by Paul Monette
Tony sat sprawled on the sofa, staring happily at his loot. He had engineered the whole operation in Bogota. Hired the mules. Packed the drugs. Figured out all the disguises.
“You were only supposed to bring in six,” said Omar, frowning as he checked the glassine bags.
“Yeah, well I haggled them down,” said Tony.
“You’re not supposed to make deals,” snapped Omar. “You just do the transport.”
“I don’t think Frank’ll throw out the other two kilos, do you?”
Nothing more was said about it, though relations between them remained barely polite if not strained. It was growing increasingly clear to Tony that Omar was nothing more than a middleman. He brought in men for various operations, but good men were not exactly hard to find, with the pool of new blood from Cuba. Everyone else did the legwork and the mulework. Omar just seemed to sit at home, making telephone calls every couple of days to Frank. Tony was annoyed that he’d had no chance to speak to Frank himself since the night they’d talked at the Babylon Club. The first half of the fifty thousand was paid promptly, in crisp new twenties and fifties, but Omar was the contact.
Worse than that, Tony had had no word of Elvira in almost three weeks. The day after he met her, he was talking to his sister on the phone, and it turned out Gina was best friends with the girl who worked daily for Frank Lopez. This Beatriz had reported that Elvira left that morning on a Caribbean cruise. So Tony couldn’t follow up their meeting with a call. Beatriz had promised to alert Gina as soon as Elvira returned, but apparently there’d been no word. Tony had no one to talk to about it. The whole subject freaked Manolo out, and nobody else could be trusted not to tell Frank.
He’d been glad of the chance to go to Colombia, just to get his mind on something else. For a few days after he returned he was busy around the clock, dealing out the shipment. Nick the Pig had been brought in on Tony’s recommendation, to do the package delivery in the ghettos. Frank had been using a two-bit redneck who watered down his stuff and screwed his clients so bad the market had virtually shriveled up. Nick had a solid list of rich black pimps, and Tony went with him when he made his route, in order to get acquainted with the regulars.
Tony enjoyed the delivery phase, because it gave him access to so many different worlds. He and Manolo were sent one morning to a brokerage house in the financial district. They were ushered into the plush office of a hotshot junior partner, Mr. Reeves, where they turned over a manila envelope with twenty-eight grams in it. Mr. Reeves himself would do the distribution among his own people. He handed over a personal check to Tony, laughing as he checked his package, clearly feeling he was part of a great and dangerous adventure. Tony got him talking about the market, asking a hundred questions of his own about investments.
He delivered to two law firms and a judge’s chambers. He dealt ten grams to the maitre d’ of a class A restaurant in one of the big hotels, who insisted that Tony sit down for a lobster dinner. People were always delighted to see their dealer, assuming they were all paid up. They liked Tony right away, because he was so much more presentable than most of the goons Omar employed. He didn’t make them feel they were dealing with a gangster. His manner was suave, his dark good looks memorable. They told him things about themselves. He seemed to want to hear everyone’s story.
Within two weeks he had dealt two kilos himself, with Manolo assisting, and received the second payment on the fifty thousand. Omar had swallowed his personal problems with Tony, since all reports from the field were so positive. As Omar turned over the checks to Tony, he indicated that Frank was prepared to let him do the next Colombia run as well, with a good chance now that the work would be regular, say a run every six or eight weeks. If Tony worked steady from run to run, he’d gross maybe a quarter of a million a year.
Not bad, considering that just two months ago he was making twenty-four dollars a night washing dishes.
Tony and Manolo moved out of the hooker’s apartment into something much more substantial, two bedrooms and a balcony with a view out over Biscayne Bay. Fifteen hundred a month, furnished. No lease, of course, since in their business a man could be broke or busted overnight. There were landlords who were sensitive to these variables, and they charged a little bit more, say thirty percent above the market, but they asked no questions at all.
