Chapter FIFTY-FOUR
The night was dark, an overcast sky blanking out the stars and the sliver of the new moon. Jock and I were parked on the berm of a state highway that ran east from I-75. A few cars passed us, people going about their normal evening business. A compound of sorts, three double-wide house trailers arrayed in a semicircle around a dirt clearing, was on the other side of the highway. Four cars were parked in the dirt yard, the lowrider I’d seen that morning on Longboat Key among them. Pine trees and palmetto shrub closed in on three sides of the trailers. There were no outside lights, and only a few of the windows in the trailers showed any illumination. There was little movement, the occasional gangbanger walking from one trailer to the other the only sign of life.
We’d been there for fifteen minutes, sitting idly, waiting for David Sims to show up. The blue lights caught my attention, several vehicles coming from the west, their light bars stabbing the night. An unmarked cruiser and three black SUVs rolled to a stop in the clearing in front of the trailers and lit them up with their spotlights. Men in SWAT gear exited the SUVs and took up positions, squatting on one knee, their weapons trained on the trailers. Three of them ran toward the rear of the trailers, ensuring there would be nobody coming out the back windows. David Sims stood by the unmarked and used the car’s P.A. system. “You in the trailers. This is the Manatee County sheriff’s office. Come out with your hands in the air.”
He handed the microphone to a deputy standing beside him and the man repeated the demand in Spanish. A door to one of the trailers opened and three men walked out, their hands raised. In a moment, other gangbangers came out of the other trailers. There were twelve in all, standing in a semicircle, hands in the air, light from the sheriff’s vehicles splaying over them. Most were barefoot, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, tattoos showing dimly on their necks and down their arms.
The deputy with the microphone spoke again. Jock said, “He’s telling them that the deputies are going to enter the trailers and if there is anybody there, they’ll be shot on sight. Not a bad ploy.”
“A bit illegal,” I said.
“I don’t think there’ll be any complaints from these guys,” Jock said.
Two SWAT team members searched each of the three trailers. Nobody there. A few minutes had passed, the gangbangers still in the semicircle, hands in the air. A deputy started from either end of the ragged assemblage and cuffed each man’s hands behind him. Sims went from one to the other, looking them in the face, comparing what he saw to a picture he held. He got to the third man in line and waved a deputy over. The gangbanger was taken to one of the SUVs and placed in the backseat. Sims repeated the maneuver a second time and the gangbanger was placed in a different SUV. When Sims reached the next to the last man in line, he looked at his face, down at the picture, and then waved the Spanish-speaking deputy over. The man was taken to the unmarked cruiser and placed in the backseat.
“Unhook them,” Sims said, pointing to the men who remained standing in the dirt yard. “Tell them to have a nice evening.” He turned to his men. “Saddle up. We’re heading for the barn.”
In a few minutes, the SUVs drove out of the yard and headed west, back toward Bradenton. Sims was in the unmarked alone with one of the gangbangers. He gave the SUVs a head start and then pulled out of the yard. Jock started the rental and followed. After about a mile, Sims turned onto a rutted dirt road that ran into a citrus grove. It was a track used by trucks hauling the picked fruit to the packinghouses. He drove a couple of hundred yards and pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Jock parked behind him and we got out of the car.
Sims opened the right rear door of the cruiser and motioned the gangbanger out. He shook his head. Sims said, “Get the hell out of my car.”
The gangbanger shook his head again. “I ain’t moving,” he said in lightly accented English.
I could see the right side of his head. He was definitely missing an ear. This was our guy. “We could shoot him right here,” I said.
“No way,” said Sims. “I’d have to clean that mess up. Just pull his ass out, and I’ll put a bullet in him.”
“I want to talk to him,” Jock said and reached into the car, grabbed the earless guy by his arm and pulled him out of the seat. The gangbanger, his hands still cuffed behind him, hit the ground face first. Jock kicked him in the side, a kick that had it hit a football would have set new NFL records. The man screamed in pain. Jock kicked him again. Another scream.
