“And it’s illegal.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you not only know about it, but when and where it happens.”
“Yes.”
“And you—both of you—allow it?”
“It’s complicated,” Dane said. August pulled a swig of Sprite through a pinstriped straw. Roselita waited for a real answer, decided she wasn’t going to get one, and moved on. “So. Cockfighting?”
“Yes,” Dane said, and took a deep breath. He knew how it must sound to a cop like Velasquez in a city like Jacksonville, and her reaction was typical and anticipated.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said. “This is why you’re here? That’s why Geoff got sidelined? Because you’re the GBI’s resident cockfighting expert?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m an expert.”
Roselita turned away and ran her hands through her hair. It fell right back into place as if it hadn’t been touched. “This cannot really be happening.”
“Calm down, Velasquez.” Dane could understand her frustration, so he tried to soften the blow. “Look at it this way. The good news is you and your partner shouldn’t be insulted that O’Barr called me in to help out on this. It’s definitely not because of my skill as an investigator.”
August faked a frown. “Now, that’s not entirely true, Kirby. I think you’re a fine investigator.”
“Just stop the bullshit, sir.” Dane turned to Roselita. “We were right about what happened in there. This is another payday gone sideways. And that’s why you Feds are here taking over in the first place. Because the Slasher’s payout is federal-sized money, right?”
August nodded. “We do love a big pile of tax-free cash.”
Roselita stopped pacing. “So, okay, hold on. I want to try and get my head around this. Let’s imagine that this guy was gambling like you say—on chickens no less—and scored big. It’s ridiculous, but let’s go with it. What could possibly be so big in the world of cockfighting that it warranted what they did to him?”
“He didn’t just score big,” August said. “He won the whole thing—all of it—the whole enchilada, every fight, every round.”
Dane could’ve sworn August almost sounded impressed as he said that. Velasquez still didn’t understand. “And still I say—so?”
“And so.” Dane took his hat off and rubbed his head. “It’s impossible. Or at least it was until now.”
“You’re saying no one has ever won this Slasher thing before?”
“Never a single man—not once. It isn’t a winner-take-all sport.”
Roselita’s frustration was back. “I can’t even believe I’m standing out here talking about cockfighting with a redneck who actually refers to it as a sport. This is insane.”
“I’m going to keep ignoring your insults, Velasquez, for the sake of getting me home sooner, but please just shut up and listen for a minute.”
Roselita stopped pacing, crossed her arms, cocked a hip, and waited to be enlightened.
“Without overloading your brain with the rules and regulations of how cockfighting works,” Dane said, “if what August is saying is true, and Blackwell won the entire tournament—then he cheated. It shouldn’t even be possible.” He rolled his hat in his hands like a magazine. “It would be like walking into the MGM Grand in Vegas and clearing out the house of every dollar in one night, sitting at the same table. It just can’t be done. It’s logistically impossible.”
“And so what kind of money are we talking about, then?”
Dane and Roselita both looked at August.
“He took them for a million two in cash, all clean, tax-exempt US dollars.”
Dane watched that number hit Roselita in just the right place. This wasn’t a joke or a hillbilly circus like she originally thought. This was big. That was the kind of money that could explain what attracted the wolves to room 1108 of the Days Inn in Jacksonville. “That’s what was in the missing suitcase,” Dane said. “That’s why they didn’t think twice about leaving the six hundred bucks in his wallet.” Dane pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ, how did Blackwell think those guys wouldn’t kill him for doing something like this?”
“There’s a word for it,” August said. They all knew what that word was, but no one said it out of respect for the dead.
Roselita shuffled the pieces of information around in her head. She still wasn’t satisfied. “Okay, so Blackwell goes to the backwoods of Georgia and wins some chicken contest.”
“That’s a little bit of an oversimplification,” Dane said, but Roselita held out a slim finger and kept talking.
“Whatever you people call it, I don’t care. He cheated and the people who lost the chicken fight followed him back here, killed him, and took their money back.”
“That appears to be the theory.”
“Okay, so we ground every flight out of the States headed back to the Philippines and we nab these fuckers. If they aren’t already gone.”
“That’s already in the works,” August said.
Dane shook his head. “But I still don’t understand why they did this guy the way they did him. I mean, why go through all the trouble of torturing the guy like that if they got back what they wanted? Even if he did cheat them and they wanted to make an example of him, a quiet bullet in the back of the head would’ve done the trick. This seems excessive, to say the least, doesn’t it?”
“Unless they didn’t get what they wanted,” August said. He snapped his fingers at a patrol man and the uniformed cop lit one of O’Barr’s cigarettes for him. He pulled in the smoke and let it drift up over his mustache. “I’m guessing they tortured him because he didn’t have everything they wanted. We know he was working with someone because of the two plane tickets, so maybe only half the cash was in the suitcase and the rest went off with whoever his partner is. Maybe our killers are still searching for it.”
“That means we’ve still got a chance to catch these bastards on the ground,” Roselita said.
August pulled in another drag. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
August wiped at the sweaty fold of skin under his chin. “Kirby just laid it out a minute ago. Blackwell did something at the Slasher that had never been done before—ever. So think about it. What else could they want from him?”
Roselita looked back at the door to the motel and than beamed her dark, impatient eyes at August.
He asked the question another way. “What would a bunch of vicious pricks, who never lose, want from a guy who clearly cheated them out of all their money, other than their money back? What could be even more valuable than the money?”
Roselita quit pacing and stopped cold in front of August’s car as the light in her brain popped on. “They want to know how he did it.”
“Exactly,” August said. “Blackwell had a system, and by the looks of what they did to him, he didn’t want to give that information up. Now both of you pay attention, because this part is important. No one, and I repeat, no one who fits the description of the man the Cuban kid saw, or anyone of Filipino descent period, is scheduled to fly out of that airport anytime soon.” August looked toward the airport. “I’ve also got every field agent I can afford scouring private airfields all over both states, so if that changes, I’ll know it. If it doesn’t, it means I’m right, and these animals aren’t going home until they find what they’re looking for. And until they do, I can almost guarantee there will be more of these.” August pointed at the motel room. Roselita’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she excused herself to take the call.