House Odds (35 page)

DeMarco didn’t know how much she could get for the house; it was a big house with a great view. Maybe it would sell for enough to pay off everything Molly owed, including the five hundred grand that belonged to Castiglia and that had been frozen by the Justice Department. But since Mary Pat didn’t know that Molly had lost half a million dollars of the Mob’s money, that wasn’t included in her calculations.

“Mary Pat, does your husband know you’re planning to sell the house?”

“No. I just decided this morning.”

And DeMarco could tell from her tone of voice that it was pretty clear that whatever Mahoney wanted at this point didn’t matter.

“Mary Pat, please listen to me. Don’t put the house on the market yet. Just wait awhile.”

Mary Pat looked at him sharply, catching something in his tone.

“Joe, are you and John keeping something from me?”

DeMarco, for some absurd reason, placed his hand over his heart when he lied. “I swear, Mary Pat, I’m not keeping anything from you.”
Your husband is.
“I’m just saying wait a few days before you do anything. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now, and it would be better if you waited a bit.”

“Okay, but after this is all over,” Mary Pat said, “I’m taking Molly someplace to heal. My daughter will survive this.”

Neither Molly nor Mahoney deserved this woman.

* * *

DeMarco sat in the Sheraton’s bar drinking orange juice until people started coming out of the dining room. Above the double doors to the dining room was a twenty-foot banner, and printed on the banner in letters two feet high were the words:
LEGISLATION FOR LIFE
. Congressman Robert Fairchild was the breakfast speaker for the first day of the conference.

About fifty people walked out of the room before DeMarco saw Fairchild. He was talking to an evangelical minister with a growing reputation. DeMarco—not a big fan of television preachers—hated to admit it, but he liked the minister. He saw him on a talk show one day, promoting a book he’d just written, and the guy came across as intelligent, good-humored, and genuinely filled with compassion for his fellow man. DeMarco waited until the minister and Fairchild separated before he approached Fairchild.

“Congressman,” he said, “I need to speak with you.”

Fairchild gave DeMarco the insincere smile he used for nobodies who were potential voters. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but I need to get back to the Capitol.”

“John Mahoney sent me. To talk to you about Melinda Stowe.”

“Who?” Fairchild said. He might have pulled off the lie if his head had not been spinning about to see if anyone was near him.

“Melinda Stowe, Congressman, a woman with a story to tell.”

“I’m sorry, but . . .”

“This conference, Legislation for Life? Is there going to be a panel discussion on the need for a law against shooting people in the back? Oh, wait a minute. There’s already legislation covering that.”

“Keep your voice down!” Fairchild said.

Actually DeMarco had barely spoken loud enough for Fairchild to hear him. “Yes, sir,” he said, “but we need to find a place to talk. The bar’s practically empty. How about over there?”

“I’m not going to have anyone see me sitting in a bar at nine in the morning,” Fairchild said.

Geez. “What about my car then?” DeMarco said. “It’s in the garage, in the basement.”

“No,” Fairchild said. “I have no idea who you are and I’m not going to . . .”

“Then what about the lobby of the
Washington Post
? Just pick a damn spot.”

Fairchild made an irritated motion for DeMarco to follow him and walked back inside the conference room where the attendees had just eaten breakfast. Waiters were clearing tables and there was one small group of women sitting at one table chatting, but the room was otherwise empty. Fairchild led DeMarco to a table as far away from the women as they could get and sat down.

“What do you want?” Fairchild said. “If Mahoney thinks he can blackmail me . . .”

The irony that Fairchild was blackmailing Mahoney apparently escaped him.

“Listen to this, Congressman,” DeMarco said.

DeMarco took out a small tape recorder and hit the play button.

“This is Melinda Stowe speaking, Bob. I’m sorry, but this fella’s got me over a barrel. So if you don’t do what he wants, I’m gonna have to tell what really happened in that alley all those years ago.”

