House Odds (25 page)

Benedetto shrugged. “Maybe. Why you askin’?”

“I just need to know about him. And I need to know who his boss is.” Seeing that this explanation was insufficient, DeMarco added, “He’s gotten himself mixed up in something that I don’t think his boss would like.”

“You tryin’ to do his boss a favor or something?”

“No, I’m trying to do
my
boss a favor, and to do that I need to know who Ted works for.”

Benedetto mulled this over for a moment, concluded the truth wouldn’t hurt him, and said, “He works for Al Castiglia, down in Philly. Ted was a kid, just out of high school, and he impressed Al some way. Plus, I heard Al had something goin’ on with Ted’s mom at the time. Anyway, the next thing you know, Ted’s in college and after that he’s working for Al, first in Vegas, then in Philly, now in AC. He makes a good front man and so far he has a clean record. But I’ll tell you something. He may look like an Ivy League frat boy, but he’s a vicious little bastard.”

“You know this for a fact?”

Benedetto shrugged. “Just things I’ve heard, rumors of stuff he’s pulled.”

“Tell me about Castiglia. What kind of guy is he? What’s he into these days other than the casino with Allen?”

Benedetto stared at him for a second, then said, very softly, “Are you wearing a wire?”

“What! Hell, no,” DeMarco said. He stood up, took off his suit coat and turned in a circle so Benedetto could see his back. “You want me to strip down?”

“Nah, that’s okay, you wouldn’t do something that dumb.” Benedetto paused then said, “What’s Al like? Well, I guess he’s like me. He pulled a bunch of cowboy shit in the old days, like a guy does when he’s trying to get to the top, but now he’s an old man. And he saw how the FBI got almost everybody up here in New York, everybody rattin’ everybody else out, so he’s learned to stay a couple steps removed from anything that could land him in the can. I mean, if people are selling dope in Philly and ripping shit off, Al might get a piece, but you won’t see him anywhere near a dope deal. But mostly, he’s legit. He’s got apartment buildings filled with people who pay their rent, a piece of a cement company, a couple restaurants, and a trucking company that probably carries some stuff it shouldn’t carry, but he’s careful about that. Then there’s the casino. I know he gets a slice of that—I know because Ted Allen works for him—but you won’t find his name on anything connected to the casino and you won’t find a money trail leading back to him. So, I guess you’d say he’s just a businessman—like me—but that don’t mean he won’t cut your fuckin’ head off if you mess with him.”

“What about insider trading? Do you think Castiglia might get involved in something like that?”

“Insider trading. That’s the most bullshit crime they ever came up with. There’s always somebody on the inside that makes money because he knows things the yahoos on the outside don’t know. That’s business.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” DeMarco said. There was no point having a discussion with Tony Benedetto on the ethics of insider trading. “But is that the kind of thing Castiglia would do?”

“I doubt it. Something like that would be too far out of Al’s comfort zone. I mean, insider trading’s a Wall Street crime. Now, those are the real fuckin’ criminals. Those guys rip off billions and you never see any of them in the can. And how come the fuckin’ RICO laws don’t apply to them?”

Sheesh.
Even the Mafia hated the crooks on Wall Street. Or maybe they were just jealous of them.

“Anyway, why are you asking about Al and insider trading?”

“Because,” DeMarco said, “his boy Ted is an accomplice in an insider trading swindle, and the SEC and the Department of Justice and one really pissed off politician might be coming after him. And I’m starting to think that Al doesn’t know what Ted did.”

DeMarco thought this because Ted was so desperate to get back the half million that the government had confiscated. If Al Castiglia knew what he was doing, he probably would have just written off the loss in return for Mahoney’s help on the convention center project.

“What do you think Castiglia would do,” DeMarco asked, “if Ted got involved in something like that without getting his approval?”

“Didn’t I mention something about Al cutting people’s heads off? Well, that wasn’t a metaphor.”

DeMarco couldn’t believe the old goombah had just said
metaphor
.

