Money, Money, Money

3 .

THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY gave them a listing for a C J Ridley on South Ealey Street in Silvermine. Carella and Ollie went there at once. They had phoned ahead and a pair of technicians from the Mobile Crime Unit were waiting for them downstairs. The building was a twelve-story red brick a block away from the oval. They introduced themselves to the doorman, and asked to speak to the superintendent, a man named Peter Dooley, who immediately took them up to apartment 9C and unlocked the door for them.

Carella and Ollie stayed out in the hall with Dooley while the techs got to work. The super was a tall, wide-shouldered man with a shock of black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing wide-wale blue corduroy trousers and a navy blue sweater vest over a red plaid shirt. He told them the woman lived here alone, took the apartment in November, was gone for a little while, came back again early in December. He figured she was worth a little something, the fur coats and all, don't y'know.

"When's the last time you saw her?" Carella asked.

"She was in and out a lot the past few days," Dooley said. "Doing her Christmas shopping, I guess. This the same case as the other one?"

Carella and Ollie looked at each other, puzzled.

"Had some detectives from the Eight-Seven here the other day," Dooley said.

"Oh? When was that?" Ollie asked.

"The other day. Thursday."

"What do you mean by the other case?" Carella asked.

"The break-in. We had a patrol car come by and then two detectives."

"No, this has nothing to do with that."

"I thought… well … Miss Ridley and all."

"What do you mean?"

"It was her apartment got broken into. She had me change the lock on the door the very next day."

"Let me get this straight," Carella said.

"There was a burglary here?" Ollie said.

"On Thursday, yes, sir. I changed the lock on this door only yesterday."

"Because the apartment was broken into?" Ollie said.

"Yep. I was outside with the doorman when your two detectives come by to investigate," Dooley said. "One of them a redhead, the other one this short little fellow with curly black hair. Doorman called upstairs, Miss Ridley told him to send them right up."

"Who were they, do you know?"

"Thought you might."

Carella was already on the cell phone.

"Anybody else here for the lady in recent days?" Ollie asked.

"Not that I noticed. I'm busy in the office most of the time."

"Bert?" Carella said. "This is Steve. Can you check with the Loot, see if Willis and Hawes responded to a burglary here on South Ealey this past Thursday?" He listened. "321," he said. "Apartment 9C. Sure." He turned to Ollie. "Kling. He's checking."

"Did you see anyone coming out of the building with Miss Ridley late last night, early this morning?" Ollie asked the super.

"I go home at six," Dooley said. "You're lucky you caught me."

"Which doorman was on last night, would you know?"

"Same one as now."

"Can you send him up, please?"

"Sure," Dooley said, and walked off toward the elevator.

"Yeah," Carella said into the phone. "Just what I thought. Are either of them there now? Put him on, willya?" He turned to Ollie. "Willis and Hawes were here around four Thursday," he said. "He's getting Willis now."

They waited.

The apartment seemed suddenly very still.

"Hal, hi, it's Steve," he said. "Bert tells me you investigated a burg here at 321 South Ealey this past Thursday. Can you tell me a little about it?" He listened. "No, this is a homicide. Right. The lady got stabbed with an ice pick and thrown into the lion exhibit at the zoo. No, I'm dead serious. Can you give me the back story?" He listened. "A sable worth forty-five grand, right. And a mink stole worth six. Initials in both of them, CJR. Is that it? Okay, good, thanks a lot." He hit the end button, flipped the lid shut, turned to Ollie. "You heard?" he said.

"I heard."

Dooley was back with a man wearing a blue uniform with gold trim, blue hat with a shiny black peak. He looked Hispanic to Ollie, but Dooley introduced him as Muhammad Hassid, which meant he had just arrived from the Sahara and was plotting to blow up the nearest municipal building. Ollie asked him if he'd seen Miss Ridley leaving the building with anyone anytime last night.

"No, sir, I have seen no one," Hassid said.

"What time did you leave here?" Ollie asked.

"I was relieved at eleven-forty-five," Hassid said.

"Who came on after you?"

"Manuel Escovar."

"We'll want his address and phone number," Carella told Dooley.

"I have them in the office," Dooley said. "Will you be needin either of us any further?"

"Not right now," Ollie said. "We'll stop by on our way out."

