The Informant (19 page)

He said, “Got to split this crib. Partner, take care of things.” He turned, picked up two worn brown leather suitcases near two card tables that were now bare, and left the apartment. Lydia, who found him attractive, heard him walking down the stairs out in the hallway, footsteps following him. The suitcases, Lydia knew, contained the cut cocaine, and the footsteps following Julius down the stairs were the guards in the hall making sure there wasn’t a ripoff between now and when Julius reached his customers. Depending on how many times the three keys had been cut, Julius was carrying dope worth up to a half-million dollars.

As the two remaining guards watched silently without seeming to breathe, Lonnie motioned Neil and Lydia to a tan couch that had broken springs and missing cushions. He turned the back of a wooden chair toward them, straddled it, laying his black walking stick across his thighs. Tonight he wore a gold lamé jumpsuit, snakeskin boots, and a knee-length white fur coat Lydia wished she owned. Lonnie Too Tall Conquest sighed, a businessman who had completed a full and satisfying day.

“My womens started eight this moanin’, working their natural-born asses off steppin’ on this shit fo’ me. Here ’tis almost ten o’clock at night, and they done cut three keys, which is damn good, ain’t it? Some womens, they dumb, they take two days to step on a load this size. My ladies, they got the way, Jim.” He pulled his thick purple lips back in a smile that Lydia always found threatening.

She said, “Your men out there, they tossed us pretty good. You always treat people that way when they come to buy?” She was annoyed at being searched, at having some black bastard laugh at her when the rifle went between her legs. She wasn’t just a woman now, she was
somebody.

As usual, Lonnie had turned the left side of his face to her, speaking to Neil and Lydia while appearing to be looking to his right. He frowned, not wanting to lose a good customer but also wanting Lydia and Neil to understand what the dope world was like, if they didn’t know already.

“Hey, peoples, me and Julius don’t want y’all to go ’way wif no attitude, you dig? Reason the brothers out there check y’all out was because we got word that somebody plannin’ a takeoff, plannin’ to cop my dope. Ain’t the heat. It’s jes’ somebody lookin’ to git rich, see, but you know I cain’t let that happen. Tha’s why we ain’t gon’ use this crib no mo’, tha’s why we make the connect here. Now, y’all know I ain’t ’bout to mess wif the Hundred Dollar Man here, right? He got the green, and I figure him and me’s gonna be like white on rice, ain’t that right?”

Neil finished lighting his and Lydia’s cigarettes, then said, “If I’m gonna get tossed like this every time we do a deal, I ain’t comin’ back. And I don’t like to stand around with a piece up my nose and watch my lady friend here get felt up. You know her, known her for years, and she’s vouched for me, so why are we jerking each other around? I been buying for a couple of months now, and people know me, and I know people. I got the green, you’re right about that, but you can forget it, dude, if you think I’m standing still for another rifle rubdown. I can always go somewhere else.”

Lonnie was apologetic, and Lydia pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. She had told Neil not to let black dealers intimidate him just because he was white and new to them. They would step on him if he let them; Neil had said he wasn’t going to let that happen, and what he had done to Lonnie Too Tall just now had proved Neil had meant what he said. Lydia was proud of him.

Lonnie grinned, showing his large white and gold teeth. “Hey, hey, Hundred Dollar Man, my o-polla-jees. Luther out there, he’s jes’ doin’ his job. I ain’t gon’ let that happen agin. You right, we friends now, everythang’s everythang, and we can git down from now on. Look, I be gettin’ some good shit, ’cause I got me a new business arrangement. Me and Julius and King Raymond, we doin’ the thang, we all together now. Y’all ain’t dealin’ wif no small-time nigger anymore. We can supply yo’ peoples wif all kinds of shit.”

Neil blew smoke at the ceiling, while Lydia looked down at her new gray leather boots. She didn’t look up as Neil said, “Let’s see what I’m buying tonight. If my people like it, and
if I
don’t get a hard time from your watchdogs in the future, I might be back.
Might.
”

Lonnie’s grin was wider. “I can dig it. Hang loose, Jack, I be back wif somethin’ for y’all.” He stood up, tall and thin, his gold lamé jumpsuit making him look like a giant carrot to Lydia, who knew where he was going. She shivered with cold and nerves, listening to Lonnie move around in the bathroom, a favorite place to keep a stash. If the law raided your crib, you dumped the stash in the toilet, flushing away the evidence. Dealers always made sure their toilets worked properly.