“When an officer of the law tells you to get the hell out of his car, you move,” said Jock. “Do we understand each other?”
The man on the ground nodded. He moaned a little, letting us know that he was hurt. That didn’t seem to bother Jock at all. He squatted down and grabbed the man by the chin. “I’m going to be asking you some questions pretty soon,” he said, “and I’m going to expect some quick answers. Are we okay on that?”
The man nodded again. Moaned a little.
“Okay,” said Sims. “I’ll leave him to you. Play nice now.”
Jock jerked the one-eared gangbanger up by his arm and hauled him to the rental. I stayed behind to talk to Sims. “Better give me the key to the cuffs,” I said.
He handed me the key. “I’m counting on you and Jock to make sure there’s no blowback on this one,” he said.
“No problem, David. We appreciate this. What’re you going to tell your men? They saw you put this guy in your car.”
“I’ll just tell them that I made a mistake, and after talking to the guy, I let him out about a mile from where we found him. I don’t think the gangbangers are going to be filing any complaints with Internal Affairs. Even if they do, nobody’s going to believe them.”
“You sure?”
“Hell, nobody in the world would believe I’d be part of this harebrained scheme you and Jock came up with.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe it myself.”
“What about those two who went to lockup?”
“We’ll hold them for a couple of hours, question them about something, and cut them loose. If they ask about their one-eared buddy, we’ll tell them it’s none of their business.”
When I got back to the car, Jock was standing beside the open rear door. The earless guy was sitting in the backseat, his hands still cuffed behind him, his face showing the pain of what were probably a few broken ribs. “You ready?” asked Jock.
“I guess,” I said. I had seen Jock work with bad guys before, and it always saddened me that it was necessary for him to use so much violence. I knew what it took out of him and each time he killed or beat up someone he’d lose a little bit of himself. When it was over, he worked hard to get it out of his system, but though he always came back to being the Jock Algren I’d known for most of my life, he never came all the way back. Each death, each beaten adversary permanently consumed a small piece of his soul and someday there would be nothing left but the empty hulk of a man sitting idly in some bar drinking away what was left of his life. Maybe I’d be there with him, trying to push back the demons and find some surcease from the incubi that seemed to live on the edge of my consciousness, always nibbling away, whispering dark promises full of dread.
We all get those sudden flashes of insight at the oddest moments. In the one that wedged itself into my brain as I stood there looking at Jock and this poor excuse of a hit man, I suddenly saw J.D. as my life preserver, my way out of the darkness. Maybe that was why I was hanging onto her, afraid to let her go. That wasn’t fair. I’d have to think on that some. “Let’s get this over with,” I said.
Jock leaned into the car. “We can do this easy or hard,” he said. “But in the end, you’ll tell me what I want to know. Fair enough?”
The man nodded.
“What’s your name?” Jock asked.
“Pedro Cantreras.”
“Whom do you work for?”
“I’m an independent contractor.”
“A hit man,” said Jock.
“Yes.”
“Who hired you to kill Gene Alexander?”
“Who’s that?”
“The man you killed on Longboat Key on Friday.”
“I didn’t know his name.”
“Now you do,” said Jock. “Who hired you?”
“I don’t know. It was all done by mail drops.”
“Where do you live?”
“New Orleans.”
“Is that where you made the deal?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how you arranged everything.”
“The man who hired me sent a letter to a bar that holds mail for me. Told me he wanted a man killed on Longboat Key. Said he’d pay me ten thousand dollars.”
“What’s the name and address of the bar?”
Cantreras told him.
“And you agreed to the contract?” asked Jock.
“Yes.”
“Did you save the letter from the man who hired you?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“In a lockbox in a bank in New Orleans.”
“How were you paid?”
“Cash. Five thousand last week and another five when the man was dead.”
“Had you ever worked for the man who hired you in the past?”
