The Informant

by Marc Olden

  Russell Gormes had an answer. I got to do the dying, so I might as well do the living.

  He added something. I love her, Katey. I goddamn do love her.

  Katey, angry, confused, hurt, believing that Russell was betraying him as well as the department, had a reply.

  Love is something that will always cost you more than you can afford. Like a car, a television set, and tennis lessons. It’s just another four-letter word. Like alimony, it’s the fucking you get for the fucking you got.

  Love is grief, turkey.

  Russell Gormes wanted Leslie Lucas, and he paid for it.

  The department made sure he didn’t get a job in law enforcement anywhere in New York State. It didn’t have to work too hard at seeing that Russell Gormes stayed frozen out. All the New York City Police Department had to do was let it be known that Gormes had crossed the line and become personally involved with a female informant, disgracing himself and his fellow officers.

  That’s all the department had to do. And it proved to be more than enough. Russell Gormes was now untrustworthy, and a traitor to his own. He was now a member of the walking dead.

  He found it impossible to get a private investigator’s license in New York. He had no chance of ever becoming an instructor at the police academy, nor could he ever be considered for a top security job with the state, city, or private industry. Forget about getting bonded.

  Private security firms, which ordinarily would have jumped at the chance to hire a Russell Gormes, didn’t bother to return his telephone calls or acknowledge his letters.

  The freeze was working beautifully.

  So fucking unlucky, it was pathetic.

  Russell’s wife sued for divorce, and when two sets of lawyers finished, hers and his, the money was gone. His apartment was burglarized twice, and to pay mounting bills, Russell was forced to sell his car. God in his heaven didn’t let up.

  Leslie’s illness, a respiratory disease, got worse. It was also expensive to treat.

  And still Russell refused to leave her. As far as Katey was concerned Leslie Lucas was a three-legged dog, good for nothing and better off dead. Russell took care of her and never complained. Katey had pressed money on him, but couldn’t understand why in hell Russell stuck by this bimbo who had cut him off at the knees.

  The only job Russell could get was as security guard in that dirty bug palace of a bingo joint, and that’s where he’d gotten shotgunned in the face by spics with their brains fried on smack and their trigger fingers itchy for confrontation.

  Katey took his feet off Russell’s beige hospital blanket. Can’t deal with all this sadness, man. Cannot deal with this much hard times. That’s why he and Russell had drifted apart the past few months. Russell’s existence was a bummer, one big down, and you couldn’t rub up against it without feeling as though you were trapped at the bottom of a mine shaft.

  Katey said, “Your piece. You forget how to blow people away?”

  “Didn’t have a piece. Sold it. Needed the bread. Was carryin’ a dummy gun. Plastic and tin.”

  Russell Gormes coughed, and spit trickled from a corner of his no-lipped, wide mouth. He wheezed, an ugly, old-man sound that made Katey cringe. Katey was embarrassed at cringing, until he realized that Russell couldn’t see him. The room smelled of medicine, raw alcohol plus an indefinable odor that Katey could only associate with hospitals.

  On a small table near the bed were purple, white, and yellow flowers in a white vase, along with cigarettes, a portable radio, a Bible, and a half-eaten candy bar. A color photograph of Leslie Lucas smiled from a cheap gold-painted wooden frame.

  Katey frowned and leaned forward in his chair. “What’s this shit about a dummy gun? You mean to tell me—?”

  “Man, let me hip you about security work.” Russell Gormes’s wide hands went to the gauze covering his eyes. “Eighty-five a week—”

  “Jesus!”

  “That’s straight. Eighty-five. Most of the guards I’ve met are too dumb to be believed. Kids, psychos, drunks, losers. Hey. Look who’s talking. Anyway, most don’t have a piece. They can’t afford one, and the company ain’t about to spend the money buying you one. Most carry dummies in their holsters. For eighty-five, all they want is a warm body to stand around and look mean.”

  Katey shook his head unbelievingly. “But the creeps you go up against don’t know that. Far as they’re concerned, you’re carrying.”

  “You know it. All I had was plastic and tin. Ten-year-old spade kids got Saturday-night specials, and I got nothin’.”

