Then he stood silently and watched as the giant started to tremble slightly. Pelly balled his fist.
The big man said, "Look, I think you misunderstood me."
"I thought you said I looked like a monkey."
"No, no, that wasn't what I meant."
Pelly didn't answer. Instead he lifted his fist, drawing the man's hands up to block the punch and instead delivered a crushing round kick to the man's knee. He tumbled like a redwood.
As the giant sprawled on the ground, Pelly stomped on the man's outstretched good leg, crushing that kneecap from another angle.
The man started to cry for his friends to help, but no one was anxious to defend the loudmouth.
Pelly stepped around and grabbed the man's hand, then bent it back and fell on his arm so that his elbow snapped. He repeated the action on the other arm.
The hairy young man stood up, looking down at the man whose limbs now all seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction. He glanced around at the others, who shrank back from his stare.
He heard his name and looked toward the Cadillac.
His boss said, "Pelly, let's go."
As Pelly stomped back toward the car, he saw the look on the men's faces in the truck. He knew they'd never make fun of him and neither would all the men they would tell.
Once inside the SUV, his boss said, "That sort of activity draws too much attention to us. We have an important task."
Pelly turned and looked at him. He wanted to ask if his boss thought whipping half-naked women didn't draw attention, too, but decided he liked his job. Maybe one day he'd address these issues with him.
It was almost sundown when Pelly watched the two men settle the crate into the front of a twenty-foot cargo container, secure the false wall and then lug in over fifty bales of compacted pot. The heavy hand truck strained under the stress of some of the bales. As with any imprecise and unregulated industry, the weight of each bale could vary from three to five hundred pounds. They had plenty, so they usually threw in a little extra to avoid complaints. Much of their success was based on staying out of confrontations. Of course, the boss went a long way toward eliminating problems before they arose.
Pelly saw him approach from the parked Cadillac SUV where he'd been on his cell phone.
"This looks better and better, Pelly." He looked at the men working. "How much longer?"
Pelly shrugged, "Two more bales."
"You want to, or should I?"
Pelly frowned. "Is it really necessary, boss? These two are good workers. They have no idea what's in the crate."
"Pelly, you let me worry about the security and just focus on doing what I say. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," he said, watching as the men shoved the big doors to the container closed. Without a word, his boss walked toward them slowly. He had his hand on the grip of a Walther P-38 behind his back.
Pelly shook his head, knowing that there was no real reason to kill these men, but that never stopped the boss from doing it. At least this time he wasn't torturing the men before they were killed. That seemed to be their only reward for being decent, hardworking employees.
The men turned, pleased that the big boss was apparently coming to thank them for their hard work. The first man, a twenty-five-year-old farm boy from Bocas del Toros never knew what was coming before the bullet to his face stopped him cold. The other man, a much older Colombian, had the time and presence of mind to take a step back, but the instinctive movement only seemed to enrage the boss, who, instead of shooting him in the head, put a nine-millimeter round into each of the man's knees.
The terrified worker dropped straight to the ground, his legs unable to support his large torso.
The boss walked up to him and put a bullet in the man's groin.
Pelly shook his head. This did nothing for the business operations-in fact, now Pelly would have to explain to anybody who knew them how the two workers had disappeared. He decided to say they were informers for the national police, and he'd had to make an example of them. Maybe he could salvage some benefit from this senseless behavior.
Pelly could only shake his head again as he watched the boss stand over the screaming, squirming man and slowly pump bullets into other nonfatal parts of his body while the man bled to death.
William "Ike" Floyd answered the pay phone off Forty-second Street on the first ring. It was eleven o'clock on a Wednesday night in Omaha, and he knew who it was.
"Yeah?" He wasn't tentative; he wanted to show this guy he wasn't afraid.
"William?"
"It's me, Mr. Ortíz. And call me Ike." He'd call Ortíz by his first name, too, if he knew it. Besides, this guy was a heavy hitter, even if his beaner accent made him sound very un-American.
The deep voice with the Latin inflection said, "It looks as if everything is in order. You will want to find a contact at the port in New Orleans or perhaps Galveston. That is where I will suggest as a point of entry."
"Think you can just waltz it right though?"
"I'll have some help, but it will still need to be off-loaded."
"I'll get it done."
"Good, good. I will have to set up two days a week to call you."
"Can we make it earlier? I don't like waiting out here by a pay phone this late."
"Surely the leader of a group like yours is not frightened?"
"You ever seen the wild animals that roam the streets in Omaha? Even the cops don't like to fuck with these niggers."
"Regardless, I will need to be able to reach you both Wednesday and Sunday nights. At the same hour." There was a silence on the overseas line, then he added, "Our mission is too important to be threatened by minor inconveniences. Do you not agree?"
"I guess."
