by Marc Olden
Behind Neil, the tiny Cuban, who called himself Zarzuela, said, “Hey, man, hey, come on, sit down.”
Neil, an expert at going for anybody’s jugular, heard the whine in Zarzuela’s voice and knew he had the little pusher. Fish is chewing on the hook, now let’s reel him in and hang his miniature ass over the fireplace.
“I’m sitting,” said Neil.
Zarzuela said, “I got to get by, you know? Got to make a living.”
Neil, palms down on the black formica tabletop, looked at the backs of his hands and said nothing.
Zarzuela said, “You known Lydia long?”
“I’m interested in dope,” said Neil. I’m being watched, too. Covering your ass, aren’t you, Mr. Z.? Three men: a fat one in a pink shirt and gold cross, sitting at the bar digging wax out of his ears. And in the front booth, two more, one of them drooling over a hooker in a green jumpsuit and yellow platforms.
That’s how Cubans did dope. Always where they felt safe. Always, always in a bar or restaurant that was totally Cuban, in a Cuban neighborhood, so that strangers stood out immediately. Blacks, Italians, and everybody else did dope anywhere, your place or theirs, in a park or in a church, but not Cubans. If you bought or sold dope to Cubans, the deal always went down in a Cuban neighborhood, in a Cuban bar or restaurant. Cubans were smart, tough, careful, and dealing more dope in New York than blacks and Italians put together.
Neil Shire was in Rosario’s by invitation. Like most agents or cops undercover, he carried no gun. A stranger with a gun meant cop, and Neil was a stranger until he’d made enough buys to be accepted. Only then could he carry a gun around dope dealers without arousing suspicion.
Tonight’s buy had been set up by Lydia Constanza, an informant Neil was working for the first time. Tonight was Lydia’s first test, and if she passed it, if Neil copped good dope from Zarzuela, then Lydia would be used for more buys, and, more important to Lydia, she’d be able to keep out of jail. Like all informants, she’d flipped because she had to, because she’d committed a crime. In order to stay out of prison, she was betraying friends and associates.
“Lydia says you buy for people on the island.” Zarzuela couldn’t stop smiling. All teeth, gums, tonsils, and moist brown eyes pleading to be liked, to be agreed with.
Lydia says what I tell her to say, thought Neil. He said to Zarzuela, “Let’s skip all the social shit, okay? Why am I sitting here? You tell me.”
Zarzuela coughed, sniffed, wiped his nose on his pea-coat sleeve. Pusher-addict, thought Neil. Half of his supply goes into his arm, the other half gets hit with milk sugar, baking soda, or powdered laxative, and he deals it for money for some more to put in his arm. He’ll try to waltz me around so he can look good in front of his three friends. But in the end, he’ll take the thousand and make the sign of the cross, because he knows for sure he can wake up tomorrow and get well.
Don’t blame the September chill for your sniffles, Chico. Blame your nasty little habit and that needle. Once you slip it in, it never comes out.
Lydia. Neil had signaled her to go to the john and stay there while the buy went down. If she didn’t see the deal, she wouldn’t have to testify. Being a snitch was a high-risk business.
You had to protect your informants, because without them, you had no case. They introduced you to people, got you inside, vouched for you, tipped you in advance, tipped you after the fact, helped you to make arrests, and by doing so, made your career. Neil was in Rosario’s because Lydia Constanza had said she could set him up with Cubans dealing heroin and cocaine.
She’d said more, something that had made Neil Shire, an ambitious man, tremble with excitement and think that Lydia Constanza just might be his ticket to ride.
Lydia claimed to have seen Kelly Lorenzo in a Manhattan after-hours club. Kelly was the most-wanted federal fugitive in dope, a twenty-nine-year-old black who’d been dealing one hundred million dollars’ worth of narcotics yearly before he’d jumped four hundred thousand dollars’ bail six months ago. Good-looking Kelly, who’d killed at least a hundred people. Smart, ruthless Kelly, who was probably still dealing dope from wherever he was hiding.
Lydia said she saw him in the Palace, a legendary after-hours club operated by top pimps, a joint no law enforcement had ever set foot in, and a place most cops felt didn’t exist. People throughout America, in Europe and in the Caribbean claimed to have seen Kelly Lorenzo, who had a thirty-thousand-dollar reward on his head.