  “Jesus, why didn’t you let me know? I could have gotten you something. …”

  “You done enough already. How many times can I beg people—”

  “I ain’t people, I’m your partner.”

  “Yeah.” Russell tried to smile, then gave it up.

  Katey wanted to shove a gun in Leslie Lucas’ mouth and pull the trigger. She was responsible for everything that had happened to Russell Gormes. She ought to be in hell with a broken back.

  Russell croaked, “Thirsty. Some orange juice around here somewheres.”

  Katey stood quickly. “I’ll get it. Oh, I bought something for you.”

  “What?”

  “Johnnie Walker Red. What you always drink, hook nose.”

  Russell Gormes completed the smile this time. “Right on, K-man.”

  “Here, I’ll shove it under your pillow, ’cause I just know this place has got its little rules.”

  “Who gives a shit? Open it for me, then put the cork back in nice and tight.”

  “Done.”

  Finishing the glass of warm orange juice, Russell took a swallow from the bottle, shook his head with satisfaction at the warmth of it, and hid the bottle again. He stayed sitting up, a hand resting on each knee. He looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy grafted onto the body of a gorilla. All wrapped in white, hairy legs sticking out from under his gown.

  “Tell you something, Katey. I went crazy yesterday and last night but right now I ain’t too bad. I’m gonna win, gonna beat this thing. I’m gonna walk out of this stinking place, and I won’t need no fuckin’ dog or cane.”

  Katey swallowed hard. “Better believe it. Ain’t no way but the way. First day out we—”

  “We just sit outside, you and me. We talk, we look at everything, everybody. You don’t know how bad you miss seeing until you can’t see anymore. Colors, women, dogs, kids. Next time around, I’m gonna be takin’ a hard look at all of them. Food sucks in here. Department got me this private room. They’re gonna see what else they can do for me.”

  Katey snorted in disgust. “They done enough already. Anybody drop by to see you?”

  “Yeah. Weissman, Peppe, Favor, Lloyd, a bunch of people. S’pose to be putting in a phone sometime today. That’s sure gonna help, believe me. What’s with you these days?”

  Katey told him about working with Neil Shire, Lydia Constanza, and federal narcotics agents.

  Russell puckered up his wide mouth, nodding his head, impressed. “K-man on the move. Keep on keepin’ on. And you’re scoring, right?”

  “Looks like. Buying small. Ounces, eighths. But it’s good shit. We ain’t been burned yet. All of it tests out fine.”

  “You got a good informant. Rolling anybody over besides her?”

  “Ummmm, possibly a spade named Bad Red. He is supposed to be putting us in touch with two black middle-level distributors. Julius Shelton and Lonnie Conquest. Two keys’ worth. Coke. Seventy-five percent pure.”

  Russell pulled out the bottle again, swallowed for a long time, corked and hid it. “Two keys is cool. Everything righteous?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know. Shelton and Conquest are out of town, nobody knows where. That leaves Bad Red, and everybody wants more than his word before coming up with a flash roll. We’re talking about one hundred and ten big ones.”

  “My, my. That is big, K-man. How’s the force taking it? I know it’s their idea that you climb in bed with feds, but
you know how people are.”

  “Ain’t it the truth, hook nose? Department wants to have some more of their men in on the buy with Bad Red, but the feds say no, just little old me as far as outside talent goes. It’s their money, so they get to call the tune.”

  Russell Gormes farted, then grinned. “Hospital food. Tell me, you think there’s anything to your informant’s super deal? Cubans and spades. They do deals, but not on a level that’s anything like what your gal says might go down.”

  Katey shrugged. “You know dope, my man. Anything’s possible. One thing, though. They found the Rucker brothers wasted over in New Jersey. Two of Harlem’s finest lying in each other’s arms in the back of a car. Next to no blood in the car, so that means they got burned someplace else, then dragged across the river. The talent who wasted them was good. Head shots, heart, throat. He knew what he was doing. Or they knew. Must have been close. Street says Kelly Lorenzo ordered the hit. Ruckers were giving him trouble, not turning over money due Kelly. Street says they even copped Kelly’s private stash and turned it over down in Baltimore. Now, it could be that Kelly’s got plans and needs all the bread he can get. In which case, he is going to hand out grief and pain to anybody who gets in his way.”

