The Kings Of Cool

140

Ben walks back to his place Dennis Cain is out front waiting for him.

“Uhhh, what the fuck, Dennis?”

In front of my apartment? Where I live? (Where my wife sleeps and my children play with their toys?)

“It’s time for your monthly contribution to the Dennis Cain Promotion Campaign,” Dennis says.

Ben already knows this.

“But you don’t want to be seen with me,” Dennis says. “Most of my snitches like to meet on neutral ground, but every once in a while I like to show up in their native habitat so they don’t get to feeling too secure.”

“Let’s go inside,” Ben says.

They go inside.

“You want anything?” Ben asks.

“You got Diet Coke?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t want anything.”

Dennis sits down on the sofa. “So what have you got for me? And before you answer, don’t even start with a grow house or a van full of dope.”

Ben looks at him-that’s exactly where he was going to start.

“I know who you are and I know what you’ve been doing,” Dennis says. “You grow top-grade hydro and you’ve been giving me your own factory seconds. I look like the outlet mall to you, bunkie? You pull off the freeway and sell Dennis a shirt with one sleeve longer than the other?”

“I have a lead on some high-grade-”

“You read the papers, watch the news?”

“Sure.”

“Then you should know I’m a rock star,” Dennis says, “and I don’t want any green M amp;Ms in my dressing room. My last hit on the Baja Cartel went platinum, and the last thing I need is any more boo. I get any more marijuana I’ll have to lay it off on eBay.”

Ben is stretched out between the rock and the hard place and he has nowhere else to go.

Dennis likes the situation.

Arrogant Ben Leonard has his head caught in a vise, and Filipo Sanchez is never going to be in a position where he can testify about making a payoff to a certain federal agent.

Someone El Norte gave the nod to Filipo’s assassination and is forming a new partnership with the Berrajanos. If it’s true, the Sanchez-Lauters are in big trouble. Not only are the American partners changing sides, but Filipo was the last male in the royal line-there’s no one to head up the family.

Dennis wonders if Filipo’s guts spelled anything as they spilled out of him.

Narco Sesame Street.

Today is brought to you by the letter “F.”

Fuck you, Filipo. And fuck you, Ben Leonard.

“So what do you want?” Ben asks.

“We’ve been over this,” Dennis says. “Arrests of human beings. Growers-better yet, buyers-wholesalers, preferably. It’s time for you to name names, Benny boy.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ben says.

“Look,” Dennis answers, “I pulled you out of the shit, I can drop you right back in. It takes one phone call, and I can have an assistant make it. ‘You want Ben Leonard? Take his ass. He isn’t producing anymore.’”

“Nice.”

“You want ‘nice,’ get into another business,” Dennis says. “Sell teddy bears, Candygrams. Puppies, kittens, they’re ‘nice.’ I’m in the arrest business-and you’re in that business with me.”

You’re going to name names, you’re going to wear a wire, you’re going to help make cases, Dennis tells him.

“You want me to keep the heat off you,” Dennis concludes, “you’d better wake up every morning asking yourself the following question: What can I do today to make Dennis happy?”