Chapter FORTY-NINE
The man standing in the doorway of the ramshackle house was big and beefy, a vision of adiposity rapidly overtaking muscularity. His long hair was tied in a ponytail, his face showing annoyance at being bothered at home. His name was Chico Suarez and he was the crew chief we’d come for.
The yard was dirt and dark, no street lights in this disheveled neighborhood in East Bradenton. A king cab pickup was parked in the yard, a van-type trailer still attached to it. The Islandwide Landscaping Service logo was on both. The sound of a Spanish-language television station blared from the living room. Jock was speaking English to the man and asked him if he was indeed the Chico Suarez who was the crew chief for Islandwide.
“Yeah,” said the man. “What do you want?” His English was very good. I wondered why he’d told J.D. he only spoke Spanish.
Jock punched him in the abdomen, a quick, powerful blow to the solar plexus that brought Suarez to his knees, gasping, trying to catch his breath. Jock grabbed the ponytail and was pulling him farther into the yard, Suarez scrambling on his knees, trying to keep up, his breath ragged. Jock rolled the man onto his back, straddled him and poked a .45-caliber pistol under his chin.
“Who was the Guatemalan you let on your crew on Friday?” Jock asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t think this is a good time to be lying to me, amigo.”
“They’ll kill me.”
Jock screwed the barrel of the gun further into the tissue beneath the man’s chin. “If you don’t start talking, I’ll kill you right now,” he said. “Save the gangbangers the trouble.”
“No. Don’t shoot. What do you want to know?”
Jock pulled the pistol back and pointed it at Suarez’s face. “This better be good.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” said Suarez.
“With what?”
“The killing.”
“You know about that?”
“Yes. It was on the television news. And the cops came around asking a lot of questions about it.”
“How did the Guatemalan get on your crew?”
“Some guy with a bunch of tattoos came to see me early Friday morning. Told me he would be working with my crew. It was about to rain. I told him we didn’t work when it was raining. He said we would work that day, and I should call my men and get them ready to go. Said he’d kill me if I didn’t. He had a gun.”
“Were you scheduled to work in Emerald Harbor that day?”
“Yes. We always work there on Fridays.”
“But you weren’t planning to go out there in the rain.”
“No. We’d work Saturday if we had to. If it rained all day on Friday.”
“How did the man with the tattoos know about your Friday schedule?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’d seen our truck out there on other Fridays.”
“What did you do?”
“I did what he said. I called my men and went to pick them up.”
“What about the tattooed guy?”
“He went with me.”
“What did you tell your people about the new guy?”
“Just what I’d been told to say. That he was joining the crew.”
“What happened when you got to Emerald Harbor?”
“We went to work. The tattooed guy told us to do one of the houses last. He sat in the truck until we were about finished with that house and then he went around the back of it. He came back a few minutes later and we left.”
“Did you hear a pistol shot after he went to the back of the house?”
“No, but we had all the equipment going.”
“All of it?”
“Yeah. Mowers and blowers and edgers. He told us to make as much noise as possible.”
“You didn’t find that a little odd?” asked Jock.
“Odd as hell, but what was I supposed to do? I was just hoping he wouldn’t kill us all.”
“Was he carrying anything when he came out of the house?”
“I didn’t know then that he’d been in the house, but he was carrying a laptop. And what looked like a big cell phone.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. We loaded up and drove back to our shop in Bradenton. We had to clean the equipment.”
“What happened to your guest?”
“He called each one of us by name, told us where we lived, our addresses. Making sure we understood that he could find us. He said he’d come kill us if he heard anything about his being with us on Friday.”
“And you believed him.”
“He wasn’t kidding.”
“Did you get a name?”
“From the guy? Hell no. He didn’t tell me and I wasn’t about to ask.”
“What do you know about the man who was killed while your crew was at his house?”
“Nothing. The cops took us in, interviewed us, and then I saw the television news. It said the man’s wife was killed last week or something.”
“The cops interview your whole crew?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you tell the cops you didn’t speak English?”
“I never said that. They interviewed me last, and I guess the officer just assumed I didn’t know English because she started out giving the interpreter the questions for me to answer. I just went along with it.”
“Could you identify the tattooed man if you saw him again?”
“Probably, but I’d be signing my own death warrant.”
“How did you know he was Guatemalan?”
“The tattoos are very distinctive. Everybody knows who those guys are.”
Jock had relaxed more as he questioned Suarez. He was standing now, and Suarez was sitting in the dirt. “Okay,” Jock said. “Here’s the deal. I’m not going to rat you out. What you’ve told me stays between you, me, and my friend here. But I’m going to need a description of this guy. Something that will tell me how to find him.”
“What about the cops?”
“I’m not a cop.”
“But you’ll have to tell the cops who told you about the Guatemalan.”
“No,” Jock said, “I won’t.”
“Then how are you going to arrest him?”
“Do I look like a man who arrests anybody?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Let’s just say that the dead man was my friend, and I’m not in the habit of letting people get away with killing my friends.”
The man was quiet for a beat, trying to decide what to do. His choices were limited. If he didn’t tell Jock what he wanted to know, his life was over. If he did tell Jock and the word got back to the Guatemalan, then he would die tomorrow or maybe the next day. Trust Jock or die now. The choice wasn’t really that hard, and I could see in his face that Chico had made his decision. “He didn’t have a right ear,” he said.
“What do you mean?” asked Jock.
“His right ear was missing. Like it’d been cut off. Only I don’t think so. More like he was born without it. A skin flap had been sewn over the ear hole. I don’t think they would have done that if he could hear anything out of it.”
“Do you know where the Guatemalans live?” Jock asked.
“I’ve heard they’ve got sort of a compound. East of here, but I’ve never been there.”
“Do you know an address?”
“No. Never heard one.”
“Okay, Chico,” Jock said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You keep your mouth shut about tonight and I’ll do the same. Nobody has to know we’ve talked. I don’t want the Guatemalans coming after you or your men.”
“If you go after the tattooed guy, he’ll know it was one of us who talked. He said he’d kill us all if one of us ever said a word.”
“Trust me,” said Jock. “That won’t happen. If I go after him, I’ll find him, and he’ll never bother anybody again. Ever.”
We walked down the block to Jock’s rental, a nondescript Chevrolet that he’d picked up at the Tampa airport when he’d arrived in Florida. He’d used one of the many aliases he always seemed to have access to, so if for some reason our tag number was checked, it’d come back as a car rented by Mr. Hertz to somebody who didn’t really exist.
“Why do you think the Guatemalan let those Mexicans live?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it have been cleaner if he’d killed them?”
“Maybe not. Even if he’d been able to dump the bodies quickly, people would have missed the dead guys and questions would have been asked. I think he just figured he’d scared them shitless and they wouldn’t ever mention anything to anybody. Even their best friends.”
“I guess you’re right. Are we going after him?” I asked.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“Far as I know. What’s next?”
“We need to find out where these guys live,” said Jock.
“I’ll call David Parrish in the morning,” I said. “He’ll know where they are, or he can get to somebody who does know.”
“Good idea. Ready to head home?”
“Let’s do it.”