  Russell Gormes scratched his crotch. “Could be, K-man. You could be right. The Ruckers were two mean spooks. I hear tell they always made the women work naked in their mills. Stone naked. That way, nobody hides any dope up their dress or in a bra. That’s mean, man. Pretty fucking mean. Bunch of naked women sitting ’round a table cutting a load, and you know there’s armed guards in the room watching and getting hard-ons.”

  Katey grinned, hands behind his head. “I’d damn sure have stiff pants. That’s a natural fact.”

  “Who’s the Cuban, again?”

  “Snitch says Mas Betancourt. Figure he’s the honcho, calling the shots, since Kelly’s hiding out and might find it hard to touch base with his connect without getting popped. So old Mas the cripple calls the shots, my experience tells me. He calls the shots, puts up most of the money, reaches out for what he don’t have, and probably sets up the overseas connect. Kelly brings in more spades, probably top-level distributors who commit themselves to buy so much of the load. Kelly probably brings in money too, and whatever else is needed. Now, all this hangs on whether or not there’s anything to what Miss Constanza says. It’s a long way from scoring ounces to getting next to an importer like my man Mas.”

  “Ain’t been done,” said Russell Gormes. “Guys like Mas never take a fall. You got a better chance to fuck the queen of England than you do getting next to Mas.”

  “Well, that’s what we’re gonna try and do.”

  “Fuck the queen of England? Can I watch?”

  “No, you hook-nose scumbag. We’re gonna roll over whoever we can, and keep climbing.”

  “Department’s gonna put on the pressure, K. Soon as they smell a good one, a bust that can get them in the papers and on the eleven-o’clock news, they are gonna want theirs. Watch your little ding-dong, K-man. You’re in the middle.”

  “Don’t I know it. I—”

  The door opened, and a broad-shouldered female nurse two inches taller than Katey exploded into the room as though ready to punch somebody. Ignoring Katey, she checked Russell’s chart hanging on the end of the bed, then took a thermometer from her pocket. With a minimum of time, effort, and words, she checked Russell’s temperature, bandages, told him the doctor would be in soon, gave him an injection, then left.

  Russell lay down, sighing heavily. “How’s Margaret?”

  Katey had that uncomfortable feeling again. Pity. “Okay. See her when I can. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah. Cop’s life.” Russell Gormes’s words were slurred as the injection began to take effect. “Nobody likes a cop’s life ’cept a cop. Eyes still burn. Hurt; hurt li’l bit. Li’l bit. Katey?”

  “Here, good buddy.”

  “Don’t ever be poor. Poor ain’t nothin’ but nothin’. No money is bad. Makes you do things, do things that ain’t … Katey? … Tell ’em to get me a TV in here … TV.”

  Katey blinked, and tears slid down his face. Reaching inside his jacket, he took out the white envelope with two hundred dollars in crisp tens and twenties drawn from his savings account this morning. Gently he slipped the envelope under Russell’s pillow, pushing it under the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red.

  Unlucky hook-nose Lebanese. Built like a low brick wall. What did love ever do for you, good buddy, except shove your face into the toilet?

  No sweat on the TV, partner. It’s done. You got it, and I hope you get more out of it than you got from your bimbo snitch.

  Katey turned and faced the sun, his face in his hands, his body shaking with his weeping, and he wondered how he could feel sorry for Russell and at the same time envy him for having the guts to put every bit of himself into one all-consuming passion.

  Dropping his hands, Katey stared into the sun, giving himself up to its hot brightness, seeing, seeing. He was seeing for himself and for Russell.

  One thing for sure. Katey was never going to be poor. He was going to take that bit of advice from his partner and engrave it on the inside of his own skull.

  Russell Gormes paid the price for being stone broke. You and me together on that one, hook nose. Forget about being out of bucks, forget it now and for always. Life was too short and too hard to come up empty.

  11

  WALKER WALLACE SPUN AROUND in his leather chair and spoke to the wall. Four men sitting or standing in his small office knew every word was meant for them.

