The Informant (7 page)

Show and tell with black dealers, thought Katey, hand still resting on the white cloth napkin and the hard lump beneath it. They always brag about the amount of dope they deal, the money they make. Always broadcasting, yakking in public, blowing coke in bars and on street corners. Big mouths, these spades. Not like Cubans or Italians, who do it and keep quiet. Spooks have to let you know they’re in the game.

Bad Red couldn’t be that smart if he was fronting stuff and not getting his money. Dealers would front—hand over the dope and
wait
for their money—in order to avoid holding onto the dope for any length of time. Fronting, or selling on consignment, was all right if you knew who you were dealing with. Bad Red seemed to have a problem.

Bad Red said, “Now, my man there, he just come up and tell me that my friend turned it over, and the bread’s gone, Jack, I mean it is
gone.
Gamblin’. Cat just can’t stay ’way from them horses. Some of dem horses run like an elephant with two legs.”

Katey finished lighting a cigarette, shaking the match out. “How good a friend
is
your friend?”

Bad Red snorted, ignoring Katey and reaching across the small table for Lydia’s hand. His smile was wet, tiny yellow teeth ringing a thick pink-white tongue. “Cuban momma here, now
she
my friend, ain’t you, sweet thing? Man, one of these days I jes’ wanna put you between two pieces of bread and eat—”

Lydia playfully smacked his wrist. “Now, Red, be nice.”

“Woman, that
would
be nice.”

Katey took a drag on his Winston. Old home week is what we got here, folks. She rips off credit cards from johns, sells them to Bad Red for a couple hundred, and he buys like hell before the card’s reported stolen. Oh, yes, Detective Edward Merle Kates had read Lydia Constanza’s yellow sheet.

Katey knew all about the lady. And he didn’t believe she was going to lead him and Neil Shire to anybody except chumps like herself. But what the hell, go along with the program, and in a few days everybody would be hip to Lydia’s act and she’d go down for sure. For goddamn sure.

Neil Shire ordered drinks for the table, tipping the waitress five dollars. That’s
flash
, that’s how you do it. But these days, only the feds had that kind of money.

Katey, a lean, sharp-faced man with a long nose and small mouth, lit another Winston, blowing three perfect pale blue smoke rings one after another. They were here to score two ounces of cocaine from Bad Red, who seemed to know everybody in the discotheque.

Lydia, appearing to enjoy herself, clapped her hands once. “Red’s a good dancer, ’least when he’s not lazy, aren’t you, Red?”

Red grinned, thick purple lips pulled back from his tiny yellow teeth. “Got me some moves. Yeah, done always had me some moves.”

Lydia stood up, pulled Bad Red by the hand. “Come on, come on.”

The black cocaine dealer allowed himself to be dragged toward the floor, turning to grin at Neil and Katey.

Katey sipped a scotch and water. “We’re here for business, and she’s hot to work up a sweat.”

Neil swallowed part of an ice cube. “She’s working him her way.”

“You got a lot of faith in Miss Constanza. Me, I’m still wondering how a nickel-and-dime lady like her gets to know what top-level Cubans and spades are up to.”

Neil was watching Lydia and Bad Red dance to George Benson’s hip-grinding guitar work on “Breezin’.” The two were excellent dancers, getting the sensuality of disco dancing across, but keeping it under control and subordinate to the actual technique of dancing. Without looking at Katey, Neil said, “You heard it already. She’s got a cousin, and somebody asked him if he wanted to make twenty-five big ones as a mule. He was going to try to get Lydia in on it, but after her check-cashing bust, no way. She already told you that. How many more times you got to hear it?”

Katey made slow circles on the table with his scotch and water. “I know what’s heavy, and this lady ain’t. I worked some of Kelly’s people, remember? I was one of the people who busted Mr. Lorenzo, and I know what heavy is. You go by gut feelings, you ought to know that—”

Neil turned to him. “She’s delivered so far. That’s the name of the game.”

Katey nodded slowly, exaggerating the gesture. “Yeah, now that you mention it, she has delivered. Of course, we haven’t copped yet tonight, but I s’pose we will.” He stared at the ashtray, knowing Neil Shire was looking at him.

Neil said, “Give her a chance.”

“A chance? Yeah, sure. Why not? Why the fucking hell not? Since you’re buying, how about another hit on these?” Katey held up his empty glass.

