THE FOURTH WATCH (40 page)

Mix seemed perfect. He had the run
of the place, worked hard and was well liked by his men. This was
because he loved to drink, but hated to drink alone. So he would
take his boys out with him just about every night of the week. They
would all eat, drink and be merry, and then Mix would have one of
his boys pick up the tab. That tab would then become part of an
expense report that would be submitted to Mix for approval. It was
a nice closed-loop arrangement that amounted to nothing more than a
little perk for the fellows, but it showed Sal that Stanley Mix at
least had the
potential
for corruption. The other thing Sal liked about
Mr. Mix was that when he was done with his drink, he went home to
his family.

The Mix's lived in a small white stucco house
with a red tile roof. Stanley seemed the good provider, and the
devoted father and husband. His wife, Rosalie, was a lovely woman
of Hispanic/Anglo decent, not unlike Sal himself, and they had two
children, both girls, ages 14 and 11. The family usually did
something together each Saturday, and Rosalie took the girls to
church on Sundays while Stanley worked around the yard with his
dog, Buster. It was a nice, quiet existence and Sal was sure
Stanley didn't want it messed up.

So one night, just after quitting time, when
his men were already down the road at the Blue Cactus Bar and
Grille warming up the tab, and Stanley was just finishing up some
paperwork before locking the doors and following them down, Sal
paid him a visit. He brought along his friend Juan, his six foot
four inch, two hundred and eighty pound former Crip bodyguard who
was adorned with prison tats and had a face disfigured with old,
white knife scars. Along with Juan, Sal brought three other items.
A picture of Stanley and his family smiling outside their white
stucco house with the red tiled roof, a 9mm hand gun and a paper
sack containing ten thousand dollars in cash. As Stanley sat
dumbfounded at his desk, Sal explained the relationship between all
these items. Stanley didn't ask any questions. The deal was simple:
Stanley could take the paper sack and agree to provide a part time
service for Sal. It was a simple, low risk service that involved
removing a package from shipments post customs inspection, and
holding the package for pick up by Sal or his associates. He would
be told what container the package was in, and how to recognize it,
but not what was inside. If Stanley agreed, each time he performed
this service he would get another sack of cash for his trouble. Sal
guessed that this might happen twice a month, give or take. A nice
little two hundred and forty grand, tax free part time job. On the
other hand, if Stanley did not agree, or if Stanley foolishly went
to the police, Juan would go to his home and kill his family in a
most unpleasant manner, even Buster.

Stanley Mix was in a fix. He picked up on that
right away and agreed to terms.

*****

Los Angeles, 1983

THE SPE OPERATION
was a fantastic success. Stanley Mix proved to be
a careful and competent partner, and the product began to flow on a
predictable schedule. Sal's operation flourished. He added a buffer
layer of suppliers between himself and the dealers and his business
expanded rapidly. With the help of a few lawyers and accountants he
opened a used car dealership and a high-end restaurant using
straw-man owners. These he used as laundries to wash his drug cash.
As the years rolled by his organization grew to the point where,
with the Colonel's help, he had absorbed a significant percentage
of his competition and become the dominant force in the Southern
California drug trade.

The Colonel was very impressed with his
American associate. Sal could be counted on to take three to five
keys of pure heroin per shipment, and had begun asking the Colonel
to inquire through his Triad connections whether protection could
be provided for an expansion of his territory north, into the Bay
Area. He wanted San Francisco and Oakland.

But the Colonel had other plans.

Sal had grown his operation flawlessly and had
encroached upon many long established territories previously
controlled by Triad gangs and La Cosa Nostra Capo's. The Colonel
was not very concerned with this. He had significant influence with
the players, who knew him to be a dangerous man with vast power.
Nevertheless, the Triads were complaining about Sal's domination of
a big market area, and were protecting him only grudgingly. It was
worse with the Capo's. They also respected the Colonel. He was a
mysterious power that operated almost invisibly among them, often
with a brutality that made even the most seasoned Mafia soldier
cringe. But he knew that they sensed that the Triad protection of
Sal was less than enthusiastic, and he was concerned that they
might one day decide to risk removing Sal from the picture. It was
time to move things around, reward loyalty, break things up a
little. The Colonel also worried that Sal could become too
powerful.

