Corsican Death (9 page)

“You say you met Alain Lonzu in New York?” Staggers’ voice was a slow, contrived drawl, half ghetto black, half hippie, a sound he thought made him appear street-smart and tough.

Bolt grinned openly now, happy to play the game. When he answered Staggers, the narc spoke to him as though Staggers was retarded. Bolt’s voice was low, slow, extremely precise. “No, I did not say I met Alain Lonzu in New York. I said I met Alain Lonzu in Washington—that’s Washington, D.C.” So we’re playing games, you fuzzy-faced fuck. O.K., let’s play.

“Yeah, yeah,” mumbled Jesse Staggers, both hands on his crotch now, legs apart. “Yeah, that’s right, you did say D.C. My mistake, man, my mistake.”

Your father’s mistake, thought Bolt. He should have jerked off the night he decided to jump your mother, instead of bringing you into the world. You’re so busy being cool, sitting in the chair like you’re trying to show teacher you’re a bad, bad boy.

Another poser, thought Bolt. Don’t they all? That’s the drug world for you. Everybody’s acting like he’s a hard-ass and super cool, and it’s getting so you can’t tell actors from dope peddlers. Ain’t it a sad world, folks?

Staggers, wearing faded blue jeans, scuffed brown boots, and a white turtleneck sweater, stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned his head back, studying this Joe Belli, the man who had left a message for him at Ansel’s, telling him to come to his hotel for business. Business. Shit, there ain’t no other business around but pushing skag, man, and since the message had also said something about a French friend in D.C. mentioning Stagger’s name, Staggers had figured what the fuck, it’s worth a trip to the dude’s hotel. Nothing to lose and maybe something to gain.

“You talk with Alain much?”

Bolt shook his head no. “He had business there, no time for much bullshit. Man I work for in the States wants to make a buy, you dig? But like he can’t be traveling all over the place, know what I mean? He’s got things to take care of, and besides, the man I work for don’t speak French.”

Staggers’ smile was tight, knowing, his pink lips spreading and showing yellow teeth. “Your man black or Cuban?”

Bolt shifted to his right side, right elbow on the green bedspread, his eyes on Staggers. “How you figure that?”

“My business to figure those things. Italians speak the language. They deal with Corsicans direct, ’cause they both speak Italian, though the Corsicans speak French, too. But niggers and spics, they don’t speak French, so they got to get somebody to speak it for them, at least until things get goin’; then they come in and do the talkin’ themselves.”

He stopped, smiling his yellow-toothed smile again, letting Bolt know that he, Staggers, was smart, hip, and knew everything there was to know about dope and the people in it. Hell, he damn sure did.

Bolt gave him a tight, cold grin right back, rubbing his head as if to say, My, my, you are a clever boy, Jesse. “Well, the nigger I work for can buy and sell you, me, and a lot of other people. Nobody’s business who he is, not yet, anyway. What he wants is for me to check out the quality of the stuff that’s around, see how much uncut shit he can buy. My man ain’t into buying powdered milk or cheap laxative. When he buys dope, he wants dope, you follow me?”

Staggers sneered. Big-city boys and niggers. Coming over here and telling the rest of us to jump and we’re supposed to do it. Well, we’ll see about that. “So that’s why you want a key. You want to run a test, to see if this shit is as good as Alain said it was. All right, all right, let’s say it is, what then?”

“You let me worry about that. You just get me a sample, one key, like I asked.” Getting off the bed, Bolt stood up and reached under the bed, pulling out a brand-new attaché case. Placing the case on the bed, he thumbed it open, took the Colt .45 APC Commander off the top, and stuck it in his belt.

Turning the case around so that Jesse Staggers could see inside, Bolt said softly, “My man can deliver. Can you?”

Holding his breath, Jesse Staggers opened his eyes wide behind his huge glasses and leaned forward, eyes on the money. Oh man, wow! Piles of money, new, crisp, and fucking beautiful. The big-city dude was dealing in green, straight green, and it was a goddamn pretty sight. Far-out.

Staggers’ tongue licked his lip, and he stared at the money, hypnotized by it, his greed pushing his brain to come up with a way to cut in on this pie
beaucoup
quick. The ex-GI, who drove morphine base when the big guys asked him to, who dealt only in small amounts of heroin, cocaine, and pills, because he never had the money to buy a big supply, stared at the attaché case with an open mouth and a reeling mind.

