Mean Business on North Ganson Street (19 page)

“Christ's uncle,” said Bettinger.

“I'll call these young entrepreneurs Turd and Dung.”

“Sounds accurate.”

“So Turd and Dung do what any bright-eyed young drug dealers would do: They step on their skag with quinine. Unfortunately, they don't seem to understand the difference between a gram and a milligram, and soon, their tainted skag has a deadly amount of quinine in every single dose.”

“God bless the Internet,” said the detective.

“So it's graduation day. Only about one in four Victory kids completes high school, so graduation is a big deal for them. Each year, the police put extra guys out to deal with disturbances and DUIs, but in general, it's just good kids getting rambunctious.

“Turd and Dung are looking to establish their clientele, so they hand out their skag as party favors to their friends—honor roll students who have scholarships and futures.”

Bettinger felt ill.

“The first one arrives at St. John's at about one in the morning—an eighteen-year-old girl who's never done drugs before that night. Her lips and fingernails are blue, and her dress is covered with diarrhea. She doesn't even make it to the operating room.

“In the next hour, five more kids turn up in the same condition. Three die, and two are stabilized. One of their friends tells somebody what happened, and as the police hunt down Turd and Dung, eight more kids land in the emergency room.

“Eleven kids die that night.

“Next day, the newspapers go out, and they have the ugliest headlines ever printed in the history of this country.

“The police department isn't complimented.

“A big guy in the precinct who likes to box confers with five detectives—you might've met four of them—and tells them to do whatever's necessary to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

“The big guy is realistic, and so are these five detectives. They're not going to solve the drug problem in Victory. The drug problem can't be solved anywhere in this country, even in cities that have low crime rates, lots of money, and Jewish mayors. As long as there are unhappy people, there will be drug users, and as long as there are drug users, there will be drug dealers.

“The police decide that they need somebody on the other side who can monitor things—an established criminal who can make sure nobody's selling drugs to children or dealing poison. One of the detectives mentions a guy he knows—

“Fuckface.”

Bettinger suddenly understood several things about Sebastian Ramirez.

“Fuckface is a capitalist who specializes in ventures such as prostitution and gambling—the kinds of things that Victory police rarely have time to focus on—but also drugs, which he handles through a complex relay system that the cops have never been able to stop. He's ambitious, opportunistic, and morally flexible.

“So he's perfect for what the cops need.”

The detective recalled a photograph of the hospitalized drug dealer in which the man resembled an exsanguinated corpse.

“The police offer Fuckface a deal, and he accepts it. It takes him four minutes to find out where Lethal lives, and he gives the address to the detectives, who go right over. The idiot sees the cops at his door and goes through the window, even though there's no fire escape, and he's on the fourth floor.”

Bettinger assumed that Lethal had been given some assistance by the police in his act of defenestration.

“For some reason,” the mottled man said, “it takes the ambulance more than an hour to show up. By the time it does, Lethal's a cold red pile, and the detectives are all eating sandwiches.

“I heard that those sandwiches tasted great.

“That's the beginning of the relationship between Fuckface and the five detectives.

“Several times a month, he gives them information about his competitors, and in exchange, the police leave him alone. He doesn't go straight, but he makes sure whatever illicit shit he has going on is as safe as can be. He knows that he'll lose his deal with the police if people die from his skag or get robbed in his casinos or get AIDS from his girls.”

Bettinger surmised that Tackley and his crew had purchased their luxury cars and tailored suits with a hunk of Sebastian's profits.

“As soon as the next quarter,” the mottled man continued, “the statistics show fewer overdoses and drug-related homicides in Victory. Things go from abysmal to just plain terrible.

“The big guy in the police precinct is intuitive and vaguely suspects the nature of the deal between the five detectives and Fuckface, but he doesn't ask for details, and so none are provided.

“The arrangement is condoned, but off the record.

“It works for years.

