No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (12 page)

"I will take this," he snapped at the
waiter. "Can't you see the lady is upset? Get her a brandy."

Whitney's bottom swayed as she led deVega upstairs to
the chic little Georgetown flat that Gene had sublet for a week. That
easy roll shoved what was left of deVega's brains down behind his
zipper. She opened the door. He stepped in. She stepped out and
closed it with him inside.

Franco sat in an easy chair. Dark glasses, white silk
tie, dark shirt, the flashiest silk suit we could find on short
notice and a Colt Magnum. The gun had a silencer attached, making it
look even bigger than Dirty Harry's.

Gene stepped out from the kitchen. He held a silenced
.45. I followed. Compared to Franco, both my suit and gun were models
of taste and restraint. Unfortunately the same could not be said
about my tie.

"Is dissa de one?" Gene said through half a
lip. Gene did not like to stereotype Italians. But I had impressed
upon him that stereotypes are easier for people to understand and
that there is clarity in clichés.

I nodded and walked up to deVega. I hit him on the
side of the head, hard, with the barrel of my .45. It was a cliché,
but the point was not to confuse deVega with original thinking.
Simple approaches elicit simple responses. Also, I enjoyed it.

"OK, kid," Gene said, "we'll take
careit."

"Gino, I wanna piece a this mutha."

"Kid, ya uncle Vincen' saysa he don' wan you to
do the deed, ya know, jus' leave ita us."

"What do you want?" deVega said.

I hit him with a cliché, in the solar plexus. He
bent double, gasping for air. I gestured to Franco who rose with
implacable and silent gravity. He crossed the room, silent and solid
as death, until he stood in front of deVega.

"I have diplomatic status," deVega gasped.
"My government . . ."

Franco's backhand came with no warning and smashed
deVega to the floor. Franco smiled and straightened his silk cuff. He
scared the hell out of me, and I was reasonably certain it was just
an act.

I knelt down and put my gun to deVega's ear. Franco
jabbed his silencer into deVega's balls.

"What the fuck is your interest in Edgar Wood?"

"I don't know who you are talking about."

"Hencio," I said, "you will be much
happier if you do know." He didn't answer, so I explained.
"Hencio, Franco is gonna shoot your balls off. "

"You can't do this," he said.

Franco fired.

The bullet was a blank. But a blank contains powder
and some form of wadding, frequently wax, to hold the propellent in
place. Even the wax, had it hit the genitalia directly, would, with
that much force, have done serious damage. Franco was a careful man
and it did not. But it did tear through deVega's clothes and rip some
skin from his inner thigh, and the hot escaping gases from the gun
barrel flowed like flame, searing the spot.

DeVega screamed. His urine rushed out and flowed on
the floor. His hands grabbed for his crotch.

"Talk to me, Hencio," soft and weary.

"I di'n' hurt you, don' hurt me, please."

"Talk to me, tell me about Edgar Wood."

"I di'n' hurt you, I just' try to warn you."

I slapped his face.

"We were afraid he would talk."

"About what?"

"Who are you?" he pleaded.

"We're the people you don't fuck with, fuckface.
Now, before I get bored and let Franco do what he came for."

"It's about what we did with Charles Goreman."

At last. There it was. "What?" I asked.

"It was a big deal, mucho, mucho grande, the
biggest trading I have ever seen."

"Tell me about it, all of it."

"
I could lose my job."

"Fuck your job, think about your life."

"If my government knew, I would not last ten
minutes."

"Knew about what, you stupid fuck, stop
stalling. What the fuck did you do?"

"We didn't do nothing . . . nothing. Goreman did
it all. We just went along. I don't mean even went along, we didn't.
We found out about it after, but we couldn't do nothing about it. "

"You got a piece of the action, didn't you?"

"No, no, I swear," he said, but Franco
jammed his gun into deVega's balls. “Si, si, yes, but not much."

"How much?"

"Just a hundred thousand. What is that? That is
nothing on a thirty-eight-million-dollar deal. "

"Tell me, Hencio, confession is good for the
soul," I said. It was about the biggest coke deal I had ever
heard of. And his numbers were wholesale, not the numbers D.A.s use,
based on price per gram, after it has gone from ton, to kilo, to
pound, to ounce, stepped on each step of the way.

"If I tell you, you will let me go? And you will
not tell my government?"

"Hencio. You are an asshole. As long as you keep
talking you are alive. If I like what you say, then you might stay
alive. But if I hear one more fucking word of stalling from you,
Franco is gonna shoot your dick off."

"OK, OK," he whined, "It was in '76.
The summer of '76, and Charlie Goreman come to us, when the big
freeze hit Brazil. You remember that, don't you?"

Of course I didn't.

"The price at that point was around eighty,
sometimes seventy-nine, sometimes eighty-one, but no higher than
eighty-two. And Charlie thinks, right away, that the price is gonna
go up. Way up. Right through the rooftops he says. He wants to go
long and thinks we should join him for the ride. That makes sense. So
we put up ten million dollars and Charlie, I think, also puts up ten
million, and away we go. He was right. Coffee takes off."

"Coffee."

"Si. Coffee, what else."

I looked at Gene, which was a mistake. He was biting
his lip and shaking with suppressed laughter. When our eyes caught,
there was no holding it in and we cracked up. Hencio was totally
bewildered. Franco was Franco, stonefaced, implacable.

"Oh shit, go on, Hencio, tell us the rest,"
I said between giggles.

"Whatsammatta, whatsammatta, you laugh?"

"Just tell it," Franco said for me.

