Powder Burn

by Carl Hiaasen

  No, it has to be cops, Meadows decided, waiting for us to come out. He felt like pummeling Manny in his sleep.

  Another airplane flew over, this one with its full complement of lights winking green and red as it descended toward Miami International. Meadows thought of Terry; she was due back in a week, and he couldn’t wait to tell her everything.

  If only he could get out of the Glades.

  At dawn the sound of a car’s ignition roused Meadows from a cramped and miserable nap. His pants were soaked with urine-warm marsh water. His arms itched feverishly; his flesh was a topographical disaster, welts everywhere.

  Manny was awake, too. He lay still, his head on one arm, listening as the car drove off. “OK, Chris, let’s move.” His voice was raw. The steel-blue handgun was out again.

  They crept toward the dirt road, pausing every five or six steps to listen. Suddenly Manny rose to his full height and leveled the gun toward a tall thicket.

  “Don’t move!” he ordered in a low voice that cut the morning stillness.

  “Shit, Manny, put it away.” It was Moe. He was a wreck; the insects had made a banquet out of his pale skin. His face was splotched with scarlet, a razor cut arced over one eye and his shirt was shredded at one sleeve.

  Manny helped Moe to his feet, and they trudged toward the van with deliberate haste, Meadows trailing warily. There were no other cars or trucks on the dirt road, and soon the van was heading east on Tamiami Trail, back to the city. The sunrise spilled luminous pink over the Everglades, and flocks of cattle egrets rose out of the heavy grass.

  “What in the hell happened?” Manny said finally.

  “You guys saw the car, didn’t you? I thought it was cops.”

  “Who were they?” Meadows asked.

  “All I know is what I heard,” Moe said. “As soon as I saw the headlights, I dove into the grass and just laid there. I didn’t move a fucking muscle.”

  “We heard voices,” Manny said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Two guys and a chick. I think they were balling her all night.”

  Manny pounded his fists on the steering wheel. “And for that we spent six hours in the goddamn water? Jesus!” he mumbled furiously in Spanish.

  Moe scratched a welt on his upper lip. “Look, man, I didn’t know if they had guns or what. What was I supposed to do, ask ’em to wait a few minutes while we loaded some dope in the truck? Shit, they could’ve ripped us off, or killed us, or took the license tag and turned us in…”

  Moe got a warm beer from the cooler and popped it open. “We could go back and look for the stuff,” he suggested, “before it gets too light.”

  “No way,” Manny said. “All it takes is one pilot flying a little too low, and we’re had.”

  “Will Alonzo be pissed!” Moe was getting depressed.

  Manny slipped on a pair of black wraparound sunglasses that reminded Meadows of the Tonton Macoutes in Port-au-Prince. “I’ll be talking to Alonzo tonight,” he said, “at Rennie’s party. Chris, you like parties?”

  Meadows shrugged. A few moments ago he had suppressed near jubilation at surviving the night and retreating safely. Now he was daunted by a terrible new fear. He could imagine this Alonzo, whoever he was, fingering him as a conspirator. What if he didn’t believe Manny’s story? What if he suspected that the three of them had stashed the dope? His dope. Meadows realized he needed Manny’s cunning now more than ever.

  “You want to come tonight?”

  “Sure,” Meadows replied. “It beats another evening out there in the black lagoon.”

  “I think that’s a damn good idea,” Moe said, burping. “I think all of us ought to be there together.”

  They drove due east, and ahead of them the rising sun hung like a bright red egg. Manny flipped the visor down. “Don’t sweat it, Moe,” he said. “Alonzo understands this kind of thing. I’ve never fucked him over before.” The words rang with a forced confidence. Meadows traced a quick glance with Moe.

  “You’ll like Rennie’s party,” Moe said.

  Chapter 22

  “NASTY CUT.”

  Meadows’s hand went to his face. He fingered the thin gash that traced a capital C on his left cheek—a souvenir of his night in the swamp.

  “Shaving?” asked Rennie McRae.

  “Yeah.”

  The porky young lawyer guffawed, and his nose reddened. “Manny! Buy your friend a brand-new razor. An electric one, too.” He shoved a fifty-dollar bill into Manny’s right hand. “Your friend obviously has very bad hands,” McRae said.