Already they had so much money they didn’t know what to do with it. Manolo filled a closet full of clothes and went out on dates nearly every night, treating his friends to dinner at the Havanito Restaurante. Chi-Chi, whose cut was a good deal smaller, spent most of it buying back drugs off the street. He lived in a squalid little room off Calle Ocho and freebased the night away. Tony did a lot of flashy shopping of his own and sent racks of beautiful clothes to Gina, but he knew he was hoarding his money for something. He was waiting for Elvira to come back, to see what would turn her on.
It was while Tony was down in Bogota on his second trip that Manolo met Gina. She came by the apartment to show off a dress Tony had sent over. They only spent a shy ten minutes together, but Manolo neglected to mention it when Tony returned. It was Gina who blurted it out on the phone, pumping Tony with questions about his easygoing sidekick. Tony was curt. When he hung up he went right to Manolo and confronted him with it.
“She’s not for you, chico,” he said. “I don’t want her mixed up with a guy who might get chewed up by a chainsaw. You dig?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Manolo, who’d known exactly how Tony would react. “You can’t hide something that gorgeous, you know. You think I’m the first guy’s noticed her?”
“I’ll worry about that,” retorted Tony. “When she’s old enough, we’ll find her a nice doctor. Or maybe a stockbroker.”
“She ain’t a nun, Tony. She’s lookin’ for a party, just like everybody else.”
They dropped it. Tony decided he had to keep in closer touch with Gina. He called her the next afternoon and started grilling her about her boyfriends. She laughed it off, berating him for treating her like a child. He started in to lecture her when she suddenly interrupted. She’d seen her friend Beatriz the night before. Elvira was home.
It was one o’clock. He had a dozen deliveries to make that day, but he managed to palm a few off on Manolo, a few more on Nick the Pig, and he had the rest done by three. He drove to Brickell Avenue and waited outside in the Monte Carlo. He had no idea what her schedule was. She might only go out in the evening, for all he knew, and even then only accompanied by Frank. He couldn’t call. He couldn’t leave a note. With so much time gone by, he hadn’t a clue where things stood between them any more. He had no other choice but to count on his luck.
About ten after four the Rolls was brought around to the portico just outside the main entrance. She appeared out of the elevator in a white silk dress, dazzling next to her Caribbean tan. She was alone. Tony let her get into the Rolls and drive out of the driveway and turn right toward Coral Gables. Then he gunned the Monte Carlo and tailed her for about two blocks. At the next intersection the light had just gone red. Elvira slowed the Rolls to a stop. Tony tapped his brake and rammed her rear bumper, not very hard. She leaped out of the Rolls cursing, her eyes blazing. Tony got out grinning. She didn’t appear surprised.
“You idiot,” she said, but not without amusement. “What are you trying to do now?”
“I thought you might like to go for a ride.”
“In that?” she retorted disdainfully, pointing at the Monte Carlo. “I think I’ll pass. Besides, I have to go get my hair done.”
“Why? It looks great the way it is.”
She shrugged. She didn’t seem to mind at all talking in the middle of the street. There wasn’t much traffic, and the cars funneled by them easily enough, but they must have wondered how these two could stand there chatting after one of them had just rear-ended the other. “Nothing better to do,” Elvira said.
“So why don’t we go for a ride?”
“As a matter of fact I was thinking about you,” she
said. “When I was in the Bahamas.” She gestured down the street, more or less in the direction of the ocean. “I realized there was something I forgot to ask you.”
“So ask, why don’t you?”
“How’d you get this?” She reached up a manicured finger and drew it down along the scar, barely touching it. “It’s very sexy.”
Tony smiled. “Somebody’s husband.”
“Oh.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “See why I don’t believe in marriage? Too damn bloody. Where should I leave the Rolls?”