"Good luck to you, lads," Dooley said.

"Thank you, sirs," Hassid said.

IT TOOK A GOOD HOUR AND A HALF for the techs to vacuum the place for fibers and hair and to dust for fingerprints. The lights were on when Carella and Ollie finally went in to join them.

"Got some nice latents," one of the techs said. "How urgent is this?"

"It's a fuckin homicide," Ollie said. "What do you mean, how urgent is it?"

"Cause what I can do …"

"The fuckin lady got chewed to bits by lions!" Ollie said.

"I can run the prints for you, was what I was gonna suggest, save a little time," the tech said, unruffled. "Call you if I get a make."

"That'd be a help," Carella said.

"My name's Murphy, here's my card," he said. "Probably be late tonight, early tomorrow morning."

"Gee, that's abig fuckin help," Ollie said.

Murphy looked at him.

"Talk to you later," he said to Carella and walked out shaking his head.

The apartment was a one-bedroom with a good-sized living room and a utility kitchen. They started in the bedroom, which was where they hoped to learn the most about the woman.

Three furs were hanging in the closet there: an ankle-length sable, a mink stole, and a red fox jacket. The initials in each of the furs were CJR.

Ollie turned to Carella.

"Didn't you say … ?"

"That's what Willis told me."

"So what are they doing here?"

"Maybe she had two of each."

"Maybe my aunt has balls," Ollie said.

There were also two woolen cloth coats in the closet, and a fleece-lined brown-leather flight jacket. The jacket had a silver bar on each shoulder and a diamond-shaped leather name patch over the left breast: Lt. C. J. Ridley. Hanging lengthwise on trouser hangers were two pairs of blue jeans and three pairs of tailored slacks. Hanging in the rest of the closet were dresses, skirts, and several bulky sweaters.

The clothes in her dresser drawer were laid out like soldiers lined up for inspection, rolled nylons and pantyhose in one drawer, tank tops and cotton panties in another, T-shirts and sweaters in the bottom drawer, all precisely stored away.

In the top drawer of the night table on the left hand side of the bed, they found a candy tin with a floral design on its lid. They opened the tin. Inside the box was a stack of photographs, several airmail letters, and a small black ring box that contained a slender gold wedding band. The letters were from a Captain Mark William Ridley-the return address indicated he was stationed with the U.S. Air Force in Germany-to a woman named Cassandra Jean Ridley in Eagle Branch, Texas.

"Probably her husband," Ollie said. "Got killed over there in Germany for some reason or other, and the letter's from a chaplain or somebody, telling her he was dead and returning the wedding band."

"Very romantic," Carella said.

"Let's read 'em."

"Also there's no war going on in Germany right this minute."

"Be the only place there isn't," Ollie said.

They opened one of the letters.

It was dated November 13 of this year, and it was from the dead woman's brother. He was telling her he'd just received a Dear John letter from his wife back in Montana, and he was sending their wedding band to Cassandra Jean to dispose of because he couldn't bear doing that himself, nor could he bear even looking at it ever again.

"That's romantic, too," Ollie said.

The letter went on to say that the job his sister had lined up for the early part of December sounded good to him, "so long as you won't be flying anything that might get you in trouble."

"Might've got her in a wholelot of trouble," Carella said.

"Let's take these, read 'em all later."

Sitting on the living room desk was an appointment calendar for the current year. They immediately flipped to the week of December 3. Someone-presumably Cassandra Jean Ridley-had scrawled the wordMexico into the box for Sunday the third. An inked arrow ran over the boxes for the next four days, its point leading to the box for December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, where the wordsEnd Mexico were written in the same hand. The single wordEast was written in the box for December 8.

In the top drawer on the right hand side of the kneehole, they found a checkbook from Chase, another for Midlands, and a savings account passbook from a bank called First Peoples. For yet another bank called Banque Francaise, they found a safe deposit box key in a little red packet with a snap catch.

A pile of rubber-banded hundred-dollar bills was resting on edge, at the right hand side of the drawer.

There were eighty of them.

$8,000 in cash.

They wished they could take a peek at her Banque Francaise safe deposit box, but this was the Saturday before Christmas Day, and the bank had closed at noon. Even a court order would not get it to open again before Tuesday morning, the twenty-sixth.

