The Mexico Run (2 page)

    That lunch was pretty much like our previous dinner, except that this time Ann talked to me a little about her sister, explaining that she was having a good many problems with her and, as a result, found that her time was very tied up.

    I told her that I would probably be leaving town on a business trip shortly, but would get in touch with her when I returned.

    The following day, I began initiating the first steps in the plan which had brought me to San Francisco in the first place.

    I was told that I would find him in one of those tourist traps, down on Fisherman's Wharf. A little hole-in-the-wall place, off the sidewalk, which specialized in fraudulent, imported artifacts, phony Mexican paper bulls, imitation-marble chess sets, cute sweatshirts and other valueless objects.

    His name had been given to me by Bongo, who was a hashish dealer-when he wasn't dealing in more sinister products-on the streets of Saigon, and with whom I had done a certain amount of business at one time.

    Bongo was a thoroughly disreputable, thoroughly unreliable character. However, one could rely on his recommendations, if those recommendations had a criminal content.

    It pleases me to know that shortly before I left Saigon to return to the States, Bongo was assassinated by the Saigon police as a result of his having supplied a fifteen-year-old girl to a Vietnamese general. Along with the girl, the general also received a classic venereal disease.

    I recognized the man at once from Bongo's description.

    A heavy-set man, with a head too big for his body, he was, like Bongo himself, a Eurasian. He had a dubious cast in one eye, a set of badly fitting false teeth, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt which could have stood laundering. He was waiting on two elderly ladies, who looked as though they had just arrived from East Jesus, Mississippi, attempting to sell them an imitation-jade elephant for about half the price of the real thing.

    I waited until he had consummated his deal, and when they paid what he asked for the elephant, I casually wondered why he bothered to deal in the particular commodity in which I was interested.

    The lady tourists left his shop, and he turned to me. I'd walked toward the back, pretending an interest in a tray of fake-silver daggers.

    He was skeptical when I mentioned Bongo's name, and it wasn't until I had fully identified myself and confided certain highly specialized bits of information that he was willing to accept me at face value. He assumed at once that I merely wanted to make a purchase, and it took me a little while to explain to him that I was not interested in merely picking up a lid or two.

    I wanted an introduction. An introduction to a man named O'Farrell. O'Farrell was a wholesaler, not a pusher.

    I think he knew at once what I wanted, but he also had ambitions of his own.

    "But O'Farrell would not be necessary," he said. "Charlie can give you what you want, any amount of what you want."

    He was Charlie. It took a little more explaining, and it also took a hundred dollar bill. The hundred dollars didn't buy me anything that I could carry out with me, except the suggestion that if I went back to my hotel and waited, I would be contacted.

    Bongo knew of O'Farrell, but had no direct connection with him. He had told me that I would have to have a stateside introduction. Charlie was to be that introduction.

    I only knew one thing about O'Farrell. He was probably the biggest wholesaler in the San Francisco area, if not in all of California. A man without a telephone, a man without an address, a man without a face. A man it would be very difficult to see, unless one went through proper channels.

    I went back to my hotel room and I waited. I waited for thirty-six hours. I waited through a quart and a half of bourbon. I didn't leave my room. I had my meals sent up. I didn't use the telephone. I had no one to call. And I began to wonder if I'd misplaced my confidence in Bongo's recommendations.

    I certainly hoped that I had not. If this one fell through, then it was very likely the one in Mexico would fall through, and that would spell complete disaster for all of my plans. I was beginning also to worry about the one hundred dollars I had put out to Charlie.

    But finally the telephone rang. It rang at two o'clock in the morning."

    "Mr. Johns-Mark Johns?" The voice had the timbre of gravel falling over a washboard.

    "This is Mr. Johns."

    "You wanted to talk to someone, Mr. Johns?"

    "To Mr. O'Farrell."