He had no doubt that he could maintain control
over the operation that Sal had established in the South, even if
he had to spill a little blood when he moved Sal out. But he did
not want to lose Sal as a casualty of a turf war. The American had
proved himself to be far too valuable. In fact, he wanted Sal out
of Los Angeles completely. The rock solid operation that he had put
in place had become a model of controlled distribution and the
Colonel wanted to repeat it in other locations. But there was no
way he was going to move Sal into Northern California. Chinatown
gangs in San Francisco and Oakland had firm control of those
markets, and the Colonel had vast influence there, and by the early
1980's he was supplying most of the product that flowed through the
area. There was no reason to disrupt that. If he could have thought
in American slang, he would have told himself: 'If it ain't broke,
don't fix it'.

No, he wanted Sal in Seattle. The Colonel now
had the lion's share of the California market. Between his Triad
operations in the North, and the new slice that Sal had added in
the South, it was a smooth running business. Seattle should have
been the same. But there was no large, organized Chinese population
for the Colonel to infiltrate there, and renegade operations had
made it a headache, with rival groups warring constantly for
dominance because of unreliable product flow. The Colonel knew that
if he could provide a consistent supply of quality merchandise to
the area, he could stabilize and dominate the market. It was
perfect for an operation like Sal' s. A large port city with heavy
international container traffic, surrounded by industry reliant
upon import products. The Colonel had convinced himself that he
needed Sal in Seattle.

28

JACK HEALY WATCHED
the ground come up at him as he descended into
Seattle-Tacoma Airport. It was early evening and overcast, and he
didn't see the ground until the plane belly flopped out of the soup
and the runway was there, wet and washed with lights. It was
Friday.

He only had his carry on luggage, but he went
down through baggage claim and signed for his rental car at the
Hertz counter. He pulled his cap down snug on his brow and dashed
through the rain and puddles to his ride, a brown
Taurus.

He was booked into the Marriott SEA-TAC, the
same place where Kato had planned to stay. A valet wrestled his
keys and a two-dollar tip from him when he pulled up in front of
the hotel. Maybe he should have worn his collar, he thought. When
he had the collar on, he could usually pass out blessings instead
of cash. "Thank you, my son, bless you," he'd say.

He checked in, declined assistance with his one
bag, and made it to the elevator without getting braced for another
tip. His room was on the tenth floor. Surprisingly it had no smell,
and there was a nice view out over the city in the middle distance.
He stood looking at the rain snakes slithering down the windows,
and the hazy neon glow of the lights reflecting on the black
streets. He unpacked and hung the few items he'd brought with him
in a mirrored closet. He turned on the television and listened to
the local news. The station's meteorologist informed him that it
was raining, and would continue to rain sporadically forever. Nice.
He had a nonstop to Boston's Logan Airport at 7:55 am on Monday
morning. He sighed aloud.

Jack took a blistering hot shower, letting the
heat sink into his bones, then sat on the bed in a towel and looked
over the room service menu. For about fifty bucks he could have a
club sandwich, fries and a salad wheeled in on a linen covered
table under stainless steel domes. On the upside his plate would
probably be garnished with a sprig of parsley. On the downside he'd
have to tip the guy pushing the wagon. He bet he could do better at
the bar in the lobby.

He dressed in tan khakis, a green, short
sleeved shirt and loafers. Then he sat on the bed and pulled his
notebook and Bible from his travel bag. He looked at the notebook.
In it he had the names and phone numbers of the people he would be
seeing. Kato's old law school buddy, who he was meeting for lunch
the next day, and the five Loading Dock employees that Jed Archer
had arranged for him to meet: Ray Santamano, Ernie Alacantra, Linn
Tasi, Henry Waters and Steve Talbot. He had no idea what any of
them would tell him, or for that matter what he'd ask them. But he
knew that Kato thought that one of them knew something about Red
Whorley's murder, which meant that someone also knew something
about how Mike and Carolyn Whorley got shot. He prayed for his
friend for a while, then went down to the bar for
dinner.