They went to see Manuel Escovar instead.

THE STREETS OF Little Santo Domingo were ablaze with light when they got there at eight that night. Stringed white lights hung from sidewalk to sidewalk, and dancing red and green lights flashed in every window overlooking the street. Spotlighted banners wishedFELIZNAVIDAD to the world. All up and down the street, pushcarts lighted with flashlights displayed last-minute gifts ranging from Louis Vuitton handbags to Hermes scarves and Rolex watches. Christmastime was the biggest thriller of the year, and the countdown had begun in earnest.

"All of this shit fell off the back of a truck," Ollie commented.

They found Escovar in a little bar off Swift Street, where he was enjoying a few beers with his cronies before heading off to work at eleven. Nervously, he told them his shift began at midnight and ended at eight in the morning. Anything more than two beers would be dangerous, he told them, but he assured them he was all right with just two. Ollie suspected Mr. Escovar here did not have a green card. He suspected the man did not wish the slightest bit of trouble with the law. Which was why his hands were trembling as he smilingly explained that he was just a mellow little man with a sporty little mustache enjoying a few peaceful brews with his pals. My ass, Ollie thought. Instinctively, he knew Escovar had something to hide if only because he was a spic.

"There's a woman who lives at 321 South Ealey," Ollie said. "Her name's Cassandra Jean Ridley. Does that name mean anything to you?"

"Miss Ridley, yes," Escovar said, nodding at once. "Appar'menn nine C."

"That's the one," Ollie said. "Did you see her leaving the building at anytime late last night, early this morning?"

Escovar thought this one over. Because he's getting ready to lie, Ollie thought. He had never met anyone of Spanish descent who gave you a straight answer. Then again, he had never met any Jew, Chinaman, Polack, Irishman, or Wop, for that matter-present company excluded-who could look you in the eye and give you an unequivocal yes or no. Ollie was a consummate bigot. He knew that virtually everyone he met in this business was inferior to Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks. That was simply the way it was, kiddies, take it or leave it. Otherwise, a fart on thee.

Escovar's drinking buddies had moved from the bar to one of the booths, but they were watching the action here with intense interest now. Ollie glanced in their direction, and they all turned their heads away. He figuredthey didn't have green cards, either. Escovar was still thinking.

"Take all the time you need, ah yes," Ollie said, doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation.

Escovar took the suggestion to heart, the dumb little spic. The detectives waited.

"This might have been very early in the morning," Carella suggested. "Four, five o'clock, around then."

"I'm trine to remember," Escovar said.

Try speaking a little English, Ollie thought.

"She might have seemed disoriented," Carella said.

She might have had an ice pick in her forehead, Ollie thought.

"I thought she wass drunk," Escovar said.

The way he finally tells it, Miss Ridley got out of the elevator at about four-thirty this morning, accompanied by two girls-he called them "gorls"-one on each side of her, each holding one of her arms to support her, it looked like to him.

"Can you describe these girls?" Carella asked.

"They wass big gorls. Very tall."

"White? Black? Hispanic?"

"White," Escovar said.

"What color hair? Black? Blond? Red?"

"It wass two blondies," Escovar said.

Blondies, Ollie thought. Jesus.

"Skinny? Fat?" he asked.

"They wass wearin overcoats."

Ollie wondered what the fuck that had to do with the question.

"You can still tell if a person's skinny or fat," he said. "Look at me. Am I skinny or fat?"

Escovar hesitated.

"Go ahead, you won't hurt my feelings, I know I'm fat."

"If you say so," Escovar said shrewdly.

"In fact, I like being fat. It means I eat good."

"Okay," Escovar said.

"So were these two broads skinny or fat?"

"They wass healthy," Escovar said.

"What does that mean, healthy? Big tits? Did they havetetas grandes, amigo?"

Escovar grinned.

"Bigtetas,huh?" Ollie said, grinning with him.

"Bigger than they gorlfrenn, anyhow," Escovar said, still grinning.

"How do you know she was their girlfriend?" Ollie asked. He was no longer grinning.

Neither was Escovar.

"How do you know Miss Ridley was their girlfriend?" Ollie asked.

Escovar looked at him blankly.

"Answer the question, Pancho."

"My name iss Manuel," Escovar said.

"Answer the fuckin question!"

