The Kings Of Cool s-1

by Don Winslow

Bread and marigolds, he thinks.

  Jesus.

  The place is a fire trap, anyway

  It only takes a little kerosene and a match.

  The fire this time.

  105

  “Your boyfriend is pretty ripped,” Doc says to Kim.

  She looks over and sees Brad slumped on a sofa, his eyes glassy from coke and booze. He’ll be out cold any second.

  “My fiance,” she corrects.

  “You’re going to marry that stiff?” Doc asks.

  “For a while,” she answers.

  “Come on,” Doc says, taking her hands.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You know.”

  In his bedroom he says, “Take them off, Kim.”

  “Take what off?”

  “The pretty clothes.”

  She does and stands in front of him.

  Pirouettes.

  “My God,” Doc says.

  He admires her perfect body for several seconds and then lays her down on the bed.

  “Look at that, ” he says.

  She puts her hand over herself and says, “No, Doc, if you want this, you’ll have to-”

  He laughs.

  Long time coming, this rendezvous.

  She wraps her arms around his broad back.

  Remembers lying in a cave hearing him with her mother.

  Soon it’s like she’s tumbling over a waterfall, and she holds him tighter.

  Turns her head and sees the Charles Jourdans.

  Her pretty shoes.

  106

  John pulls on his slacks and walks back into the living room.

  He’s fucked out.

  Taylor wasn’t a ride, she was the whole amusement park.

  Six Flags.

  Magic Mountain.

  Knott’s Pussy Farm.

  That girl Kim, the mule, is on the couch next to a life-size Ken doll who looks like he just had his head handed to him.

  She’s sitting there like there isn’t a drug-crazed orgy going on all around her, like there’s not a pistol on the coffee table at her demure knees. Like she’s about to answer questions from Miss America judges and then twirl fire batons while singing a medley from Oklahoma! but whatever, because speaking of fire there is one.

  Outside, the sky is on fire.

  107

  The Bread and Marigolds Bookstore is, as they say, engulfed in flame.

  They all stand across the street and watch as the fire department pretty much lets it go, trying only to contain the fire and keep it from spreading to buildings they don’t consider a public nuisance.

  Their faces red in the reflection of flame, they stand and watch Doc

  Kim

  John

  Stan and Diane, arms around each other’s shoulders

  Doc asks, “Anyone have marshmallows?”

  They laugh, even Stan.

  They are

  Stardust

  Golden

  Caught in the devil’s bargain.

  Laguna Beach 2005

  108

  The sun comes red over the Laguna hills.

  Ben strides to Chon’s apartment.

  Knocks on the door.

  Waits.

  A sleepy O, clad in one of Chon’s T-shirts, opens the door, sees the look on Ben’s face, and screams

  Nooooooooooooo!

  109

  He’s all right, Ben tells her as he walks her to the bed and makes her sit down.

  He’s wounded, some shrapnel, they got most of it out, he’s in the hospital, he’s going to be okay.

  “God.”

  Ben allows himself a slight smile. “He called-classic Chon-and said-”

  110

  “I fucked up.”

  111

  “Is he coming home?” O asks.

  “No,” Ben says. “Also classic Chon. He’s hoping they can ‘put him back together’ enough so he can go back to his team.”

  “Jerk,” O says. When Chon calls her a couple of hours later she asks, “They didn’t shoot your dick off, did they?”

  “No, it’s still there.”

  She feels good hearing him laugh. She says, “Okay, I’m going out and buying a nurse’s uniform…”

  He laughs again. “ A Farewell to Arms. ”

  “Is that some kind of sick joke?”

  “No, it’s a book.”

  “Yeah, I don’t do books,” she says. “Okay, ‘Navy Nurse’ or ‘Candy Striper’?”

  “Candy Striper. Definitely.”

  112

  Ben walks back to his place.

  He was going to tell Chon about being shaken down, but now he can’t.

  No way he piles on with this.

  So he needs to handle it himself.

  He needs a plan.

  That leaves Chon out of it.

  113

  Chon hangs up and relishes the thought of O for a few minutes, and then moves off it because a real nurse comes with his meds.

  Sanitized word for drugs

  Which there’s a war on. And there’s also a War on Terrorism and they’re connected, Chon contemplates as the meds take hold-the politicians either are on drugs or should be.

  A bunch of religious fanatics mostly from Saudi Arabia fly planes into buildings and we invade…

  Iraq.

  It’s a generational thing, Chon muses.

  Bush Sr. goes to war against Saddam Hussein and puts troops in Saudi Arabia (which was bin Laden’s reason for going to “war” against America), and Hussein tries to kill Bush Sr., and then Bush Jr.-faithful son, loyal son-uses bin Laden’s attack as an excuse to get payback for Hussein’s attempted hit on his dad.