"OK. I'll go on. Coffee goes up over a dollar a
pound, then one dollar and fifty cents. Then two dollars. Who would
have conceived such a thing in '76? Nobody but Charles Goreman. At
two dollars fifty, my government gets very nervous. It is crazy. The
bottom has to fall out, they all say. Goreman says, 'No. It will keep
rising.'

"But those stupid maricones," he said,
still frustrated after all the years, "they don't believe
Charles Goreman. They order me to order him to take us out. We
started at eighty-two cents. At two dollars and fifty cents,
splitting the profit, we have made eight point four million, net.

"Goreman says, 'OK, I will take you out.' But he
is sure the market is going up. He stays in. With his money. And with
our money. The market tops out at three dollars and forty cents. I
think he got out, actually a little earlier, around three dollars and
thirty-two cents. An extra profit of eight point two million. And
just as if he had done what he was instructed, he credits us only
with the first eight point four, and keeps the difference."

"Is that it?" I asked.

"No!" he said in outrage. "It happens
all over again."

"On the way down," I guessed.

"Si. Yes. He says the market will take the nose
dive. I recommend very strongly that we listen to this man who has
been so right and that we go short with everything, eighteen point
four million."

"And Goreman," I said, catching on, "also
went in with the eight million he didn't mention, plus his legit
share."

"
Si. A total of about thirty-five million. It
goes back down to two hundred cents, and my government, they get
frightened and say to stop. Goreman says 'down, it's going down.' If
he says it, I believe him, but I must obey orders. I tell him 'take
us out.' He says 'OK,' but he keeps us in. It went all the way down
to one hundred sixty cents. Once again I am guessing. Goreman rode it
down to about one hundred sixty-eight cents, a penny less or more."

"So what happened?" I asked. "Did he
pay?"

"
Sure he paid. But only what it would have been
if he had followed instructions. Twenty-one million eight hundred
forty thousand dollars, that's the original ten plus half the profit.
That is very good, eleven point eight million profit on ten million.
But Mr. Goreman made thirty-two million three hundred thousand, net,
on our ten million."

"How did you find out?"

"Commodities is a small community, like
politics. I heard that Goreman's net was much, much higher than my
figures."

"So you tried to shake him down," I said.

"I went to New York City to discuss the
problem."

"Sure, what did you say?"

"I warned him that I would inform my government
and the agencies of regulation in the United States. There would be
an investigation and a lawsuit."

"What did Goreman say?"

"He said, 'I do not give a good goddamn what you
do. I am closer to your government than you are.' He said that I
would end up the scapegoat, I would end up barefoot, picking coffee
beans and stepping in burro shit."

I laughed.

"Then I told him he must take this seriously.
The Latin peoples are tired of being ripped off by Yankees and the
communism would make good propaganda from it."

"And?"

"He was not shaken. 'I do not care,' he said,
'if it brings down the whole damn country. And you know what, if it
does you will still be the one walking barefoot in burro shit.' But
then he smiles. He says, 'Hencio, you talked your government into
this,' which is very true. 'And everyone did very well, except you.
That is not right,' he said, and the next day he gave me one hundred
thousand dollars in cash."

"You're lying," I told him. Franco cocked
his gun.

"Yes, it was two hundred thousand dollars."

"Did Edgar Wood know about this?"

"I do not know."

"Is that why you were bugging his place?"

"Si. Yes. That is why."

"Did he talk about this deal?"

"No."

"
But you were afraid he would. And that's why
you killed him."

"No. No."

"You killed him. Didn't you Hencio? So you
wouldn't have to walk in burro shit."

"No. We did not," he whined.

"
Tell the truth, you lying little fuck. If you
hadn't done it, I would have had to. So if you did the job, you did
me a favor and you can clean up and go home."

"I . . . I didn't do it. We were very surprised.
This is the truth.
La verdad
."

"Sure," I shrugged. "He's yours,"
I said to Franco.

"Give it fifteen minutes so I can make sure I'm
seen somewhere else."

"Senor, mister, please. Please. I did nothing to
harm you."

"You lied to me, Hencio."

"No. I told you it all, everything as it was."

"OK, get out of here."

"What?" Hencio said.

"Out, get the fuck out of here," I yelled
at him. He was too out of it to move. Franco grabbed him by the
collar and heaved him up. Gene held the door open. Franco threw him
out.

"How are we gonna get the piss out of the
carpet?" I asked Gene.

"Don't worry about it, I'll call a cleaning
service."

"Right," I said. "Don't forget to mark
up the bill."

"I won't," he reassured me.

"There's something else," I said. "Do
you know any reporters who like to make fun of cops?"

"All of them," he said.

"I'm serious. I have this story about this crazy
cop, out in Virginia, who's running all over the county looking for a
lightning-struck tree by a babbling brook."
 

12
TRADING UP

WE FENCED FOR
the better
part of two hours, consuming the remains of the original bottle and
cracking open a second one before Mel Brodsky and I came to an
agreement to trade what I knew for what he had.

I had nothing to lose. He had two small children
upstairs, who, without knowing it, were depending on Daddy to keep
his job. So I asked him why he would do it at all.

"You know what they say, they say that when the
SEC goes to court, it's amateur hour."

"That bothers you?" I asked.

"The thing is, they're right. So I want to get
Over & East, show them a thing or two, and I'll do most anything
to do it."

"And then what?"

He looked at me as if the point were obvious. "Why
then, one of the pro scouts will notice me. They will pick up my
contract and I will get to play in the majors, for Douglas, Cohen, or
Choate, Winkler. I want to play pro law."