the irises of some elderly blacks do.
“Is there anyway we can wrap this up fairly soon? I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“Just one last question. If you have a gun, why weren’t you carrying it?”
Replying that he no longer felt a need to pack a piece; replying he hadn’t carried a piece in years; replying that he had thought of selling the gun, both officers left. Before they left, though, they reassured Hewlett that a police cruiser would start coming by on a regular basis to check for any vagrants or other types who might be breaking into vehicles. The younger officer told him that he should contact the building supervisor in the morning to see if there was something they could do to enhance security at the building. In the morning, they’d send a forensics team out to look for the bullet. Finding it, they might be able to match it to some other crimes that had taken place in the city. Thanking them as they left, Hewlett couldn’t help but feel that they thought he was lying to them in some fashion. He was almost sorry that he called them in the first place. When he finally arrived back home at his condominium, it was shortly before midnight.
As soon as they had left, Hewlett called Rosario from his office. Rosario had just returned from Mort and Saul’s. “You didn’t send anyone by to tinker with my car, did you?”
“What are you talking about Paul?”
Explaining to him that he had caught two robbers trying to break into his old BMW, Rosario said, “Paul, you’re getting delusional. I’ve been straight up with you.”
“You mean straight with you. Not straight up.”
“I told you once never to correct my English. I didn’t just get off the boat. I’ve been straight up with you. You have been straight up with me. Though you want out of this business arrangement, I’ve never threatened you in any way, have I? Well, have I?” Hewlett admitted he hadn’t, even though the threat was inherent. “Just why would I have anyone break into your car?”
“You tell me.”
“Be a man. You’re always such an old woman. Things happen. Talk and act like you have balls, for god’s sake. You’re just being paranoid. Ever since that first morning when I walked in your office, you’ve been as nervous as a girl caught in the act of losing her virginity. I’m a bit weary of it. At some point, you have to trust me. I’m sending Big Ben over to your office tomorrow. I want him watching the place for a week or so. Have you ever thought it might be somebody else? Somebody like the DEA?”
“No, that hadn’t crossed my mind just yet.”
“Well, think on it. The DEA. The FBI. They haven’t even got the integrity of my organization. It’s not beneath them to break into your car.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Like I said, I’ll send Big Ben by tomorrow.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“I want to make sure that the DEA, or some other federal agency, isn’t watching us. Tomorrow, I’ll make the requisite calls for the extra product. Paul, you made the right call with Davis and his plane. I made a few calls. They all agree with you.”
“Big Ben, what’s he going to do?”
“He’ll be there just to observe things. Maybe one of your people has become suspicious. Tomorrow, I’ll make the calls to Colombia to get more product.”
“No one’s got a clue. It’s just Jake and me.”
“You can’t be too sure.” Without waiting for a response, he hung up the phone.
Chapter Seven
Descending mainly as a mist, a thin drizzle of rain fell the next morning in Miami. At the airport, on the runway and the tarmac, were thin and translucent and isolated puddles, iridescent with avgas. From the parking lot of the FBO, Hewlett walked down to Davis’ rusting and corroded hangar. The hangar doors were open and wedged within were the wings and fuselage of the Ariel looking like some caged exotic bird. Perched on two crates constructed of thin pine to hold oranges were two buddies of Skeeter’s. Davis was sitting on the one stool and could see the whole hangar. The three of them were all drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. As he approached, Skeeter had one arm extended, his hand simulating a plane that was steeply banked. “So,” I said to him, “whatever you do, don’t roll the son-of-a-bitch. I’ve got eggs to deliver to Whitehorse in the back.” The two men, who were listening to Davis, guffawed, one spilling a few drops of coffee from his coffee cup.
Davis looked up and in looking up, saw Hewlett, saying, “Sorry boys, you got to go, business calls.”
“How’s about we pick this up at lunch over at the Staggerwing Lounge. Say about noon.” One was a portly man who appeared to be this side of fifty; the thinner one looked hardly younger. Neither had the old aviator’s swagger that Skeeter possessed. They nodded to Hewlett as they left.
“Sorry to break up the sewing circle like that,” said Hewlett. He was wearing chinos and a T-shirt. Davis wore Wrangler jeans and a plain white cotton t-shirt that was torn where the right sleeve attached to the body of the shirt.
“The bullshitting session was just about over anyway.”
“Well I feel a little less guilty, anyway. Let me pick up the tab for lunch at least. Say it’s interest on what Townsend owed you.”
“How’d your talk with your cousin go?”
“Well, he whined a lot. Actually, he whined a whole lot. In the end, he more or less said it wasn’t your fault. That’s not the first time I’ve caught him out in a lie. He’s just like a six year old, one you’ve just caught telling a white lie.” Then he told Davis how Townsend was the first person he had ever gotten high with. “You never offer up family. You forget Townsend’s my cousin, but he’s still my cousin.” Once or twice, as Hewlett spun his tales of all of Jake’s misfortunes, Davis would laugh. But it was a laugh with implicit knowledge.
“You talk to your people?” Skeeter asked. He tossed the contents of his coffee cup out on the cement floor of the hangar and set the cup on a carpenter’s table off to the side of the hangar doors.
“I did. You may or may not like what they had to say. The bottom line is that they’ll pay you eight hundred thousand for the haul. They refused the million. They also said no to a percentage of the profits. They said there’s another flight soon, and they’ll pay you eight hundred thousand for it, too. Then they’re done with you. Or so they say. The way they see it, you should be able to retire a rich man on 1.6 million. Rosario’s trying to make up the difference by hauling ten more bags of one-kilogram cocaine.”
A moment or two lapsed before Davis said anything, and when he spoke with resigned indignation, as if he were a farmer being told the drought would last for a few more weeks. “Well, they didn’t get no virgin here. I suppose I’ll have to live with it. I don’t suppose it would do any good for me to talk to Rosario myself?”
“Even if he’d take your call, it would just further irritate him. The decision’s made.”
“Well, when you think about it, it’s not that bad: a million, six hundred thousand for two jobs. Say that’s one day down, and one day back up each trip: that’s four days work. One point six million is not bad for four days work. Most of it’s coming from the extra cocaine, but he’s also taking it out of my piece of the action. I did all I could.”
“I know you tried. You’re sure they’re the...”
Hewlett put his hand up before he could go on. “It’s better unsaid. Let’s just say they’re always giving you a proposition you can’t refuse. In ancient times, it was taboo