House Odds (13 page)

“Well, I knew they were lying to me, but it wasn’t just that. It was their goddamn attitudes. I mean, they were sorry Sweet died, but they weren’t about to admit they were responsible and maybe get into some kind of legal trouble. And because this was the year UVA was finally going to a bowl game, these guys thought they were king shit. They figured no matter what they’d done, the university was going to protect them—and it turned out they were right.

“But when they weren’t straight with me, I got pissed and arrested them. I slapped cuffs on them and charged them with drunk and disorderly, and then, just to get their attention, charged them with obstructing a homicide investigation and threw them into a cell. The obstruction charge was bullshit, but they were young, stupid, and drunk, and I figured if I scared them they’d come clean with me. All I wanted was the truth.”

“So, did they come clean with you?”

“No. The university, which is about the largest employer in Charlottesville, had a lawyer in my boss’s face twenty minutes after I arrested them. The lawyer made it clear that if I fucked up Rusty McGrath’s chances of playing in the Citrus Bowl, me and my boss should both start looking for new jobs. I mean, Campbell was just an average player, maybe below average, but Rusty McGrath was a big deal. Everybody knew he was gonna go pro, and the Cavaliers coach wanted that kid out of jail that night and ready for practice the next day. The lawyer said what happened to Sweet was just a tragic accident and I had no right to act like some kind of storm trooper, so my boss read me the riot act and I had to let them go before I found out what really happened. And it still pisses me off.”

“Why didn’t you arrest the third guy?”

“Because he was a fuckin’ basket case. He couldn’t stop crying and shaking and throwing up, and I couldn’t make any sense out of what he was saying. I mean, it looked to me like he was going into shock and I even asked one of the EMTs if he should give him a sedative or something. What I’m sayin’ is, this kid was so out of it, I didn’t even try to question him and focused totally on McGrath and Campbell. I probably would have gone back later and talked to him after he’d calmed down, but by then my boss had made it clear that if I did anything that screwed up UVA’s chances in that bowl game, I’d be handing out parking tickets for the rest of my career.”

“Was the third kid a football player, too?”

“No, he was just some little geek, and that’s the other reason I didn’t spend much time on him. He wasn’t big enough to toss Jimmy Sweet out a window. And if he’d been on the team, I’d probably be able to remember his name, which I can’t right now. But it was his room Sweet fell from, which also surprised me. I mean this kid—what the fuck was his name?—wasn’t the kind of guy these ball players would have hung around with.”

“Then why were they in his room?”

“According to McGrath—he’s the one who did all the talking—it was just your typical college dorm thing. You know, the kids are all drinking, going from room to room, bullshitting with each other, and somehow they just ended up in . . . Praeter! That was his name. Richard Praeter.”

* * *

DeMarco’s shoebox-size office—no windows, inadequate ventilation, and an air-conditioning system that hadn’t worked for years—was a place where he spent as little time as possible. A couple of years before, an earthquake had struck D.C.—one that measured 5.9 on the Richter scale and damaged the Washington Monument—and DeMarco had been in his office at the time. He was sure he was going to die that day. He knew the statue of Freedom on the Capitol’s dome—a statue that weighed fifteen thousand pounds—was going to plummet through the Rotunda’s painted ceiling, then through two floors, and land right on his head.

Since the quake he’d discovered that he couldn’t spend more than a couple of hours in his claustrophobic work space before he had to go out and gulp fresh air. He actually wondered if he had a minor case of PTSD, but he was too embarrassed to tell anyone for fear of sounding like a wimp. He walked outside and stood on the side of the Capitol facing the Library of Congress, and while standing there, began bullshitting with one of the guards, an old-timer named Leary. DeMarco dreaded to think that Leary and his brethren were the last line of defense protecting him from terrorists.

For some reason, he and Leary started talking about the Redskins. They didn’t agree on much but they did agree on one thing: Billy Kilmer may have been the best quarterback the Skins ever had. Kilmer had stumpy legs, a potbelly—in fact, he looked a bit like Leary—and he couldn’t run or throw for shit, but man, could he win games.

DeMarco returned to his office—like a reluctant mole descending into its burrow—and googled Richard Praeter. He was starting to think that he was like Billy Kilmer when it came to googling: slow, but he got the job done.

Richard Praeter lived in Manhattan.

Richard Praeter was a financial consultant.

DeMarco didn’t know exactly what a financial consultant did but he’d finally found somebody connected to Douglas Campbell who might know how to use inside information to make a lot of money. Which made him feel like saying something silly like “hidey-ho.”

So he did.

* * *

DeMarco spent another hour searching for more information on Praeter, trying to see if the magic Internet could link him directly to Reston Tech or past insider trading cases. The Internet failed. He needed Neil. He decided to call it a day and go someplace where there was air and sunlight, humans and alcohol—and maybe when he got there he’d call Alice’s good-looking friend—and that’s when Kay Kiser’s comment about Molly Mahoney popped into his head.

When he’d asked Kiser what motive Molly could possibly have for committing a crime, Kiser had said:
You need to get know your client a lot better, DeMarco
. What had she meant by that?

And then he thought about the way Molly lived.

And then he thought,
Aw, shit.

DeMarco called Mahoney’s office, obtained Molly’s Social Security number and date of birth from Mahoney’s secretary, then called the company that had performed the credit check on Douglas Campbell. He asked them to do a credit check on young Molly Mahoney.

Thirty minutes later he learned that Molly was in debt up to her pretty chin. She had four credit cards and every one of them was maxed out, and all she was doing was paying the minimum balance on the cards. She was frequently late paying her rent, her utilities, and her phone bill. And DeMarco now realized why she lived in a dump: a dump was all she could afford. Molly Mahoney’s motive for committing a crime wasn’t greed—it was
necessity
. If she didn’t get a large infusion of cash pretty soon, she was going to be living out of her car.