One reason this small, plain apartment was cold was that the windows were open, probably because Lonnie and Julius were prepared to throw their dope out the window if the police raided the mill. Neil’s backup team waited outside on the street: Kirk Holmes had kept a half-block in front of Neil and Lydia on one side of the street; on the other side, Walter Dankin had stayed a half-block behind them. Katey, the cop, had waited three blocks away in a public phone booth until Holmes and Dankin were in place in front of the apartment. Holmes was to telephone him, and Katey would then make his way behind the building and wait.

In case of trouble, Neil was to throw a chair through the window and try to stay alive until his backup got there. Lydia hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Lonnie returned, a clear plastic bag of white powder in his good left hand, the walking stick under his arm. Lydia, glad of the reassuring pressure of Neil’s thigh against hers, shifted away from a spring poking her in the behind and watched Lonnie count Neil’s fifteen-thousand-dollar flash roll. He counted quickly, a country boy without formal education but who knew all he needed to know about money. Lydia, on her third cigarette and feeling calmer each minute, said, “Can you do keys next time?”

Lonnie, placing the money in a brown shopping bag, stopped and grinned. Licking his thick purple lips with a pink tongue that Lydia thought was as big as a bath towel, he said, “Woman, tell you what I do. I give you keys, ’cause like I say, we got us a new partner. But to show you my good faith, next time I give you and Hundred Dollar Man here a present free of charge. An ounce of cocaine. Free. Ain’t cost you nothin’. Y’all do bizness wif us, and it be sunshine every day of the week, hear?”

“Heroin?” asked Lydia, taking a strip of tobacco from her tongue with her thumb and pinkie.

“Mexican brown or white?”

Lydia looked at Neil, who said, “White.”

Lonnie frowned. “Ain’t much white ’round, but I might can do it. Brown sugar, now, that’s all ovah the place.”

“My people want white,” said Neil.

“Be havin’ me a lot of white soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next year. Lots of white. Can do whatever you got in mind.”

Neil held his cigarette between his teeth, head back on his shoulders. “Next year, huh? What if I can’t wait that long?”

“Ain’t much ’round now, my man. You want white, you gots to wait. Lotsa dudes be holdin’ white then, but you check
me
out, I give you a good price.”

Neil shrugged. Lydia enjoyed watching him do his number. He was getting better at it each time, smoother and more believable, never anxious, never in a hurry, always cool, and letting things happen rather than forcing them to happen. If Lonnie and the other Cuban and black dealers could wait for Mas Betancourt to bring in his super shipment, then Neil could wait, too. Dope was a waiting game, and Neil played it that way, played it well.

Lydia saw the greed in Lonnie’s eyes, and knew he’d do anything to keep Neil as a customer. There was more where that fifteen thousand dollars came from.

“Heyyyy,” said Lonnie, rising to his full height and buttoning his white fur coat. “Why don’t we go somewhere, have ourselves a little toddy for the body, champagne, anythang y’all want. I’m buyin’. Lemme show y’all I know how to entertain good people. Introduce you to some friends of mine, maybe we dance a little, get mellow, have ourselves a party.”

Friends. Could mean anybody. Lydia looked at Neil, who nodded.

Lonnie stamped one snakeskin-booted foot on the floor and smiled wider than he had all night “Allll riiiight! We gon’ git down, I mean
git
down!”

Outside, on the street, Lydia took Neil’s arm and watched him give the signal indicating that the deal had gone down without trouble. He scratched his nose, then his forehead. Then he spat twice on the sidewalk before walking to his car, the signal that he and Lydia had a second stop. This time they would be on their own, no backup. There was no way they could be followed into the places Lonnie might take them now. They could be going to Harlem, or to an after-hours club, or to a restaurant frequented only by dealers and their customers, all people who knew each other. A stranger would stand out.

Lydia held on tightly to Neil’s arm, wondering if he and his wife would argue when he got home later. It was going to be another late night, something Lydia understood a lot better than Neil’s wife ever would.

“P
ERSONAL?” SAID WALTER F. X.
Forster in a voice that decreed that a cop had no personal life if Walter F. X. Forster didn’t want him to. “How personal, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I had a meeting with my wife and her lawyer this morning. We’re … we’re getting a divorce. She’s met some guy, and …” Katey shrugged, looking down at the rug. Forster sat while Katey stood, which meant that Forster was doing more than just pulling rank. He wanted Katey to feel uncomfortable.