  “We start to dig, as of now. Neil’s informant says Mas Betancourt. All right, let’s start with that. His folder’s on my desk, and if you’ve read it before, read it again. We know he’s one of the top four in town, and even the other Cuban importers respect him for his brains and his balls. He does weight, he’s protected, he’s got lieutenants and top distributors out in front of him, and he’s never spent a day in court, let alone a night in jail. So that makes him good at what he’s doing. And we do know what he’s doing, don’t we?”

  Walker Wallace swung around to face them. Neil Shire, Katey, and the two agents working with them, Kirk Holmes and Walter Dankin. Wallace looked carefully at each man before he spoke again.

  “Knocking down an importer don’t happen every hour on the hour. The distance between what Lydia’s given us so far and a Mas Betancourt is the difference between a Ouija board and a computer. Mas is so insulated, it’s pathetic. And Cubans don’t talk. They don’t flip. Yeah, you got exceptions, but getting a Cuban to rat on another Cuban is like trying to piss through steel. They are shrewd people, cunning like a fox, and they got a system that lasts, because they’re organized. Cuban refugees are all over the world, and that’s their organization. Smart bunch of people. But we can get lucky. That is, if you call working your ass off getting lucky.

  “Now, Neil …”

  Walker Wallace handed him Mas Betancourt’s folder. “Read it and pass it on. Everybody here knows, of course, that we have some news from Miami. If you don’t, here it is again. We spotted Lonnie Conquest down there. Now, on account of he’s been black since the day he was born, we don’t figure he’s down there for a tan. He was born in North Carolina, so figure he’s in Miami for business, maybe pleasure. But I go with business, and Mr. Conquest’s business is dope. Now, the second piece of news is that we popped Mr. Cruz Real last night. Mr. Real, for those of you who don’t know, is young, only twenty-two, and we caught him with half a key of white powder for the nose. He was in a young lady’s apartment, said young lady being married to somebody else. It goes without saying that whoever dropped the dime on Cruz and his half key of cocaine didn’t like him crawling between the lady’s legs.”

  Katey snorted. “Her husband.”

  “Give the man a cigar,” said Walker Wallace. “We think it’s hubbo, but since the tip came from Mr. A. Nonymous, we don’t know for sure. So Cruz gets busted with enough happy dus
t to send him down for a nice number of years. Anything up to a dime. Ten years. We got him by the short and curlies, no two ways about it. He’s young, married, loves the ladies, and he’s new at the game of dope. He don’t know what it’s like to be locked up ten years with no nooky. He’s a stud, a genuine Cuban macho type, so I don’t think he’s gonna like playing drop the soap in Atlanta or Lewisburg.”

  Walker Wallace paused to sip cold coffee. “Now, the point of this here wonderful speech is that Cruz Real is related to John-John Paco, old Mr. Johnny P. Cruz is his nephew. And John-John is a cousin of Mas Betancourt’s. Cubans are glued together tighter than the fucking Waltons. John-John, we know, is a top-level distributor in the Miami area. Been getting his dope from cousin Mas for years. John-John putting superstud nephew Cruz on the payroll might be the break we need. We are going to lean on Cruz, roll him over if we can, see what we can come up with.”

  Neil looked up from the folder he’d been reading. “How tough is Cruz?”

  “Our guys down there say he’d rather play dip the wick than work up a sweat in the dope business. Cruz has more women than you got hairs in your nose. Plus a wife and two kids. Cuban men are snatch-happy. Our people think Cruz is Silly Putty, so they’re going to work on him. It would be nice if Cruz tells us something about old John-John, and maybe, just maybe, something about whether or hot cousin Mas is planning a super deal.”

  Neil said, “Conquest. What do we do about him down in Miami?”

  Walker Wallace sucked a piece of Danish from between two back teeth. “Upstairs thinks we got a chance to find out if Bad Red’s jiving or not. They think we should send Lydia down to Miami real quick, have her talk to Conquest, see if he’s supplying Bad Red with two keys of coke. If he is, no sweat. We make the buy, which will give us more than enough to come down on Bad Red. In the end, it also gives us Conquest and Shelton. But I gotta tell you, Neil, the feeling around here is that Bad Red ain’t righteous. The powers that be smell rip.”

  And Neil had to admit the front office was right. As badly as he wanted to make the buy, he had to admit that it didn’t look right. Bad Red refusing to let Neil and Katey meet Lonnie Conquest and Julius Shelton.