  41 as Brando

  43 as Pacino and featuring Saddam Hussein as Virgil “The Turk” (near miss there) Sollozzo. And the U.S.A. as a collective, credulous Diane Keaton

  Just this once, Kay, I’m going to let you ask me about my business

  Shut the fucking door in her face and get on with it, lock yourself up with the Cabinet and the Congress and

  Guzzle the Kool-Aid.

  No, Chon decides, the problem with the politicians is not that they’re on drugs, it’s that they’re not.

  The drugs they have for bipolar, schizophrenic paranoid delusions are so good now.

  They work.

  Problem is, they work so well that the patients think they’re cured and stop taking them and get sick again and do crazy shit like invade Iraq in the delusional belief it’s going to make their fathers love them.

  So please, Mr. President

  Chon thinks as he floats into a drug cloud of his own

  Please

  Don’t go off the meds.

  114

  Drug Warrior Dennis Cain

  Gets up in the morning feeling no different, which is almost a disappointment after making a Faustian deal for his soul.

  I mean, you think you’d notice, right? Something different.

  Yeah, not so much.

  He makes his coffee, drinks his orange juice, kisses his wife on the cheek, makes two scrambled eggs and eats them while exchanging sleepy early-morning talk with his girls, says to his wife,

  “Those countertops? I’ve been thinking. We can afford them.”

  “Really? You sure?”

  “Yeah, why not? You only live once.”

  He finishes his breakfast, says goodbye, gets into his car, says hi to the neighbor who is getting into his car, and joins the other pilgrims in the commuter-hour snarl on I-15 South.

  It’s a pisser.

  You sell your soul and no one even notices.

  Not even you.

  115

  Judas took the thirty pieces of silver, but

  Would Jesus?

  If he’d been made the offer?

  And if Judas was worth thirty, Jesus had to be worth, what Three hundred, easy.

  Just sayin’.

  Anyway, history shows that

  They bought the wrong Jew.

  116 />
  Ben is not going to make the same mistake.

  Ben is a careful consumer-O can tell you stories about Ben driving her crazy spending weeks trying to decide which flat-screen TV to buy, debating the relative merits of Samsung and Sony-but there is no Consumer Reports on Drug Cops.

  He knows he has to trump the county level. The next obvious choice would be a state cop, but Ben takes the long view-if he comes up with a state cop he leaves room on the board for OGR to jump him.

  (“King me.”)

  So what he needs is a fed.

  Not easy, not easy.

  For one thing, the feds are notoriously honest.

  (Chon would object to the pairing of “notoriously” with “honest,” but he’s in Afghanistan, so fuck him.)

  Two, the feds are also notoriously paranoid (clears with Chon) always checking on each other, and

  Three, Ben has no clue how to approach a fed, or

  Four

  Which fed to try.

  He’s walking on the beach pondering this dilemma when he sees a fisherman jam a small fish on his hook and then cast it deep in the water.

  117

  You can Google anything.

  You can even Google a federal drug agent.

  What Ben does is he goes on Google and enters

  “Federal Drug Busts+California” and gets three million twenty thousand hits.

  Your tax dollars at work.

  He scrolls through, rejects most of them, and then he hits

  “Massive Marijuana Seizure in Jamul.”

  Sees a photo of triumphant narcs standing beside bales of ditch weed and a story about this being a massive blow against the Sanchez-Lauter Cartel, the “massive blow” quote coming from a DEA agent named Dennis Cain, who has a particular look of triumphalism (“Mission accomplished”) on his grille.

  Dennis, Ben decides, looks like a candidate.

  Ambiguity intentional.

  118

  Ben gets on a pay phone and waits for Special Agent Dennis Cain to answer. When he does, Ben says simply, “5782 Terra Vista in Modjeska Canyon. Grow house. Premium hydro.”

  “Who is this?”

  “You want it or not?”

  “Can you repeat the information?”

  “Come on. The call is recorded.”

  Ben clicks out.

  Then he calls his grower at 5782 Terra Vista in Modjeska Canyon.

  “Bail.”

  “What?”

  “Bail,” Ben repeats. “Take as much of the good shit as you can get into your car and leave the rest. Do it now, Kev.”

  119

  Dennis listens to the recording, doesn’t recognize the voice.

  He’s not big on anonymous sources.

  Usually it’s a practical joke, someone trying to harass an exgirlfriend or wife, or it’s a new player. Tracking the call, he finds out it came from a pay phone at John Wayne Airport. He thinks about giving it to the OC Task Force, let them waste their time, but it’s a slow day so he decides it’s worth a ride up to Orange County to check it out. Always a nice drive along the ocean up through Camp Pendleton, and he feels like getting out of the office, so what the hell.

  The anonymous source proves to be pure gold.

  Well, pure marijuana.

  120

  Ben waits for ten days and then hits him again, this time from the Amtrak station in downtown San Diego.

  “Who are you?” Dennis asks.

  “The guy who’s going to get you your next promotion,” Ben answers. “Unless you keep asking me who I am.”

