Popped Off (12 page)

Authors: Jeffrey Allen

BOOK: Popped Off

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“You mentioned these girls the other day,” I said after our plates had been cleared and our coffee cups had been refilled. “Who exactly are they?”

Elliott leaned into the table. “They are the ones who have Moises.”

“You’re sure?” Victor asked.

Elliott nodded. “I’m sure. They are evil, evil girls.”

“Are they, like, his bookies or something?” I asked.

Elliott held a finger to his lips, indicating I was speaking too loudly. Then he nodded. “Yes. They are the ones who handle his bets.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“They are all young and pretty and act very nice,” Elliott said, sneering, like he smelled something awful. “But you better believe they are nothing like that.”

“Who are they?” I asked again.

Elliott set his jaw. “College girls.”

I looked at Victor, and then we both burst out laughing. I wasn’t sure what I expected to hear, but it certainly wasn’t that. I couldn’t even conjure up the image.

“I’m serious,” Elliott said after our laughter died off. “Students. In a sorority at SMU.”

I looked at Victor again, and we laughed even harder this time.

A look of annoyance took up residence on Elliott’s face. “You don’t believe me.”

“What’s the name of the sorority?” Victor asked. “We Takka Bets?”

I laughed and we high-fived.

Elliott’s face reddened. “I am not making this up. They are the ones responsible for my cousin’s gambling debt and the ones holding him hostage.”

“I can think of much worse places to be held hostage,” Victor said and then dissolved into a fit of giggles again.

Elliott looked at me. “The room he was in yesterday? What did it look like to you?”

I thought back to Moises’s face on the computer screen. The white headboard. The baton.

“A girl’s room,” I said, glancing at Victor.

Elliott nodded. “Yes. Exactly. Because it was.”

“Are you really trying to tell us he’s being held against his will in a sorority house?” I asked.

Elliott sighed, irritated and frustrated. “Look, I don’t know all the details, all right? But I do know that they are holding him against his will and that they are the ones he owes money to. You can believe me or not, but it’s true. And the stories he’s told me? These are not normal college girls.” He shook his head. “Not normal at all.”

Victor was still giggling, but I was starting to feel bad. Elliott was clearly telling us what he believed to be the truth. As absurd as it sounded, there was something there that made him believe it was fact.

“Do you know how Moises got hooked up with them?” I said. “How he started placing bets with them?”

Elliott shook his head. “No. I’m not sure how it started.”

“What did he bet on?”

“Everything.”

“Sports?”

“All sports. Even the kids’ sports.”

“Kids’ sports?”

“The soccer program he is in charge of?” Elliott nodded. “He was betting on those games.”

I felt like my head was going to explode.

“He was betting on kids’ soccer games?” I asked, making sure I heard him correctly.

“Yes. He thought he could make a fortune on them since he ran the league and knew all the coaches and players and teams. But turns out it was hard.”

No kidding. I thought of all the different things that affected Carly’s team. Lack of sleep. Appetite. The weather. Planes overhead. There was no possible way to find any consistency in little kids. Betting on those games seemed like suicide.

And who in their right mind
took
bets on those games? Who set the lines?

“The sorority,” Elliott said, reading my mind. “They set it all up.”

I looked at Victor. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Victor just shook his head, unsure what to think.

“And there is something else,” Elliott said.

“Of course there is,” Victor said.

Elliott focused on me now that I seemed to be the one who was trying to take him seriously.

“When Moises’s debt started to grow and it became obvious he couldn’t pay it,” Elliott said, “they asked him to start doing things.”

“Doing things?” I asked.

“Illegal things.”

I let out a long, deep breath. “All right. What kind of illegal things?”

Elliott again leaned into the table. “Smuggling.”

“I think I’ve officially heard it all now,” Victor muttered. “Really.”

Elliott set his eyes on me. “You asked me about the trophies yesterday. You remember?”

“I remember.”

“Those are what he is using now to smuggle.”

“The trophies?”

Elliott nodded.

“What trophies?” Victor asked. “I’m lost.”

I quickly explained the missing soccer trophies to him.

“These girls,” Elliott said, “they are serious business. They are organized, and they know what they are doing. I think they finally just decided that they no longer trusted my cousin, and decided to hold him until he paid what he owed them.” He shook his head. “And you can laugh all you want, but they are capable of many bad things.”

I was trying to take him seriously. The things he was talking about—gambling, smuggling, kidnapping—were the things you tied to organized crime or gangs. It was difficult to place the faces of a sorority on those things.

But there was something sincere in Elliott now that I had either missed or ignored the previous day. I wasn’t sure he had all his facts right, but I believed that he thought he was telling the truth.

“They will hurt me if they know I’m talking to you,” Elliott said. “I know this.”

I nodded. “Okay. All right. We’ll see if we can protect you.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Victor said. “I wanna hear more about these trophies.”

“I don’t know all the details,” Elliott said. “This was the first time he had to do that.”

“So what was he doing with them?” I asked.