    "Bring your identification, and nothing else with you. Come down and walk through the lobby and stand in front of the main entrance to the hotel. When you get outside, take a cigarette from a package and light it and immediately drop it on the ground and stomp it out."

    He hung up before I could say anything.

    Five minutes later, as I stood before the deserted entrance of the Mark Hopkins, a Continental IV limousine whispered up to the curb beside me, and a rear door opened. Simultaneously, a man whom I had not seen before stepped out of the shadows of the building to my left and soundlessly approached me. His hands were like twin mice as they patted down the sides of my body. He was very thorough. No doubt he would have found even a penknife, had I carried one. A moment later, he reached into the inside pocket of my jacket, took out my wallet and handed it to someone in the back seat of the limousine. He spoke for the first time.

    "Turn around."

    I turned, facing the door of the hotel as a dome light went on in the limousine. A minute later, the light went off, and I was gently nudged through the opened door. The man who had searched me followed. I felt a second body next to me as I sat down. Someone blindfolded my eyes, and they returned my wallet.

    The trip took less than fifteen minutes, and although I was not familiar with the geography of San Francisco, I was quite sure when the heavy car finally came to a stop that we were somewhere in the heart of Chinatown. The street sounds, even in the early hours of the morning, were a tip-off, and there was a certain odor in the atmosphere that was unmistakable.

    My two back-seat companions accompanied me, one on each side, as we walked up a short flight of stairs and then down what seemed to be a long, narrow hallway. There were three more flights of very steep stairs. At the top we made a right-hand turn; a door opened and we entered a room. I was eased into a seat on a large, leather couch, the blindfold was removed, and I was attempting to adjust my eyes to the dim outlines of the room, when I heard the door close, and I sensed that my guides had left.

    There was a heavy odor of incense in the almost completely darkened room, and as I attempted to make out objects, a tensor light, some fifteen feet away, came to life, exposing the flat top of a large, square, teak desk. The shadow cast by the light outlined the man who sat behind it.

    "You have sought me out and now you are here. Will you please state your business."

    The voice was a thin, high falsetto, and the pronunciation of the words was almost too precise. I was still unable to make out the man's features, but I was convinced that the voice belonged to an Oriental.

    I said, "I'm looking for Mr. O'Farrell. Charlie sent…"

    "You are talking to O'Farrell, Mr. Johns. Will you please state your business."

    "I was told by a man named Bongo in Saigon that you deal in a certain commodity in which I have a great deal of interest."

    "I deal in many commodities, Mr. Johns."

    "In that case, I am sure we can do business. I have been in San Francisco for exactly two weeks, and during that time I have purchased at one place or another-in Height Ashbury, down by the wharfs, at certain motels, in this area itself, on Telegraph Hill, and other places-something in the neighborhood of fifty individual joints. I have found them to be uniformly poor in quality."

    "And what would that have to do with me, Mr. Johns?"

    "I will not beat about the bush. It is my understanding that you probably control most of the traffic in this area, marijuana as well as other assorted goods. I am interested in improving the quality of the product, one specific product. Grass."

    A second light suddenly came on, illuminating the figure behind the desk. I had been correct in my guess, and I was sitting some fifteen to eighteen feet away from a thin, elderly Chinese. Rather than inscrutability, his expression was one of pained amusement. He slowly stood up, and I saw that he was dressed in a conventional American business suit.

    "Are you telling me, Mr. Johns, that you have gone to all this trouble and bother to find me so that you can pick up a kilo or so of superior quality merchandise?"

    I shook my head.

    "A kilo is two and two-tenths pounds," I said. "I am not interested in kilos. I am not interested in pounds. I am interested in tons."

    A half-annoyed, half-amused expression lighted his face, and he slowly sat down.

    "I do not sell by the ton," he said. "I buy by the ton."

    "Exactly my point, Mr. O'Farrell," I said. "You buy and I am selling."

    Perhaps two or three minutes went by before he spoke.