Was he in Manhattan? In narcotics, anything was possible.
And Lydia Constanza, facing jail for armed robbery as well as prostitution and mugging charges, offered Neil Shire something else to keep herself out of the joint. Cubans and blacks, she said, were teaming to bring in the largest amount of white heroin New York City had ever seen. The deal was so big that both groups, who had never worked together on this large a scale before, were investing millions of dollars up front.
The deal was so big that it would take at least a year to plan and execute. At least one year.
Ambitious Neil Shire trembled with excitement at the thought of it. If Lydia Constanza was telling the truth about Kelly Lorenzo and the Cuban-black super white-heroin deal, then Neil Shire had nothing but green lights in front of him from now on.
If Lydia was talking good noise and Neil could stay on top of this case without having it yanked from under him, then there were promotions in his future, commendations, that desk job he and his wife both wanted for him, one of the few things the two of them agreed on. If Lydia was right, if, then Neil had the case of his life.
If she was wrong, then she was heading to the joint and Neil was on his way to oblivion. But think positive. Think that Lydia was righteous. Think about making this case, then getting promoted to group supervisor with men working under him. Think about becoming assistant regional director with a corner office and windows. Think about making this case and getting transferred to Washington.
To hell with having his picture taken with the head of the department, with the heavies down at Justice, with the attorney-general, with the president of the United States. Just give Neil a desk job, a higher civil-service grade, and the money that came with all of that, and he’d be singing in the rain louder than Gene Kelly.
It all depended on Lydia. Work her right, test her, stroke her, watch her. Turn her over and get her to introduce him to people. Turn them over, and keep moving up, keep moving up. The name of the game. That’s what tonight was all about. A test for Lydia, with Neil’s reputation and career riding on that test, because he’d had too much trouble lately. Too much.
He’d made mistakes and been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and besides all that, he was going nowhere, no goddamn where at all, making no cases, impressing nobody. He needed help.
And a friend on the cops had handed him Lydia because New York City narcotics was too broke to pay informants and too short of manpower to spare the time to work them properly. Neil’s chance was now, now, and he was going to work Lydia Constanza for all she was worth. It was her or Neil, and it damn sure wasn’t going to be Neil.
First time out, and she’d given him Zarzuela, and Zarzu had dope. Or was it all a hustle to buy Lydia time to think of some other way to stay out of the slam? Ripoff? Zarzu and Lydia teaming to sell Neil milk sugar? Christ, no. Don’t even think that. That was last year. Old trouble. Christ, don’t even think that.
But you had to think betrayal when you were working a snitch. A snitch would betray anybody to stay out of jail. Give a snitch a better offer, and he’d betray a cop, an agent, his gray-haired mother. It had happened before. Christ, don’t even think that.
A lot to worry about these days. In law enforcement, you moved up or you were moved out. Times were hard, money was tight, and cutbacks had put cops and agents on unemployment insurance and back to mowing grass full time. Neil Shire, thirty-two, going nowhere, anxious for that desk job, had to move up soon.
The street was exciting, and buying dope was some kind of thr
ill, but you couldn’t be out there when you were fifty-five—that is, if you lasted that long. If you didn’t get blown away by a fucked-up dealer, if you didn’t get killed by department efficiency reports, if you didn’t get screwed by dumb partners, if you didn’t get pushed into working on a shit case by an ambitious supervisor hot to look good at your expense. No siree, friends, Neil Shire didn’t want to be on the street that long.
But to get off the street in a hurry, he needed a dynamite case.
Enter Lydia.
At the bar, the ball-game watchers cheered, shouted, clapped, whistled. Sounds like a fiesta, thought Neil. Who the hell would have thought I’d need an interpreter to watch a baseball game? You’ve got more Cubans in Manhattan than you got holes in Swiss cheese.
He watched the fat man in the pink shirt and tiny gold cross slide his thick ass and thighs off a barstool, eyes still on the game. When fatty walked past Neil’s booth, he had a folded newspaper under one large arm.
