The Informant (4 page)

In Madrid, Mas Betancourt owned apartment buildings, two boutiques, and a travel agency. In Málaga, he owned five hundred acres of farmland and excellent vineyards.

With the money from his final heroin deal, he could expand and improve his businesses and live like a king, with no worry about paying expensive doctors for himself and Pilar. Mas’s painful legs had cost him plenty of money over the past sixteen years, and the removal of Pilar’s cancerous left breast hadn’t ended her need for the finest medical care available.

It wasn’t just illnesses and pain that made him want to leave New York. Nor was it a desire to become a middle-aged businessman in Spain that made Mas Betancourt decide to turn his back on dealing narcotics after sixteen years.

It was time for him to walk away. He sensed it strongly, and had it confirmed by the
babalawo
, a priest of the Santería religion. The
babalawo
had looked into the future and told Mas Betancourt that his wife, Pilar, would die in less than two years if she did not leave New York.

Mas, a man who was afraid of nothing, had clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking.

Santería was the primitive magic of Latin America, and meant “worship of the saints.” Hundreds of years ago, Nigerian slaves brought the Yoruba religion to the Caribbean, where it was blended with the Catholicism of their Spanish and Portuguese masters. The result was a primitive Latin magic that now identified certain Yoruba gods with Catholic saints.

Today, more than one hundred million people in South America, the Caribbean, and the growing Spanish-speaking communities of the United States believe in Santería.

Its followers are rich, poor, educated, illiterate, the same cross section found in all religions.

Cuban narcotics traffickers will not begin a major deal without first consulting a Santería priest, who then reads the future and predicts success or failure, often with incredible accuracy.

The
babalawo
, this priest of Santería, is trusted by all who ask his advice and never reveals a confidence. A
babalawo
is unknown to anyone outside of the Latin community or the cult of Santería, which only adds to his ability to keep a confidence.

Mas Betancourt had come to the
babalawo
to learn if this last deal would be successful, to find out if he should proceed with it. When the
babalawo
had said that Pilar’s life depended on her leaving New York in less than two years, Mas’s last deal became a matter of urgency. Now it
had
to be successful.

Mas loved Pilar terribly, because her devotion and love had saved him from being a useless cripple. He would do anything to keep her alive. Her cancerous breast had been removed six months ago, but it would be a long time, the doctors said, until it was certain that the cancer was entirely gone from her body.

Mas’s determination to pull off his last heroin deal and leave New York now became fanatical. Nothing would stop him. He had killed before; to kill for Pilar was almost a religious duty.

Mas told the
babalawo
of his plan to bring in five hundred kilos of white heroin, a load of over one thousand pounds,
almost twice what anyone had ever attempted to smuggle into America.

The
babalawo
said, “When?”

“I plan now, work now, I do it in one year. It takes that long to arrange men, money, smuggling routes. I cannot do it alone. The expense is too great.”

“Much money,” said the
babalawo.
He was small, black, a burned match of a man who wore a green-and-yellow robe. Those were the colors of Orunla, the Santería patron saint who revealed the future.

“Yes,
mi padre
.” Mas was buying pure white from Jacquard in Marseilles. Fifteen thousand dollars per kilo, five hundred kilos, a total of seven and a half million dollars. All of the money had to be paid in advance, but Jacquard had promised to deliver the heroin to Barcelona. After that, Mas would take over.

“You will work with strangers,” said the
babalawo.

Mas frowned, nodded. How did he know? “
Sí, mi padre.
For the first time, I must work closely with blacks.” Mas waited. The
babalawo
said nothing.

Mas tried desperately to read the little old man’s face, but he saw nothing in the dark, wrinkled skin except in the eyes, which reflected tiny points of candlelight. The
babalawo
was sick and spoke in a whisper. Both he and Mas sat on the floor, legs apart, Mas’s short, curved aluminum crutches to his right. Located in an all-Cuban neighborhood in Jackson Heights, the
babalawo
’s apartment was dark, humid, lit by yellow and green candles. It smelled of burning wax and sweet incense.

