Cleopatra Gold

by William Caunitz

  There was a storage lot on the west side of the tire store’s scarred building that was crammed with mountains of old tires. The lot itself was corraled behind a high chain-link fence that was not crowned in concertina wire, nor was the lot patrolled at night by attack dogs. There was no need for such precautions here because every junkie, crackhead, and dealer around knew that Che-Che Morales was the real owner of Lopez’s tire store.

  Four men gathered around a bridge table in front of the store were playing dominoes when a taxi drew up and Alejandro stepped out. Che-Che Morales glanced up from his line of tiles, looked at the newcomer, and returned his attention to the game.

  Summer’s twilight had not yet come, and children darted through the spray of an open fire hydrant. Across the street in Morningside Park, a homeless man was sprawled on his back in the grass, an empty liquor bottle clutched in his hands. The man’s eyes were partially closed. Without moving his lips, he inched his mouth close to a microphone concealed in his sleeve and said, “Snap the guy who just got out of the cab.”

  Alejandro walked over and watched the game. Che-Che was absorbed with his tiles. When the game was finished, Che-Che pushed away from the table and walked into the lot. Alejandro followed. Che-Che made his way around stacks of tires.

  In the middle of the lot four high mounds of tires were pushed together forming a mountain of rubber with a single, narrow, cavelike entrance. Che-Che squeezed inside the single entrance and waited. Two pigeons flew down and perched on top of the tires.

  Twisting to make his way inside the sanctuary, Alejandro said, “I like your office. Who did the decorating?”

  “It’s safe against laser beams and radio wave penetration, amigo, and all the other shit they use against me.” Looking at his guest, he asked, “What brings you here?”

  Alejandro dropped his voice to a low, conspiratorial level. “A few nights ago your compadre Roberto Barrios introduced me to his latest blond trophy. She was totally fucked up on coke. He goes to take a piss and she starts talking about this big-deal shipment that Barrios is supposed to pick up in his boat. So I can only figure, if this chica knows—who else knows?” Alejandro knew he was going out on a limb, maybe even putting Barrios’s lady, the informant, on the chopping block—but he figured that Seaver could arrange to pull her out fast. And this was more than enough to get Che-Che’s paranoia going. The rules said that you never, never talked business to civilians, especially ones you were fucking.

  Che-Che looked ahead with that impassivity characteristic of Indians, seeing all, saying nothing. When he finally spoke, his tone was calm and flat. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re my friend, and I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I’ll pass on your information. Too bad someone is going to lose a shipment.”

  “What do you mean?” Alejandro asked, puzzled.

  “I mean,” snarled Che-Che, “that lady was wired in more ways than one. I know.”

  Alejandro brushed a whitish splatter of pigeon droppings from Che-Che’s shoulder and looked up at the fluttering birds above them. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  Che-Che’s mouth drew tight. “Why this sudden interest in my business?”

  Alejandro had prepared an answer for this question, too. “I had a visit this afternoon from my manager. Seems all the majors think I’m talented, but much too Latino. They want me to change my style.”

  “Will they guarantee a contract?”

  “They guarantee a maybe. I’m starting to realize that I could spend my life singing in cuchifrito joints. I’m thirty-two and I still haven’t bought that home for my mother and sister. The way I’m going, I might never be able to.”

  Che-Che rested his head against the rubber wall, looking up at the patch of blue sky and the two cooing pigeons. “So you figure you’ll come with us for a while, do a few deals, and walk away with enough to secure your life.”

  Alejandro smiled and said, “Something like that.”

  Che-Che looked him directly in the eyes. “I’ve known other guys who said they wanted ‘in’ just to make enough to be able to walk away. But once in, they can’t leave. Know why? Because suddenly enough is never enough.”

  “It will be for me.”

  “I hope so,” Che-Che said, squeezing out of his cocoon. “But sometimes I think nobody gets out of our business alive.”