"Very well. I will inform you of our progress."
The line went dead, and Ike, pissed off and tired, slammed down the receiver as the dry wind kicked up off the plains. He was close to his apartment on Fortieth Street, well away from any of the neighborhoods he was bitching about, but he didn't want this beaner thinking it was too easy to wait by a pay phone at eleven at night.
He turned and started to walk toward his building, thinking about what they had in mind. This was big. Bigger than anything he'd ever done, and, considering what else he had been involved in, that was saying something. This time no one had anything on him. He wasn't talking to the cops and wasn't facing any charges. This was gonna be straight and decisive. He would be proud to be known as the man who changed America. No matter how many died to save it.
5
DUARTE LIKED HAVING FÉLIX WORK OUT OF THE ATF OFFICE sometimes because it made him feel as if the two agencies were on a more equal footing. The DEA was so much larger and better funded, though, since the 9/11 attacks, it had become somewhat of a forgotten agency. As the public focused on terrorism, narcotics had taken a backseat. Few people realized the connection between the two crimes, and how much of a vital link the DEA had been in the intelligence machine.
B. L. Gastlin sat at a small table in Duarte's office. They had not handcuffed him, even though he was only temporarily out of jail. They had checked him out earlier in the day to make more undercover phone calls to Ortíz.
Félix gave him one of his ready smiles and said, "You done good, Byron. You got the man hisself on the line, and you set up a deal. Snap! Looks like it'll work out."
Gastlin grunted. "Not for me. You think my life will be worth anything after I do this?"
Félix leaned on a desk and said, "You have my guarantee you'll be safe. Or at the very least we'll find your killer." The DEA man laughed at the old joke, but it didn't seem to amuse the chubby drug dealer, so Félix said, "The judge will go a lot easier on your ass."
"I know it'll go easier on me if I talk, but I'm more worried about what'll happen outside this office. My business associates didn't go to Harvard. These guys are badasses."
Félix answered right back, "And some of the brothers at Marion or Leavenworth aren't dangerous? You look like a big, puffy chance to get rich or get a blow job. Either way, bro, you won't be happy."
"But I'll probably live."
"Look, besides pot we found the Beretta. My boy here," he nodded toward Duarte, "will lay down a simple 'armed trafficking' count, and you'll be one step closer to permanent residence in federal prison. Then there are the state charges for the assault on the old lady."
"Assault? I wrecked the truck."
"Yeah, then you grabbed a half-naked sixty-one-year-old woman and dragged her into a closet. That's not only assault, I think the state's attorney will manage a lewd and lascivious count, too."
Gastlin reached up and touched his swollen eye. "That lady got her revenge. My face and ribs are killin' me."
Félix didn't let up. "Then there's the theft of the truck and the reckless endangerment of the guy up in the bucket."
"I didn't even know he was there."
"Yo, dude, you sayin' your defense is that you did steal the truck, but inadvertently almost killed the FPL worker?"
Gastlin looked down at the table, then picked some spilled food off his orange jail shirt.
Duarte could read that signal easily. He was a beaten man. Félix was not only a good undercover, the guy had some interview skills as well.
Félix looked at Duarte, nodded, then with a tilt of his head, tried to get the ATF agent involved in the interview.
Duarte sat across from the despondent prisoner.
"Look, Gastlin." He waited for the man to look up into his eyes. "What do your initials, B. L., stand for again?"
Félix chuckled and said, "Based on my sore dick, I'd say 'butt licker.'"
Gastlin's face flashed red, and he looked down. "Byron Leon." He looked at Félix and said, "I already apologized. I just got the wrong vibe from you. I'm not gay."
Félix snorted, "You could've fooled me."
Duarte interrupted. "It doesn't matter."
Gastlin held firm. "It does. It does to me. I'm not gay."
Félix held up his hands. "Okay, you acted gay." He started to chuckle, and Gastlin sat, silent.
Duarte gave him a few moments to get over the joke at his expense. "We can protect you, and you can save a lot of years behind bars if you just cooperate."
Gastlin nodded slowly, then started to cry.
Duarte waited as the tears started to flow harder. "Wait, wait, don't cry."
The man looked up like he was about to be comforted. Like his day might turn from horrible to merely miserable.
Duarte added, "There's no crying here. You had a loaded pistol and drugs. You're a criminal. An armed trafficker. You don't have the right to cry. You didn't lose a house to a hurricane or have your family swept away by a tsunami. You're just a dimwitted guy who did something stupid. Now we're giving you the chance to make it right. Talk or take it like a man, but stop crying right this second."
Gastlin sniffled, wiped his nose with his hand and looked at Duarte. "You're right. What do you want to know?"
Duarte had to take a second because he had meant what he said; it hadn't been an act. But he was still stunned that it had worked. Now he was part of this case.