“I know who that woman is now,” Fairchild said. “And she’s lying. She . . .”

“Congressman, I don’t care. But you are going to quit twisting Mahoney’s nuts over his daughter’s gambling problem. You will also have a talk with Preston Whitman explaining to him how his discretion in this matter will be greatly appreciated. You need to be very convincing when you talk to Whitman.”

“Who the hell are you?” Fairchild said.

“Now if by some chance a reporter was to ask Mahoney about his daughter’s gambling or finds out that her marker has been canceled by the casino, regardless of who leaked the information to the press, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to introduce Melinda Stowe to the media.”

“I think I’ve seen you around the Capitol,” Fairchild said, his small eyes narrowing.

“Yes, sir,” DeMarco said, “you may have. I have an office in the subbasement next to the janitors, and I do pretty much the same thing they do: I take out the garbage.”

51

Setting up a meeting between a gangster and the highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives was a pain in the ass.

The two men couldn’t be seen together and the meeting had to be conducted in such a manner that both men would be satisfied that their discussion wasn’t being filmed or recorded. Castiglia had assigned his man, Delray, to assist DeMarco in this task and it was Delray who came up with the meeting place. Other protocols for the meeting, such as the time and the right to come armed and methods to be used to ensure privacy, were then discussed and settled upon. By the end of it all, DeMarco felt like the guy in charge of setting up the conference room for the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War.

DeMarco picked up Mahoney at his condo at the Watergate at nine p.m., and the first thing Mahoney did was light a cigar, ensuring that the odor inside DeMarco’s Toyota would never be the same no matter how many of those little cardboard pine trees he hung from the mirror. Next he bitched that the seats didn’t go back far enough and then started punching buttons on the radio, screwing up all of DeMarco’s preset stations.

An hour later they arrived at a small fitness center in Havre de Grace, Maryland. One car was already there, and five minutes later two other cars drove into the lot. DeMarco exited his car and Delray stepped out of the car that carried Castiglia. From the third car stepped a middle-aged guy wearing glasses and a little flat cap. From the fourth vehicle emerged a slender, narrow-shouldered black man with rust-colored dreadlocks. The black man was Bobby Prentiss, Neil’s assistant.

Bobby and the guy in the flat cap were each holding small suitcases and they proceeded into the building together. DeMarco and Delray stood side by side, saying nothing. DeMarco noted that Delray was wearing his sunglasses in spite of the hour; he wondered if the glasses were really night-vision goggles. Fifteen minutes later, Bobby and flat cap exited the building. Bobby nodded to DeMarco and flat cap nodded to Delray, then both men got into their cars and drove away.

The meeting place had just been declared bug-free.

Mahoney exited DeMarco’s car. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants, and moccasins without socks. Castiglia was attired in a similar manner, in a jogging suit and flip-flops. Mahoney and Castiglia went into the building and proceeded to the locker room with Delray and DeMarco following, then Mahoney and Castiglia stripped off their clothes and walked into the steam room.

The sight of the two men—both overweight and elderly—waddling naked to the steam room was almost comical.

* * *

“Is it too hot in here for you?” Castiglia said.

“Nah, feels good,” Mahoney responded.

“So. You think you got an idea where we both get what we want.”

“Yeah. And what I want is that my daughter doesn’t go to jail and that Ted Allen never gets his hooks into her or me again.”

“Then give me the money,” Castiglia said, “and that guy Denny Reed takes the fall for your daughter.”

“No. I don’t want this thing going to trial and I don’t trust Reed not giving everything up at some point. Denny didn’t strike me as a guy you can rely upon.”

Castiglia laughed. “So what’s your idea?” he said.

Mahoney told him, and when he finished, Al Castiglia saw John Mahoney in a totally different light.

“How much money are we talking about?” Castiglia said.

“I don’t know for sure, at least a couple million, but probably a whole lot more. Like maybe ten or twenty million more.”