Neil was cool, not bossy, not playing big-money Mr. Fed. But Neil
was
the agent in charge. Lydia was his snitch, wrapped up and delivered to him, and he was the one working her, paying her. There was Katey, representing the interests of the New York Police Department, and there were two other agents in on this, one white, one spade. The feds were careful with informants.

Three men worked a snitch at all times, and all three had to witness any money paid informants. The informant was assigned a number, a code name, and every buy, every contact with an informant went into a written report. When the feds walked into court, they were protected and prepared.

Neil was polite; nothing wrong with that. He listened to Katey, he listened to the other two agents assigned to work Lydia with him, but Neil was the controlling agent, the man making the decision. Maybe it was better that way. Let him be the one to go down when she does. Better him than Wile E. Coyote.

That was Katey’s nickname in the department, taken from the coyote character in the Road Runner cartoon, the one who never stopped scheming to get what he wanted. Katey had gotten the name because he was good at finding a suspect’s weak point, then using it to bring him down.

Bad Red and Lydia, holding hands, returned to the table.

Bad Red, perspiring heavily, sighed. “Ain’t as young as I used to be.” He waited until the waitress set drinks down on the table and removed empty glasses. Leaning across the table, he leered at Neil. “Man, git on up and git on out there with this woman. She got the motion that gives you the notion.”

A small white man in a dark business suit, gray hair combed forward, looking entirely out of place among the extreme and colorful fashions of the discotheque, carefully picked his way through people and passed near Bad Red. Bad Red stopped talking, nodding respectfully at the small white man, who nodded back, a gesture so small that it was almost missed. Not by Wile E. Coyote. Then the little man was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

“Be an expensive night fo’ somebody.” Bad Red was still staring in the direction of the little man.

Neil said, “Somebody we should know?”

“Not ’less you awfully rich. I mean real white-folks rich.” Bad Red swallowed half of a gin and tonic. He belched. “That man be chargin’ people one hundred thousand dollars jes’ to introduce you to somebody.”

Katey blew smoke at the ceiling. “Computer dating’s a lot cheaper.”

Bad Red said, “Computer datin’ don’t git you no dope. This man can.”

“Maybe we ought to be talking with him instead of you.” Katey used the corner of a matchbook to pry a strand of pineapple from between two top teeth.

Bad Red chuckled. “You ain’t ready fo’ him. He’s what you call a git-together man. Introduces you to people in Europe, top people in Paris, Marseilles, Belgium, Germany.”

Katey smiled. “A travel agent, right?” He was baiting Bad Red, getting him to talk, to keep flapping his thick lips. Neil said nothing. Lydia took a long time to take one sip from a rum and Coke.

“Travel agent my ass.” Bad Red
had
to show off now. Show and tell. Just the way Katey figured. “I’m tellin’ you, he charge a hundred thousand jes’ to introduce you
to
top people. Take like you got a heavy load and you can’t find you no buyers for it. Now, you sittin’ on mucho dope, no money comin’ in, and people know you got it. Maybe they tell the law, maybe they steal it. Thing is, you want to git rid of it quick. But you don’t know nobody who can buy all you got. He knows top people who buy it from you. But agin, like I say, he always charge you a hundred thousand for to introduce you to somebody.”

“Oh, I see.” Katey rolled an unlit cigarette between his teeth. He was a good actor, like any other cop who worked vice and narcotics. You were always playing a role then. Make sure you play it like a champ.

It’s not just who Lydia Constanza knows. It’s the people they know.
Words of wisdom from Fred Praether. Maybe Lydia
was
righteous. Katey smiled at her, and she smiled back tentatively, nervously, blinking her eyes, then looking away. Shy little fox.

Before Neil or Katey could say anything, two young blacks came up to the table to backslap Bad Red and clasp palms with him, the three men grinning and greeting each other warmly. Katey noticed the two young, pretty white girls who hung back, eyes on the table. Trophies for the dope dealers, because that’s what the two young blacks were. That’s what Katey’s gut feeling was telling him as he watched them whisper into Bad Red’s ear, the three of them chuckling.

“No, man, no. Ain’t holdin’ nothin’ like that.” Bad Red chuckled louder. “You two is gettin’ in the way of business I got goin’ here.” The two young blacks looked at Neil, Katey, nodded politely. One of the blacks knew Lydia and leaned over to gently kiss her cheek.

When the young blacks and their white women had left, Bad Red still smiled, shaking his head. “They axin’ me ’bout some cut. They lookin’ to buy four, five keys of mannite.”