"Slow down, Ollie," Carella warned.

"Never mind that man behind the curtain," Ollie said, jerking his thumb at Carella. "He's just being Good Cop. I'm theBad Cop, Pancho, you dig? And in a minute I'm gonna ask you for your green card."

"I hass a green card."

"Oh, I'm sure you do."

"I hass it home."

"I'm sure that's just where you have it. How'd you know they were Miss Ridley's girlfriends?"

"They tole me they wass."

"Oh? When was this? When they carried her out of the fuckin elevator? They stopped and told you they were all good girlfriends here, is that it?"

"Si,that wass when."

"You're lying, Pancho."

"That wass when."

"You sure it wasn't when they camein?"

Escovar looked at Carella again.

"Don't look at him, he ain't gonna help you. What'd they do, slip you a few bills to let them upstairs without buzzing the apartment?"

Escovar went pale.

"That's it, ain't it, Pancho?"

"They had a bahl of champagne," Escovar said. "They tole me it wass her burr'day. They said they wass good frenns, they wann to sorprise her."

"How much did they give you?"

"Ten dollars."

"To let them in, huh?"

"They said they wass frenns."

"Some friends, they stuck a fuckin ice pick in her head. What was she wearing, Pancho?"

"I tole you. Overcoats."

"MissRidley.What wasshe wearing when they carried her out of there? She wasn't naked, was she?"

"Naked? No. A gray suit. Jacket, skirt, a suit."

"Was she wearing shoes?" Carella asked.

"Shoes?" Escovar said, looking offended. "Of course, shoes,senor. The two gorlfrenns walk her by where I am holdin dee door open for them, out in the street. I thought she wass drunk," he said. "I thought it wass dee champagne. I wash them …"

He watched them as they walked up the street to a black Lincoln Town Car parked just outside the Korean nails place. Both of the girls got in the back seat with Miss Ridley. The car drove off around five, five-fifteen.

"Chauffeur driving the car?"

"I theenk so, yes."

"You didn't happen to notice the license plate number, did you?" Carella asked.

"I'm sorry,senor," Escovar said. "I did not."

It was too early for Christmas presents.

OR MAYBE NOT .

At nine that night, when Carella went back to the squadroom to check on any phone calls and to sign out, there was a message that a detective named John Murphy had called to say he'd run the prints he'd lifted from the vic's apartment and had got hits on an Army lieutenant named Cassandra Jean Ridley and a guy named Wilbur Colley Struthers who'd taken a burglary fall in this city seven years ago. Struthers had dropped the better part of a five-and-dime at Castleview before getting released on parole two years ago. His last known address was 1117 South Twelfth …

"Right up there in the Eight-Seven," Murphy said. "Now ain'tthat a stroke of luck?"

Carella figured maybe it was.

HE WENT THERE with three other detectives as backup; the man was a convicted felon whose fingerprints had been found all over the vic's apartment. The building on South Twelfth was a brick walkup, no doorman. The name under the doorbell was W. Struthers. Carella rang every other doorbell in the row. To the first voice that erupted on the speaker, he said, "Police, want to buzz me in, please?"

"What?" the voice said.

"Detective Carella, Eighty-seventh Squad," he said. "Please buzz me in, sir."

"What is it?"

"We need access to the roof. Buzz us in, sir."

"But what is it?"

"An air vent," Carella said.

Hawes shook his head, suppressed a smile. The buzz sounded a moment later.

"Thank you, sir," Carella said to the speaker, and the four detectives entered the building. Hawes was still shaking his head and smiling. Outside the door to 2C, Carella put his ear to the wood. Meyer was behind him, on his right. Brown was standing to the left of the door. This was ten o'clock on the Saturday night before Christmas, the building was alive with sound. Radios and television sets going, toilets flushing, people talking behind closed doors, there was a city in miniature inside the walls of this building. They had no warrant, hadn't even bothered to approach a judge for one because they'd felt certain Struthers' fingerprints alone would not constitute probable cause for arrest. They had to hope that the man inside there did not bolt for a window the minute they knocked on the door and announced themselves as policemen. Like most cops, they considered burglars-even convicted burglars-people who were not particularly dangerous. The "Burglars-Are-Gents" myth persisted, even though a surprised burglar could turn as violent as any other thief in the world.

