Phil didn’t care. “I don’t want to get him on tax fraud or ill-gotten gains; I want to bust him for manufacturing and distribution.”
“Then you’re going to have to have solid evidence linking him to his lab, which’ll be tough,” Susan reminded him, “and finding the lab itself will be plain impossible.”
“Why?”
“Natter’s a Creeker; his lab’s got to be up in the hills. You ever been back there? It’s a mess. You’re talking about three or four thousand acres of uncharted woodlands. There are roads back there that aren’t even on the county map grid. Finding Natter’s lab will be like looking for the needle in the haystack, or try ten haystacks.”
She had a point, and Phil was no trailblazer. “Yeah, but maybe one of his people will spin.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Natter’s people are all Creekers, too; they’re never gonna talk, first, because they’re all terrified of Natter—he’s like their god—and another reason they’ll never talk is simply because most of them can’t. Let’s just say you catch one of them dealing dust; no judge in the world will accept their testimony. Why? Because technically they’re all retardates—they’re legally mentally impaired.”
Phil frowned. She was right again. “But what about Natter himself?” he raised the issue. “You ever talked to the guy? He’s sharp as a tack. He’s smart, he’s well-read, he’s articulate. I wouldn’t call him mentally impaired at all.”
“Phil, be real. The guy’s a Creeker, he makes Frankenstein’s monster look like Tom Cruise. You get him into court on shaky testimony, all the guy’s gotta do is play dumb and the judge throws the whole thing out. The only way you’re gonna get Natter is to bust a bunch of his point people or bag men—people who aren’t Creekers—and get them to testify. You’re gonna have to make a positive link between Natter and known PCP dealers. At least Mullins has you on the right track. Staking out Sallee’s over a period of time, getting a line on Natter’s out-of-town contacts—that’s the only way you’ll be able to get Cody Natter on a distro bust that’ll stick.”
Phil saw no point in telling her that the whole idea was his, not Mullins’. But she was right on all counts. This would probably wind up being as complicated as any of his PCP cases in the city, if not more so since the circumstances were so atypical. “I still want to find that lab, though,” he muttered, more to himself. “No judge will argue with hard photographic evidence.”
Susan’s expression turned bemused. “What, you think you’re gonna get a picture of Natter at the lab?”
“Why not? It’d be an open-and-shut case.”
“Never happen, Phil. Natter’s way too smart for anything even close to that. He’s probably never set foot in the lab, you can bank on that.”
Phil grumbled. Again, he knew she was right. Yeah, this sure ain’t the city, he thought. On Metro, he’d been one of the best narc cops on the force, but his expertise felt like a white elephant now. Everything was different here; things worked different ways. This was another world
“Phil!” Susan was suddenly whispering. “Look!”
He glanced up from the remnants of his hash and eggs. Susan was gazing fixedly out the window. Along the shoulder of the Route, a teenage boy and girl were walking, both dressed in little more than rags. Both had shaggy heads of dirty black hair, and they ambled along unsteadily, even crookedly. The boy wore rotted workboots, while the girl was barefoot, oblivious to the shoulder’s sharp gravel. In the bright, hot afternoon sun, they looked like bizarre ghosts.
“Creekers,” Phil uttered under his breath.
“God, I feel sorry for them,” Susan remarked, still staring out. “Talk about getting a bum deal from life.”
Phil gulped. Her observation made him at once feel selfish; in all his reflection upon his own problems, here were two kids with real problems. They walked at such a distance that he could discern little of their physical features, but even that was more than enough. The boy’s neck appeared twice as long as it should, which caused his enlarged head to droop to one side, while the girl didn’t seem to have any jaw at all, and though her left arm looked normal, her right was grievously shortened, the hand sprouting from the elbow.
“I wonder how many of them there are?” Phil said.
Susan’s gaze never strayed off their backs as they grew tiny beyond the bend.
“Who knows?” she answered.
— | — | —
Ten
Back in Black, Paul Sullivan thought along with the pounding juke music. Right now this hotter-than-hell redhead was dancing up a cock-stoking storm on stage. Big tits, like a Penthouse Pet, and legs that looked a mile long. Vicki Steele, her name was. He and his buddy Kevin Orndorf just got off a bag run out near Waynesville; Krazy Sallee’s was the perfect place to drop a few beers after a sale. It was also a good place to meet their partners and point men, talk some quick business and make arrangements. Of course, they’d never actually sell the product here—that’d be crazy. Paul and his people, after all, were big time runners, not dime-baggers. Kevin himself was a little cranked up; he’d lit up a dust roach in the parking lot and he was hopping. Paul had lit up himself, but just a toke; he didn’t want the shit turning his brain to mush. Just a quick hit once in a while.
The joint was packed. This redhead on stage was pure fucking dynamite, the best bod he’d seen in the house all night. Wonder how much a gal like that’d cost, Paul’s thoughts strayed. Couple hundred at least. Maybe five.
But it would be worth it.
“Too bad they gotta wear them fucked-up g-strings here,” Kevin postulated, stroking his goatee. “Bet she’s got a snatch redder than a pit fire.”
“And them tits?” Paul added. “Christ. You could hang your hat and coat on ’em.”
“Be right back, partner. Got’s to drain the love-snake.” Kevin drunkenly rose, then wended through the jammed aisles. The music was so loud it seemed to swell Sallee’s old plank-wood walls. Strobe lights throbbed to the beat, along with the redhead’s sultry dance moves. Her firm, big breasts jiggled as those long legs traipsed across the stage. Dollar bills fell like confetti…
Man, she could tease the cock out of the Pope’s pants just with her smile, Paul theorized. What I wouldn’t give for just a half hour with that piece of pie.
Not that he could complain. Darleen, his current squeeze, was tough stuff, and almost had a set of tits to match. And she could get down on the rod like Sandra Scream in them porn films he watched sometimes on card night. But, Christ, there was so much out there… For a guy to confine himself to one girl, well, that was like going to McDonald’s every fucking day and having a Big Mac. Every now and then a fella might want some McNuggets or a fish sandwich.
Right?
The music compressed in his ears; he could barely hear himself think, not that Paul Sullivan ever needed to think all that much. He lit a Lucky and looked up. Kevin, clearly half shit-faced, was talking to some creepy looking kid by the john door. That dumbass better not be trying to move any dust here, Paul fretted, but then Kevin disappeared into another door off to the side, while the creepy kid hung out another minute, then went up the stairs.
“Hey, what’s in that back room?” he asked the waitress when she came along. Typical beat redneck mama, probably dropped eight kids by the time she was thirty, and now she looked fifty.
She emptied a clogged ashtray and asked, “You want another Carling?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “And what’s in that back room? I just seen my buddy go in there.”
“Pinball machines,” she quickly replied. “You said you wanted another Carling, right?”