Castro Directive by Stephen Mertz Page B

"This is game four. We're starting with Teams One and Two."
    The ball shot off the front wall as the game began. The back player for Team Two scooped it on one hop and fired it low against the wall. Team One's front player dashed over, caught it, and fired. The ball rocketed off the wall and arced high and deep. Team Two's back player glided over to the side wall, leaped, braced himself, and hurled it back. The volley continued several more times, until the ball eluded Team One's front player.
    Team Three replaced Team One, and the game quickly moved ahead. "You see what happened? Team Two has one point now, and they're playing Team Three."
    "Is that good?"
    "Sure. Two's my team."
    "What was that word you said at the counter when you placed your bet? A quinla?"
    "Quiniela. You pick two teams to finish first and second in either order. I bet a quiniela box, that means I pick three teams and win if two of them—Two, Five, or Seven—finish first and second in any order."
    "How much can you win?"
    "Depends. It's pari-mutuel betting, so the amount you win depends on the amount being bet and the number of winners. The house takes a percentage, and the winners get the rest. I've seen Fuego win twelve hundred dollars on one game, and he's probably done better."
    "Really?" Elise leaned forward, alternately watching the game and studying the scoreboard above the court. "All right," Pierce shouted. "Two won again."
    "What's your biggest win?" she asked as Team Four took the court.
    "Fifty or sixty bucks. I really don't get down here too often. Not like Fuego."
    The ball shot back and forth several times until it was bobbled by the back player for Team Four. "Two again," Pierce said. "See the scoreboard? Two's got three points already."
    "They don't waste any time, do they?"
    "No time-outs for commercial breaks."
    "Come on, Five," Pierce yelled.
    "Five? I thought you wanted Two to win."
    "Five's my team, too. They need a win here."
    "Don't the teams have names?"
    "You can call them by the players' names," he said, glancing down at his program, "but it's easier to say, 'C'mon, Five,' then 'C'mon Olasagasti and Arteaga.'
    She laughed. "I see your point."
    My court tonight, he thought again. Elise, the archaeologist, was digging through the puzzle of the sport like it was an unknown culture, and Pierce, the insider, was the cultural interpreter, a native son.
    Team Five beat Two, then Six ran off five straight points. When it was over, Six won first and Two second. "Well, I didn't win that game; neither did Fuego."
    He glanced over at Elise. "You want to stick around?"
    "We just got here. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on."
    That makes two of us, he thought.

Chapter 10
     
    "W e should have at least an hour. But I don't want to be in there more than twenty minutes. Tops."
    Gore grinned from the passenger side of Thor's Mercedes, and the scar on his jaw curled into a backward S-shape. "I can do a lot in twenty minutes."
    "I bet," Thor muttered, thinking over their plans, testing it for any weak spots. They would approach the house from the back, because he knew about the old woman across the street. The lots of most South Florida neighborhoods backed up against one another, but in Coconut Grove there were alleys and that would make it a simple matter. When they reached the house, they would enter through a side window. It would be easy.
    The bushes in the front and along the side would block the view of anyone who happened to pass by. They were mostly bougainvilleas and hibiscus. A quality hedge, Thor thought. Far superior to the ficus, which every second or third homeowner in South Florida seemed to plant around his house. He hated ficus. They were a weed, a scourge. If you let them grow into trees, their roots would strangle everything in the area and would even tear up pavement.
    He turned his thoughts away from hedges and back to the matter that awaited them. "When we get in, you start upstairs. I'll work