There was music behind the closed door, coming from either a radio, an audio system, or a TV set, Carella couldn't tell which. Christmas music. He kept listening. He heard nothing but the music.

He turned to the others, shrugged.

Nobody said anything.

They all stood there with drawn weapons pointing up at the ceiling. Meyer Meyer, bald and blue-eyed and burly, looking patient and attentive and somewhat bored, to tell the truth; Cotton Hawes standing tall and square and redheaded, a white streak in the temple over his left ear, memento of an assailant whose name he'd long since forgotten, still looking amused by Carella's doorbell bullshit; Arthur Brown resembling nothing so much as a dark, scowling Sherman tank. Stalwarts of the law. Waiting for a signal either to come down the chimney or go home.

Carella shrugged again, knocked on the door.

There was silence except for the music, and then, "Yes?"

A man's voice.

"Police," Carella said, what the hell.

"Shit, what is itthis time?" the man said.

They heard footsteps approaching the door. Heard a lock turning, tumblers falling, a chain coming off. The door opened wide. The man inside backed away the instant he saw four guys standing outside there with guns in their hands. He was about six feet tall in his bare feet, Carella guessed, wearing blue jeans and a brown woolen sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. His hair was a muddy blond color and his eyes were blue, opened wide now in either fear or surprise or both. A Christmas special was on the television set behind him.

"For Christ's sake, don't shoot," he said, and threw his hands up alongside his head. The cops in the hallway suddenly felt like horses' asses.

"Okay to come in?" Carella asked, and showed the tin.

"Yes, fine, come in," the man said, his hands still up. "Just watch how you handle them pieces, okay?"

"Your name Struthers?" Brown asked.

"Yes, sir, that's my name," Struthers said.

"Wilbur Struthers?"

"But you can call me Will, sir. Is this the kidnapping again?"

"What kidnapping?" Carella asked at once.

The detectives were maneuvering so that he was the center of a loose circle, their guns still drawn, nobody even dreaming of holstering them now that they'd heard the word "kidnapping," which was a federal offense that carried with it the death penalty.

"Is it the President's been kidnapped?" Struthers asked, and Carella thought, Oh dear, we've got ourselves a nutcase here, but he still didn't put up the gun.

"Know anybody named Cassandra Jean Ridley?" he asked.

Recognition flashed in Struthers' eyes.

"Do you know her?" Carella asked.

"I have met her, yes. But I do notknow her, sirs. I would not say I trulyknowher. Excuse me, Officers, but it's been my experience that when there are firearms on the scene, one of them is bound to go off, either because of undue excitement or some other impulse of the moment. So, if it's all right with you, I'd appreciate it …"

"How'd your fingerprints get in her apartment?" Carella asked.

"Her goods and her money have already been returned," Struthers said.

The detectives looked at each other.

"What goods? What money?" Carella asked.

"I gave it all back to her yesterday," Struthers said.

"What are you saying?"

"He's saying he burglarized the joint," Brown said.

"Is that it?"

"No, no. There was a misunderstanding, that's all," Struthers said.

"What kind of misunderstanding?"

"Two of her furs came into my possession, was all. And a little cash, too. But everything was returned to her yesterday. Officers, if you think I'm armed and dangerous, why not simply frisk me, so I can put my hands down?"

Hawes frisked him. He was still smiling. He was finding all of this somehow very comical. He nodded okay to the other detectives. They all holstered their guns except Brown, who had grown up in a neighborhood where people sometimes hid weapons up their asses. Struthers lowered his hands. He looked relieved.

"When yesterday?" Carella asked.

Struthers blinked at him, puzzled.

"Did you return her stuff?" Carella explained.

"Oh. She came here around ten-thirty in the morning."

"How'd she know where to find you?"

"I think through my eyeglasses," Struthers said.

Carella was still thinking the man was a bit off his rocker. Hawes was still smiling. Brown still had his gun in his hand. Meyer was wondering what the man had meant about a kidnapping.

"What kidnapping?" he asked.

"What do you mean, through your eyeglasses?" Carella asked.

"I think she may have found my eyeglasses. She said she was delivering my eyeglasses."

"Found them where?" Carella asked.

"I don't know."

"What kidnapping?" Meyer asked again.