Just like John Bolt thought he would. Greed. The glue that holds the dope world together, the one commodity that never goes out of style and could always be depended on to surface time and time again. Greed. It was pulling Jesse Staggers by the balls, and his heart and mind would always follow.

Greed. That’s what Bolt had counted on when he left the message for Staggers at Ansel’s early in the afternoon. During the hours between Bolt’s call and Staggers’ return call, the narc had met Roger Dinard, getting more information from him on Alain Lonzu’s friends and acquaintances. Bolt had also slept, eaten, and gone over all of the information supplied by Jean-Paul and Roger.

Greed. It was working for Bolt nicely. The narc, who had spent twelve of his thirty-two years in law enforcement, knew a greedy man could be depended on for one thing: to be greedy and to do something about it.

“Uh, uh, shit, man, I …” Jesse Staggers licked his lips nervously, the sight of the money making him speechless. Hell, that’s why he was in dope, to make money, big bread, a pile of it. Jesus H. Christ, if he could get his hands on this stuff in front of him, man, he could make a buy from the Corsicans himself, a couple of keys maybe cut it four, five times, and sell it in Germany. Maybe get himself a subdistributor, a GI who wanted to make a little taste for himself.

“Uh, how much is in there?”

“Enough.” Bolt slammed the case shut, never taking his eyes from Staggers’ face. The hook’s in so deep, thought Bolt, it’s coming out the man’s asshole. The narc had him, had Staggers good. “I asked you before, can you deliver?”

Staggers nodded, his manner not so cocky now. The big-city man had cooled him down by showing him the money, and even if Staggers didn’t know it, he had been put in his place. Big money belonged to big men, and Staggers, who didn’t have the money, wasn’t a big man for that very reason. But that could change. Especially if he got his hands on this money.

“Uh, yeah, yeah, hey, man, I got the stuff, I mean, I know who does. I can get it for you, you know?”

Anxious to please, aren’t you, you little bastard? Bolt smiled at him. “That’s what Alain Lonzu told me and my man, that you could take care of us. O.K., tell you what, you get me that kilo. I’ll run a test. If your shit’s any good, my man will come back to you, through me, and we’ll make arrangements to take a hell of a lot more. You got the people who got the shit, and I got the man who’s got the money. Now, when can you deliver?”

A wild idea exploded in Jesse Staggers’ head, making him hold his breath again and gaze at the closed attaché case, seeing nothing, though in his mind he was seeing the money.

Jesse wasn’t going to bring this big-city dude shit. Not a fucking spoonful of dope. Takeoff. Yeah, that’s right. Jesse was going to rip this turkey off, take his fucking money and use it himself, get a stake, say two kilos, and make a hell of a lot of money. Two kilos. He could buy them for fifty thousand dollars, because he knew people who would give him a break on the price.

If this big-city dude, Joe Belli, wanted a key, he had to have at least a few thousand in that case. Maybe he even had more somewhere in this city. Yeah. Take his ass off, Jim. Leave here, get a couple of guys, come back like right away,
soon,
and rip this lover off for every coin he’s got.

Jesse Staggers smiled. “You wait right here. I can get you your shit tonight. A key, eighty percent pure or better, runs twenty-five thousand per. Hey yeah, Joe, I’ll get hold of my people and bring the stuff up here. You run a test on it, and if you like it, we’re in business. But, man, believe me, you’re gonna love it, ’cause my people only deal in dynamite shit, Jim, nothing else. Just dynamite shit, believe me.”

I believe you, thought John Bolt, like I believe an elephant can fit into a Volkswagen. “Sounds O.K., but don’t take too long. My man wants to know right away; otherwise I gotta go somewhere else and deal. Blacks are taking over in a lot of cities stateside. Even pushing the Italians out. I’m only over here ’cause I speak French, you dig?”

Jesse Staggers nodded, eyes still on the attaché case, his mind on his wild scheme to get rich in a hurry. O.K., time to go. The sooner he got started, the sooner he could get rich with this sucker’s money.

“Gimme, say, a couple of hours. I can deliver.”

Bolt nodded. “Hell, I got nowhere to go. I’ll be here.” Won’t I, though?

Staggers stood up, smiling now because he had a reason to be nice to this guy. A lot of green reasons, and all of them in that little brown case lying on the bed. “Hang in there, my man. I
shall
return.”