He pointed to a parking lot across the way, in front of a Pizza Hut. She got back in the car and pulled it in. People in Miami had gotten used to seeing Rollses at Pizza Huts. It was a whole new breed. The Rollses of Palm Beach, purring down Worth Avenue with the chauffeurs in gray livery, wouldn’t have been caught dead at a Pizza Hut, of course, but they couldn’t hold back the future either. Elvira seemed to delight in the incongruity as she left the car and trotted across the street to the Monte Carlo. Tony thought his heart would stop, she was so beautiful running towards him.
“Have you got a towel or something?” she asked when she opened the door. The seat was in fact very grungy. The Monte Carlo looked like it was owned by farmworkers. There wasn’t anything handy to lay down for her, so he unbuttoned his rayon short-sleeved shirt with the tiger on the back and slipped it off. He spread it on the worn and oily seat beside him, and she got inside.
She immediately turned the rearview mirror toward her and checked her face. Tony had already peeled out into traffic, hunkering down to look out of the side mirror. She tilted the rearview back in his direction and slumped against her door and gave him an antic look.
“So,” he said as they slipped onto the expressway, “how was the Caribbean?”
“Real pretty.”
“I come from the Caribbean, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “Did you used to hang out on the beach half-naked, toking on a little joint?”
“Uh huh. No joint, though.”
“Oh, right. You’re the dealer who doesn’t get stoned. I think you do it just to be ornery.”
“What’s ornery?”
“Trying to rape girls in the ladies’ room, that sort of thing.” The car was stuffy. She opened her window and held her head so the wind blew in her hair. “Where are we going?”
“Looks like I’m going to need a new car,” he said, “if we’re going to be taking a lot of rides.”
“We’re taking this ride,” she replied precisely. “I wouldn’t make any plans if I were you. I never make plans.”
“What kinda car you like?”
She shrugged, as if to say she could no longer be sure of anything she liked. “My father used to have an old Jaguar,” she said. “When I was a little girl.”
He took a downtown exit, making his way to Sarasota Boulevard, where the auto dealerships were lined up for several blocks. When he pulled into the Jaguar place and parked the Monte Carlo outside the main entrance, the salesmen on the floor looked pained. As Tony and Elvira walked in, Tony shrugging into his tiger shirt, the sales manager approached with barely concealed contempt. They paid no attention, they were having too good a time. He showed them four or five sedans, none of which piqued their fancy till they came to a bright red XJ-6.
“I think this is you,” said Elvira.
Tony stalked around it, then got inside and ran a hand over the leather dash. He leaned out the window and beckoned her over. “You like it?” he asked. “I mean, is it you?”
She shrugged. “Bit loud, I suppose. But yeah, it’s real cheerful. You look like a million bucks in it.”
Tony grinned and got out. The sales manager was sort of wringing his hands, looking out the window as if he could will a nice white businessman to come in and buy a car. Tony had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Uh—excuse me. How much is this car?”
“Twenty-eight thousand,” said the manager, thin-lipped and arrogant. As if to say: “Out of your range, pal.”
Tony reached into his front pants pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, as casually as if he carried it around all the time, though he’d retrieved it a couple of hours ago from the coffee tin where he had it stashed. It was all in thousand-dollar bills. Tony started peeling them off, and the manager, pale and stunned, held out the palm of his hand so Tony could count them out. Elvira looked on with vast amusement. When Tony had handed over the twenty-eight bills, he asked the manager to double-check. With shaking hands the manager did a recount, all the while fawning on Tony, promising him they could have the car ready to drive away by noon the following day.
“No way,” said Tony. “There’s some custom work needs to be done. Can you do it?”
“What sort of custom work?” asked the manager with a gelid smile.
Tony walked along the side of the car, pointing here and there at the body. “Get this whole section bullet-proofed,” he said. “Here and here. And I want blackout shutters. Bulletproof window in back. Tint all the windows except the front, I don’t like bein’ looked at. Then I want one o’ them radio scanners, you know? The best they got, so I can pick up flyin’ saucers if I have to. You got all that?”