"The man from the Secret Service said there'd been a kidnapping."

Next comes the CIA giving him instructions, Carella thought. Through his radio or his television set.

"Said the President had been kidnapped?" he asked.

"No, that wasmy notion."

"Youthought the President had been kidnapped."

"Well, why else the Secret Service?"

Why else indeed? Carella thought.

Hawes was still smiling. Nodding his head and smiling. This was turning out to be a very amusing evening after all. Meyer was thinking if the Secret Service had really been here, then maybe someone in the White House had really been kidnapped. Brown was beginning to think along the same lines as Carella: the man was a loonie. He kept his gun in his hand, just in case.

"When was the Secret Service here?" Meyer asked.

"Day before yesterday," Struthers said, "around four in the afternoon. And he came back again that night, around ten, ten-thirty."

"Who was this? Did he give you a name?"

"Yes, sir, he did. Special Agent David A. Horne. With an 'e.' "

"Show you any ID?"

"Showed me his badge, yes, sir."

"What'd it look like?"

"You know that gold star the Texas Rangers carry? It looked a lot like that."

"And he told you he was with the Secret Service, is that right?"

"Yes, sir. The U.S. Treasury Department."

"What'd he want here?"

"He said a hundred-dollar bill I'd spent earlier in the day had serial numbers that matched the ones paid as ransom in a kidnapping. Which is why I thought it might be the President, the Secret Service and all."

"Naturally," Carella said.

"He took the rest of the money with him," Struthers said.

"The rest ofwhat money?" Hawes asked.

"The money that was part of the misunderstanding between me and the Ridley woman."

"The money youburglarized," Brown said, and waved the nine for emphasis.

Struthers looked at the gun.

"I'm not admitting to any burglary here," he said. "Or anything else."

"Like what?" Carella asked.

"Like anything at all," Struthers said.

"Maybe you'd like to tell us how your prints got in her apartment," Brown said.

"I took down her drapes," Struthers said.

Carella tried to remember if there'd been any drapes in the dead woman's apartment.

"Because I was going to paint the place for her," Struthers said. "Which is why I thought she wanted the furs moved. So they wouldn't get any paint on them." He nodded to the detectives, seeking approval and encouragement. "That was the misunderstanding," he said."I thought she wanted the furs moved, whereasshe didn't want them moved."

"How about the money?" Brown asked.

"That, too," Struthers said.

"You didn't want to get paint all over the money, is that it?"

"Exactly. There was just a misunderstanding, is all. She didn't know I was planning to move it, you see."

"Maybe she thought you'd be painting the place green."

"Huh?" Struthers said.

"The color of money."

"No, no …"

"In which case it wouldn't've mattered if you got paint all over it."

"No, it was beige."

"Which made a difference, of course."

"Yes."

"So you moved the furs and the cash before you took down the drapes and got your fingerprints all over everything."

"Well … yes."

"Man, you are so full of shit," Brown said.

"It wouldn't have been eight thousand in cash, would it?" Carella asked.

"The money was returned to her," Struthers said. "And I didn't kill her."

Whoa now, Carella thought.

"Who said anything about her beingdead?" he asked.

"Television," Struthers said.

They all looked at him.

"I saw you and some fat cop on television early this morning. At the zoo? Where some lady got tossed to the lions? That was her, wasn't it? That's what this is all about, ain't it?"

THE MAN THEY KNEW ONLY as Frank Holt was waiting in the other room while they tasted and tested the cocaine. What he was selling them here was a hundred kilos divided into ten-kilo packets. He was getting a million-nine for the lot, so they wanted to make sure it was good stuff. If it was anything but what he'd advertised it to be, they would kill him. He knew that, he was no fool.

The apartment they were in was a second-floor walkup on Decatur and Eighth. Tigo and Wiggy the Lid were in the second bedroom, such as it was. The man who called himself Frank was waiting outside, in what passed for a living room, chatting with a third man whose name was Thomas, and who was carrying a nine-millimeter Uzi. A radio playing rap music was on in the living room. Frank was the only white man in the apartment. He and Thomas were talking about recent movies they had seen. Thomas was saying he didn't believe none of the gunplay shit in any of the so-called action-adventure movies because all that ricochet stuff and sparks flying and sound effects like zing zang zing was all full of shit. Most gun fights didn't last an hour and a half, anyway. You shot somebody, he was either dead or gonna shoot you soyou were dead. Frank tended to agree, though he himself had never been in a gun fight. He admitted this to Thomas now.