  “Let’s meet.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “I can guarantee your security,” Dennis says. “No surveillance, no wires.”

  “Trust you?”

  “You absolutely can.”

  “You want this tip or you don’t?”

  Dennis does.

  121

  Ben mixes it up next time.

  Sends Dennis a typed letter with a fake return address “Orange County Register-Classified Ads-Houses for Rent-You’ll figure it out.”

  Dennis figures it out-there aren’t that many houses for rent, and only two that have the potential to be grow houses. One turns out to contain a retired couple, the other turns out to be a grow house.

  Dennis is falling in love.

  But who with?

  It’s kind of fun having a Secret Admirer; at the same time he’s a little sick of the flirtation. So far the guy has given him product, but no people.

  Confiscations, not arrests.

  He’s getting dope off the street, but no dealers.

  He tells this to Ben the next time he calls.

  122

  INT. DENNIS’S OFFICE — DAY

  DENNIS is on the phone with BEN.

  DENNIS

  Look, I know you’re getting your rocks off moving a federal agent around like your personal sock puppet, but that game is over. I’m not your right hand-go jerk your self off.

  BEN

  Hold on-I have to set the phone down.

  DENNIS

  It’s that little skinny thing in your shorts. I’ll wait.

  BEN

  Jesus, what has your panties in a wad?

  DENNIS

  Let me lay this out for you, you can tell me if I’ve got it right. You have some beef against a dope operation. I don’t know-they’re not paying you enough, they canned you, the boss fucked your girlfriend in the ass and she never let you, who cares. Doesn’t matter. You decide to get even, you want to fuck the man, but you don’t want to hurt your old friends and coworkers. So you give me the grow houses and then phone in a warning. How am I doing?

  BEN

  Not even close.

  DENNIS

  Yeah? Then how come every time I pop one of your tips, it’s a neutron bomb? The stuff is there, but all the people are gone.

  BEN

  I don’t know. Maybe you make a lot of noise going in.

  DENNIS

  You know what else makes a lot of noise going in? A hollow-point into your brain. Which is what you’re going to get when these people figure out it’s you, which they probably already have. You need protection, which I can’t offer you unless you give me a meet. You need to put these people behind bars. I’m trying to save your life here.

  BEN

  You’re trying to make cases.

  DENNIS

  So call it a symbiotic relationship.

  123

  symbiosis (n.) A close and often long-term relationship between different biological species.

  For example-narcs and drug dealers.

  Truth is, neither can live without the other.

  Ben agrees to meet Dennis.

  Don Winslow

  The Kings Of Cool

  124

  O comes through the door; Paqu is in the kitchen.

  “Have you been out looking for a job?” Paqu asks.

  “I want to meet my father.”

  125

  Ben sets a lot of conditions He’s not coming into the freaking DEA office in Dago. They’ll meet at a place of Ben’s choosing.

  Dennis comes alone-no partners, no surveillance.

  It’s off the books-Dennis doesn’t open a CI (Confidential Informant) file.

  Ben will never testify, never appear in court.

  Dennis agrees to all of it, because Why not?

  End of the day, he’ll do what he wants and the CI can’t do shit about it.

  126

  Dennis drives slowly back and forth across the Cabrillo Bridge in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

  On his third pass, a young man opens the passenger door and gets in.

  “This is where gays meet,” Dennis says by way of introduction, “to suck cock.”

  “I’m disturbed you know that,” Ben says. “Drive down to the airport.”

  Dennis takes Laurel Street down through Little Italy to Lindbergh Field, where Ben has him park in the cell phone lot.

  “So talk,” Ben says. />
  He isn’t who Dennis was expecting. Most marijuana types are scruffy retro-hippies-this guy looks like he could have stepped out of an Up with People rehearsal.

  “Right up top,” Dennis says, “if you won’t testify, I can’t offer you immunity.”

  “This isn’t Survivor, ” Ben answers. “I’m not asking for immunity.”

  “Got it. I’m just obligated to tell you.”

  “You need me to sign a release form?”

  “Maybe down the road,” Dennis answers. “You have a name?”

  “Ben.”

  “I need arrests, Ben.”

  Ben shakes his head. “That’s not your problem.”

  “What is my problem?”

  “Self-absorption,” Ben answers. “You haven’t asked me what I need, Dennis.”

  “That’s fair, Ben. What do you need?”

  Ben tells him.

  Symbiosis.

  127

  Wounded.

  Chon hates the word. wounded: Simple past tense and past participle of “wound.”

  1. Suffering from a wound, especially one acquired in battle.

  2. Suffering from an emotional injury.

  I am wounded (2) that I am wounded (1), Chon thinks.

  He is of course aware that the word comes from the Old English “wund,” from the Saxon “wunda,” the Norse “und.”

  The Norse.

  The Vikings, who believed that if you died with your sword in your hand you went straight to Valhalla to join your fallen brothers in perpetual feasting, drinking, and fucking.