  Meadows studied Manny for a cue. The Cuban took the money and shoved it in a pocket. “I’ll buy him a good one,” he said jovially, “and shave him myself next time.”

  McRae laughed appreciatively and waddled off to liven up his own party. Meadows polished off his Jack Daniel’s in four hot gulps. He sat down alone on a sofa; he guessed at least a hundred people were in the apartment.

  “Rennie’s a very popular guy,” Manny said. “He’s a great lawyer, Carson. The man knows the law. Hell, he’s kept me and Moe out on the streets.”

  “Then he must be a wizard.”

  Manny sagged down next to him. “Look at you, idiota. I take you to a fancy party, introduce you to important people, and you sit there like some kind of constipated—”

  “I’m tired, OK?” Meadows scanned the crowd skittishly, afraid he would spot a familiar face.

  Manny wrapped a taut arm around his shoulders. “You still bummed out from last night?”

  “Oh, no, Manny, it was a ball. I’ve always wanted to spend the night in the Everglades with a billion mosquitoes sucking my blood, lying there in the water, waiting for some alligator to swim up and bite my nuts off. And what I really love is not getting paid for it.”

  Manny lifted his hands. “Hey, no dope, no money.” He lighted a cigarette and leaned back. “We know where we dropped the stuff, and I bet we can find it again.”

  “Be my guest.” Meadows sighed. “There’s probably only about twenty-five DEA agents staking it out right now, waiting to see if we’re stupid enough to come back.”

  “No,” Manny said. “I don’t think so. I’m telling Alonzo that we’re going back. Maybe tonight, after the party?”

  “Shit,” Meadows groaned standing. “I’m getting a refill.”

  Meadows got up and started toward the bar. The people crammed into McRae’s condominium were mostly young, tan and very loaded. The women were stunning and abundant. One look around the place told Meadows it cost at least $300,000. The carpeting was to thick it seemed to cover the tops of his shoes. On his way to the bar he passed a knot of chattering people; they hovered around a small table in the living room, chopping away at a small rock of coke presented elaborately on a silver tray. Moe was in line for his share.

  “Fuckin’ Manny has to show up two hours late,” he was grumbling. “I coulda been into this stuff all night long if only we got here on time.”

  But Manny had been insistent. The party had started at ten, but he had not wanted to go until midnight. “I want to give Alonzo enough time to mellow out,” he had explained. “He’s much more agreeable after a couple of hides.”

  It was a wonderful logic, Meadows reflected. He admired Manny in many ways, not the least of which was his finely tuned instinct for survival.

  Meadows returned to the couch and waited for the summit with Alonzo. A slender woman with long dark legs and frizzy auburn hair sat next to him.

  “Hi. My name is Jill.”

  “Hello, Chris Carson.” Meadows shifted the drink to his left hand and held out his right, awkwardly.

  “I fly for Southeastern.”

  Meadows smiled politely. Sweet Jesus, a stewardess. For a moment he wished he was back in the Everglades.

  “I’m in real estate. I just moved down here.…”

  “That’s funny,” Jill said. “I swear we’ve met before, here in Miami. Has your hair always been that long?”

  “For a couple of years now.” He turne
d away abruptly; his mind scrambled for an excuse to get up and leave.

  “It was at a party out on Key Biscayne—”

  “I don’t think so,” Meadows said curtly.

  “You know the Clarks?”

  “No,” he lied. “Excuse me, please. I’m going to get another drink.”

  Meadows fled the room. His neck was damp with sweat. He racked his brain for any recollection of Jill Somebody but came up empty. He would have remembered her. She was mistaken, certainly, but it made Meadows edgy. It was just more bad luck.

  Carrying a fresh Jack Daniel’s he launched a search for a bathroom. He found a door, knocked twice and went in.

  “Buenas noches.”

  Meadows started to back out. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t go.” The man was dark with a thick Pancho Villa mustache, porky, gregarious. He sat on the toilet with his pants up, a girl on each side.

  “My name is Bobby,” he offered. “This is Candy, and this is Maria. We were just having a quick hit. Want some?”