“Yes or no,” said Neil. “My ass is getting numb sitting here.”
Zarzuela sighed, shrugged. “You got it. A thousand.”
No shit, Dick Tracy, thought Neil. But he was excited. Man, you always got turned on when the buy went down and you had lied so beautifully. He said, “Tell me again how good it is.”
“White. Fifty percent. Stepped on just once.”
“You sure about that?”
“Talking straight, man. Dynamite package, nothin’ but dynamite.”
Neil knew better. Street pushers were the end of the line in dope, creeps selling leftovers, buying last and getting dope that had been hit so many times it was usually one percent heroin and ninety-nine percent baking soda, lactose, dextrose, procaine, quinine, mannite. Street pushers sold the weakest dope and were the most dangerous people to deal with.
That was one of the strange things about dope. Buy a lot, buy kilos, and you dealt with people you could almost always trust. Big guys kept their word, stayed away from violence most of the time, and were dependable, cool, together.
But God help your ass when you bought small. These were the people quick to use a gun, to rip you off, to play games. The small guys, the ones selling ounces, eighths, quarters, nickel and dime bags. They were the ones you had to watch out for, the ones who would blow you away in a second.
Fifty percent pure. Sure, Zarzu. And the bear has signed a paper never to shit in the woods anymore.
Neil Shire passed him the envelope. Ten one-hundred-dollar bills, and that had also been a problem today, one of several. Upstairs had been unable to give Neil smaller bills, and he’d bitched, but the broad with a face as long as a broom handle had said it wasn’t her fault, take it or leave it.
So he took it, filling out the forms, hating having to carry around hundreds. But it had shortened his paperwork, since he had to list only ten serial numbers. The bills weren’t marked; listing the serial numbers was enough. Just keep an eye peeled for those numbers, and check out anybody who shows up with one. Chances are, whoever showed up with one of the bills was associated with Zarzuela, which Neil knew was a phony name.
Nobody in dope ever used a righteous name. Nobody. Nicknames, aliases. That’s all you ever got, and law enforcement went crazy wading through ten or more names to get their hands on one man. Cubans tended to use the names of hometowns and provinces back in Cuba. Zarzuela was the name of a popular fish stew.
Zarzuela looked up from counting the money, smiling as though a coat hanger was stuck in his mouth sideways. “All C’s. Nothing but hundreds. Goddamn, my man. All C’s.” He was impressed. “Mr. C Man. That’s you. Mr. C Man.”
A name is born, thought Neil. Why not? He said, “I’m waiting.”
The fat man in the pink shirt walked by the booth again, eyes on the ball game and no folded newspaper under his arm this time.
Zarzuela stood up, pocketing the envelope, a satisfied man. “Men’s room. Trashcan. Side facing you as you come in. Anytime you need another package, Mr. C, I’m ready.”
Let’s see what the lab tells me about this one, Zarzu. Neil said, “If you’re righteous, anything can happen.” For some reason, Zarzuela had gotten the idea in his head that Neil was buying dope for young Italians on Long Island, some crazy guineas breaking away from the old-time Mustache Petes in the Mafia and going into business for themselves.
Neil had gone along with it, letting Zarzuela think whatever he wanted to. Lydia’s idea probably, since she’d done all the talking with the Cuban. Not a bad idea. Maybe she wasn’t the useless spic that Katey kept calling her behind her back. Katey was Edward Merle Kates, detective sergeant, New York Police Department, assigned to work with Neil and Lydia.
Katey didn’t like Lydia, which might turn out to be a problem in the future. A snitch had to be treated right, if you wanted him to work for you, and for God’s sake, don’t ever say “snitch” to their face.
In the small, dimly lit, piss-smelling john, Neil found the folded newspaper. His heart was beating faster, and that’s how it was in narcotics. When you were going to score dope, or the bust was about to go down, you got excited, you couldn’t help it. The juice practically ran down your leg. Neil felt the lump inside the folded paper. It’s here, goddamn it, Lord, it’s here.
Clear plastic bag. The kind sold in supermarkets. A fourth of a cup of white powder in the bottom, the bag folded over several times. Yes. Neil closed his eyes, exhaled, counted to ten.