“I think so,” said the manager wanly.
“We’re gonna need fog lights. Case we take a little vacation in a swamp.” Tony turned to Elvira, who stood with her arms folded, enjoying it all as much as he. “Am I forgettin’ anything?”
“How about machine-gun turrets?”
“Nah,” he replied with a shake of his head. “With the Ingram, see, you don’t need a turret.” He turned to the manager. “Do ya?”
“Uh, no—I suppose not.” The manager stood there stupidly, holding the twenty-eight thousand. He looked like he’d never seen cash before. He was a whiz at explaining financing, but he seemed to have no patter that fit the current situation. “These extra . . . features,” he said. “They’ll cost you quite a bit.”
“How much?” retorted Tony, starting to peel another G-note off his wad.
“I simply couldn’t tell you,” said the manager, anxious and rattled. “I’ll have to get hold of a specialist. This just isn’t usual.”
But he had a sinking feeling that it was going to be. He ushered Tony into his office and made him sign the ownership papers. When he asked for identification, Tony produced a Florida driver’s license and his green card. The manager may have seen a green card before, but he’d certainly never sold an XJ-6 to someone who carried one. He promised to have an estimate on the extras by tomorrow afternoon. No, Tony did not have to give him any more money right now.
He walked Tony back to the Monte Carlo. Elvira was standing beside it, smoking a cigarette. With a growing sense of disbelief, the manager watched Tony remove his shirt and place it on the greasy seat so Elvira could sit. As Tony got in and they drove away, the manager gave a weak wave, as if he’d just lost a sale.
“You move real fast, don’t you?” she said. “Maybe too fast.”
“I been waitin’ a long time. Where to?”
“Back to the car. I still have to get my hair done.”
“When will I see you again?”
She laughed. “You don’t need to see me. You just bought a new car. You’re going to have girls coming out of your ears.”
They were on the expressway. The traffic was heavy and dirty. Rotten motels lined either side of the road, looking out on the stream of cars. The city seemed as grungy here as the car they were driving in. Elvira in her clean white dress was like a creature from another planet.
Tony turned to her. His face was grave, his eyes burning. “I been waitin’ a long time,” he said. “The minute I laid eyes on you, I was crazy about you. The minute. You understand?”
She was startled at the nakedness of it. She lowered her head, embarrassed, and fished in her purse. She brought out a vial of coke and a tiny silver spoon. “Get your own girl, Tony,” she said quietly. “I’m not available.”
�
��You just figure out when I can see you again.”
They drove on in silence. She took a toot of the coke in either nostril. She didn’t bother to offer him any. She dropped the vial back in her purse and idly licked the little spoon. She gave a dry laugh: “Did I ever tell you I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth?”
Tony didn’t answer. He just kept driving. His face was completely blank.
Arnoldo Sosa was surely the most glamorous man in Cochabamba, Bolivia. But he would have held his own in Monte Carlo too, or Acapulco or even London. He was a playboy of the old school, about six-foot-two with black wavy hair, Fernando Lamas the year he married Esther Williams. He had a lean athletic body and a Copacabana tan; and he favored polo shirts and pocketless pants, so everyone would see for himself. On his right wrist (on his left was a Rolex) was a big-linked gold ID bracelet, with “NOLDO” written in diamonds.
Accompanying Sosa everywhere was a man whom even Sosa called the Shadow: a thin, intense, venomous-looking Hispanic in his mid-thirties, with the look of death in his smashed and stitched-up face. The Shadow always stood slightly behind the person or persons addressing Sosa, in a sort of garotte position. He stared down anyone who might glance in his direction with a look that could turn a man to stone. Sosa himself was full of a wild and passionate energy. He didn’t need drugs; he was high on money. Because of the Shadow, it was very difficult to muster the same intensity as Sosa. You were too busy wondering if you were going to have your windpipe severed. This was deliberate.