“Trouble with the blacks.” The
babalawo
’s whisper was as soft as tissue paper being torn in half.

“
Sí, mi padre.
Two of them are disobeying their leader. This could be a problem for all of us.”

Mas Betancourt had sold dope to blacks in the past, but never had he used them for importing. For this most crucial deal of his life, Mas had teamed with Kelly Lorenzo, because Kelly had certain foreign contacts that were essential.

Kelly, in hiding, had ordered his lieutenants and distributors in New York to cooperate with Mas Betancourt until this super deal went down. All of the blacks involved had done as ordered, except for two: the Rucker brothers, Connie and Carl, tough, young distributors anxious to break away from Kelly Lorenzo and go out on their own.

The
babalawo
said, “The trouble will pass. Soon.”

Mas Betancourt sighed, rubbing his withered thighs. He was a stocky man, once athletic and muscular, but now fleshy, since he could only drag himself around on crutches. Sixteen years ago he had been crippled in Cuba when an informant had betrayed him. Now his square-shaped face relaxed and his green eyes blinked behind brown-tinted glasses. The
babalawo
always spoke the truth. No need to worry about the Ruckers.

Mas Betancourt had passed along word to Kelly’s people that the Ruckers had to be dealt with one way or another. The Ruckers’ money, efforts, and energy belonged to Kelly Lorenzo and to this deal he had entered into with Mas Betancourt. There could be no breaking away until this deal was completed. The Ruckers hadn’t seen it that way.

Kelly, though still dealing dope, was a fugitive, in hiding and on the move, no longer on top of things in New York; and to the Ruckers, that meant he was owed less respect, less loyalty. Furthermore, the Ruckers had found a secret stash of six kilos of white that Kelly had hidden in the refrigerator of a young white model living in Chelsea, one of many women in Kelly’s life.

The disappearance of the white heroin had almost cost the model her life, until Kelly’s people learned that it wasn’t the woman but the Ruckers who had taken it, shipped it to Baltimore, cut it, selling it there and in Washington, D.C.

The theft of those six keys was something Kelly Lorenzo could not let go unanswered, not if he wanted to remain a leader. If Kelly’s respect was shaky among his men, it would affect his deal with Mas Betancourt. Mas had sent word to Kelly to settle this problem as soon as possible.

And now the
babalawo
had said, “The trouble will pass. Soon.”

Mas Betancourt relaxed.

The consultation with the
babalawo
continued. The consultation was called a
registro.
The
babalawo
sat on the floor. An
estera
, which was a small straw mat, was between his spread legs. He would rub sixteen tiny pink and white seashells between his hands, drop them four times on the straw mat, and read the shells according to the pattern they made when landing.

He read only those shells landing with the outside facing him. Each pattern was called an
ordún
and had an assigned number and name known only to the priest.

Mas Betancourt and the
babalawo
both wore
collares
, yellow-and-green bead necklaces, to protect them from evil. The necklaces were worn always, except when bathing or having sexual intercourse.

There was very little white heroin available on the streets of New York now. There was some brown from Mexico, but the addict craved his white, and at the moment, what white he could buy was barely one percent. Blame the shortage on informants, who were betraying shipments to law enforcement and customs. Informants, who were costing importers and distributors men, money, smuggling routes.

Mas Betancourt, with help from Kelly Lorenzo, was going to bring in five hundred kilos of white heroin, and there would be no way for him to lose it. No way at all.

He told the
babalawo
of his plan, and the tiny black priest listened, sixteen small pink and white seashells in his hands. The priest listened and read the shells.

Mas said, “I buy five hundred keys in Marseilles, fifteen thousand dollars each for uncut white. I will pay seven and a half million dollars just for the dope. Part of the money will come from the blacks. Jacquard says he can get the load to Barcelona easily. No problem.

“In Barcelona, I break the shipment down into twenty loads, twenty-five kilos each. I have twenty couriers, twenty mules. Each takes twenty-five keys, which means I don’t lose the entire load. I do this to avoid informants, betrayals. Each mule leaves at a different time, different route. Instead of bringing it all in at once, I bring in a trickle at a time.

