new friends in Chile set this up?" asked Suzanne.
"That's one possibility," I answered, "But it's just as likely, or even more likely, that they were watching the flights coming in from Santiago based on orders from here in Montevideo, and had our car staked out. If they were watching planes, there's only two or three direct flights a day from Santiago to here so it wouldn't take a lot of manpower, and they had plenty of time to set this trap up while we were clearing customs and immigration. If they had the car staked out, they just had to follow us."
"Eduardo,
your arm is bleeding. Did you get stabbed during the fight? Let me take a look at that." Suzanne was already carefully moving the sleeve of his jacket up his left arm.
"That looks nasty, but it's a clean cut and not too deep. We should get you to the hospital for some stitches or you're going to have a new scar." Suzanne was ripping a shirt from one of the guys laying on the ground and improvising a bandage while she was saying this. She wiped away the blood and tied the improvised bandage tightly around the wound.
"I don't have time to go to a hospital now. I have a hot date tonight and I'm due there in less than an hour. I can get this fixed tomorrow. Or just fix it myself. I have a box of butterfly bandages back at the hotel in my first aid kit."
Suzanne's eyebrows lifted an inch or two. "Who's the hot date with?"
"Maria-Elena Sanchez," Eduardo replied, "I made the date a couple of days ago before we left for Chile."
"Well, maybe she can kiss your cut and make it all better," teased Suzanne, reverting to her little sister role in her relationship with Eduardo. "Seriously though, I hope you can remember to pump her for information about the old man while you guys are getting to know each other better. And yes, I've been around Roger too long and the double entendre pun was deliberate."
"Ahem," I said, clearing my throat. "We just killed four men, presumably Uruguayan nationals. Wouldn't it be a good idea to get out of here before the police show up? Eduardo, you might want to call Martin once we get going and ask him to clean up this mess for us before someone stumbles over our friends here."
A half hour later we were back at the hotel playing with Robert. Eduardo was washing up, changing into something nicer and less bloody for his date, and due to stop by so that Bruce, who had some combat medic training, could fix his arm. Martin Gonzalez was presumably fixing up a messy crime scene on our behalf. Suzanne and I were starting to think about dinner.
Eduardo stopped by and gave Bruce some butterfly bandages, a roll of sterile gauze, a plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a roll of adhesive tape. In less than two minutes the wound was treated with the antiseptic, sealed with four of the butterfly bandages perpendicular to the wound, wrapped tightly with the gauze, and sealed again with the adhesive tape. Eduardo went off for his dinner date and who knows what else, Bruce volunteered to put Robert, who had fallen asleep in my arms, to bed, and Suzanne and I went out for dinner, promising Bruce it would be his turn as soon as we could eat and get back.
We found a nice restaurant that served Uruguayan fast food---steak sandwiches, roasted chicken, paella, among other things. I ordered a huge portion of paella (with chicken, meat, and seafood) and a salad, while Suzanne opted for the roasted free-range chicken, French fried potatoes, and a salad. A bottle of a nice local tannat wine and another bottle of agua con gas (The South American version of carbonated bottled water) rounded out the menu. Prices had gone up since our last visit (or, to be more correct, the value of the dollar had dropped), but we still had a very nice meal for less than $30. My paella contained everything advertised including chicken pieces, lamb, pork sausage, calamari, octopus, shrimp, clams, and mussels.
An hour later we were back at the hotel and Bruce was off for his dinner and who knows what. We checked on Robert (still fast asleep) and went to bed ourselves. Suzanne snuggled against my back and asked if I had any further thoughts on what was going on, and whether I regretted getting us into the middle of the current mess we were involved in.
"We don't have enough data yet to really know who we're after, but I'm juggling three different theories that explain who Mr. X really is and why all of this killing is happening right now. I'm pretty sure that one of the three theories is probably right. Maybe Eduardo will have some bits and pieces of that missing data to share after tonight's big date. We'll find that out tomorrow. As far as regrets go, to be perfectly honest with you, the answer is no. I'm actually having a lot of fun with this case. I enjoy a good puzzle, which this is. And I enjoy identifying with Bruce Willis in the movie "Last Man Standing", which this situation is beginning to remind me of."