Outside on the street, he shivered in the cool darkness, eyes on Lydia.
“Went down fine. Laboratory will tell us what we just copped. Zarzuela says it’s fifty-percent pure.”
“He’s lying.” Lydia drew the gray fur collar on her cheap coat closer around her throat. Under the yellow streetlight, her green fingernail polish was black. “He’s small. He knows people, but he’s not that well connected to be gettin’ that kind of pure. It’s probably twenty percent or less.”
Neil nodded, smiled at her. She understood the street, give her that much. “Twenty’s good. We’ll accept that.” A cab stopped for them, was ignored, then speeded up. A white man out walking slowed down as if to cruise Lydia, saw Neil, and walked away faster.
She shivered with cold. “That’s it for tonight, right?”
“For you. I’ve got to run this through the lab, then do a report.”
“Report on me, too, right?”
“Yeah. One on you, then my own activity report. Half my time’s spent at a goddamn typewriter.”
“When do I get paid?”
“When the lab tells me what I just scored from your friend Mr. Z.”
“You people are careful, aren’t you?”
“Hurts when you’re not. There’s only winners and losers, and my people don’t go much for losing.”
“Zarzuela will try hard to keep you as a customer. Good customers are hard to find.”
Neil watched a bus slow down for a red light. Behind him somewhere someone bounced a garbage-can top off a car hood. Lydia jumped, Neil didn’t. His mind was working. Twenty percent, she’d said. Was she being straight with him, or was she protecting her own ass against what the lab might find? If Neil had a pocketful of milk sugar, Lydia was jammed up, in trouble up to her purple lipstick. Hell, if he was holding milk sugar, he was jammed up, too. His group supervisor would want the thousand back, or good dope in its place, and he wouldn’t care how Neil did it so long as he did it. Losing buy money was a black mark on the agent who’d been taken, on the superior who’d sent him out on the street, on the regional office they both worked in. Better to lose your left ball than lose buy money.
Lydia said, “You gonna call Katey?” She was afraid of Katey. Katey could be mean. Lydia knew cops, and even without having seen Katey kick somebody in the face, she knew the man was a bastard.
Tonight Neil had no backup, no gun. Just him and Lydia. Had there been more buy money involved, Neil would have had at least two, possibly ten men behind him. A thousand dollars was chump change on the street. Nothing a
t all.
Neil wasn’t sure what he felt about Lydia Constanza. Liking her wasn’t necessary, when you got down to it. Better for him and her if he didn’t like her too much. All Neil knew for certain was that he planned to use her.
Remembering he still needed her, he patted her shoulder, giving her the big smile. “You did fine. If we pop Zarzuela, you won’t have to testify. You saw nothing.”
“ ’Cept a toilet that wouldn’t flush. Next time, I bring somethin’ to read.” She started to grin, then stopped.
Neil said, “Call you tomorrow. How’s Olga?”
Olga was Lydia’s five-year-old daughter.
Lydia hugged herself for warmth, shoulders up around her ears. “Taking Olga to the zoo tomorrow.”
“Polar bears are nice.” Neil didn’t want to talk to her any more tonight. He’d used her, and now he didn’t want to see her until he had to use her again. Besides, he had a daughter of his own. Courtenaye, four, with snaggle teeth, hair the color of ripe wheat and what Neil thought was a real talent for art. Neil had a wife, too. Elaine. Their relationship was strained these days.
Lydia said, “See you,” and turned, walking into darkness.
Distance, thought Neil, clinging to that thought, because he had to be right, had to. Don’t get close to an informant. You’ll only get hurt. It’s dangerous, it’s dumb, and you’ll get burned as sure as the sky is up and water is wet. Keep that distance, especially if your snitch is a woman.
But he could have put her in a cab. He hadn’t, because he wanted that distance between them, wanted that edge, wanted her to know that he’d go only so far with her and no farther. Wanted her to know that she was being worked, that Neil was in control, in charge.
He wasn’t in charge of his own wife, but why think about that when he’d just scored some white in his first time on the street in five months? Neil Shire had something to take to the lab. Lydia had disappeared, and the September wind was knifing him in the face, neck, crotch.
