And in English were the words DOUBLE UOGLOBE BRAND 100 %.
By dawn Frank had found a better home for the enormous supply of dope than his own goddamn apartment, though that was where he was again sitting, and at the same table. The only evidence of any drugs on the premises was a small powder pile on a small slip of paper.
Sitting at the table with Frank was a slender, studious-looking young man with the wire-rimmed glasses and casual attire of a college student, who had just tested the powder and was about to tell Frank the good or bad (or in-between) news.
The young chemist said, “Typically what I see, before anybody on this end has stepped on it? Is twenty-five to forty-five percent pure.”
Good news, then.
The kid’s voice was businesslike but his eyes were glittering, like a woman studying a huge diamond some chump had given her. “No alkaloids, no adulterants, no dilutants. It’s one hundred percent — holy grail of shit, Frank.”
Frank nodded, flicked a smile, stood. “Thanks for coming around so early, such short notice.”
The chemist flipped open a leather travel syringe kit, which the kid had set on the table along with his testing gear. The glittery eyes gazed up at him. “You mind, Frank?”
“Take it with you,” Frank said. “Better cut it, some. Or your roomies’ll be calling the coroner.”
Nodding, the chemist quickly gathered his things, then on the way out offered one last piece of advice: “Store it in a cool, dark place, Frank.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about Harlem,” he said, with another brief smile, and let the kid out.
Then Frank drew all the blinds and set himself down in his Eames chair, put his feet up and did his mulling, meditative thing. He needed a whole new way of doing things and probably a whole new crew and he had to think it through...
8. OD
At the morgue, an assistant medical examiner pulled open a cadaver drawer for Richie Roberts to confirm an ID. The detective who’d called him down was an old friend of both Richie and his ex-partner Javy, who was the corpse in question.
Even knowing Javy had been using didn’t prepare Richie for the wealth of scabs and tracks on not just his arms but the stomach, legs and toes of the longtime addict his ex-partner had become.
The detective, Jacobs, asked, “You know his girlfriend, Rich? Good-looker. Started out as one of his informants, and then he moved in with her.”
Richie said, “Beth. Her name was Beth. Don’t remember her last name.”
The heavy-set figure in white that was the assistant medical examiner slid open another cadaver drawer, as matter of fact as an office worker at a file cabinet.
“That’s her,” Richie said, staring down at the skinny, once-attractive body with its own array of needle marks.
“Should’ve seen their pad,” Detective Jacobs said. “Like a buncha animals lived there.”
“I’ve seen it,” Richie said. “Wasn’t so bad, once.”
“Well, trust me, you don’t wanna drop by now.” Then the detective said to the assistant ME, “Picked a good night for it, huh? Grand Central in here.”
“It’s been like this every night, lately,” the ME said with a fatalistic shrug. “I’m lucky if I get home before midnight. Lot of careless people in the world.”
“Less now,” Jacobs pointed out.
Richie took a look at the small pile of personal effects on the chest of his ex-partner’s cold corpse: a few crumpled dollars, car keys and a half-empty package of what appeared to be heroin in blue cellophane.
“This needs to go into evidence,” Richie said, and took the bag.
The assistant ME filed Javy away, and on his way out with the detective, Richie held up the bag and asked, “This tell you anything? Blue cellophane?”
“That’s the junkie’s current brand of choice, my friend — Blue Magic. Stronger stuff than usual. May be why we’re having such a carnival of ODs, lately.”
Richie offered the bag to the detective. “You should take this. It’s your evidence.”
“Evidence of what? Javy Rivera being a first-class idiot?”
“He was a good cop, once upon a time.”
The detective grunted. “That fairy tale is over.”
In the lounge of the small police gym where Richie liked to work out, a television was going, though nobody was watching it right now. He found himself trying to listen, as he lifted weights in sweats and tennies, though the report wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
“Since 1965,” a typically authoritative baritone intoned, “law enforcement has watched the steady increase of heroin addiction, no longer exclusive to big city neighborhoods, and along with it a rise in violent crime. Now unaccountably, it has exploded, reaching into cities as a whole — our suburbs and towns — our schools.”
Only a few other cops were working out, many of them overweight types who’d been sent here “or else,” but whether fit or fat, the cops had one thing in common: none of them wanted a damn thing to do with Richie. Sometimes they’d even walk in, see him and walk out.
“Someone is finally saying enough is enough,” the narrator was saying. “Federal authorities have announced their intention to establish special narcotics bureaus in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Newark and other major metropolitan areas...”
Richie was jumping rope, now, and could see the sensational images on the fuzzy screen: quick shots of inner cities, junkies in shooting galleries, homicide victims in alleys and gutters, and, most shocking of all oddly enough, white suburbia.
And, of course, those who would fix all this: lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Richie heard somebody come in and saw it was his boss with the Prosecutor’s Office, Lou Toback. Toback, his tie loose, stood with his hands on hips and listened to the last of the heroin story on the news.
Richie stopped jumping, said, “Dog and pony show.”
Toback looked over his shoulder at Richie and half-smiled. “You think?”
In the locker room, Richie changed into his street clothes while tall, slender Toback paced and talked. Seemed Richie’s boss had been selected to head up the Newark bureau in this federal drug inquiry.
“You heard the TV,” Richie said, tying his shoes. “Like I said, dog and pony show.”
“Not how I’m hearing it,” Toback said, sitting on the bench nearby. “Not how it’s being advertised, anyway.”
“Well, where do I come in, in a federal deal? Who the hell would I answer to? FBI? I don’t like the FBI.”
“You answer to me,” Toback said, “and the U.S. attorney. Nobody else. No FBI. Hoover knows better than to mix his boys up with dope — too much temptation for the feeble-minded.”
Richie was dressed now. He sat on the bench and looked at his boss, who had always been straight with him, and said, “I know I’m not in any position to refuse this assignment, really. But I’m not convinced it’s a good idea.”
“Why, you’d rather stay where you are?”
“Well...”
Toback had a way of smiling that was at once mocking and friendly. “Rich, a detective who doesn’t have the cooperation of his fellow detectives is by definition ineffective.”
“What’s that, French for ‘fucked’? Anyway, you know why I don’t have the ‘cooperation’ of my peers.”
“Why you don’t,” Toback said flatly, “doesn’t mean a damn.”
“Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it mean anything that they’re all on the take, and I’m not?” He shook his head. “Instead of giving you a medal or some shit, for turning in dirty money, they bury your damn ass.”