We snuggled for a bit and Suzanne was asleep. "Good night," I told her left side, which was the part facing me.
Chapter 14. Visits to three drug dealers
We were sitting at a table and eating croissants, rolls, yogurt, and coffee with Eduardo early the next morning in the hotel’s breakfast room on the second floor.
“Let’s hear all of the details about last night’s hot date,” Suzanne prompted Eduardo, who looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night.
The somewhat bleary-eyed Paraguayan moaned, drank a few gulps of coffee, and turned towards Suzanne. “Well, let’s see. Where should I begin? I guess I can confirm that Maria-Elena is 'hot', but you already suspected that. We really didn’t get a lot of chance to talk for an hour or two, but then I learned a little bit that we didn’t know for sure, so it was worth the effort.”
Suzanne had a very limited tolerance for being teased before breakfast. “Come on, come on. You can stop teasing and get to the parts we want to hear."
Eduardo's expression became more thoughtful. He carefully sipped some coffee, put butter on and then chewed a croissant, and sipped some more coffee. He was clearly enjoying making Suzanne wait for his news.
“She was still a little bit in shock about her father’s killing, so I tried to avoid any direct discussion of what bad stuff the old man was into. We talked a bit about what Maria-Elena did at the bank, which was a little bit of everything and a lot of being the old man’s eyes and ears at the operational level. One of the last things he did that day was to ask Maria-Elena to put together a proposal for the bank to represent Suzanne as an investor, and to identify possible properties for sale that Suzanne could buy along the lines of what she had described at their meeting. If we take those instructions at face value, Andres Sanchez apparently believed you guys were what you said you were at your meeting. He may still have had you followed to check you out a little more, but it’s probably more likely that the other faction was checking you out when Norberto followed you downtown from the Sanchez apartment.
“Maria-Elena apparently will inherit a big chunk of responsibility from her father, who left almost half of everything to do with the bank to her brother here in Montevideo and to her to share and operate, with the apartment and the loose cash going to his wife. Apparently the brother gets his share in some kind of complicated trust while he does some growing up, so he won’t be an active participant for a few years and she’ll be running the whole show for a while. But her brother Ernesto, Graciela the mother, Maria-Elena, and the two other brothers who live abroad all inherit equal shares of stock in the bank, which will be guided by all of them as the equivalent of the Board of Directors.”
Suzanne mulled that over for a few moments, sipped her coffee then spoke.
“What did you tell her about your bandaged arm? I assume she noticed it."
Eduardo made a major production out of looking at the arm. He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a professional looking bandage about 10 cm on each side. "I told her that I injured it on a farm in Chile, playing matador with a wild bull they had. I got a lot of sympathy when she heard how I'd been gored by one of the bull's horns as it caught my arm while I was sweeping a cape to the side."
"And she believed that?" asked Suzanne incredulously as she lifted her eyebrows.
"I honestly don't know," answered Eduardo with a bit of asperity. "She seemed to. On the other hand she may just have been trying to make me feel happy."
"Of course," replied Suzanne cynically. "That's got to be it. There's no way she'd have known that bull fighting is illegal in both Uruguay and Chile just because she grew up here, and that your story was total nonsense.
The teasing and the games were over. It was time to get serious. Suzanne's entire demeanor became much more serious. "Do you have any idea of whether Maria-Elena knows about the old man's involving the bank in money laundering for the drug industry down here, E
duardo?"
Eduardo responded to the change in mood with a factual answer. "In terms of anything she said or did, no. In terms of reading body language, I didn't get any clear or definitive signals. In terms of my gut reaction, she has to know about it. After all of the time she's spent working at the bank, she's too smart not to. But Maria-Elena seems to have loved her father and been a good daughter, so there may be a lot of denial going on there too."
Just then Martin Gonzalez came to the table with a cup of coffee in his hand and sat down and joined us. His Columbo-like trench coat came off his body and onto the back of his chair. He sipped his coffee and politely waited for Eduardo to finish his answer.
"Is this a private conversation or can I sit in?" he inquired politely.
"We're trying to figure out what we know and what we should do next," answered Eduardo. "We can use another perspective on things."
"What can you tell us about the earlier killings, Martin, especially Andres Sanchez?" I asked. "We haven't had a chance to speak to you since that one happened."