"You never shot nobody?" Thomas said.

"Never," Frank said.

"Shit, man," Thomas said unbelievingly, and began chuckling. "Where you from, man, the planet Mars?"

"I've just never found the opportunity."

"How long you been doing this?" Thomas asked.

"Almost eight years now."

"And you never found no opportunity to shoot nobody?"

"Most people I deal with aren't interested in ripping anyone off. We're traders, pure and simple."

"I got to tell you bout Wiggy," Thomas said. "He ain't such a pure and simple trader, man."

"He seems like your average businessman."

"He ain't so average, neither. You know how many peoplehe has found the opportunity to kill?"

"I'd rather not know," Frank said.

"He got the name Wiggy not ony cause his lass name's Wiggins. It's also cause he wigsout whenever things don't go his way. Blows hislid,that's the second part of the handle, he Wiggy theLid, man. Reason he so tempermennul, is he doped up day and night. This is one man involved in dealing shit who don't believe shit isshit, you take my meanin? He believes shit isgood for a person. I don't know how much you sellin him in there …"

"A hundred keys."

"Wiggy goan snort half that fore the week is out."

"I know you're exaggerating."

"I am. But the mando like his cocaine. And when he's stoned, why, man, that's when he wigs out, that's when he blows his lid, that is when you has to shoot him first or he goan shoot you dead, man. He shot and killed …"

"I don't want to know. Really."

"… twelve niggers ony last year," Thomas said, and shrugged. "It was Nigger of the Month Club roun here."

Frank never felt safe when black men-especially black men named Thomas-began calling themselves niggers in his presence because he never knew when the inside familiarity would suddenly turn against him. And whereas he'd never shot a man, he did not particularly encourage situations where gunplay might be called for. He himself carried a Walther P-38. It made him feel like a Nazi in a war movie. They had not relieved him of the gun when he'd come up here. Perhaps because they knew he'd be crazy to attempt a shootout. Anyway, he'd have handed it over in a minute because there was no need to worry about his cocaine failing any test put to it.

The stuff Frank was selling had been grown in Bolivia and processed in Colombia for about $4,000 a kilo. That came to a growing-and-manufacturing cost of $400,000. The Mexicans he'd purchased it from in Guenerando had probably paid $800,000 for it, and had sold it to him for $1,700,000. He was now about to turn it over for $19,000 a key-$1,900,000. That's the way it worked. A pyramid with everyone making a profit from top to bottom. Eight hundred large in Colombia, a million-seven in Guenerando and now a million-nine in New York.

But Frank served a much higher cause than any of these assholes knew about.

Besides, he had a decided edge.

WIGGY HAD TASTED THE COKE , and so had Tigo, but tasting it meant nothing because you could get bad stuff'd fool the keenest taste buds. Ony way to make sure was the trio of tests Wiggy called the TNT, for "Tried 'N' True."

First test you got straight from the water tap.

Opened the faucet, filled the glass with a few ounces of plain water, then scooped a spoonful of shit out of the plastic bag and dropped it in. If it dissolved directly, it was pure cocaine hydrochloride. If any of it stayed solid, the dope had been cut with sugar.

Second of the TNT was Clorox.

Put a little in a glass jar, drop a spoonful of the powder in it, and watch the movie. If you got a white halo trailing the powder, it was cocaine, my dear. If you got red following the powder as it fell, the stuff was cut with some kind of synthetic, and somebody was going to get killed.

Last of the three was the best of them all, cobalt thiocyanate. What you did with the chemical was you dropped it onto the cocaine, also known as the White Leash, or the White Lady, or Lady, or sometimes just plain Girl, or any one of a thousand other cute little names to lure the kiddies in. If the powder turns blue, you've got cocaine. The brighter the blue, the better the Girl. Is what they say, man. The brighter the blue.

Frank's stuff lit up the sky like neon.

Wiggy had been taught to distrust every white man in the universe. He turned to Tigo and said in something like astonishment, "Why, the honkie's honest!"

But Wiggy also served a much higher cause.

Himself.

And he, too, had a decided edge.