But what the hell had she spent the money on? He needed to get Molly’s credit card statements—or maybe just do the simple thing and ask the woman what the hell was going on.

He called Molly’s number and got her voice mail. “Molly, it’s Joe DeMarco. Call me as soon as you get this message.” He paused before he added, “Molly, you should have told someone.”

17

“Okay, okay. I’m coming, for Christ’s sake!”

Denny Reed was fifty-two. He was wearing sandals, black socks, blue Bermuda shorts, and a red sleeveless T-shirt that exposed two skinny arms. His ex-wife had told him one time that he shouldn’t wear sleeveless shirts because his arms looked like those tube-balloons street artists twisted into the shape of dachshunds. His ex was a vicious, sharp-tongued bitch.

Denny flung open the door, intending to say: “What the hell’s wrong with you, leaning on the fuckin’ buzzer like that,” but then he saw who was standing on his porch. “Oh, hey, Gus,” he said. “How you doin’? Good to see you. You wanna come in?”

Gus Amato stared at Denny for a long moment then snapped his gum, the sound like a twig being broken in two. “Sure, Denny, I’ll come in,” he said.

Gus strolled past Denny and then stood in the middle of his living room, looking around the house. The house was a two-story Cape Cod that faced the waters off Ocean City, New Jersey, and it contained hardly any furniture. The only items in the living room were a recliner, a cheap television set, and a TV tray that Denny used for a table. The dining room was completely empty, not even a picture on the walls. Denny had sold almost all his possessions at an impromptu yard sale one day so they wouldn’t repossess his car.

“You want something to drink?” Denny asked, speaking to Gus’s back. “I don’t have any booze but I got some Pepsi.”

Gus turned to face him. “I saw the sign on the lawn, Denny. I guess that means you still haven’t sold the house.”

“Yeah, but I will. I just need a little more time. I been thinking about switching real estate agents, getting somebody who really knows what the hell he’s doing.”

“This place has a mortgage on it, right?” Gus said.

“Yeah. It didn’t have one when I first moved in, but, well, you know.”

“So that means you gotta make a pretty good profit to get straight with us.”

“I will,” Denny said. “The market’s a little cool right now, but it’ll pick up. You just gotta give me . . .”

“How’d you get this house in the first place? I think you told me once but I can’t remember.”

“My brother,” Denny said. “It was his summer place. He was always such a prick to me, I couldn’t believe it when he left it to me in his will.”

Gus laughed. “He was probably a prick because you were always trying to borrow money from him.”

There wasn’t anything Denny could say to that.

Gus walked toward the kitchen, speaking as he went, Denny trailing along behind him. “How long were you in, the last time you were inside?”

“What?” Denny said. “You talking about prison?”

“Yeah. How long were you in last time?”

Denny’s kitchen cabinets, the ones above the counter, had glass doors, and the only items in them were two plates, three glasses, and a single coffee cup. Another glass and a coffee cup were in the sink. That was all the dishes Denny owned, and he wished the cabinets had regular doors so Gus couldn’t see his stuff.

“Eighteen months,” Denny said. “I mean, I never shoulda been there at all. This goddamn lawyer I had . . .”

“And why were you there? Something about credit cards, right? Getting credit card numbers off the Internet, something like that?”

“Yeah. I . . . I needed the money at the time.”

Gus laughed. “You fuckin’ guys. You just never learn.”

There wasn’t anything Denny could say to that either.

Gus opened Denny’s refrigerator. A half-empty jar of jelly, two cans of Pepsi, and a greasy bucket from KFC. He shook his head as if what he saw was pathetic, and closed the door.

“And you did your time in the joint okay?” Gus asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you didn’t go nuts, try to slash your wrists, nothin’ like that?”

“No.”

Gus smiled. “Which means you were probably someone’s bitch from the day you got there.”

“Hey! I wasn’t no one’s . . .”

“Denny, I don’t care. Inside, a guy does what he has to do. I’ve been there. I understand.”

“Why are you asking about . . .”

Gus took a step toward Denny, backing him up so his skinny butt was touching the stove. “Denny, Ted Allen has decided he’s gonna let you keep your house and . . .”

“What?”

“Mr. Allen’s gonna let you keep your house, Denny. He’s gonna write off what you owe him, including the vig, so you won’t have to sell the place.”

The vig was the interest Denny paid on the money he owed Ted Allen. The vig was murder, and about the same as the interest rate the bastards at Visa charged.

“Why would he do that?” Denny asked.

“Because you’re gonna do him a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

Gus told him.

“No way!” Denny said. “No fuckin’ way. Tell Mr. Allen I’ll sell the house next week. I swear to Christ, I will. And then I’ll be able to pay back everything.”

Gus nodded as if agreeing with Denny—then hit him in the throat, a short little jab, his right fist traveling only six inches.

Denny fell to the kitchen floor. He lay there, clutching his throat, kicking his feet, flopping like a trout out of water, saying “Gaa, gaa, gaa.” He couldn’t breathe and he was trying to get air into his lungs but was too panicked to relax and take short breaths.

Gus bent over so he was closer to Denny’s face.

“Denny,” Gus said, “when I said you were gonna do Mr. Allen a favor, I wasn’t asking
if you
wanted
to do it.”

18

Mahoney walked slowly down the Atlantic City boardwalk.

He walked past Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the place where the old Steel Pier used to be, and past souvenir stores that sold T-shirts and rubber dice and vendors hawking funnel cakes cooked in vats of grease. As he walked, garbage-eating seagulls scuttled out of his way. He passed one guy pulling a rickshaw that contained a couple too overweight to walk to the next all-you-can-eat casino buffet.