36

The main reason Emma had agreed to help DeMarco was that the weather forecasters were predicting heavy rains the next few days, and rain would interfere with the things she was planning to do in her yard.

And she was bored.

But she knew DeMarco was holding something back from her—and when she found out what it was, she was going to wring his thick neck. She didn’t buy the story that some congressman was trying squeeze Mahoney. Well, she did buy it in the sense that she knew Mahoney was an unscrupulous bastard, so she wouldn’t be surprised if another unscrupulous bastard had uncovered some shady thing that Mahoney had done and was now trying to exploit the situation. The part she didn’t buy was that whatever was going on wasn’t in some way related to Molly Mahoney. Mahoney would have wanted DeMarco completely focused on his daughter’s problems, and not off pursuing some other issue. But then again, maybe not. Mahoney was so self-centered that maybe he was looking out for Number One as usual, and allowing his daughter’s problems to take a backseat. Whatever the case, she knew DeMarco wasn’t telling her everything.

Regarding Molly, Emma did feel sorry for the young woman. She didn’t know her, but she believed that DeMarco was probably right and that she hadn’t committed a crime. Emma was also intrigued by Richard Praeter’s death, wondering if the New York cops had gotten it wrong and if a murder had actually occurred.

Murder wasn’t boring.

* * *

If either Campbell or McGrath had killed Praeter, they had to get to Manhattan. In Campbell’s case, it was only a four-hour drive from Chevy Chase, Maryland, to New York. He could have left his office at five p.m. and been in New York by nine or ten. He would have had plenty of time to meet Praeter, get a few drinks into him, convince Praeter to take him to his office, and, at approximately one a.m., toss Praeter out a window. Then, if he left immediately after Praeter died, Campbell could have been back at his desk in Maryland the next day, tired but on time for work.

For McGrath it was harder. It was a twelve-hour drive from Myrtle Beach to New York. She went online and saw that an outfit called Spirit Airlines had two-hour nonstop flights from New York to Myrtle Beach, which would make things easier, but flying left an electronic trail. That is, there would be a trail if McGrath flew commercial but not if he chartered a private plane or had a pilot’s license and had his own plane. Shit. She needed Neil.

If Campbell had driven to New York, she knew from her own experience that it was difficult to drive there from Maryland without going on toll roads, and if Campbell had an EZ-Pass tag on his car, there would be a record of him paying the tolls. But she had no way to find out if he’d paid the tolls without access to EZ-Pass’s computers. Likewise for McGrath. Neil could have told her if he’d taken a commercial flight or charged a charter flight to a credit card—but Neil wasn’t available.

She thought for a moment then called a man who had once worked for her at the Pentagon and had later transferred to Homeland Security. She asked him to do her a favor and check with TSA to see if McGrath had taken a flight to New York. She also asked him to flex a little muscle and ask the FAA if McGrath had a pilot’s license; post 9/11, Homeland Security asking about pilot’s licenses was not unusual. Half an hour later he called back and said
no
on all counts. McGrath didn’t have a license and he hadn’t taken a commercial flight to New York.

So now what should she do? DeMarco felt that of the two men, McGrath was the more likely murderer. He said McGrath gave off a “vibe”—whatever the hell that meant—and that Campbell struck him as being too soft to kill a man. She had no idea if DeMarco was right, but for now she’d trust him, and focus on McGrath. Which meant that what she probably should do next is take a trip to Myrtle Beach and see if she could find out where McGrath was the night Praeter died—but she wasn’t sure she felt like doing that.

Then raindrops began to pelt her kitchen window and she said out loud, “Oh, what the hell.”

* * *

It was a seven-hour drive from McLean, Virginia, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A commercial flight would take four hours because there were no nonstop flights from D.C. A private plane, however, could make the trip in an hour or two.

Which meant that Emma was going to have to risk her life.

A man she’d known for years—he flew jets for the Navy in his twenties—had a Cessna he co-owned with two buddies. He didn’t, however, have the money to fly as often as he wanted, and if Emma would pay for the fuel and airport fees, he’d take her anywhere she wanted to go. The problem was that he was no longer in his twenties. He was seventy-two. His eyesight was still good and he was in great shape for a guy his age, but still. . . .