  The Department of Parks limestone administrative building on the fringe of Morningside Park had an attached garage with a gable facing Lopez’s tire store. The pigeons that had perched on top of Che-Che’s tire cocoon flew into their portable coop on top of the garage’s flat roof. Their detective handler picked them up one at a time and gingerly removed the miniaturized transmitters concealed in the trained birds’ plumage.

  In the attic below the roof, two detectives from the Narcotics Division’s Unified Intelligence Section manned the static surveillance platform. A tripod-mounted camera with night-vision capabilities and a telescopic lens was peeking out through the gable’s ventilation slots, aimed down at Lopez’s tire store. The detective standing behind the camera was turning the focusing ring on the eyepiece of the scope, zeroing in on Che-Che and his friend as they strolled out of the lot.

  On the other side of the attic another detective sat in front of the portable console. This device contained a digital switching system linked to a voice analyzer that digitally processed the suspect’s voice, which had been picked up by the tiny transmitters concealed in the pigeons’ feathers. The switching system constantly recorded and scanned conversations, flashing digital numbers across the voice analyzer as it processed the sound of Alejandro’s voice.

  Lieutenant Sal Elia, the platform’s boss, was spying the pair through binoculars. “Get that guy’s photo and voice down to Intel right away.”

  Slowly stirring his espresso later that evening, a man with a swath of white hair glanced at the man sitting across from him and said, “Pussy’s going to kill you one day, Roberto.”

  Barrios laughed lightly. “I’m careful who I screw. Haven’t you heard about AIDS?” He picked up his cup, trying to keep his fear from showing on his face. He had been home when the phone call came and the familiar voice had ordered, “Meet me at Billings. Now.” Billings was one of Columbus Avenue’s upscale diners.

  The man with the bolt of white hair was Hector Pizzaro, a well-dressed former Bolivian army officer in his late fifties with large cold eyes, badly pockmarked cheeks. Raising his cup to his lips, Pizzaro said, “Your latest playmate sniffed herself to death this morning. Did you slip her one of your little surprise packages?”

  Barrios tried to look surprised. “You sure?”

  “Word travels fast in our small world, Roberto. Besides, I have morgue people on the payroll.”

  Barrios could feel the beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. “Hector, I don’t knowingly go out with cokeheads.”

  “They’re security risks, and so are the men who fuck them.”

  “Hector …”

  Pizzaro’s sternly upraised finger cut him off. “Some guys get off on bragging to women. It makes their come more pleasurable. But in our crew, all it makes them is dead.”

  “Hector, I swear—”

  “Shut the fuck up, and listen.” Pizzaro’s eyes were as hard and cold as two steel balls. “There has been a leak. The DEA knows about our boat.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Have you forgotten that I’m the head of intelligence? I sent people to the marina where your boat is docked. It just happened to be crawling with gringos wearing thick shoes.” His eyes fell to his cup. “They probably planned on arresting and turning you, Roberto.”

  Barrios leaned across the table to swear, “I’d never roll.” Drops of his sweat dripped off his chin.

  Hector smiled ironically. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  Momentarily regaining some of his cool, Barrios asked, “How was the shipment blown?”

  Hector shrugged
ignorance. “Who knows? If not the girl …” Then he gripped Barrios by the arm. “Tonight I want you to go and talk to Alejandro Monahan. He says he wants to work for us. He’s hungry and in a hurry. Men like that are sometimes … inventive and useful. See what he has to offer us. But be careful; I haven’t checked him out yet.”

  The trumpeter rifled through the merengue’s arpeggio as Alejandro spun across the stage. At the center he stopped, his eyes playing his swaying audience, his hips rolling to the beat. Spreading his arms, he drifted into the lyrics of his theme, “Quierame Mucho.”

  Song finished, he threw kisses to the audience and ran off stage into his dressing room. He pulled off his sweaty shirt, went over to his cruddy sink, and washed himself. After buttoning on a clean black guayabera and combing his hair, he left.

