Powder Burn (13 page)

“Seventy percent of my employees are single women under twenty-five,” the old man said. “Without the flowers many of them would be whores or maids. When they come here, they have no skills. They know nothing.”

The old man and his visitor stopped to admire a bed of red carnations that blazed with color and bristled with health. The girl who tended them had small bones, high breasts and a voluptuous mouth. A red and white plastic name tag on her smock proclaimed her to be Dorita. The two men watched in pleasure as the girl bent, her back to them, to trim a plant.

“They are not paid much by American standards, but it is more than they could make anywhere else. It gives them pride. It keeps them out of the city; it keeps them young and tender,” the old man confided.

“Venga,”
he summoned the girl.

Turning to his visitor as the girl made her way through the rows of flowers, the old man gestured at the flowers and at a flat green pasture beyond them.

“Do you see the difference? Here on a few hectares I give work to nearly a thousand people. I make money, and so do they. Over there twice as much land goes unexploited. My neighbor keeps a small herd of cows and gives work to a half dozen cowboys. That is the tragedy of Latin America, my friend.”

The old man’s visitor said something appropriate.

“How old are you, Dorita?” the old man asked the girl in Spanish.

“Sixteen,
patrón,”
the girl replied. Up close she was quite beautiful.

“Are you happy here?”

“Sí patrón.”

“Your flowers are lovely. You are doing a good job.”

“Gracias, patrón.”

The two men walked out of the carnation shed into the morning sunlight. The old man took his visitor’s arm.

“It is time to talk business, Ignacio.” He could feel the younger man stiffen.

“In Miami or in Bogotá, in a tuxedo at a wedding, you are who you are. When we talk business, you are Ignacio, are you not?”

The man from Miami had to bite his tongue not to say
“Sí, patrón.”
The old fool. He said nothing.

“I am listening,” the old man said.

“There are two problems. We must redefine the distribution, and we must better control the supply.”

“Why is that my problem?”

“Because all the merchandise in the world is worthless if the market is not well served. The system now is as backward and as inefficient as your neighbor’s farm. You know that as well as I do.”

“And yet, Ignacio, my neighbor’s family has run that farm in the same fashion for nearly four hundred years.”

“That is no answer. There is too much violence, too much confusion. The police are everywhere—we cannot buy them all. We could lose everything.”

“You
could lose everything,” the old man countered quickly.

“If I lose, you lose, don’t you see? You cannot distribute effectively in the United States from two thousand miles away. And the people you send to try, they are as ignorant as your flower girls.”

“Perhaps,” the old man said. “Of course, Ignacio, what you conveniently do not mention is that the profits in the United States are much greater than the profits for us here in Colombia. We send high-quality merchandise, and then it is diluted and diluted some more. Each time it is diluted the price doubles. We cannot dilute here for obvious reasons—the merchandise becomes bulkier and much harder to transport. But we are not stupid. We can dilute cocaine with sugar in Miami as well as you can. It is really the same old story—Latin America has always been cheated by the United States, hasn’t it? We sell our raw materials for a pittance and the
gringos
finish them and make all the money. That is why we are poor and they are rich.”

“OPEC dealt effectively with the
gringos,
did it not?”

“Is that what you have come to suggest, Ignacio? A cocaine cartel?” The old man laughed, and bits of saliva flecked his white mustache.

“Not a cartel but a partnership between producer and distributor. There is profit enough for all.
Los yanquis
will pay anything for their precious white powder.”

The visitor from Miami warmed to his task.

“Look, you control about seventy percent of all the merchandise that leaves Colombia, do you not?”

The old man said nothing. It was a shrewd guess.

“And the other big shippers are all friends of yours who will listen if you tell them there is a better way to do business—more profit and less risk. Is that not true as well?”

The old man remained silent.

“What I propose is a partnership in which we share profits and assure greater profits through two simple strategies. First, we organize the distribution efficiently so that everyone has an agreed territory and there is a standard of quality and a standard price.”

“And second?” the old man asked.

“We limit the supply until it is just below the demand.”

“Interesting.”

“And there is a third point as well.”

“Which is?”

“While we work out the agreements, we shut down the supply altogether for a month or so. That will panic the freelancers and force them to the surface.”