“Each mule gets one thousand dollars a key. Twenty mules means I pay each one twenty-five thousand dollars. That means a half-million dollars to them. I pay all expenses: hotels, transportation, bribes. One million dollars will cover all of that.

“I figure it takes one year to plan and do all of this. One year’s expenses plus nine million dollars.

“Each of the twenty mules will have three checkpoints between Spain and America. At these checkpoints, they telephone one of my lieutenants. There’ll be a code word, so we’ll know if there is trouble, if anybody got arrested or is being followed.

“While the mule is on the phone checking in, his load is shifted to someplace else in the same city. This cuts down on betrayal by informants. It also makes surveillance by police very difficult, since they will need much manpower.

“This shift from one spot to another in the same city will be done by a driver who knows nothing, who is to be told nothing. He will be paid to drive a car, a truck, a cart across town, that is all. If this driver gets arrested, he will know nothing. There will be no way that the police can get him to betray me.

“Each mule will have a genuine passport and visas. No counterfeits, nothing to create trouble, arouse suspicion. None of the mules will have a time limit; all will travel slowly, taking their time. All will follow different routes. Each enters America at a different point, some from Canada, some from the West Coast, Mexico, Miami, New York.

“Maybe I lose a few mules. Maybe. Maybe somebody betrays me and I lose some of them. But it is
impossible
for me to lose all of them, and that is the important part of the plan. I cannot lose all of my shipment.

“In America, the heroin comes in drop by drop, building up. I will have five stash points, one hundred kilos to be stored in each place. All of the heroin will be sold the day it arrives. A buyer must take at least fifty kilos, nothing smaller.”

Mas finished talking. In front of him, the
babalawo
again tossed the seashells onto the straw mat and read them.

Mas had not told the
babalawo
everything. He hadn’t added that the minimum American price for the smuggled white would be ninety thousand dollars per kilo and that if it all got into the country, the total worth of the load would be forty-five million dollars. Half of the money would go to Mas, the rest to the blacks and those Cuban distributors Mas trusted enough to work with on this final deal.

Part of the plan was already in motion. There was a search for couriers to be used months from now. There was a search for checkpoints. Certain people in foreign customs, at airlines and shipping terminals, were being asked their price. But the entire plan would take months, and Mas Betancourt wanted the approval of the
babalawo
before proceeding with everything.

He would, of course, return to see the
babalawo
often until the plan was completed. But now he needed the priest’s approval in order to begin in earnest.

In the past, when Mas had been forced to proceed with a dope deal against the
babalawo
’s advice, there had been trouble. Two shipments had been confiscated, one in Belgium, one in Miami. The cost to Mas had been over seven million dollars.

In Marseilles, where a French chemist had been working day and night to transform morphine base into white heroin for Mas Betancourt, there had been an explosion in the Frenchman’s lab and he had gone up in flames. His assistant, his eighteen-year-old son, was blinded for life.

Two deals the
babalawo
had warned Mas against, but at the time circumstances were such that the Cuban importer had been forced to proceed.

Mas owed Pilar’s life to the
babalawo.
It was the tiny priest who, in answer to Mas’s question about the lump Pilar had found in her breast, had ordered her to be treated immediately by an American doctor. And it was the
babalawo
who said after the operation that if Pilar remained in New York longer than two years, she’d die.

Mas did not understand the priest’s magic; sometimes it frightened him. But he believed in it. And he loved Pilar desperately.

So Mas Betancourt would leave New York with his wife after the last deal. After
la última.

The consultation with the
babalawo
was over.

But there had been a warning.

Mas was in danger from a woman. The danger and the woman were both moving nearer to him.

The stocky Cuban frowned, chewing a corner of his mouth.

“A woman works for me,
mi padre.
” Barbara Pomal handled Mas’s finances. She was strong, intelligent, tough, a thin woman with a long nose and a taste for blue diamonds. But she was loyal, a part of Mas’s organization for over ten years.