  Meadows lifted his drink. “Better not,” he said politely. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Come on, baby,” said the girl name Maria. Meadows guessed her age at fifteen, tops. She wore designer jeans and a diaphanous halter top. Her nipples, Meadows mused through a fog of bourbon, looked like walnuts. She lifted a small mirror toward his face.

  “Careful, careful,” said Roberto Nelson.

  Meadows set his glass down near the sink.

  “One little toot,” teased Maria.

  Meadows nodded. “OK,” he said, and instinctively turned to lock the door behind him. Instantly Roberto and the two girls whooped with laughter.

  Meadows caught himself laughing along with them. “Well, you never know where you might find DEA,” he joked.

  A dumb move, he scolded himself. Thank God these clowns are too high to care.

  Meadows took a rolled twenty-dollar bill from Roberto and snorted two short lines, tossing his head back. Roberto smiled a broad, perfect grin. “Bueno, eh?”

  “Sí,” Meadows replied.

  Then the coke kicked in, and the jolt was stunning. Suddenly Meadows could hear his heartbeat. He felt like swimming a thousand laps, jogging until he dropped, fucking himself unconscious. He felt, in a word, sensational.

  Maria was trying to disco in the shower. Roberto joined her. Meadows feared that the two of them would become stuck in the stall or, worse, that Roberto would try to hump Maria standing up and the two of them would come crashing through the glass doors and kill everyone.

  “Do you live in Miami?” Meadows asked the girl named Candy.

  “Forget it,” Roberto shouted from the shower. “She doesn’t speak English, amigo. She’s Colombian.”

  Candy smiled and nodded. Then she scooted over and stationed herself on Meadows’s lap. There were three lines left on the mirror; Candy snorted all of them, one after the other. Then she started to sing, a high, off-key rendition of some long-lost salsa hit. Meadows’s ears stung with each note. He felt hot. Although she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, Candy sitting on his lap reminded Meadows that he’d best find an unoccupied bathroom as soon as possible. He squirmed from her featherweight embrace and made for the door.

  “Thanks, man,” he called to Roberto.

  “For sure,” Roberto answered. Through the dimpled glass of the shower door, Meadows could see Roberto’s fat pink buttocks. The cheery Cuban’s pants were at his ankles. Maria’s giggles and sighs echoed off the tile as Meadows slipped out into the hallway.

  The next door was locked. The one after that was ajar. Meadows gave a light rap with two knuckles.

  “Come on in,” boomed Rennie McRae. “Ah, Mr. Carson, sit down. Please.”

  McRae reclined behind a broad mahogany desk. A narrow shaft of white light from a typing lamp cast a bright sphere on the wood surface, where McRae’s hands were at work. Meadows sat down across from him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  McRae turned back to his task, barely glancing up at his nervous visitor. “I do this privately, Mr. Carson, because many of my friends are scared by the sight of needles.” The lawyer used a small silver spoon to scrape flakes from a huge lump of cocaine. “I don’t do this because I’m ashamed of it or because I’m afraid of the cops. This is my house.”

  McRae’s voice was rising excitedly. Meadows watched uneasily as he flicked a small pocket lighter and steadied the spoonful of powder in the bluest tongue of the flame. McRae’s hands began to shake feverishly, and Meadows thought he was about to drop the whole kit.

  “I’ll go through the motions of offering you some.”

  Meadows lifted a hand. “Thanks anyway.”

  McRae grinned. “This is excellent coke.”

  “Yes,” Christopher Meadows said.

  “Seventy-five percent pure. Of course, by the time it reaches our friends in Little Havana, the precious little disco swingers…well, the customers don’t get quite the same quality. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “You’re a dealer?”

  “No, my friend. I’m the dealer’s attorney. That’s even better. I know faces I shouldn’t know, names I should forget, dates I could never possibly recall under oath but could recite to you right now with absolute certainty. So I get a very good price on cocaine.”

  Meadows flinched at the sight of the syringe.

  “I’m new down here,” he said. “I guess Manny told you.”

  “He didn’t have to,” McRae said. Gingerly he slipped the needle into the melted coke and drew its syrup into the syringe. “I know everybody in Miami.”

  “Then you must speak Spanish.”