“What will that accomplish?”

“While they are milling about in confusion, we will make an example of one or two for all the rest to see. They will not trouble us further.”

“That might work,” the old man conceded.

“It will work,” his visitor insisted. “As evidence of my good faith I have taken the liberty of setting an initial example already.”

The old man looked at him quizzically.

“Do you remember the three
hips de puta
who tricked your freighter captain one night a little while back? You caught one. We took the other two.”

“Ah, yes. Capitán Veredo. He had served me for a long time. It was a pity. He will rest easier if they are dead, too.”

The old man and his visitor talked for a long time that morning in a restored farmhouse with a commanding view of the flowers. Girls in household livery of white blouses and plaid skirts brought venison, truffles and exquisite Chilean Riesling so dry it puckered the mouth.

It gradually became apparent, as the old man understood the beauty of the alliance, that he would agree to meld two organizations, competitors until now, into one powerful unit. That would make the two men dominant and impregnable. The visitor could hardly contain himself. He would take back with him to Miami that afternoon an agreement that would in time make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. The violence and disorder that had plagued and weakened him would vanish forever. It was the most exciting day of his life. It was the stuff of history.

“Bueno,
Ignacio, I believe your plan will work. I will curtail the supply and give you some weeks to implement your part of the bargain,” the old man said.

“I think we should meet once more to make sure all the details are understood,” his visitor said quickly.

“Yes, I was going to suggest that. When you are ready, let me know and I will come to Miami—my wife gets shopping fever every few months. She will be pleased if I accompany her once.” The old man permitted himself a thin smile. “You have a good brain, Ignacio. In a way I am sorry that all of my daughters married long ago.”

“I am honored,” the visitor said.

“Before you go, permit me a gesture of good will.”

The old man clapped his hands, and the flower girl named Dorita appeared. She had changed her blue smock, and now she wore the same plaid skirt and white blouse as the serving girls. It was a difference of degree. The blouse was sheer, rouged nipples straining against the soft fabric. The skirt was slit high up the naked brown thigh.

“Go with my friend, Dorita,” the old man from Bogotá called softly. “I am tired today, and it is he who will reward you for your beautiful flowers.”

“Sí, patrón,”
the girl said.

Chapter 11

“
BORSCHT.
Hot borscht in the summer, cold borscht in the winter—with plenty of sour cream. The best thing when you are feeling low.” She said it with an assertive shake of her blue-rinsed head. There could be no doubting.

“Chicken soup?” she sneered. “Chicken soup is overrated.”

“Thanks,” said Christopher Meadows. “I love borscht.”

Her name was Sadie. She was the queen of the Buckingham, and she had arrived with morning.

“Mr. Meadows, Mr. Meadows, wake up! It’s your neighbor, Sadie. Time for breakfast.”

He had bolted upright like a startled deer. For a few seconds he hadn’t been able to remember where he was, or why. Then the memory had come flooding back.

THE TRANS AM WAS GONE.

For a second time Meadows dropped his overnight bag in a heartbeat of dismay. It was impossible. Mono had come alone, and now Mono lay in a pool of blood in the stairwell. The car had to be there, next to Meadows’s own Ghia. But it was not.

Then Meadows saw the trail of blood. He traced it from the stairway door, drop by blackening drop, to where Mono’s car had stood. There drops had formed a small puddle.

Mono was alive!

Meadows whirled in fright, prepared to see again the Trans Am bearing down on him. The emptiness of the top level mocked his panic. Nothing moved. The garage was deathly still.

All of Meadows’s cunning evaporated. Logic deserted him. He ran as fast as his wounded leg would carry him to the Karmann Ghia. The keys! Which pocket? Shit! Here! Which key? Here! Thank God, the same key for the door and the ignition.

Meadows threw himself into the seat and jammed the key into the switch. The car lunged forward and died. He had forgotten to depress the clutch. With his right foot he pumped madly at the gas and tried again. The car would not start. Finally the engine caught, and he jammed the transmission into reverse to back away from the wall. He guided it backward in a wide arc, eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, awaiting retribution. The garage seemed endless, an eternal tunnel, twisting in a dark blind maze as Meadows descended to the exit.

