Gary Ponzo - A Touch of Deceit

Nick stared at the man. He thought about Skrugs and his deception. Had Nick underestimated the depth of the man’s betrayal? Had he actually allowed Kharrazi to wire his own office? Nick finally looked up and saw exactly what Gasper saw. The head of the sprinkler was covered with a tiny glass bulb. Behind it, a faint red light beamed its narrow beam of absorption. It never occurred to him to debug the Sheriff’s office, but someone like Gasper probably never entered a room without scanning for bugs.

Nick almost put his finger to his lips, then remembered who he was dealing with. He pulled his duffle bag onto the sheriff’s desk, unzipped a side pouch and produced a narrow metal cylinder topped off with a clear plastic ball. The ball was a gauge with the needle leaning up against the left side of the dial in the green zone. Nick crawled up on the desk and got to his feet. Before he moved the device even halfway toward the sprinkler, the needle was already buried deep into the red side of the gauge. Nick grabbed the sprinkler with his free hand and tugged hard. It came loose, but not completely unattached. He reached into his bag again and retrieved a Phillips screwdriver. A minute late he had loosened the casing that held the sprinkler in place and yanked down on the device. The sprinkler came free and Nick cursed as he unfurled the black cable that came rushing out of the ceiling behind the sprinkler head.

From below him he heard. “Am I good, or am I good?”

Nick looked into the tip of the cable and said, “You don’t know how much I learned from this little game, Kharrazi. Is this what your daddy used to do to you when you were a kid? Did he spy on you and watch you get undressed, you piece of shit?” He quickly clipped the cable with a wire cutter and rendered it useless. “You were right, Gasper. Fiber optics. State of the art video monitoring.” He waived his wire-tapping detector around the room and found no other devices. He would sweep the reception area as soon as he finished with Gasper.

Gasper’s chest heaved with pride while Silk maintained a steady grin.

“It’s a gift, really,” Gasper said. “Like when people can sense when they’re being watched. I can always tell where the wires are. Actually, I’m pretty good at both.”

Nick hopped down from the desk and returned his tools to his duffle bag. “All right, Gasper, we’re all clear. Tell me what you know.”

Gasper folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re Tommy Bracco’s cousin, huh?”

“That’s right,” Nick said.

“From whose side of the family?”

“Tommy’s dad is my father’s brother.” All male connections. Nick knew this would make Gasper happy.

Gasper nodded toward the ceiling. “Smart guy like you, how’d you let something like that get by you? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?”

“Listen,” Nick said with a tight, searing look of impatience. “I didn’t know about the wire because the Bureau didn’t put it there, someone who was trying to spy on us had it installed before we got here. Secondly, Tommy is my cousin, like a brother really. As kids we spent every summer day playing the ponies at Pimlico. I even lived at his house after my folks died.”

Nick gestured toward Silk. “Don must’ve told you that much already. He and Tommy have been best friends since grade school. The three of us were inseparable throughout high school.” Nick leaned forward, his arms flat on the desk in front of him. “I wear a size ten and a half shoe and a forty-two long suit jacket. What else can I tell you before we get down to business?”

Gasper nodded. “Of course. I got just one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to know what’s in it for me?”

Nick blinked a couple of times. “Tell me, Gasper. What do you want?”

Gasper shrugged. “Actually, nothing now that I’m thinking about it. I’m just in the habit of asking-wait a second, I know. I got a speeding ticket a couple of weeks back and I have to go to one of those safety-driving classes next month. You ever been to one of those things? Like going to a wake, only without the alcohol. Anyway, I’d like to get out of it without getting points on my driver’s license.”

“That’s it?” Nick asked.

“Believe me, that’s plenty.”

“Consider it done,” Nick pronounced. “Now can we get on with it?"

Gasper turned and gave Silk a hesitant glance and Silk nodded.

“Silk here says you can be trusted. He says that anything I tell you will stay inside of this room.”

Nick grimaced. “Are you going to be telling me anything about dead bodies that you may have contributed to?”

Gasper seemed appalled. “Of course not. I don’t even like the way you said that.”

Silk gave Gasper a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Gaspers runs book down in Scottsdale. Once a week he makes a trip up here to Payson. He simply brings Las Vegas to Arizona for people who don’t have the time to drive back and forth.”

“Sort of a public service,” Nick commented.

“Exactly,” Gasper said, appreciating Nick’s insight.

“The answer is yes,” Nick said. “Anything you tell me will be confidential and won’t go any further than this room.”

“Good,” Gasper said, settling back in his chair and pulling his white cuffs out from the sleeves of his double-breasted jacket. “So this customer of mine up here is the guy who got his head cut off. His name is Fred something,” Gasper snapped his finger a couple of times searching for the name.

“Fred Wilson,” Nick said.

“That’s it,” Gasper exclaimed. “Well, he makes an unusually large play on the Cowboys a few weeks back. He was bragging about some shady blasting cap deal he’d made with some foreigners. I’m guessing these are the type that could be used to blow up houses, if you get my drift. Anyway, a friend of his tells me that he suspected something fishy and warned Fred not to make the deal, but the money blinds Fred to the danger and he goes and does it anyway. So one day this friend is in the parking lot of Fred’s business when this one particular Arab-type walks out the front door in a hurry. This guy don’t like the way the Arab is acting, so he waits in his car until he’s gone before he goes in and finds the mess that he was afraid he’d find.”

“He’s the one who found Fred?”

Gasper nodded. “Headless. Like that horseman guy.”

Nick rubbed his temple. “And how does this help me?”

Gasper flashed a knowing smile. “Because he recognized the Arab. This guy is an aluminum siding salesman and he drove up to the Arab’s cabin once to try to sell him some siding. He remembers that the Arab chased him away. Very rudely, I might add.”

Now Nick was interested. Since Rashid Baser killed Fred Wilson, he had to be the Arab this guy was speaking of. There’s no question Rashid would have been staying at the headquarters before he took a revenge bullet from one of Sal’s crew. “So he knows where the Arab lives?”

“Yeah.”

“And this is the same guy who killed Fred?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s his name?”

Gasper spread his arms with his palms up. “See, I’m not real good with names. Faces and numbers are really my strong suit.”

“You don’t know his name?” Nick asked.

“I think it was something religious, like Moses, or Peter, or Paul.”

“Paul? Religious?”

“What, you don’t know the Apostles?”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Gasper. All this and no name?”

“Well, I can tell you where he hangs out.”

“Where?”

“The Winchester. A bar over on Main Street. He’s some kind of a pool shark. I do a lot of business down there.”

Nick went to the door and called Jennifer Steele into the office, then closed the door behind her. She wore a borrowed FBI windbreaker and had on her black baseball cap minus the ponytail. If she were bald and wore a lavender sports jacket it wouldn’t have detracted from her looks.