The Bingo King Is Dead. Long Live the Bingo King.
For two decades, alongside the likes of John Monfrey and Morris Jaffe, Eddie Garcia was one of San Antonio’s behind-the-scenes powers. When he was shot dead last September, the good ol’ amigo network died too.
Yolanda Garcia says: James Legate is innocent...it’s sad that he has been in prison for over ten years for a crime that he did not commit, what is even worse is that they had a witness that testified that a "Political" figure had put a hit on Eddie Garcia and was paid $50,000 for killing Eddie, but no one wanted to listen to the truth, rather they convicted an innocent man, just because of his prior record of drug possession. There is something terribly wrong with our justice system. How can they sleep at night? (July 7th, 2009 at 6:59pm)
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Depending on where you sit, this complex transaction could be interpreted as either an example of the loosey-goosey way business has long been done in San Antonio, especially by Eddie and his pals, or—as Jackie Bennett insisted—clear evidence that Eddie and Doug had bribed Bustamante to win a renewal of the Lackland contract. If the exchange of checks was indeed intended to be a bribe, it was a puny and worthless one, since (1) Falcon’s contract wasn’t renewed, and (2) Bustamante had use of the $35,000 for only 27 days. Nevertheless, the Bustamantes were indicted on eighteen charges of racketeering, bribery, and accepting illegal gratuities. Eddie was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. He could have made his life easier by testifying for the government, but he chose not to. Apparently, the jury accepted the prosecution’s interpretation of the facts, at least partly: Rebecca was acquitted on all the charges, but Albert was found guilty on two counts of corruption and went to prison for nearly three years. His career in politics was ruined, and the amigos network was showing signs of wear.
After the trial Eddie went back to making deals; he was still looking for the big score. In late 1992 he made waves when he got the mighty Hearst Corporation to negotiate with him for the sale of the San Antonio Light, using as leverage the Justice Department’s dim view of monopolies. Hearst was proposing to buy the Express-News and planned to shut down the Light, which it already owned. That would have left (and ultimately did leave) one of the largest cities in the U.S. with a single major daily newspaper. With the support of Morris Jaffe, Eddie forced the big shots from Hearst to sit across the desk from him. Of course there was almost no chance that he could pull off such a deal, but friends maintain that he was dead serious. “There were a lot of jobs at stake, and making San Antonio a one-newspaper town had inherent dangers,” says Jack Pytel. “In the back of his mind, though, I know what Eddie was thinking: ‘At last I’m going to force them to write something good about me.’”
EDDIE DIDN’T COLLECT FRIENDS AND favors without acquiring debts and formidable enemies. “I can give you fifteen reasons why someone would want to get Eddie,” one of his friends told me. The killer may have been hired by a business rival or even one of his partners. Or a cuckolded husband. Or a jilted lover. He bullied, coerced, and used so many people for so long, cut so many corners, hustled so relentlessly, that he made himself an obvious target. He exuded flash, sparkle, and prosperity, no doubt inspiring envy and resentment as he tooled around town in his red Mercedes, preening like a Latin playboy. Friends joked that Eddie owned 150 pairs of shoes. He did own a mink coat—a gift from attorney Joe L. Hernandez, an old gambling and drinking buddy with whom he made frequent trips to Las Vegas. Eddie had connections there, not only with hotels and casinos but also with fight promoters. Eddie hung with some dangerous types.
Yet Fast Eddie’s life wasn’t the open book it seemed to be. People saw the Eddie that Eddie wanted them to see. “Hell, I didn’t even know his real name was Evaristo Garcia until we were doing a deposition in a lawsuit in the late eighties,” Jack Pytel told me. Another contradiction: Eddie prided himself on being a family man, even though nearly everyone knew he had a weakness for the ladies. He had seven children by multiple wives, and while he and his wife Rose Mary lived a life that seemed outwardly happy—splitting their time between condos in Mexico and Horseshoe Bay and a fine home far from the barrios where he grew up—he instigated divorce proceedings against her at least once (though they were still married at the time of his death). “I don’t think he was serious about a divorce,” says Hernandez. “I think he filed to prove his good intentions.”
Whatever the truth, in the months leading up to his murder, the Bingo King was moving into the bar and nightclub business. The Players Club, next to his office in Callaghan Plaza, had been leased to various “corporations,” but TABC agents had no way of knowing the true identity of the owners. Eddie had plans for the Players Club: Though the liquor license and permit were in the name of his administrative assistant, Maria Alvarez, Eddie had asked a contractor friend, David Cleary, to give him a bid on remodeling the place. “Eddie wanted to fix it up and take over,” Cleary told me. “He said the owner was pissed that his lease wasn’t being renewed.” Eddie had to know that TABC regulations prohibited him taking over a club unless his name was on the license and permit.