    And then, almost sighing, he said, "And what gives you the impression that I am in the market?"

    "If you are not in the market, you should be. Believing, as I do, that you are in control of most of the grass that is retailed in this town, and having made a wide sampling of that grass, I can only say that your product is completely inferior, and that I am prepared to supply you, probably at little more than you are now paying, with pure Acapulco Gold. The stuff that's being peddled here is obviously domestic and possibly only slightly spiked with the real thing."

    Again there was silence, and this time it lasted for a full five minutes. I saw his hand reach for a button on his desk, and a moment later the door opened and a young Chinese entered the room.

    O'Farrell, or the man who called himself O'Farrell, spoke a few quick words in Chinese, and the boy who had entered took a gold cigarette-case from his pocket. He walked over and handed me a stick. It was slender, about two and a quarter inches long, wrapped in brown rice-paper.

    There were a couple of more words in Chinese, and he took out a lighter and held it to the joint as I put it to my lips. I took a puff, a deep puff, and held it. After I had slowly released it, I repeated the performance another two or three times.

    The boy was holding out an ashtray, and I butted out the joint. He turned and left the room. Again the high falsetto voice spoke, "And what did you think of that sample?"

    "That is nothing like anything I have been able to buy in this town so far," I said. "That was Acapulco Gold."

    "You are right. That is what we do, dilute it with the local product. And are you trying to tell me that you can supply it by the ton?"

    I told him that I could. He stared at me skeptically and shook his head.

    "Mr. Johns, I happen to know that you have been in this city for only two weeks. I also happen to know that you have only recently been discharged from the armed forces and have not been in Mexico since you arrived on these shores. I should like to know exactly how you intend…"

    I cut him short. "How I intend to do it is my business. Assuming I can meet the quality of that stick I just sampled and that I can deliver in lots of a ton, more or less, in this city, are you interested?"

    "And the price, Mr. Johns?"

    "The price will be subject to certain fluctuations. However, I can guarantee to deliver you the real thing for within ten to fifteen percent of what you are paying for this garbage you are now peddling."

    "And what proof do I have of that, Mr. Johns?"

    "The only proof you need is the acceptance of delivery. Show me that the market is here, and I will assure you that you will receive your product."

    There was silence for several minutes, and finally he looked up. "And you want nothing in advance?"

    "Nothing. I will be back in San Francisco within thirty days. I will be carrying one hundred and fifty kilos of first-grade Mexican marijuana. I will expect to be paid in cash on the line for it."

    He interrupted me. "I thought we were talking about tons, Mr. Johns?"

    "Second delivery will be your ton. I cannot finance a ton on my first delivery. After I have been paid for the first delivery, I shall be able to handle the second, and that will be a ton."

    "You wouldn't care to tell me exactly how you intend…"

    Again I cut him short. "How I do it is my affair. I can only assure you that I will live up to my end of the bargain. Will you live up to yours?"

    Again he stood up.

    "When you return to San Francisco with your cargo, contact me. Use the same method you used before. And now, I will see that you are driven back to your hotel."

    

    

    I arrived back at the Mark Hopkins at a little after 4:30 A.M., and I was tempted to catch a cat nap before checking out and starting south. But I was keyed up and anxious to get on the road, anxious to embark on the second stage of my plan.

    I would cut the long trip into two parts and find a motel somewhere north of the border and rest up before completing my journey. There was no longer anything holding me in San Francisco. The car was ready, and I had stopped in at the local branch of the Bank of Hong Kong the day before and withdrawn the money I had deposited there over the last several years.

    As dawn broke over the horizon, I found myself south of Monterey, following Route 1, down the coastline. I had selected this route purposely, knowing that it was a particularly tough road, narrow, with steep grades, sharp turns, and dangerous precipices on the ocean side. I wanted to give the Jaguar a thorough breaking-in under difficult circumstances, and I was particularly anxious to hit this stretch of road when there would be little or no traffic.