“Unfortunately, Fuckface is a morally flexible capitalist, and eventually, he gets some new ideas. He does the math and decides to play both sides, even though he makes more money than all five detectives put together.

“It's disappointing, though it's not a big surprise:

“Your hopes aren't very high when you count on a guy named Fuckface.

“For a while, it's small offenses. Fuckface feeds the detectives some bad information—tip-offs with the wrong times or locations—and he apologizes. Fuckface says that mistakes happen, and the detectives tell him not to worry about it, they trust him.

“They say this, but they don't mean it. They know that he's playing both sides, wasting their time, and this makes them frown.

“So there's one more character who's important to this story. His name's Fat Asshole.

“Fuckface wants to make a deal with Fat Asshole, but Fat Asshole has heard some worrisome talk. He's heard that Fuckface is a part-time confidential informant, and it's an established fact that a starving dog in heat on the streets of war-torn El Salvador is more trustworthy than a goddamn CI.

“So Fuckface says he'll prove where his loyalties lie. He knows that Fat Asshole was shot and put in jail a couple of years earlier by a certain detective, and he will deliver this detective to Fat Asshole as a token of goodwill.

“This detective is the fifth one—the guy you didn't meet.”

Everything clicked into place for Bettinger, and he felt the weight of the story's imminent conclusion.

“The fifth detective has been looking for a serial rapist, and Fuckface gives him a lead. The location is deep in Shitopia, and when the detective gets there, some guys grab him, take him to a room, and tie him up so that Fat Asshole can have some fun with him.

“Fat Asshole is a sociopath.

“A week later, the four detectives find their missing peer. He's naked. His eyes are gouged out, and his larynx is crushed. His liver is inside his stomach, cut into hunks, chewed up, partially digested. It's been there since he was forced to eat it for his final meal.

“There aren't any words in the English language that can convey what the four detectives felt when they saw their peer—their friend—like that.”

“I'm sorry,” said Bettinger.

Tackley cleared his throat. “The detectives know that Fuckface was the one who set up their friend. Fuckface is terrified, and he should be.

“He goes into hiding, calls one of the detectives, and gives up Fat Asshole, claiming that Fat Asshole promised not to kill the detective, only give him a beating.

“The four detectives go after Fat Asshole, who pulls out a gun and receives so many bullets that his head looks like tomato puree by the time the smoke clears.

“But there's still Fuckface, the lying fuck who handed the detective over to the sociopath. The piece of rat shit who sold a good man's life like it was a whore's pussy.

“The airports and highways are monitored, and the four detectives search Victory for three days. On the third night, they find a bum named Doggie, ask him some questions, feed him a pigeon or two, and all of a sudden, Fuckface's crew ambushes them. One detective gets a bullet in the arm, and another gets some buckshot across the face.”

Bettinger knew that these two men were Perry and Dominic.

“The detectives catch a member of Fuckface's crew and ask him questions in the least gentle way you could ever imagine. So he tells them where Fuckface is hiding.

“The detectives descend upon that location, which is a second-floor apartment in an area that's far nicer than where any of the detectives live.

“As soon as Fuckface hears the thunder, he escapes, runs into a crowded supermarket, and surrenders.

“The detectives put the cuffs on him and are inspired by the various jars and heavy cans and frozen foods that they see. With a great amount of zeal, they use these hard things to crush and reorganize Fuckface's insides.

“The rest is in the papers.”

The line went dead.

Bettinger gave the cell phone to Dominic, who then replaced it on his hip.

“Lawrence Wilson was a great detective and the best fuckin' guy I ever knew,” said the big fellow, dialing the wheel clockwise. “I don't know what you would've done after seein' your friend like that, but that's what we did.”

“How come Perry and Huan weren't demoted?”

“Me and Tackley went a little more overboard.”

Bettinger did not find that difficult to imagine. “I understand what you guys did. It's not right … but I might've done the same.”

Dominic nodded his head. It was clear that his thoughts were with a person who no longer existed.

