The Informant (42 page)

Somebody shoved Neil hard from behind, and he crashed into Cristina Reina, the two of them going down on the bed, Neil on top of her. A hell of a time to think about getting laid in a motel. He kept up his art, trying hard to look as surprised as everyone else in the room, but in the few seconds he was face-to-face on top of Cristina, he thought he saw in her eyes that she
knew
, knew who he really was, what was really going on.

In the car going down to bureau headquarters, Neil sat handcuffed to her, an agent in the back seat with them. Cristina said nothing. She stared silently ahead, eyes bright apparently not even breathing. She
couldn’t
know, thought Neil, she
couldn’t.
He was just being paranoid, uptight, imagining things. She
couldn’t
know who he was. Fucking impossible. But he worried during the ride, he worried a lot.

T
HE GRAY-HAIRED LAWYER
in the expensive suit leaned forward, the nervous tic forcing his left eyelid to begin its uncontrollable winking. Cause of the tic at this particular moment: Cristina Reina. She and the lawyer, a prosperous Miami refugee from Castro’s Cuba, were alone in the room, enjoying privacy due the privileged relationship between attorney and client. Cristina Reina, who paid well for legal services, was a ruthless woman with a soul you could strike a match on. When she summoned the gray-haired lawyer, he came. He was wise enough to do that.

He spoke softly in Spanish, putting the nervous tic out of his mind. “Forty-eight people arrested, including Rupert Logroño in New York, two of his aides, and his chauffeur. They waited until Logroño left his embassy, where he would have had diplomatic immunity, and arrested him on his way to a discotheque, of all places. Forty-eight people in Miami, New York, Washington, Union City. Four hundred and twenty-five kilos confiscated so far. They simply waited while some of the mules walked into a trap. Incredible. Stories in all the papers, on television.” He shook his head slowly, as though the news stories were simply a matter of bad taste. The gray-haired lawyer had always been an elegant man.

Cristina Reina folded her hands in her lap. “Poor, poor Mas. His grand scheme has exploded in all our faces. Seventy-five kilos of white still making its way toward the waiting arms of the law, though, on second thought, I would imagine that the mules in question might just change course and not show up.”

The lawyer said, “I was told to tell you that the customers are angry, disappointed, extremely upset. Some of them plan to seek out the mules on their own, kill them if need be, to obtain the remainder of the merchandise. I was told that some of the customers are desperate. They were promised delivery and in turn made promises that now cannot be kept.

Cristina shrugged, patting her frosted hair down on her lined forehead. “The blacks, probably. Sounds like something they’d do. The agents knew our every move. Everyone was under surveillance, lieutenants, distributors, everybody. Phones were tapped. We were little bugs about to be pinned to the wall. Our buyers, out customers, our stash points, everything.”

“Informants?”

“
Sí.
”

“You sure.”

“I know.”

“Ah, yes, the prison grapevine.” The lawyer’s hand went to his left eye, stopping the nervous tic for a short time. “You said you know. Does that mean you know who the informants are?”

“
Sí
.”

The lawyer believed her.

She said, “My bail?”

“I’m working on that. Yours is the same as Barbara Pomal’s, Rolando Boaz’s, and Luis DaPaola’s. A quarter of a million dollars each. I’m fighting to have it reduced, but I must tell you, it will not be easy. They made me wait over two days before letting me see you.”

“I know. That gave them time, a little time. We could not communicate with each other, and that helped them to make the arrests. Poor Mas. Good-bye to his dreams of retiring to Spain as a rich man.”

The lawyer took his hand away from his nervous tic. It immediately started up again. “The Italians all made bail. They’ve left Miami. Gone back to New York, I suppose.”

“The Italians are all federal agents. All of them. Including the Hundred Dollar Man.”

The lawyer frowned. The prison grapevine was excellent.

“You sure of that?”

She snorted. “We have somebody. Somebody inside.”

He was shocked. “You have a spy, an informant with the agents?”

Before Cristina could answer, the guard opened the door to the small bare room, and she stood up, a strong and intimidating figure from where the lawyer sat. “It will all be taken care of,” she said, walking past him without looking back. The lawyer had his own ideas about what she meant by that. They were the kind of ideas he never thought about too deeply, for his own sake.

