Scenes from a Sting

But that wasn't the telling part of the tape. Within minutes, Reyes was on the phone to associates, bragging, cursing and embellishing the conversation with Morales to the point where it was hardly recognizable.

"Hey, Mr. Wayne," Reyes told Duddlesten. "I'm working my ass off, man.... I feel like a pair of panties on a whore.... I said 'let me tell you what, Wayne Duddlesten is the strongest motherfucker in town. He's ten times stronger than [Vinson and Elkins, the backer of the rival hotel proposal]." Of course Reyes had said no such thing. As one courtroom observer marveled as the tape played, "What a bullshitter!"

At Carrabba's, the councilman's tongue seemed indeed out of control, as he laid out for Molineiro how he planned to squeeze developer Duddlesten for a bigger share of the hotel project. "It's going to get to the point where he's going to need our damn help," chortled Reyes, "and that's where he'll let it all go.... At that point we'll tell him, look Daddy, give us a letter saying you are going to give us this this and that, and we'll assure you that this damn [Felix Fraga] and this bastard Peavy are going to be with you." Behind Reyes's words, the Christmas hymn "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" played on the restaurant sound system.

As the tape of that conversation rolled in Judge David Hittner's courtroom three years later, former councilman John Peavy sat not more than five feet away from Reyes at the defense bench, accused of bribery and conspiracy. The two men did not look at each other.

The tape ended, and there was a bit of stunned silence in the courtroom, partially a feeling of decompression from the coarseness of the conversation, and perhaps in some quarters sorrow at the spectacle of what one of Houston's best and brightest young politicos became in the course of three decades.

The jury will have to decide if he's a criminal, but no one who heard that tape could doubt Ben Reyes had degenerated into a buffoon.

Contact Tim Fleck at tim_fleck@houstonpress.com.