When he finally got there, Meadows had to brake sharply to avoid rear-ending a fat black Cadillac stopped to pay the toll. He looked desperately for a way around the car. There was none.

Only one toll lane open, the others all sealed with black and yellow wooden barriers. Could he crash one? He could try. He slipped the Ghia in reverse. Then the Cadillac moved.

Meadows lurched up to the toll booth. Where was the fucking parking ticket? There, between the bucket seats, where he had left it an eternity ago. He thrust the ticket through the window.

A sign lit up: $1.00.

“One dollar,” recited the attendant. She was as fat as the Cadillac.

Meadows fumbled for the money. He always carried his bills in a side pocket. He had nothing smaller than a twenty.

“Keep the change,” he ordered, and drove off into the night.

WITH THE MEMORY
came the pain. His leg hurt like hell. The drying scrape on his arm had stuck to the long-sleeved shirt he had put on in the car. Meadows regarded himself with distaste. He lay disheveled, ragged and fully dressed atop the bedspread of an ancient mattress that sighed for mercy.

“Mr. Meadows. Mr. Meadows! Your tea is getting cold!” Who was this harridan? Against his better judgment, Meadows limped to the door. There stood a vision in frizzy curls and pancake makeup. A garish ring of red circled her mouth. One painted eyebrow danced higher than the other. She was barely five feet tall, and nearly as wide. A housecoat of many colors struggled to contain her. Meadows’s head began aching immediately, and Sadie watched him curiously.

“It’s nearly nine o’clock, Mr. Meadows. We breakfast early here at the Buckingham.” She carried a metal tray with steaming tea in a chipped mug, two gnarled pieces of toast and a jelly glass holding an amber fluid that fizzed. He later discovered it was celery soda. Sadie firmly believed there was nothing celery soda and borscht would not cure.

“How did you know my name?” he stammered.

“Izzy, the desk clerk, told me. Everybody knows. It’s not often we get late-night guests at the Buckingham. He says you came in looking as if you had been run over. Poor man. Of course, you can’t believe everything Izzy says. You know how he lies. He claims he was in the ghetto in Warsaw. Ghetto, schmetto. Izzy comes from Newark. So why lie already?”

She winked conspiratorially. With an elephantine pirouette she deposited the tray on the wooden hulk that passed for a dresser.

“You’ve got to watch that Izzy,” said Meadows dryly. His improbable morning caller was like the sight of land to a drowning sailor.

In the night he had stumbled upon the Buckingham, unseeing, uncaring. Pausing only to change his bloody shirt, Meadows had driven as far as the nearest expressway would take him from the airport. He had found himself in the shabby south section of Miami Beach, a refuge for people who were too poor to live on the tawdry strip farther north, and too old to enjoy it.

In the darkness the motel had looked like all the others. The bald and scrawny desk clerk who had awakened to his call—it must have been Izzy—had registered Meadows without comment.

Sunshine revealed the Buckingham to be a paint-peeling monstrosity, an elderly survivor of the Art Deco age. Once it had been white. Now it was flamingo pink, trimmed in turquoise. It was two stories high, built around an internal courtyard. Atop the second story stood a dome of chipped concrete. Sadie confessed that it was the observatory, unused these last fifty years because there was no telescope. When it had been built, the Buckingham had had a sea view. Now, like the telescope and the youth of its denizens, the beach was gone.

Sadie and her friends lived off memories and illegal hot plates that regularly blew the fuses. They dwelt amid a jungle in the courtyard and a parody of art in the hallways. Every few feet there was a niche, and in every niche the crumbling bust of some personage who had obviously been important to the horror’s early owners: Lindbergh, Beethoven, Schiller, FDR, Eisenhower, Groucho Marx(!), Lincoln, Rickenbacker, Babe Ruth, Mae West.

For a day, Meadows did nothing but sleep, eat and wallow in a four-legged porcelain tub. He quickly discovered that the maternal care and breakfast were inventions of Sadie’s. “The management is not responsible for the contents,” Izzy proclaimed. Sadie chirped incessantly; Meadows endured it as a welcome shred of homeliness in universe-turned-alien.