Three days later, in a small bare room in Manhattan, Enrique Ruiz inhaled deeply on a Marlboro, bringing the cigarette up to his mouth with cuffed hands. “Same cigarette, but it tastes better outside a cell than inside a cell. You ever notice that? No, guess you wouldn’t know the difference.”

Neil waited. Enrique Ruiz, the little dealer who was so good at magic tricks, had asked to see him. Not in jail, but here in criminal court, and he wanted to see Neil alone.

Enrique smiled, rubbing his unshaven jaw. “You good, Hundred Dollar Man. Fool everybody. Me, I’m a good magician. I fool people, but you fool me, you fool
todo el mundo
, you fool everybody.”

Neil waited.

“Neil, you think about what you just did? Lotta people trust you, man, and you pop them. You think about that?”

Neil stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing his ankles and putting his hands behind his head. “Cut the shit, Enrique. You deal dope, you don’t sell Popsicles. You ever think about old ladies getting piped in the head, getting their brains smashed through their ears because some junkie wants to get well? You ever think about the women who whore to get money for what you deal?”

“They don’ have to buy, man. I don’ force nobody to buy.”

“And I’m not forcing you to do time, either. You can always hang yourself.”

“You ain’t sweet, Hundred Dollar Man.”

“You’re stroking me, Enrique. I ain’t got the time.”

“They gonna kill you.” Enrique seemed delighted to pass on the news.

“I’ve heard that before. You take away somebody’s freedom, and you’re automatically on their shit list.”

“A contract,” said Ruiz. “Contract out on you. Lotta money. Everybody contribute for this one. High-price talent from outta town comin’ in for the hit. Mas, John-John, Cristina, they all wanna see you get wasted. Blacks ain’t gonna cry at your funeral either. Cubans don’ like somebody comin’ in like you did and makin’ them look bad. They always get revenge.”

Neil grinned. “Guess that’s the same as getting four stars from the New York
Times.
Thanks for the compliment. I don’t feel one way or another about it, except I’m glad it went down the way I wanted it to. I want you and everybody like you off the street. Anyway, why you telling me all this?”

“I got more. I wanna deal. My bail’s too high, man. I can’t make it. I know I’m gonna do time, but my wife, she’s still sick. My son, remember? She never got over losing him.” The little man looked down at his cuffed hands, at the cigarette in his hand, and he sighed, remembering.

“Got me a habit, and jail ain’t gon’ be easy. I figure I pass on somethin’, and you help me out.”

“You ready to tell me about your friends?”

“No. Jus’ gon’ tell you ’bout the contract they got on you.”

“You said that.”

“One hundred thousand dollars to kill you and your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Useta be
my
friend. Lydia. They kill her, too.”

Neil sat up slowly, eyes on the little dealer. “How do you know about her?”

“I know, man, that’s all I’m gonna say. You think I’m in the joint, I don’ hear nothin’? Hell, there are guys in the joint still runnin’ rackets out on the street. We got a deal? ’Cause I got somethin’ else to lay on you, jus’ you, nobody else. Somethin’ real heavy.”

“I can’t guarantee anything.” Neil stood up, clenched fists at his side.

“You can, man, you can. You the Hundred Dollar Man, you hot. They give you anythin’ you want, I know. All them newspapers, television stations, they write about this case. They sayin’ it’s the biggest thing ever in narcotics. I don’ see your picture in the papers. Guess they tryin’ to protect you, right? Everybody else got his picture in the papers ’cept you and Lydia.” He spat on the floor at Lydia’s name.

Neil stood over the little dealer, looking down at him, eyeing him carefully, and seeing his own triumph about to slip away, grains of sand passing between his fingers. He wanted to punch Enrique, but he fought against it. “I want to know how you know about Lydia.”

“Hey, hey, you worried. Shit, you worried ’bout that fuckin’ Judas bitch? You scared for her? Hundred Dollar Man scared for his woman. Shit, my woman scared for me, man. I’m scared for her, ’cause I ain’t gon’ be around to help her none.”

Neil’s voice was barely a whisper. “You got to do time, no two ways about it. But you got my word. I promise I’ll get you something. Now, I ain’t gonna ask you again. I want to know—”

“Okay, okay, man. All I know is, you got her hid someplace. Safe house, I ain’t sure where. I ain’t lyin’, I really don’ know where. But I know this: one of your people is working with us now. We got one of your people. I swear to God, swear on my dead son, it’s true.”

“Who?”