Forster said, “That explains why we couldn’t reach you. Now, about Miss Constanza. I’m taking the weight on this one, getting kicked until I can’t stand. Just what the hell’s going on?”

Katey’s eyes shifted to the American flag standing in the left corner behind Forster’s desk. Lydia Constanza’s information was good, and getting better, and because of that, the people over Forster were coming down hard on him for having given up a righteous informant. In turn, Forster was taking out his frustration on Katey, giving him a bad time, even though both of them knew the truth. It had been Forster’s idea to turn Lydia over to the feds; Katey had only followed orders.

But that’s how the game was played in the police department. Somebody had to take the blame when things went wrong, and that somebody usually turned out to be the person on a lower rung.

Katey said, “She’s tied Mas Betancourt and his Cubans into blacks here and Cubans in Miami. She’s tied up Betancourt into Kelly Lorenzo.” Katey paused, then added, “Just like she said when she was arrested, sir.”

Forster slammed his desk with the palm of his hand, his face a dark red. In his rage, he pulled his lips back from his teeth like a dog about to attack. “Goddamm it, I know that! You think I brought you in here to tell me what I already know? I know what she said when we arrested her,
sergeant
!”

“Yes, sir.”

“According to your reports, she witnessed blacks and Cubans in Miami talking in some spic club.”

“Yes, sir. The blacks belonged to Kelly Lorenzo. King Raymond, who is a distributor, and Lonnie Conquest and Julius Shelton, who just started working under Kelly. King Raymond couldn’t handle all his customers, and Lorenzo wanted them satisfied, so he brought in Conquest and Shelton. We think Lorenzo needs a lot of money for his deal with Mas.”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, is there anything you can tell me up front, anything she’s got planned?”

“I don’t understand, sir.” Katey looked at Forster. Got your wienie on the chopping block, ain’t you, Walter? All because you didn’t believe a spic snitch. Truth is, none of us believed her until now. She sure is making Neil Shire and his federal elves in the forest look like smart dudes. Nobody’s been popped yet, but the feds sure do have a collection of names to go calling on when they decide to end the game. Is that what’s bothering you, bunkie?

“Kates, understand this: I’m … we’re looking bad because upstairs thinks we gave away a gold mine. We look like chumps. If I can tell them something is going to happen before it happens, I can pull some of this out of the fire, you get my drift?”

“Yes, sir. Well, sir, she’s turning up distributors and subdistributors, nothing higher than that. I mean, we have names like I put in my report Mas Betancourt, Rolando Boaz, that crazy priest, Barbara Pomal, Blind Man, and all their lieutenants. They’re heavies, and they ain’t about to go near any dope. We’ve made buys from their distributors and from dealers, but that’s it. I guess if we have to, we can make cases against about eleven people, but it’s rolling along, and the feds figure what the hell, keep on truckin’ and see what you can pick up. One thing, sir. The Palace. Remember that after-hours joint Lydia mentioned?”

“I remember.”

“Well, sir, I think it’s righteous. I don’t think Lydia was shucking us on that. I know ain’t nobody been there, but Lydia told us last night that the place is for real, that it’s run by some super pimps, mostly for other players and their stables. The place is only open once a month or so, sometimes every six weeks, but like never on a regular schedule. Nothing you can pin down.”

Katey shifted his weight to his left foot and tried not to think about the cigarette he wanted so badly. “You need to be invited to the joint, which don’t happen unless you are really connected. Lydia says the club’s gonna open for one more bash before the year ends, one big blowout between now and New Year’s, which is sometime in the next three weeks. Reason I mention this, sir, is that Lydia once said she saw Kelly Lorenzo in the Palace.”

Forster stroked the side of his nose and said sarcastically, “You think he’s coming back for the holidays?”

“Sir, anything’s possible, especially with this big deal Mas Betancourt’s putting together.”

Forster, who at the moment saw only a world filled with his enemies, inhaled, letting Katey’s thoughts on the Palace warm him. It was something; not much, but something. At the moment, Forster needed a bone to throw to the wolves who were nipping at his heels. Jesus, he wished he hadn’t sent them copies of Katey’s reports. But how the hell was he going to avoid doing that?