A Brew to a Kill

by Cleo Coyle

  “O Negociante wanted you to smuggle drugs, right?”

  “Right.” Matt nodded. “Two shipments a month of oxidado. I was supposed to traffic this new Brazilian crack into New York City. He knew I’d been shipping through customs for decades and was seen as a legitimate importer, so he expected me to be given a pass—or provide money to bribe whoever I needed to.”

  “My god…”

  “This guy really did his homework, Clare. He said he’d been informed that I was financially stretched, and he could make my money problems go away forever. And just to show he was a swell guy, he would pick up the tab for Nino’s coffee in exchange for my immediate cooperation.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth. First I told him I wasn’t interested—that my financial problems were seasonal and would vanish soon. But that tack failed, and he really began to pressure me, so I said…”

  Matt paused, and I tensed. He was suddenly wearing that bad-boy pout again.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said that it would be too dangerous for me to go into business with him because…”

  “Because?” I prompted.

  “Because my business partner, the manager of the Village Blend, was romantically involved with a high-profile narcotics cop in New York City.”

  I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hurl my favorite cast-iron skillet at my ex-husband’s thick skull. Instead I just clutched my head and nearly bounced it off the table.

  “So you used me as your excuse, because of my relationship with Mike Quinn! And now you think O Negociante has put out a contract on my life?”

  “I had to think on my feet.”

  “Think on your feet! Matt, take note: there are no brains in your feet!”

  “Let’s not overreact, Clare.”

  “Overreact? Someone took a shot at me today! But that’s not the worst and you know it. Lilly Beth is lying in a coma because Buckman was right! Some murder-for-hire scumbag thought she was me! And you say I’m overreacting?”

  “I’m going to make this right,” Matt promised. “I’ll do everything I can to help Lilly. And you know I won’t let anything happen to you—”

  “Drug smugglers? Madre santa! In Brazil of all places…” I buried my head in my arms again. “And for years I was agonized about your trips to Colombia.”

  “Colombia is so last century,” Matt said with a dismissive wave. “With pressure on in Bogota, Brazil has become a safe haven for the next generation of cocaine growers and traffickers. And business is booming. There’s a new Medellín Cartel growing in Brazil’s Amazon jungle.”

  “And one of these Amazonian drug lords wants me morte.”

  I shook my head. Mr. Hon was right. Now I knew how Rudy Giuliani felt. But when gangsters put out contracts on him, New York’s esteemed former mayor had trained bodyguards watching his back.

  “Matt, what am I going to do? I’m not a government official! I don’t have a security detail! I have an espresso machine!”

  “You share a bed with an NYPD lieutenant who’s an expert in drug trafficking and has friends in the Justice Department. Big Foot will fix things when he gets home.”

  “I should call Mike right now.” I lifted my head and lunged for the phone.

  Matt blocked me. “No. We’ll both tell Quinn when he gets back here. Face it, the guy’s going to have a reaction to this story. Don’t you want to be in the same room with him when he does?”

  “I do, but I’m not sure you should.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because when Mike hears this story, he’s going to fold you in half and crumple you into a ball.”

  “Fine! Let him—as long as it’s after we both know you’re safe.”

  An hour ago I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed. Now my flesh was crawling.

  I felt so helpless, like a sitting duck a l’orange.

  I rose from the table, began pulling out ingredients. Maybe it was my emotions. Maybe the super-crack coffee. Or maybe just the knowledge that some Pablo Escobar–wannabe had put a contract out on me. Whatever it was, I had to move around!

  “What are you doing?” Matt asked.

  “I’m going to make my special Oatmeal Cookie Muffins. Quinn loves them, and I’ve got enough bad news to dump on him. The least I can do is bake for the man, but the first stage is a long soak.”

  Matt groaned. He looked as though he wanted to soak his head. I would have obliged him, but I didn’t have enough buttermilk—and the container was too small.

  Done. Now what?

  Looking with pity on my pathetic ex, I tapped his shoulder. “You said there’s a bag of those golden nuggets in the basement?”

  Cheek against the table, he murmured: “A hundred-and-fifty-pound bag, just waiting to be roasted.”

  “Great. I’m wide wake. I’m going to fire up the Probat.”

  Matt’s spirits lifted, along with his head. “I’ll go with you.”

  THE Village Blend’s roasting room was in its basement, an expansive space with stone walls and thick rafters. For a coffee lover, the aromas down here were psychotropic. For the Allegro family, they were legacy.

  Generations of roasting had gone on in this chilly underground, and Matt and I wanted it to keep going on for generations to come. Tonight was just one more little turn of the drum batch roaster. At least, that’s what I thought it would be.

  While Matt moved to hit the starter button on our shiny red Probat, I examined Matt’s magic beans.