“Ed, I need a ride to Myrtle Beach,” Emma said when she called him. “Would you mind giving me a lift?”

“Hell, yeah,” Ed said. “When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as you can gas up your plane.” Then she thought about the rain. “I mean, I’d like to leave right away, but if the weather . . .”

“Oh, this is nothing,” Ed said. “I’ve flown in weather a hundred times worse than this.”

Yeah, when you were twenty-six, wearing a parachute, and flying a multimillion-dollar military jet.

* * *

Lyle Wallace, Chief of Police in Myrtle Beach, hung up the phone and nodded to Emma. “Well, sister,” he said, “according to Captain Sutter you can walk on water and play the banjo at the same time. He said if I didn’t help you, he might fly down here and give me a whuppin’. So ask your questions.”

Captain Sutter was the ex-military NYPD detective Emma had spoken to in New York about Praeter’s death, and she asked Wallace to call him, knowing Sutter would verify who she was and convince Wallace to cooperate. She doubted, however, that Wallace was worried about anyone giving him “a whuppin’.” He was about the size of a refrigerator.

“It’s like I told you, Chief. I just want to know what you can tell me about Rusty McGrath.”

Wallace grimaced, as though the topic was painful. “Ol’ Rusty,” he said. “Well, mostly what I can tell you is that the man’s life seems to be devoted to women and play. He’s made a hell of a swath through the ladies down here, both the married and the unmarried. And a couple husbands have gotten downright irate with Rusty, and that’s always turned out bad for the husbands.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen Rusty?” Wallace asked.

“Not yet,” Emma said.

“He played linebacker in the pros for a while, and he looks like he could still play the position. He lifts weights, jogs, works out. Anyway, a couple of men have taken, ah,
umbrage
at Rusty screwing their wives, and Rusty beat the hell out of them. He didn’t start the fights; he just sat there goading these guys on, telling ’em how fine their wives were in the sack, until they took a swing at him. Then he mops up the floor with the poor bastards. I’ll tell you another thing about Rusty, and he and I have had words over this. You know about the big biker week we have down here?”

“No,” Emma said.

“Every spring we get a couple hundred thousand bikers down here. Most of ’em are just good ol’ boys in their forties or fifties who want to pretend they’re Hell’s Angels for a week. I mean you gotta have a pretty good-payin’ job to afford the motorcycles these boys drive, so most of them are just workin’ stiffs who like to ride. Anyway, every spring, for a full week, the town’s full of bikers, raisin’ hell and drinkin’ too much—and every year, regular as salmon spawning, Rusty picks a fight with one of them. He’ll go to a bar, pick out a good-size guy, and stare at his woman or kid the guy about being a pussy dressed in leather, and the guy’ll be forced to take on Rusty to salvage his pride. And just like with those husbands, Rusty cleans the poor bastard’s clock. If it happened once, I could understand it, but like I said, it happens every year. It’s like Rusty just likes to stay in practice puttin’ the hurt on people. I told him if it happens next year, I’m gonna put his ass in jail for assault even if I have to lie about the charges.”

“What does he do when he’s not beating people up?”

“He plays. Goes to ball games, cruises around in that big boat he lives on, hunts, rides ATVs, fishes. Hell, the man just plays. He says he’s some kind of investor and that’s where his money comes from, but I’m not sure he’s telling the truth.”

“Why’s that?”

“I know some guys here, smart guys, businessmen, bankers, those sorts of people. These guys have talked to Rusty about stocks and bonds and such, asking him for advice I guess, and a couple of them have told me that he just doesn’t sound too sharp on the subject. Maybe he’s just being cagey, playing his cards close to his vest, but the banking guys don’t think so.
I
thought he might have been bringing in dope on that boat of his, so, since he pisses me off, I had one of my narcs tail him off and on for a month. Nada.”