 

XXVII

Collecting Idiots

Silence returned to the silver vehicle as it sped south.

Shortly after it traversed a phalanx of tenement buildings that were either partially demolished or partially constructed, Bettinger asked, “How long 'til we get there?”

“Ten minutes.”

“You know who we're looking for?”

Dominic snorted. “I know 'em.”

“Okay.”

The detective reclined his seat and shut his eyes. Although he had heard a skewed history of the events, he believed that all of the essential facts were true, especially since most of them could be verified with one call to the inspector. Tackley, Dominic, Perry, Huan, and Lawrence Wilson had probably skimmed from their contact—money or pills or favors from prostitutes—but their agreement with Sebastian had been sanctioned by Zwolinski and resulted in years of solid busts. It seemed as if the bandaged, buckshot thug behind the steering wheel was a little dirty, but not entirely rotten.

“If you didn't fuck up my car,” Bettinger said, “I'd apologize for saying that you and your pals were crooks.”

“Whatever.”

“But you did fuck it up.” The reclining detective yawned. “So it's still coming. You and me.”

“Make sure you have some vacation days for your recovery.”

“You too.” Another yawn exploded across Bettinger's face. “Wake me when we get there.”

“I'll fire a gun next to your ear.”

“Be sure to take off the silencer.”

Something replaced reality.

In that thing, Bettinger was sitting next to Alyssa on an airplane in which people smoked crooked cigarettes. The cabin shuddered, and a weird, cold shadow rippled across the seats. Concerned, the detective looked out through his window. Bright fire consumed an aileron, two engines, and the wing.

He wondered if he should tell his wife what was happening.

The airplane rumbled, and a voice in the sky said, “We're here.”

Bettinger opened his eyes, and saw the chipped, gray façade of the five-story building that was expanding across the windshield of the silver car. Dominic applied the brakes, and the moving image became a photograph.

The silver car expelled two policemen into the cold. Together, they hastened across the street and up the stone stoop.

The big fellow kicked the front door like it was a broken lawnmower. “Police! Open up!”

“Open up!” echoed the bleary-eyed detective. Scanning the windows of the opposite building, he saw a few curious onlookers. None of them were childhood friends, dead relatives, or giant insects, and thus, he concluded that he was no longer dreaming.

Again, the big fellow kicked the door. “Open this now!”

“Who is it?” asked a man on the far side of the wood.

“The police. Open right now, L-Dog, and don't have no fuckin' gun in your hand neither.”

“Dominic?”

“Detective Williams to you.” Dominic pounded a fist against the door, and wood cracked.

“Hold up, hold up,” implored the fellow inside.

“Now!”

“I'm gettin' it, nigga.”

A couple of footfalls echoed, and two bolts snapped. The door withdrew, revealing a tall white guy who had blond dreadlocks, gold teeth, and a black denim suit. “What you—”

The big fellow shoved the sentry aside and entered the pink front hall, trailing the detective.

“Wait a sec,” pleaded L-Dog.

The door shut, and Dominic eyed Bettinger. “Get the wigger.”

The detective withdrew plastic handcuffs, said “Turn around,” and fastened the white man's wrists behind his back. “Face the wall and drop to your knees.”

L-Dog sank.

Dominic walked to a paisley recliner chair that had five Chinese food containers upon its armrests. Leaning over, he reached underneath the seat cushion and withdrew a semiautomatic pistol, which he then pressed against an intercom button.

The speaker crackled, and a woman inquired, “Yes?”

“This is Detective Williams.”

“Dominic?”

“Send down Izzy, Lester, and Kitty. Right fuckin' now.”

The speaker crackled. “What do you want them for?” The woman's voice had an anxious quaver.

“Send them down or me and my partner'll come up there, open a window, and toss them in the invisible elevator.”

“I'll tell them.”

“They got two minutes.” Dominic stole an egg roll, ate it in two bites, and frowned at L-Dog. “How old's this shit?”