“I think so. The handwriting on the letter matched.”
“Do you save all the letters you get hiring you to kill people?”
“Yes. They’re all in the lockbox.”
“Why did you save them?”
“I figured I might need them some day.”
“Like now,” said Jock.
“Yes. Like now.”
“Did you ever meet the man who hired you?”
“No.”
“How did you get your cash?”
“In an envelope sent to the bar.”
“Were you ever given a reason why your employer wanted Alexander dead?”
“No. And I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter.”
“How did you find your target?”
“I was given detailed instructions on where he lived, and there was a picture of the man I was supposed to kill. In the envelope with the cash. I was told to make it look like a suicide.”
“But no name?”
“No.”
“What’s your connection to the Guatemalan gangbangers?”
“I’m sort of on retainer to them. They pay me every month and sometimes they ask me to eliminate somebody.”
“Is that what brought you here?”
“No. Like I said, I got a contract.”
“Then why are you hanging out with the gangbangers?”
“It’s a safe place to hang out until I hear back from the man in New Orleans. Or, at least, I thought it was.”
“Are you sure the man who hired you is in New Orleans?”
“I think so. The letters I get from him always have a New Orleans postmark.”
“Are you Guatemalan?”
“I was born there, but I came to this country when I was twelve years old.”
“What happened to your ear?”
“Nothing. I was born without it.”
“Were you told to get Alexander’s laptop?”
“Yes.”
“The satellite phone too?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with them?”
“My instructions were to give them to a man who’d meet me in Sarasota.”
“And?”
“That’s what I did.”
“Who was this man?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you handle the meet?”
“I was given a cell phone along with the money. It could only be used to call one number. I was to call that number and say simply, ‘I have the merchandise.’ The man would tell me where to meet him.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Downtown Sarasota. The corner of Main Street and Highway 301, the northwest corner.”
“You gave him the laptop and the satellite phone?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the cell phone you’d been given?”
“I gave that to him as well.”
“Describe the man you met.”
“He was about five-feet-eight-inches tall, dark skin, black hair, and he spoke Spanish with a Mexican accent.”
“When did you meet the man?”
“Saturday, a couple of hours after I killed the man on Longboat Key.”
“Mr. Alexander,” Jock said, his voice low and tight, menacing.
“What?”
“His name was Mr. Alexander and he was a patriot and a friend of mine. You speak of him with respect, you bastard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” said Jock. “You got anything, Matt?”
I was quiet for a minute. “I’m Matt Royal. Do you know why the gangbangers would be after me?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Who are the guys who drive that lowrider parked in the compound?”
“Different people use it at different times.”
“Why are you still here? Why didn’t you go back to New Orleans after you killed Alexander?”
“The man who hired me told me to stay in place. That he might have some more work for me in Florida.”
“How was he going to get hold of you?”
“He’ll send a letter to the bar in New Orleans and the bartender will forward it to me here.”
I looked at Jock. “One more question,” he said. “What is the bartender’s name?”
“Mack Stout.”
“You trust him?”
“Not really.”
“Then why do you deal with him?” Jock asked, “He’s never done anything to make me not trust him. Yet.”
“What’s your leverage? Do you pay him?”
“Sort of. I supply him with coke.”
“That can get pretty expensive,” Jock said Cantreras smiled. “I get it wholesale.”
“From the Guatemalans?”
“Yes.”
“What if your supply runs out? You can’t get the coke for him?”
“Won’t matter. He knows if he screws up, I’ll kill him.”
“Okay,” said Jock. “Sit tight.”
Cantreras laughed. “Thought I would,” he said. And he moaned again.
Jock walked off a few feet and activated his cell phone. After a short conversation, he returned to the car. “Pedro,” he said, “in a few minutes some men are going to come and take you away. They’ll want a lot more information than you’ve given me, and they won’t waste a lot of time getting it. If you value your skin even a little bit, you’ll cooperate.”