  The bag itself was jute, with “Terra Perfeita” stamped in faded black ink beside the tiny hole Matt had cut to extract a few cherries. I used the razor cutter to open the bag from the top. With a scoop, I began transferring the green beans to an empty plastic holding container. About one quarter of the way down, I looked at the beans and gasped.

  Matt, who was turning up the Probat’s gas, called out, “You’re impressed, right?”

  “Oh, I’m impressed.” In fact, I was wide-eyed.

  “Do you see how the cherries look like little golden nuggets?”

  “I see nuggets, all right.”

  “How about defects? Are there any rocks, twigs?”

  “Yeah. I see rocks. Lots and lots of big white rocks wrapped in cellophane bundles—the kind that get you six figures on the street!”

  “Clare, what are you talking ab—”

  He finally saw them, the flat white bricks mingled with those golden beans. His face turned as purple as I imagined terra roxa to be, and his lips moved like a Chinatown catfish gasping for air.

  Finally Matt blew his top, and the coffee-scented rafters rattled with the sound of curses, mostly—but not exclusively—in Portuguese.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked numbly. Really? How many shocks can a person be expected to absorb in a single evening?

  Matt tossed one of the plastic-wrapped squares on the floor and pierced it with a stab from the box cutter. He had to really dig in, as there were layers upon layers of wrappings. When finally reached the dull yellow paste, the smell that rose from the pierced plastic was noxious, almost like kerosene.

  “It’s oxidado,” Matt said grimly. “The petroleum stink comes from the way the drug is processed.”

  “I’m calling Quinn right now,” I said, making for the stairs.

  “Wait!” Matt seized my arm. “I thought of a bright side.”

  “This I’ve got to hear.”

  “Maybe this is a test—you know, like a test charge?”

  “A what?”

  “When you check into a hotel, you give them your credit card, and they do a ‘test charge’ of a couple of bucks to make sure the card is valid. I’m thinking this might be a test.”

  He said it with such hope, I wanted to believe him.

  “Before we tell anyone, we need to know how bad this situation is, don’t we?”

  “How could it be worse?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  I took his face in my hands.
“I’m asking.”

  Matt’s eyes locked on mine. “I have fifteen more bags of this stuff at the warehouse. Every single one of them could be laced with crack cocaine.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  MATT and I streaked through the night in a fully-loaded silver BMW. The car belonged to Matt’s wife, Breanne, so he insisted on driving. Besides the speed limit, my ex was breaking at least one other traffic law—he was talking over his cell while operating a motor vehicle.

  Most of Matt’s extremely agitated conversation with his coffee-farming friend in Brazil was conducted in pidgin Portuguese, and since I was only hearing Matt’s side of it, I couldn’t follow.

  Matt cursed and slammed the smart phone into the soft leather upholstery. The device bounced and hit the ceiling. I caught it before the phone shattered against the dashboard.

  “What did Nino say?”

  “He claims he had nothing to do with it. Nino blamed O Negociante for everything!” Matt pounded the steering wheel. Once, twice—

  I touched his arm. “Calm down. You’re going to blow a gasket.”

  Matt wiped away the sweat on his brow. “Look, if we opened the only dirty bag—if the others in my warehouse are clean—I can dump the crack we found in the East River. Nobody will be the wiser, and Quinn never has to know.”

  “Somebody will be the wiser,” I countered. “O Negociante, for one. And maybe the driver of the car that’s been following us since we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  “What!”

  “Don’t turn your head. You can see it in the rearview mirror. That black car—”

  “The Chevy Impala? Okay, I see it. Let me speed up a little. If he tries to pace us, we could be in trouble…”

  Matt pushed the gas pedal until the BMW purred like a housebroken cheetah. The Impala sped up, too.

  Not a good sign.

  Matt tried weaving around a slow-moving Ford. The Impala did, too. After a minute or so, Matt cursed and slowed again. So did our Chevy stalker.

  “The Atlantic Avenue exit is next,” Matt said. “I’ll shake him there.”

  “But the ramp is here now! You don’t have time to cut across two lanes of traahhh—”

  Matt swerved at high speed, cutting off the SUV in the next lane. Brakes slammed, tires squealed, horns blared—and the pasta I’d consumed for dinner threatened to make a reappearance.

  Our BMW shot down the exit ramp at twice the legal speed, and we hit busy Atlantic Avenue just as the traffic light flipped to green—a miraculous piece of good luck since we never could have stopped before the intersection.

  “The Impala’s still coming,” I told him, white knuckles gripping my shoulder harness.

  “Fine. Let’s see how this SOB likes the old double-back.”

  “The old wha—ahhhh!”

  Without braking, Matt cut across the opposite lane of traffic and turned into a fast-food parking lot. I nearly bounced off the passenger-side window before the safety harness righted me again.

