Private: #1 Suspect

CHAPTER 12

Carmine Noccia said, “It’s a fucking disaster, Jack. One of my transport vans was jacked in Utah. Three of my guys were killed, dumped in the desert. I don’t think the cops are going to help me recover my property-which needed to be done yesterday. It’s a good thing I’ve got you in my corner.”

I don’t do business with mobsters.

Make that past tense. I didn’t do business with mobsters until my identical twin brother, Tommy Jr., racked up a six-hundred-grand gambling debt and I paid it off to keep Tommy’s sweet wife from becoming a widow.

A few months ago, Del Rio and I had flown to Vegas to see Noccia in his over-the-top, Spanish-style manse complete with racehorses and a man-made recirculating river located about five miles from the Vegas Strip.

I’d brought a cashier’s check for the full amount of my brother’s debt, and Noccia and I had exchanged favors. We realized that day that we’d both been in the Corps. As marines liked to say about themselves, “Never a better friend. Never a worse enemy.”

Carmine Noccia and I had shaken hands on that.

Now Noccia poured coffee for himself, used the cream, passed it to me. He said, “My guys were good. The highway robbers were better. And that’s all I know about the sons of bitches.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night,” Noccia said. “Our van was coming west from Chicago. We had a tracking device in there. No one knew anything was wrong until the van passed Vegas and kept pinging until it got to LA. The jackers must have discovered the GPS and trashed it when they stopped to check the inventory.”

“So you think the van is in LA?”

“I would say yes. LA is a big distribution hub. It’s a valuable cargo, Jack.”

“Drugs?”

He nodded. “Prescription variety.”

“How much?”

“Street value of thirty million.”

Now I understood why Noccia had been waiting for me before our doors opened. In the past, the Mob had frowned on the drug trade, but pharmaceuticals were a fast-growing and highly profitable business, just too good to pass up.

Pharmaceuticals were also easy to steal at any point along the distribution chain. Even a mom-and-pop store with a twelve-dollar padlock on the gate could have a hundred fifty grand worth of Oxy in stock on any given day.

Every pill was a tiny profit center, 100 percent FDA approved. The largest tablets of OxyContin were 80 milligrams. At a buck a milligram, one 80 mg pill was worth eighty bucks, and they came in bottles of a hundred. That meant one little bottle was worth eight thousand dollars. A truckload-thirty million or more.

Noccia had a big problem. He was desperate to control the damage and at the same time he couldn’t let anyone know he was dealing in pharmaceuticals. So instead of turning his own crew loose on the underground, he’d come to me.

More people died from illegal prescription drugs than all the street drugs combined. This was a very bad business and I wanted no part of it.

Noccia leaned in toward me, fixed me with his big brown eyes. “I’ve been waiting thirty years to say this, Jack. I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”