Trouble in Paradise

Twenty-Seven

Crow sat in the back booth of a storefront Chinese restaurant on Tyler Street with a sleek Asian man who said his name was Bo. Bo was wearing a silver-gray leisure suit and a black silk shirt buttoned to the neck. Leaning against the wall behind the booth was a heavyset Chinese man.

“You Portagie?” Bo said.

“Apache.”

Bo looked puzzled.

“Indian,” Crow said. “Native American.”

“Ah,” Bo said. “Whores say to pimp you asking about buy a key. Pimp tell someone, someone tell me.”

“That’s right,” Crow said.

“You mind feel for wire?”

Crow smiled and stood and held his arms from his sides.

The heavyset man stepped forward and patted Crow down. When he was finished, he said something in Chinese.

“You have gun,” Bo said.

“Yes.”

Bo shrugged.

“No problem,” he said. “You have money?”

“Not with me,” Crow said.

“How you buy? No money?”

“You got the blow?” Crow said.

Bo smiled.

“No with me,” he said.

“How you sell, no blow?” Crow said.

Bo shrugged.

“Why you come?”

“Thought I’d look at the product,” Crow said. “I like it, we’ll arrange something with money.”

“You look-see blow?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You give gun to Vong,” Bo said.

“Sure,” Crow said.

He took the 9-mm Glock off his hip and handed it butt-first to Vong. Vong took it and dropped it in his side pocket.

“We go,” Bo said.

He went out the front door of the restaurant. Crow followed him, and Vong followed Crow. There was a parking lot next door. Bo walked straight to an old Dodge van with Chinese lettering on the side, and in English, hand painted below the Chinese characters were the words FINE PRODUCE. Bo unlocked the back door, climbed in the van, moved some crates around, and came up with a maroon athletic bag with gray lettering on the sides. He dragged the bag by its shoulder strap to the lip of the van bed and opened it. Inside were several kilos of white powder in transparent plastic bags.

“Lemme try,” Crow said.

Bo untwisted the plastic tie that closed one of the bags. Crow tasted it.

“Been stepped on some,” he said.

“Sure, but it’s good stuff. No cut and...” Bo rolled his eyes and pretended to fall over.

“Yeah.”

Crow picked up the plastic tie and closed the bag. Then he half turned and drove his right heel into Vong’s groin. As Vong bent over, he put both hands on Vong’s head and snapped his neck with one twist. Crow moved so quickly that Bo was only half out of the truck when Crow got a handful of his hair and yanked him all the way out and slammed his head against the car bumper. He let go of Bo’s hair and Bo fell face down on the asphalt. Without any hurry, Crow went to Vong’s body and took his Glock out of Vong’s pocket. He shot Vong between the already lifeless eyes, and then turned and put one bullet into the base of Bo’s skull. Then he put the cocaine back in the bag, zipped it up, picked up the bag, and walked out of the parking lot. There was an attendant in the booth, a thin black man with Rastafarian hair. He was crouching down, trying to hide. Crow walked to the booth and shot him in the head. Then he put his gun back in his holster and walked off down Tyler Street toward Kneeland Street, carrying the maroon Nike bag over his shoulder.