Simultaneously, Eddie was running another joint called Mexico Q’Nice at the request of one of its owners, Pedro Zamora. In late May 1998, according to documents obtained under the Texas Open Records Act, he went to work for the club’s ownership group. The TABC had heard about Eddie’s involvement, and an agent had begun investigating what was really going on—whether Eddie was, in fact, an owner himself. The agent, Al Luna, had recently transferred to San Antonio and had no sense of Eddie Garcia’s influence, though he was about to. Other agents began warning him: “Don’t look at Mr. Garcia’s activities or you’ll be stopped.” Luna, however, had been hearing reports of illegal activities at the Q’Nice, from selling liquor to a minor to illegally refilling bottles, a violation of TABC rules. When Luna refused to look the other way—when he decided to file charges against the Q’Nice—Eddie grew outraged. According to the documents, Gus Martinez eventually called Luna into his office and got Eddie on the phone, at which time Eddie offered the excuse that it didn’t matter if his name was on the permit, that he had the “power of attorney” necessary to operate the Q’Nice. Based on that information, Luna slapped the Q’Nice with a lesser charge, though he continued his investigation of the club’s ownership.
Three months later, Eddie was dead. Shortly after the shooting, police officers found the weapon—a tar-taped .38 throwaway straight out of gangland mythology—in a vacant lot not far from Callaghan Plaza. Near the gun was a briefcase. Prosecutors intend to trace both to James Legate, a 37-year-old ex-convict who minutes before the murder was seen drinking at the Players Club, carrying a briefcase, talking on a cordless phone, and bragging to anyone who would listen that he was a bounty hunter. In fact, he was a repo man; ostensibly, his business that day was to seize a car purchased by a woman who had worked for a home health care business at the address that housed Eddie’s office. “He walked outside, and ten seconds later we heard the shot,” recalls a witness who was at the Players Club at the time. “I ran to the front door and saw him run by. Eddie was face down on the sidewalk. I turned him over and he was dead.” The witness, one of several likely to testify for the prosecution, told me, “No way in hell anyone except Legate could have killed Eddie.”
Not all of Eddie’s friends are so sure. Many things about the case don’t fit. For one thing, while Legate has a long record of drug possession and assault charges, his profile is hardly that of a professional killer. Pros don’t get sloshed and shoot off their mouth in a bar next door to their intended victim. Legate had indeed gone from the bar to Eddie’s office: The police found some papers that had spilled from his briefcase on the floor. Legate said that Eddie had motioned for him to take a seat while he finished his phone call, and as Legate was taking some papers from his case a gunman appeared at the door and started shooting. Legate drew a sketch of the shooter that his attorneys provided to the police. For another thing, as Eddie stumbled out and fell dead on the sidewalk, Legate fled on foot, leaving his car in the plaza parking lot. That’s not exactly the exit strategy of a professional. And when the police checked Legate’s bank account, it contained only a couple hundred dollars, hardly the fee a pro would command for a high-profile job.
Nonetheless, Legate’s lawyers—veteran defender Bill Berchelmann and relative newcomer Bill Davidson—have an uphill climb. They must convince a jury that the police botched the investigation and failed to follow obvious leads; otherwise their client seems sure to take the fall. Who killed the Bingo King is essentially beside the point, however. What people in San Antonio need to know is why, and chances are they never will.
Ironically, one of the only people who could have gotten to the bottom of it—working the phones, calling in chits, coaxing his friends into doing his bidding—was Eddie himself. But he and others like him are no longer on the scene. Henry B. has finally retired. Four months before his conviction, Bustamante was defeated by a Republican; after serving his sentence, he is now working the old neighborhood as best he can. Cisneros, once touted as our first Mexican American governor or maybe even our first Latino president, got caught in the sights of an independent counsel while serving as a Cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration and is out of politics, probably for good; he’s not even living in Texas anymore. Morris Jaffe has survived a bout with cancer. Doug Jaffe is building planes and working to expand Horseshoe Bay.
A new group of power brokers will invariably step in to fill their shoes. Already we’re seeing a group of young Hispanic pols emerge, including Gonzalez’s son Charlie, who was elected to his father’s congressional seat. But it won’t be the same. An era has ended in San Antonio. The Bingo King is dead; long live the Bingo King.
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