Katey said, “That means they’re holding a load or expecting to get one.”

“Cocaine.” Bad Red sipped from his glass, eyeing the dancing crowd, one hand patting the table in rhythm to Stevie Wonder’s “Keep on Runnin’ from My Love.” “They always step on their shit with mannite ’cause it’s fluffy, puffs up the dope so it looks like you got a lot. They been buyin’ it from Puerto Rico for like seven hunnerd a key. Then they found out it only cost thirty-five a key down there, so now they lookin’ around for a better deal. Tol’ ’em I ain’t got none.” Bad Red was admitting he was a spade with limits.

Katey finished lighting another Winston. “If we hear of anything, maybe we can help them out, and like maybe they help us out. Who do we look for?”

“Julius Shelton and Lonnie Conquest. Two country boys from North Carolina makin’ money in the big city. You check wif me, I put you in touch with them.”

Neil finished winding his wristwatch, and Katey nodded, letting the matter drop. Dope was a game you never rushed. People were late, sometimes they never showed at all. Sometimes you waited four hours for a contact who stood you up, never bothering to tell you why. In dope, everybody was undependable and far from trustworthy. Dope was a game for patience, cunning, cool nerves. Katey wasn’t going to press Bad Red about Julius Shelton and Lonnie Conquest, and neither was Neil, not on a first meeting.

But they had come up with names in the night, and that was a start.

A beautiful young white woman bent down and put both arms around Bad Red, blowing into his ear, then touching the ear with the tip of a long pink tongue. The woman was a platinum blond, wore a skintight yellow dress and gold bracelets on both biceps. Katey held his breath. Gorgeous. In her early twenties.

Bad Red giggled, gently pushing the woman away. “Charisse, you is
bad.
Why you got to come on when I’m tryin’ to do business?”

The woman stood up, and she and Katey stared at each other. Katey moved his small mouth to one side in a grin, nodding, interested. That was one of the joys of being on the force. Freebies.

Bad Red’s eyes flicked from the woman to the cop. “Charisse here’s goin’ to Europe soon. She got her a little trick. Charisse, show my friends here what you do with a rubber band.”

She smiled, eyes still on Katey, who chewed a corner of his mouth, never taking his eyes from her. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Tall, close to five-ten Katey would say, nice tits, hair like white gold, and one hell of a delicious mouth.

Charisse held the rubber band up in two long fingers tipped with green nail polish. Neil, Lydia, and Katey watched. Bad Red watched them. He knew all about Charisse.

“I usually charge twenty dollars to do this trick.” Her voice was husky, as though she had a cold. It turned Katey on.

He gave her his small smile again, but his words were aimed at Bad Red. “She worth twenty?”

“I hear tell.”

“Neil, you got twenty?” Let the feds pay.

Charisse took the twenty from Neil, folded it, slipped it into a tiny flat silver purse. She dangled the rubber band on her thumb so they could all see it; then she slipped it into her mouth, moved her jaw, stood with both hands on her hips, and Katey wanted to fuck her so bad he could have climbed across the table and jumped her right there.

Charisse took the rubber band from her mouth. It was wet, glistening with spit, and tied in a perfect bow.

Katey snorted. “Talented, too.”

Charisse licked her pink lips with her tongue, did it slowly, and never stopped looking at Katey.

“No complaints so far.” That husky voice again. It was like ice scraping Katey’s spine.

Lydia reached across the table, taking Bad Red by the wrist. She was annoyed. “That’s enough!”

Charisse frowned, blinked. A hand went to her throat, and she flinched as though expecting to be hit.

Lydia hissed, “
Red
? These people are my friends. Customers. Remember?”

Bad Red grinned. “Yeah. Sure. I can dig it.” He looked at Charisse. “Later, baby. Later. Go on, go on. Split.”

Charisse and Lydia glared at each other. Then the beautiful blond was gone, into the crowd. In the silence at the table, Katey knew something was wrong. Cops always know.

Lydia said, “It’s a man. He’s going to Europe to have a sex change, and Red should have—”

“Hey, momma, whatchu wan’ me do? I ain’t gon’ put people’s business in the street.” His grin was wide, and both palms were upturned.

Katey, angry, humiliated, stared up at the ceiling, hearing music and conversation around him, wondering how
he
could be conned by a fucking drag queen.
How?
In this fucking darkness, there had been no way of knowing.