  Che-Che was enthroned on his favorite banquette in the balcony. He was watching the dancers on the floor below when he heard women’s raised voices and looked around. Alejandro was headed his way when a woman wearing a tight-fitting black jumpsuit with industrial zippers, her hair flaming red, staggered up to Alejandro. Holding a water glass filled with booze, she rubbed herself up against him and said, “I’d love to fuck you.”

  He looked down into her exposed cleavage. “What are you drinking?”

  “Vodka.”

  “You should mix it with carrot juice. You’ll get drunk, but at least you’ll have good eyes.” He made his way over to Che-Che, slid into the booth, pulled a bottle of champagne from the bucket, and poured some into a glass. Toasting his host, he smiled. “Salud, amigo.”

  Che-Che nodded.

  Sipping wine, Alejandro asked, “You got a job for me?”

  “I liked your salsa numbers.” Watching the people in the loft dancing to the kinetic Latin music, he added, “I have nothing. But that man might.” He pointed his glass at Barrios, sitting alone at one of the tables next to the bar. He was picking at a salad and drinking soda water, ignoring the tumult around him. Alejandro looked at Barrios’s familiar evil face. He was a regular and a close associate of Che-Che’s.

  Bewildered, Alejandro asked, “You trust this guy after what I told you?”

  “We’re checking him out. Meanwhile, talk to him.”

  Alejandro went over to Barrios’s table, pulled back a chair, and sat, uninvited.

  Barrios continued to pick at his salad. “Tell me how you heard about the shipment.”

  “I already told Che-Che.”

  “Tell me.” His tone was soft, which made it all the more menacing.

  Alejandro repeated the story about what Barrios’s woman had told him.

  “Bullshit. I didn’t tell that puta anything.”

  “If you don’t want to do me the courtesy of some serious conversation …” Alejandro shrugged indifference, scraped back his chair.

  “Sit down,” the thin man ordered.

  Lowering himself back onto the seat, Alejandro said, “Che-Che vouches for me, and that should be good enough for you.”

  “Che-Che vouches for nobody.” He began sliding lettuce over his plate, making designs in the dressing. I’ve been told you’re looking for a job with us.” He arched his eyebrows disparagingly. “We don’t need singers.”

  Leaning forward, Alejandro confided, “I can guarantee the safe delivery of your product into the States.”

  “‘Guarantee’? That’s a big word for a guy who makes his living shaking his ass in joints like this.”

  Alejandro reached across the table to push aside the other man’s salad, and with his finger he outlined the American continent in the salad dressing. Using his finger as a pointer, he explained, “The DEA has all your smuggling routes across the Andes and the Caribbean under satellite and radar surveillance. They have AWACs and Hawkeye radar planes covering your transshipping points in Mexico and Cuba. Here, along the coast, they have radar balloons searching out your low-flying planes and boats coming into the States. Right now you’re still winning the war, but they’re tightening the noose. Most of your stuff is coming in concealed in cars, lead ingots, sinks, whatever.”

  Alejandro looked around and lowered his voice during a sudden lull in the music. “Even the New York Times knows that Uncle Sam is developing a satellite that will detect the gas emissions given off by cocaine hydrochloride and opiates. Once that thing is deployed you’re going to have a serious problem getting your stuff in.” He erased the map with his finger, adding, “I can ship your shit anywhere, anytime.”

  Barrios arched his back, folded his arms across his chest. “Wouldja tell me now a disco singer knows so much about a business he’s not in?”

  “Look around you, Roberto. All those guys out there on the dance floor dry-humping broads are in your business, and all they ever talk about is dope and pussy.”

  Barrios seemed bored. He picked up his fork and began idly pushing around pieces of lettuce. “How can you guarantee delivery?” He didn’t try to hide the contempt in his voice.

  “My secret until we agree on the green.”

  “How much?”

  “Five percent of the weight I bring in.”

  “Is that all?” His voice took on an annoyed edge.

  “What was in the shipment the DEA found out about?”

  “China White and cocaine,” Barrios said reluctantly.