“What about the convention center?”

“You give that up. I mean, I don’t care if you get the thing built, but you do it without my help. And one thing you have to realize, is it could take years to make that happen. We don’t work all that fast in Washington and there are a lot of variables that nobody can control, not even me. But if you want to pursue it with the Jersey delegation, I don’t give a shit. I just won’t help.”

Castiglia sat there a moment, looking at Mahoney, then he got up and poured water over the heated rocks in the corner of the steam room. The water hissed and steam bellowed out and both men winced as hot, wet air seared their lungs.

Castiglia sat back down on the bench and said, “You know, when I was young, moving up in the outfit, I didn’t mind all the shit that went with the job. But now, at my age, I just wanna take it easy. I don’t really need to get any richer, and I sure as hell don’t need to get cross-wired with you and the Feds.”

Mahoney nodded; he knew what the mobster meant. At a certain stage of life, enough was enough, and peace of mind was more important than wealth or power. Mahoney had almost reached that point himself. Almost.

“So, we got a deal?” Mahoney said.

“Yeah, we got a deal.”

Mahoney sat back and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel good about what he’d just done, but he was relieved.

“I think I’m just gonna sit here for a while,” Castiglia said. “This steam feels good.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mahoney said. “Sweat out some of the booze.”

Castiglia laughed. “How many kids you got?” he asked after a moment.

“Three,” Mahoney said. “All girls. Molly’s my middle daughter.”

“I got two, a boy and a girl. My boy, he’s a veterinarian, if you can believe it. Lives out west in some town that don’t have four hundred people in it. He fixes sheep and pigs and shit. But he’s a good kid. I’m proud of him. Now, my daughter, that’s a whole different story. That girl . . .”

52

“Be in your office at ten,” McGruder said. “And make sure Gus is with you.”

“I don’t work for you, you hog-faced son of bitch!” Ted screamed into the phone, but McGruder had already hung up—and Ted knew it.

Now what? What had McGruder found out now?

* * *

Ted tried not to react when he saw that Delray was with McGruder, but he was pretty sure he failed. And with Delray was another guy, Billy something, a total fuckin’ lunatic. Delray normally worked alone but when he needed an extra pair of hands—or an extra gun—Billy was the one who helped him. This wasn’t good.

Ted had heard a story about Billy. He’d been sent to collect from a guy who owed Al a couple grand, and that same day Billy had seen a movie where a gangster held some deadbeat out a window, threatening to drop him if he failed to pay. So that’s what Billy did with Al’s deadbeat—except his hands slipped. Billy said, “Oops,” when the guy fell five floors and landed on his head. Al wasn’t amused, however, as you couldn’t get money from a dead man, and he took the money out of Billy’s salary.

McGruder sat down in the chair in front of Ted’s desk, his wide butt filling up the seat.

“I told you to have Gus here,” McGruder said.

“He’s on his way. Why? What’s going on?”

Gus Amato rushed into the office. “Hey, sorry I’m late. Some doofus electrician’s got the elevators all fucked up.”

Billy laughed when he saw Gus. McGruder didn’t. He rose from his chair with some effort and walked over to Gus. “Goddamn,” he said. “Just look at you. I mean, just
look
at you! That fuckin’ earring, those stupid fuckin’ boots. You look like a goddamn fag that escaped from a rodeo.”

“I just like . . .”

“What if you had to do a job? Huh?” McGruder said. “What if you had to pop somebody? I can just see it, this witness sayin,’ ‘Yes, officer, it was this nappy-haired sissy wearing white fuckin’ boots who did it.”

“Hey, I ain’t no sis—”

“Shut up!” McGruder screamed.

While McGruder was talking to Gus, Delray had been walking around Ted’s office. He was now standing behind Ted, looking at the framed UNLV diplomas hanging on the wall. Ted looked back at him once, not liking Delray behind him, then tried to ignore him.