“In plain English,” Moreno said, “you’re offering me something I already have for a share of something that may or may not become real.”
“I’m offering you a third of a huge new market, here and abroad. The market is there, waiting to be exploited. All we have to do...”
“Hear me out,” Moreno said. “In plain English. There’s no one to listen in this place. We can speak plainly here.”
“Then speak plainly,” Andrew said.
“Your deal, as I understand it, is this. We supply cocaine, the Chinese supply heroin. The two drugs are processed and combined by your people in Italy for distribution all over the United States and Europe. You envisage a three-way split.”
“That’s right.”
“But you see, I already have a distribution setup in America and abroad. I don’t need you or the Chinese to...”
“You don’t have moon rock.”
“I don’t need moon rock, I have cocaine. Besides, moon rock is nothing new.”
“Open borders are.”
“We’re already in Europe with cocaine. Open borders or not. Crack hasn’t taken real hold yet, but Europe is always a little behind us. When the borders open...”
“When the borders open, moon rock’ll be the thing of the future.”
“Like it was the thing of the past, huh? Sprinkle a little heroin over a rock of crack, you’ve got moon rock. Nineteen eighty-eight, eighty-nine, they were already doing that. To level out the crack high.”
“Sure,” Andrew said. “And before that, you could get the same results with a speedball, shooting the mix in your arm. But this is the nineties! I’m trying to sell you the fucking future!”
Moreno looked at him.
“And, by the way,” Andrew said, “while we’re discussing the future, you might want to give some thought to your current cocaine clients.”
“Oh? Why should I do that?”
“Because they may discover that doing business with you can get them killed.”
“Fuck them,” Moreno said, “I’ll bring in my own people.”
“In which case, we’d have to settle this in the streets.”
Moreno looked at him again.
“We’re stronger than you are,” Andrew said. “And not only in this part of the forest. We’ve been at it much longer.”
“Bullshit. We have ties with Jamaican posses all over the United...”
“We’re not playing cowboys and Indians here, Jamaican posses. Who gives a damn about those amateurs? You think dreadlocks scare me? Are you a pro, or what the fuck are you? I’m talking more money here than any of us has ever seen in his life. Cocaine’s already bringing four times as much in Europe as it does here, and crack’s only recent over there. Crack can be smoked, Moreno, that’s why it got so popular here. People don’t want to use needles, they’re afraid of needles, they don’t want to catch AIDS. And they don’t want their noses to fall off from snorting coke powder. They want to smoke. Look at cigarettes. They make laws against them, they raise the price on them, they put warnings on them, people are still smoking them. All right, you want to know why users are sprinkling heroin on their crack? Because it prolongs the high. A crack hit lasts, what? Two, three minutes? And then you crash and you feel like shit. Instead, if you spread heroin over the rock, and then fire it up, you get a high that can last three hours.”
“I already told you, chasing the dragon’s nothing new,” Moreno said. “Even before crack was on the scene, they were mixing coke powder and heroin in aluminum foil, heating it up, and sucking it in through a straw.”
“And that’s preferable to a rock half the size of a sugar cube, huh? Which you can light up and smoke for a dollar a hit? We bring in moon rock in huge quantities, the whole fucking country will be smoking it. What am I offering you, Moreno, a kick in the head? I’m offering you more money than...”
“I still see risks.”
“Believe me, there’ll be bigger risks if you...”
“I mean business risks. There’s no guarantee you can make any kind of dope popular. Moon rock’s been around a long...”
“Not in quantity.”
“Besides, a lot of crack users prefer mixing their own combinations. You can still get very good China White, seventy-five pure, ninety pure...”
“Sure, at a dime a bag. When you can get a crack hit for seventy-five cents!”
“I admit crack’s selling cheap nowadays.”
“We start moon rock at a dollar, once it takes off, the sky’s the limit.”
“If it takes off.”
“If it doesn’t, I’ll give you my personal share of the deal, how’s that?”
“You’re that sure?”
“I’m that sure.”
Moreno fell silent, thinking.
“The Italians supply the ships both ways?” he asked at last.
“Both ways.”
“And do the processing?”
“Everything. Process it over there, handle the distribution for us in Europe, ship product to us for distribution in America. All you do is what you’re already doing. Except you get a third of this huge market we’ll be...”
“Make it sixty percent,” Moreno said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the way I want it.”
“There’s no way I can get anyone to agree to that.”
“Then there’s no way we can deal. I’m sorry.”
“I came here prepared to offer you...”
“Sixty percent of the total. You and the Chinese can share the other forty however you wish.”
“As a token of good faith, I was willing to raise your share to forty instead of the third we offered. But...”
“I’d be losing money if I went lower than fifty-five.”
“Forty-five and we’ve got a deal.”
“Fifty. I can’t go lower than that.”
Andrew sighed heavily.
“Deal,” he said, and the men shook hands.
“You’re a wise old snake,” Andrew said, and smiled.
“You’re a sly young fox,” Moreno said, and returned the smile.
Andrew had already decided to have him killed.
It was the last Wednesday in January.
The man approached her as she was leaving the school building. She had no idea how long he’d been waiting for her. She knew he was not one of New York’s loonies because he addressed her by name.
“Mrs. Welles,” he said. “I’m Billy. I was asked to pick you up.”
It was four ten.
She did not know why she got into the automobile. Andrew hadn’t called last Thursday as he’d promised — or threatened — to do, but now there was a car and a presentable young man named Billy, who opened the back door for her and then closed it behind her and came around to the driver’s side of the car. As he turned the ignition key, he said, “I’ve been waiting since three o’clock. I wasn’t sure what time you’d get out.”
She said nothing. Did not ask him who had sent the car, did not ask him where they were going, simply sat back against the leather seat and watched the city’s darkness enveloping them as the car moved steadily downtown. The car was a Lincoln Continental, she could see the identifying logo on the dashboard panel. Oddly, she was thinking she would have to call Michael immediately, to tell him another teachers’ meeting had been called and she wouldn’t be home until eight thirty, nine o’clock.
“You’re pretty much the way you were described,” Billy said.