*****

THE NEXT MORNING
Jack had breakfast in the hotel and went to 9:30 Mass at St.
Anne's in Pioneer Square near the waterfront in downtown Seattle's
Historic District. It was about 15 miles from SEA-TAC airport to
the waterfront, and traffic going that way into the city was light.
He parked at the Aquarium on Alaskan Way and took the trolley south
along the waterfront. It was overcast and cool, but the air was
clean, smelling of salt and ozone and wet sea grass, and the sun
was climbing somewhere in the mist. Elliot Bay looked like an ocean
unto itself. It had a chop to it and a steady wind was blowing
inland from the sea. Mammoth container ships rode in the swells,
waiting their turn to be piloted into the customs piers. Nearly one
million containers entered the Port of Seattle each
year.

Pioneer Square is Seattle's oldest enclave. Two
hundred years ago it was home to timber men, whores, prospectors,
gamblers and thieves. It was the last civilized stop on the way to
the gold fields of Alaska. Rugged men made and lost fortunes here.
They started great companies that a hundred years later would be
household names. They built massive homes and lived in grand
opulence. Or they lost every dime in speculation and fought
bare-knuckled in broken-down saloons and killed each other in gun
fights and lay dead in the muddy streets. They spent themselves in
damp bordellos on top of two-bit whores, and froze to death in the
icy creates they lived in on the waterfront. Pioneer Square was
home to the original "Skid Row". In those days it was a dirt road
called Yesler Way, and it got its nickname because it would freeze
solid during the winter, and shore men would slide timber down its
length to the saw mills along the waterfront. It was first called
"Skid Road", but as the filthy row houses went up, and filled to
overflowing with ragged day workers - and the whores and con-men
that preyed upon them, the name changed to Skid Row, and was
eventually adopted by every destitute and depraved area in every
city in the country.

In the present, Pioneer Square is an area of
expensive, red brick townhouses and cafes and art galleries. The
neighborhoods are quaint, the streets charming, the people well
dressed and affluent. In the cobblestone center of the square,
fronted by a reflecting pool and fountain, St. Anne's Church, it's
spire soaring, it's giant oaken doors open like the arms of Christ,
stands guard over the past and future in the present.

Jack made his way across from the trolley stop
as pigeons scattered before him and gulls hung in the air above him
as if on wires. It was a little after nine when he entered the
church, which was empty but for two figures seated before a statue
of St. Anne. The building was massive. Towering stone pillars
reached to the base of wide balconies that ran around three sides
of the church. A choir loft was at the back, and rows of pews
filled either side. The ceiling was bow-shaped, like the bottom of
a ship, and painted with angels and cherubim and seraphim. Huge,
stained glass windows dominated the outer walls, and another, the
shape and color of a rose, filled the wall behind the altar.
Suspended before it, hanging from long chains affixed to the
soaring ceiling, was a giant, wooden crucifix, holding a hand
carved, life size, rendering of Christ in His Passion. The altar
was draped in blood red cloth and an ornate wooden throne sat
behind it under Christ's Cross. Soft cones of light descended from
suspended lamps, filling the church with warm shadows, and candles
flickered in the half-light.

Jack walked to the front of the church and lit
a candle for his friend Mike Knight.

He got on his knees and prayed to St. Anne, the
Grandmother of Jesus, for her prayers for Kato, and for the repose
of the souls of Carolyn Whorley and her Father. When he was
finished he took a seat one-third of the way back in the pews and
got on his knees again and prayed for himself. For a deeper faith,
for humility, for forgiveness, for wisdom, and then he prayed for
all the suffering in a world that had lost its way.