There’ll be a candle in the window until you do, thought the narc. “Like I said, I got nowhere to go.” One day gone, four more left, and Bolt, instincts sharpened by years of staying alive in the vicious world of illicit narcotics, shook hands with Staggers, knowing the bearded courier was going to try a rip-off.

“He made three phone calls,” said Roger Dinard into the telephone. “Now he’s sitting in a café where he can see your hotel. He hasn’t moved since the phone calls.”

“I was right,” said Bolt. “He’s calling friends. What do you bet they’re on the way over with no white powder but with something else, like maybe something that fires bullets.”

“I don’t bet; you are betting. With your life. You sure you don’t want me and Jean-Paul in on this?”

“No. Cops are going to throw them off, and you guys are known everywhere. If I come out of this thing, and I’m going to do my best to see that I do, then any cops nearby will only make things look bad.”

“If we kill Staggers and his friends, there’ll be no problem.”

Bolt grinned. “You’re a practical bastard, Roger. I need Staggers. How’s your wife taking these late hours you keep?”

“She doesn’t like it. She worries, but what can I do?”

Yeah, what can you do, you stupid bastard? You don’t have sense enough to quit. All you can do is hold on to what you think is right and pay a terrible price for it. You are dumb. But I love you for it, you and Jean-Paul.

“Hey, uh, Roger, thanks for—”

Dinard interrupted, his precise voice coming through the receiver fast. “For what? For letting me and Jean-Paul live like men for a brief time? For letting us be a part of something that is right in a world where nothing is right? For letting us strike at those who’ve corrupted so much of my government? Ah, John, I should thank you.” He stopped.

He means it, thought Bolt. The bastard is so straight he squeaks, and maybe he’s a little pompous, but damn, you gotta like the little man with the bald head and thick moustache that keeps getting caught in his food.

“O.K., Roger. But I owe you one, you and the big man. You know that.”

“I do, John. You take care. I’ll phone if you have visitors. It’s getting cramped in this telephone booth.”

“I’ll send you a broad.” A joke. Roger Dinard was probably the only Frenchman in Paris faithful to his wife. Somebody ought to cut off the bastard’s cock for that and bronze it.

Roger laughed.

“Yeah, well, hang loose, Roger.”

“You hang loose too, my friend.”

Bolt hung up, staring at the phone, fingers brushing the Colt .45 APC Commander furnished him by Jean-Paul. Shaking his head, he stood up and began moving quickly around the room. Time to get ready. They’ll be here soon. I know it. They’ll
be
here.

T
HE THREE MEN STOOD
in front of the door, each man silent, face stiff with tense alertness, his head turning from left to right to make sure no one was coming down the quiet hotel corridor. Good. All clear. Now they faced the door with nothing else to worry about except the man on the other side. One man with a lot of money. No problem.

Staggers looked from William Barkley to Carlos Ran, then nodded his head as if to say, “Now’s the time.” Barkley, a twenty-eight-year-old deserter from the United States Army in Germany, picked his nose and wondered if the dude on the other side had any good clothes, something expensive that would fit him. If the cat had some threads that were worth anything, Barkley was going to cop them too, because he was tired of wearing this European shit.

Fucking foreigners made their clothes too tight.

Carlos Ran, a thirty-year-old deserter from the French Foreign Legion, fingered the 9mm M1950 pistol in his belt, the best damn handgun made in France, and wondered if he could trust Jesse Staggers, because Staggers was a liar, a braggart who was always out for himself. Staggers had told them about the money, but he hadn’t said how much. All he had said was two thousand dollars for Carlos and Barkley if they’d do the rip-off with him.

Carlos and Barkley had worked rip-offs with Staggers before. They had also traveled with him, riding shotgun on runs from Turkey to Munich, Munich to Marseilles, when Staggers worked for the Corsicans. You had to watch Staggers; Carlos knew that. But worry about it later. Right now, let’s go through that door and take the guy with the money.

Staggers, nervously chewing on his lower lip, pulled his .38 Smith & Wesson from his belt, tapping the door with it three times, again turning his head right, then left, for a last-minute check of the hall.

On the other side of the door a voice said, “Staggers?”

“Yeah, man, it’s me. I got what you want.” And you got what I want. Money.

“Door’s open.”

They went in fast, like they had talked about downstairs. Go in fast with guns. Don’t give the bastard time to breathe. Jump him, grab the money, and split. He’s just a stranger in town, and any pull he’s got is back in the U.S., too far away to do him any good. Waste his ass and don’t worry about it.