  The place was an all-night burger joint. A red Kia was stopped at the intercom, blocking the road, so Matt twisted the wheel. We bumped onto a low curb and off again, taking out a bush as we passed the little red car.

  Bree’s BMW mirror on my side shattered against a steel menu display. Matt shifted gears again, and we burst out of the parking lot.

  Tires streaming smoke and rubber, the BMW screamed back onto Atlantic. But this time we zoomed in the opposite direction, leaving the Impala stuck in the wrong lane. Before I knew it, we were on the expressway again.

  Needing fresh air, I cracked my passenger-side window. Howling night wind filled the compartment. I heard a triumphant snort and turned to see Matt’s white teeth gleaming in the dashboard lights.

  “Maybe we should have confronted the driver,” I said. “Maybe this whole mystery could have been solved.”

  “Yeah, right. And maybe the driver had a gun, Clare, and a bullet with your name on it.”

  My jaws clenched, and I didn’t speak again until we rolled to a stop in front of the warehouse gate minutes later. The engine still running, Matt popped the door. “I’ll open the gate.”

  The memory of gunshots in the afternoon, coupled with the late hour and the moonless night, cast a sinister pall over everything. The mixed-zoning neighborhood no longer seemed bohemian friendly. Industrial buildings loomed like giants, and the windows on the surrounding houses were dim. Even the bodega at the corner was lightless, and there was not a soul on the sidewalk.

  Matt unlocked the chain-link gate and tore away ribbons of yellow police tape that crisscrossed the entrance. He eased the BMW into the parking lot, cut the engine, and closed the gate.

  As we approached the main door, a motion detector activated security lights, bathing Matt and I in a bleached halogen glow. That light made us targets, so Matt hastily punched in the code on the keypad and killed them.

  Clutching his key, Matt input another code. When the little red light blinked to green, he inserted the key, twisted it, and pushed the heavy steel door inward.

  The code had triggered fluorescent lights embedded in the high ceiling, so the windowless loading dock was now awash in sterile light.

  Stepping inside, I smelled fresh paint, and I knew why. For the past few months, this area had served double duty: loading dock by day, depot for the Blend’s coffee truck at night. Our newly painted Muffin Muse was parked here now, gleaming in the harsh brilliance.

  Out of habit, Matt checked the digital gauges monitoring temperature and humidity. Grunting his satisfaction, he extracted a second key and unlocked a pair of double doors. A gust of cool, dry air chilled my skin as we entered the coffee storage area.

  The sacks of Terra Perfeita Dourada were stacked just inside the entrance, still resting on the wooden pallet on which they’d been delivered. Matt, clutching an iron carting hook, tore into the nearest jute sack with the sharp edge. It didn’t take long to locate the drugs.

  Desperate now, Matt dropped to his knees and ripped into a second bag, then a third. All were laced with packets of oxidado. Matt staggered to his feet, stepped back. The metal hook fell from his limp hand to clang loudly on the concrete floor.

  I reached into my handbag.

  Matt hung his head. “If the police or the DEA find out about this, we’re ruined. I mean ruined. The Feds will seize the warehouse, probably the Blend, too.” He paused, rubbed the back of his neck. “Call Mike Quinn,” he said. “Tell him everything.”

  The phone already in my hand, I hit speed dial.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Mike answered in a sleepy voice. “It’s almost midnight. Are you checking up on me?”

  “Mike,” I said in a shaky voice. “I need your help. Like I’ve never needed anyone’s help before…”

  “Clare, what’s wrong.” He was wide awake now.

  “Matt found drugs. Cocaine. In a shipment of coffee.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “With Matt, at the warehouse, in Brooklyn. Mike, there’s a lot of crack…”

  A loud crash boomed from the loading dock, followed by the sound of running boots on the concrete floor.

  Matt grabbed the carting hook and whirled to face the double doors as a strident voice boomed.

  “DEA. DEA. We’re coming in. We have a warrant.”

  “Mike!”

  “I heard, Clare. Do what they say and you won’t get hurt. I’ll get you out of this.”

  The double doors burst open. I saw beetle-blue body armor with DEA stenciled across torsos, guns aimed at my heart. Then blinding bright light struck my eyes and I saw stars.

  “Get on the ground, now! NOW!” This time, the voice belonged to a woman. “Down and drop the phone.”

  I wanted to hear Mike’s voice one last time, but I remembered his final instructions and released the phone.

  “Facedown on the ground!” she cried and I dropped.

  Beside me, I heard another voice. My ex cursing.

  “Matt, listen to me. Don
’t say a word to them. No matter what they say to you—and they’re going to say terrible things—ask for a lawyer then bite your tongue. No matter what they tell you, be strong, and just—”

  “Shut up!” the woman commanded. I felt rough hands cuffing my wrists.