The Kings Of Cool

223

Because, as Chon points out, the justice system is more about the system than the justice.

Maybe Crowe and Hennessy jump bail, maybe they roll the dice with a trial on the drug charges, maybe they take a chance on each other’s holding firm, but the point is They have problems of their own now.

And so do the higher-ups.

Someone paid a lot of money to spring Crowe and Hennessy for fear they might flip in the interview room. But Duane and Brian still have good reason-double-digit prison sentences-to trade up, so the question is “Did they get them out to get them out,” Chon asks Ben, “or to get them out of the way?”

The latter of which leaves two options Crowe and Hennessy jump bail and disappear, or Someone disappears them.

In either case, the plan worked-drop Crowe into the shit and see who throws a line.

But how do we track the line back?

One of Ben and Chon’s favorite movies is All the President’s Men. They can practically quote it. Well, not “practically.” Actually. Driving back from Ben’s meet with Dennis, they go into the routine:

Hunt’s come in from the cold. Supposedly he’s got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag.

The prices have gone up, Bob.

Follow the money.

“Follow the lawyer who brought the money,” Ben says. “Somebody sent Chad to bail Crowe out. He’s going to report back to that somebody. And he isn’t going to do it over the phone.”

“Can you do it, bro?” Chon asks. “Follow him without getting seen?”

Without getting killed?

“I think so,” Ben says.

“I’ll take the other line.”

Crowe and Hennessy have to be freaking. They know they’re on thin ice. They’re going to reach out.

And up.

It’s a good situation, Chon thinks. If Crowe and Hennessy had flipped on each other, Ben would have gotten his “justice,” but it would still have left the higher-ups out there, and they would have him killed.

Better this way.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep your head down.”

“You, too.”

“Always.”

Recent evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.