  “Heroin from the Golden Triangle. You have to ship that crap all the way from the mountains of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. You can’t afford to lose too many of them.”

  “Five points is too much.”

  Once again the music started up, and Alejandro raised his voice so he could still be heard. “A kilo of pure costs you around eleven K in Bangkok. You sell that to a broker in the States for between eighty-five and a hundred and a quarter, then it’s peddled to a midlevel guy for a quarter of a mil. Five points, amigo, cost you nothing.”

  They held each other’s stares; salsa boomed out from the speakers.

  “Two points,” Barrios countered.

  “Five.”

  “Show me how you’re going to do it, and we’ll talk again.” He got up and squeezed out from behind the table.

  Watching Barrios slip easily through the crowd and disappear down the stone staircase, Alejandro spotted Che-Che watching him.

  “How did it go?” Che-Che asked as Alejandro slid in beside him.

  “I told him I’d guarantee delivery of his product anywhere in the United States.”

  Che-Che’s brow pulled together. “You told him what?!”

  Alejandro repeated his statement.

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Shaking his head with amusement, Che-Che said, “You’re a real Tarascan Indian. You charge like a raging bull, not caring what’s in front of you. Barrios is not to be taken lightly.”

  Alejandro flashed a confident smile. “I have something in mind, but I have to work out the details.” He looked at Che-Che inquiringly. “Are you and Barrios together?”

  Che-Che picked up his wineglass. “No. We work for different firms.”

  “If this deal works for me, I’ll be getting a piece of the weight I bring in. Can you help me sell it?”

  “First figure out how you’re going to do it, and then we’ll talk.”

  “I’m in a hurry, Che-Che. I don’t want to piss my life away in discoville. And believe me, enough will be enough.”

  Che-Che sipped champagne and said nothing.

  Warm night air buffeted Alejandro’s face as he raced his Porsche along Shore Parkway. The graceful spans of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge loomed in the distance, and behind it there was an almost imperceptible lightening as the dawn filtered up above the horizon. He had been driving around the city for forty minutes crystallizing his plan for bringing down the Cleopatra network. The car’s stereo system rang out with the voice of a new and talented Irish tenor. Whenever he was alone, Alejandro preferred Irish music. It soothed him and helped him think clearly. More important, it did not exhume
ugly memories from the past the way Latin music did.

  The car sped along the parkway. He looked out at the big ships anchored in Gravesend Bay. Driving past Bensonhurst Park, he glanced at the darkened cars parked in the lovers lane at the water’s edge, and he thought of the woman who had so cavalierly tossed her underpants at him and taken him to her bed. He could no longer smell her clinging scent or even remember her name. She was another of the faded memories that added to his loneliness.

  He raced the Porsche onto the Gowanus Expressway and a few minutes later was speeding through the almost deserted Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Once out of the tunnel, he tooled the car through the financial district’s eerily deserted streets. He pulled up at the curb alongside a telephone booth across from Trinity Church. Sliding out of his car, he looked at the blackened spire of the venerable old building reaching up into the fading night. He deposited a quarter in the telephone’s coin slot, heard the dial tone hiccup; he punched in the number, quickly calculating that it was Thursday morning, June 24.

  When the voice came on the other end of the line, Alejandro said, “Chilebean, thirteen hundred.”

  The voice echoed, “Chilebean, thirteen hundred.”

  “Are you losing it upstairs?” Seaver demanded as they strolled around the outside of Grant’s Tomb. He was obviously disturbed by the turn of events.

  “It’ll work,” Alejandro said confidently.

  “You’ve thought up a lot of crazy things during our time together, and I’ll give it to you, most of them have worked. But this one is off the wall.”

  “Why?”

  With some anger, Seaver snapped, “For openers, most of it is against the law.”

  “C’mon, Andy. We set up scumbags and then fade into the night. There are a dozen dopers doing megatime because of us.” He spread his arms in praise. “We’re society’s unsung heroes. So what’s a few bent laws?”