  “Sure. Who do you know? Just Manny, right?” McRae’s laughter burst out like the low bark of a big Doberman. He knotted a burgundy necktie around his left arm, above the elbow. He gave Meadows a hard stare.

  “Don’t worry now. The needle is as clean as a whistle. I got it directly from my doctor.” He chuckled again and smoothly inserted the needle into a fat vein. Meadows looked away squeamishly.

  “My, my,” the lawyer sighed. The needle lay on the desk. He swabbed at his arm with a cotton ball and rolled down his sleeve. “Jesus, that’s good!”

  Meadows started to stand, but McRae motioned him down. “I didn’t invite you in here for a lesson in pharmacology.” His voice was dry, and there was no laughter. “I heard about your camping trip last night. Real bad luck, huh?”

  Meadows’s jaw tightened. McRae lit a joint. He didn’t offer it across the desk. “Manny’s in some deep shit,” he said evenly. “It’s not your fault.”

  “With Alonzo?” Meadows’s nerve jangled.

  “Oh, yes, and worse than that.” McRae’s eyes moistened as the coke propelled him. He sucked deeply on the joint.

  “Who else?”

  “The names would mean nothing to you. They would mean nothing even in Atlanta. Alonzo, a shit, a lackey…the Diego brothers, even Ignacio.”

  Meadows’s eyes flickered. “Why?”

  “This is Manny’s third fuck-up in as many months. Three strikes and you’re out. Half a million in coke down the commode. You’ve got to understand what’s been going down in Miami the last few weeks…everybody relies on such careful planning. Everything must be very precise.”

  “We know where it is,” Meadows blurted. “I’m sure we can find it again.”

  “Settle down.” McRae raised his hands amiably. “It’s not your fault. I tell you this because you are new in town, and I’d hate to see you get in trouble so soon.” The lawyer rolled his head back and forth. “Jesus H. Christ, this is wonderful.”

  “I don’t know enough to get in trouble.”

  “Of course you don’t. Didn’t your friends give you any tips before they let you come down here?”

  “They told me that a banker ran the show,” Meadows said boldly. “A Cuban banker. That’s all.”

  “You got smart friends. What else?”

  “They said to thank
God I wasn’t a Colombian.”

  McRae roared. “That is priceless! Really.”

  “Rennie?”

  Meadows turned lethargically in his chair. A beautiful blond woman with drowsy eyes stood at the door. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “No, baby, come here,” McRae said gently. He pulled her to his lap. “Mr. Carson, this is Donna. One of my secretaries.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Donna said. She began to tickle Rennie McRae. He giggled like a four-year-old.

  A pajama party, Meadows thought, just what I need.

  “You been naughty, haven’t you?” Donna teased. “You been cooking up the white powder in here.”

  “Please, please,” McRae spluttered.

  “Gimme some.”

  “It’s all gone.”

  “Naughty boy. Stop pinching my tits.”

  They acted as if Meadows were invisible.

  “Give me some powder,” Donna said, leaning across McRae’s vast lap. With authority she yanked one of the desk drawers, and it slid open.

  Meadows froze. His eyes fixed on a sack of cocaine, a lump so big that it glistened in the dim light of the den. It was at least a pound.

  McRae slammed the drawer. “Not now, baby, we have company. Don’t worry, he says he is definitely not Colombian.”

  “That’s good,” Donna said, finally looking up at the architect. “You don’t look Colombian.”

  “Damn right. He’s breathing, isn’t he?” McRae laughed until he wheezed. “Most of my clients are not fond of Colombians. Get off me, luv. I can’t breathe.”

  The lawyer had surrendered all prudence to the cocaine. Meadows felt it was a good time to push even harder.

  “Explain this Colombian thing.”

  “Greedy fucking peasants. Farmers! Moving in on the business. Surely you had trouble like that in Atlanta.”

  Meadows nodded. “Blacks and whites. Friendly southern competition.”

  “It isn’t friendly down here. It’s the Cubes and the Colombians,” McRae said. “He tried to warn them. A little rip-off on one of their freighters a few months back. But it went bad, and they wound up killing one of the local boys. That led to an ugly thing in Coconut Grove—”