“Hell, if I knew that, I’d use it to get myself out of here. I don’ know. All I know is, it’s somebody you work with, somebody you know. Why you think I talk to you alone, right here where nobody can see? You think I wan’ get my ass blown away? You better watch your back. You think I’m lyin’? What if I say you been movin’ her around, her and her kid? You move her from Queens to New Jersey and back to Manhattan, right?”

Neil closed his eyes, swallowing to keep the bitter taste from sliding up into his throat.

He heard Enrique Ruiz gloat. “Now you know how it feels, man. Now you know how it feels when a Judas gets on you. Now you know.”

T
HE BIG AGENT, COUGHING,
his eyes watering, was the first to step out into the smoke-filled hallway, shotgun wrapped in his overcoat and cradled in his arms as though it was the one valuable thing he wanted to save from the fire. His eyes burned as if someone had thrown handfuls of salt in them. Son of a bitch. Some kind of fire happening, with smoke everywhere, and in one second you wouldn’t be able to look down and see your shoes. It was time to be gone. “Go!” he shouted. He didn’t think it was necessary to say anything else, and it wasn’t.

Lydia was behind him, almost tripping as her feet ran into his. She held Olga in her arms, the child wrapped in Lydia’s overcoat because the smoke had appeared so fast, there wasn’t time to search for Olga’s winter coat.

The second agent, a hand over his mouth against the smoke, the other hand on Lydia’s shoulder, shoved her ahead of him, stumbling after her. Go, the man says. Heard you the first time. Forget about sitting around a motel living room eating fried chicken and baked potatoes and watching Sonny and Cher on a Sony. Time to haul ass, because the thick gray smoke was everywhere, and getting worse, intimidating you, demanding that you bow to it and panic. Demanding.

Now they were all in the hallway, barely able to see in front of them, forced to slow down because of the old gray-haired couple in bathrobes, clinging to each other and moving no faster than a goddamn slow trot, blocking the way, jamming the hallway that led to the second-floor stairs leading down to the motel lobby. Sure was going to be cold out there on Manhattan’s sidewalks tonight, but that was a hell of a lot better than staying inside and getting fried like bacon.

Now they were all in the hallway. …

T. Lawrence, who had set the fire, was behind them, slim in an ankle-length black leather topcoat, a black wool cap covering his shaved head, eyes hidden behind oversized dark green glasses. His black-leather-gloved left hand held a wet handkerchief across his nose and mouth. His feet, in black tennis sneakers, were shoulder-width apart and firmly planted on the gray carpet underneath. When Lydia and the agents had run out into the hall, T. Lawrence was doubled over with his back to them, coughing into his handkerchief. He was ignored, as he knew he would be.

Now he was behind them.

Extending his right hand forward as far as it would go, he squeezed, not jerked, squeezed the trigger on the .38, shooting Lydia twice in the back, seeing her stumble forward and crash into the big agent, who swung around and caught her and Olga. Hearing the shots, the second agent swung around quickly, hand-clawing for the Colt .45 APC Commander in the pocket of the overcoat slung over his left arm. T. Lawrence shot him once in the throat, sending warm blood splashing upward to cover the agent’s face. The agent flew backward, landing on his right side, his bloodstained overcoat covering his legs.

The big agent, crouched, blinking water from his eyes as quickly as he could, dropped Lydia and Olga, jamming his hand under his overcoat, intending to pull the trigger on the shotgun and fire twice through the coat. He muttered “Fucker!” the same time T. Lawrence shot him twice in the chest, sending him spinning around and into the wall, and when the agent dropped to his knees facing the wall, his chest on fire with pain and wet with his own blood, T. Lawrence in his black sneakers was already running past him, past a screaming, hysterical Olga pulling at her mother, lying facedown, running toward the screaming, terrified old couple who’d heard the shots, and stopped, but now wanted to run faster than their aged bodies would let them.

Knocking them aside and into a wall, T. Lawrence disappeared into the smoke, high on the excitement of what he’d just done, heading for the stairs, leaving behind him the fire and other work he’d just completed. T. Lawrence, who knew so much about guns that he could take one apart and put it back together blindfolded, had one more hit to make in the Apple. After that, back to Dee-troit, to party hearty with the one hundred thousand dollars, the one hundred big ones he’d been paid in advance for this very special snuff job. Life was indeed beautiful when you were one smart nigger who knew how to take care of business.