“He was hiding the stuff in the trophies,” Elliott said. “I’m not sure what the plan was from there, but he had to fill up the trophies.”

“Fill up?” I asked.

“The girls,” he said. “With stuff that they sell.”

“Drugs?” Victor asked.

“Yes, I suppose that’s what you’d call it.”

“You suppose?” Victor said. “They are either drugs or they ain’t, pal.”

“Yes, it was drugs,” Elliott said. “But not what you are thinking. You are thinking cocaine or marijuana or something like that, right?”

Victor and I both nodded.

“Not those kinds of drugs,” Elliott said.

“What kind then?” I asked.

Elliott leaned into the table. “Viagra.”

“I don’t know what they do with it,” Elliott said as we walked out of the diner. “But that’s what he had to pick up.”

“Where?” I asked.

“He had to go down to Mexico,” Elliott said. “He filled the trophies with the pills.”

“Did you go with him?” Victor asked.

“No. He wouldn’t let me.”

“Do you know where the trophies are?” I asked.

Elliott shook his head.

I looked at Victor. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Me, either,” Victor said. “Me, either.”

“So you won’t help us?” Elliott said.

“I didn’t say that,” I said, before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

“We’ll discuss it,” Victor said, giving me a pointed look.

I ignored him. “You were able to contact Moises yesterday on Skype.”

“Yes.”

“Can you contact . . . the girls?” I asked.

He looked suddenly uncomfortable, like ants had made their way up his pants. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“See if you can,” I said. “I’d like to go meet with them.”

“We’ll discuss it,” Victor growled.

“I’m not sure you want to do that,” Elliott said. “I am not lying about them. My cousin has told me many stories.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I told him.

“We’ll discuss it,” Victor yelled, tired of being ignored.

“After we discuss it,” I said.

“I am unsure what to do now,” Elliott said.

“Go home,” I said.

“I’m not staying at home. For a lot of reasons. I’m at the barn.”

“Then go back there. We’ll be in touch later today. I promise.”

He shook hands with each of us and walked down the block, disappearing around the corner.

“You can’t honestly be serious,” Victor immediately said.

“About?”

“About taking this nutcase on.”

“Why is he a nutcase?”

His eyes bulged. “Hello? Did you not just hear his story?”

“I heard it.”

“Then you have to know he’s off his rocker.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“So you think his cousin is being held captive by some rebel, machine gun–wielding college sorority?”

“He didn’t say anything about guns.”

“That was about the only thing he
didn’t
mention.”

“Right. So they aren’t that bad.”

“You’re insane.”

Maybe I was. I wasn’t sure. Or maybe I just felt bad for the way I had treated Elliott the day before. Or maybe I was just curious. I didn’t know. But I’d walked out of the diner wanting to help him.

“So don’t help me,” I said. “I’ll take him on. You don’t have to.”

“Oh, please. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, big boy.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Victor rolled his eyes. “Let’s pretend for a second I let you do this. . . .”

“I don’t need your permission.”

“The heck you don’t,” he said, pointing a stubby finger at me. “We have a partnership.”

He had me there. Our agreement was that we had to agree on what cases we took on. Neither of us had challenged that. Yet.

“So, let’s say I let you have at this,” Victor repeated. “You wanna know why I’m most concerned about this?”

“You’ll miss the sale on jeans at the Children’s Place?”

He sighed, not even bothering to get mad. “It’s the casino.”

“The casino?”

“That kook said he took the money from the casino. He admitted it.”

“I know. I heard him.”

“That ain’t like stealing from some regular guy, Deuce,” Victor said. “This is a whole ’nother thing.”

I thought about my night at the casino, how quick they were to approach me, how quick they were to take me down. And how quick they were not to apologize for coming after me.

“Now, I’m not talking Vegas and mob men and all that,” Victor said. “But they play by different rules. They will get their money back, one way or another. You don’t steal money from casinos. You just don’t.”

“So maybe we can get the money back to them.”

Victor squinted at me, like he’d never seen me before. “You think it’s just sitting in a paper bag somewhere and you’re gonna find it?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re more insane than that kook.”

“Maybe.”

“And what? When you find it, you’re just gonna walk it back to the casino?”

“No. I’ll drive.”

“I’m not screwing around, Deuce.”

I knew he wasn’t, and I wasn’t just blowing him off. But I felt like I’d already started the process of trying to help all these people in my life, and I didn’t feel much like quitting on them just because it was getting a bit sticky. I wasn’t disregarding Victor’s ideas, but I wasn’t ready to just bail on the whole thing.

“Let me poke around a little more,” I said.

Victor frowned. “At least now you’re asking me.”

“Yes. I am. We’re partners.”

“Now you’re just sucking up.”

“Maybe. But let me do a little more work, and we’ll see what turns up.”

He stared at me for a moment, then threw his tiny hands up in the air. “Fine. But you got a short leash.”

I started to say something, but he held up a hand.

“Yeah, I know what I just said,” he said, stomping away. “Yuk, yuk, yuk, you big oaf.”