Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  The cab stopped.

  Andrew opened the back door for her.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  “No, don’t,” she said.

  “I’ll find the number and I’ll call you.”

  “I don’t want you to,” she said.

  “I will,” he said.

  “Don’t,” she said, and pulled the door shut, and told the driver where to take her. She did not look back at Andrew as the cab pulled away from the curb.

  Alonso Moreno was dressed for the equator. Andrew guessed no one had ever told him it got to be twelve degrees above zero here in New York City. The place Moreno had chosen for their meeting was a club on Sixteenth Street and Eighth Avenue. The band was playing Spanish music, and Moreno and Andrew were eating Spanish food. Moreno sat in a beige tropical-weight suit, a brightly colored floral print tie trailing down the front of his pearl-colored shirt. Hookers at the bar kept flashing wide smiles at him, but Moreno was too busy with his food. He ate the way Charles Laughton did in Henry the Eighth, which Andrew had once seen on late night television. Washed the food down with sangria he poured from the pitcher on the table. Two of his goons sat at a nearby table, keeping an eye on things. Moreno didn’t want them in on the conversation, but he did want their presence to be felt.

  “That was very brave, what you did that day,” he told Andrew.

  “I’m a good swimmer,” Andrew said, brushing off the compliment.

  “Still,” Moreno said. “Sharks.”

  Andrew wanted to know what deal Moreno had come up with, never mind sharks. The orchestra was playing something that sounded very familiar, one of those Spanish songs you’re sure you know, but can’t remember the title or the lyrics. Moreno kept eating and drinking as if he were in a five-star restaurant instead of a dinky little club on Eighth Avenue, which his cartel probably owned. Andrew poured himself a glass of sangria. One of the hookers at the bar smiled at him and raised her glass to him. He raised his glass back.

  This was Thursday night.

  He had debated calling Sarah this afternoon, had gone so far as getting a number for the teachers’ lunchroom from a woman in the main office who sounded like the one he’d tried to con earlier about the grocery delivery. He might have called at twelve thirty, when Sarah had told him she’d be having lunch, but his uncle called five minutes earlier to tell him Moreno wanted a sitdown tonight, he suspected the man was ready with a counterproposal. They’d talked for about fifteen minutes, Uncle Rudy telling him these goddamn chemotherapy treatments were going to kill him quicker than the cancer would, the two of them arranging to meet tomorrow morning to discuss whatever Moreno had to say tonight.

  So far Moreno hadn’t said a word.

  The hooker at the bar was a black girl wearing a blond wig. That was the only thing about her, the color of her hair, that reminded him of Sarah. He didn’t know why he hadn’t called her this afternoon. Maybe he was protecting himself. Married woman getting nervous, starting to feel guilty about lying to her husband, fuck her, there were plenty other fish in the sea. Or maybe he was intuitively playing her like the schoolteacher she was, letting her stew in her own juices for a day or two before he popped up again. He really didn’t know. Or particularly care. He’d see how it worked out.

  “So what’s on your mind?” he asked Moreno.

  “Well, first I have to tell you a story,” Moreno said, and winked slyly, as if he was about to tell a dirty joke. “It’s a story about a fox and a snake … Do you know they call me La Culebra in Spanish? That means the Snake.”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Andrew said, lying.

  “Sí, La Culebra. But this story isn’t about me, this is an old Spanish tale that goes back centuries. I think the blonde there likes you. Shall I have her sent over?”

  “Let me hear your story first,” Andrew said.

  “The story has to do with a sly fox and a wise-snake. Did I tell you that this was a very young fox? If I forgot to tell you that, I’m sorry. This is a very young fox. Not that the snake is very old, either. It is just that the snake is more experienced than the fox. In years, they are not so far apart. How old are you, Andrew?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “I’m eleven years older than you are. Thirty-nine. That’s not very old, is it? But like the snake in the story, I’m very experienced. Not that the story is about me.”

  “I understand,” Andrew said.

  Get on with it, he thought.

  “The fox, although very young, is very sly. And he thinks he can trick the snake into giving away all his eggs. Snakes lay eggs, did you know that, Andrew? In Spanish, the word ‘snake’ is feminine. Perhaps that’s because snakes lay eggs, I’m not sure. La culebra. Even a male snake like the one in the story is called ‘la’ culebra. That’s odd, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “That a snake, which so resembles the male sex organ, should be female in Spanish. Very odd.”

  “Mr. Moreno, this is a very interesting story so far …”

  “Oh, it gets much more interesting. The sly young fox … did I tell you he was both sly and young? The sly young fox goes to the wise old snake and tells him that if he gives him all his eggs, he will make him rich for the rest of his life. Well, this is very tempting to the snake …”

  “This is an old Spanish folk tale, huh?”

  “Oh, yes, everyone knows it. El Zorro y la Culebra. A famous story.”

  “And the fox wants the snake’s eggs, hmm?”

  “That’s the way the story goes, yes. In exchange for lifelong riches. The problem is the snake is already rich. And he knows that the fox is looking out only for his own …”

  “That’s where the story veers off,” Andrew said.

  “Veers off? From what? This is only a story.”

  “I’m sure it is. In reality, we’re offering you …”

  “The fox is very persistent, as I’m sure you can imagine. He is desperate to have those eggs. But the …”

  “Not as desperate as you think,” Andrew said.

  “Perhaps not. But the snake knows one thing the fox doesn’t. In this part of the forest, the fox is bigger than the snake, you see, and he thinks that size alone matters. He thinks he can swallow the snake in a single gulp. But the snake can outwit him in a minute.”

  “How?” Andrew asked.

  “By eating the eggs himself.”

  He’s threatening to dry up the supply of coke, Andrew thought. No coke, no deal with the Chinese.

  “If the snake did that,” he said, “he’d be poisoning no one but himself.”

  “Until the fox became hungry again. There will always be eggs. A deal can always be struck later.”

  “Is that the end of the story?”

  “The beauty of the story is that the fox and the snake can write their own endings to it.”

  “Tell me how. In plain English.”

  “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.

  She wondered how she’d been described.

  She did not ask him.

  He dropped her off some fifteen feet from the blue door on Mott Street. Around the corner, Detectives Regan and Lowndes were watching the tailor shop. They did not see Sarah as she entered the building.

  She went into Andrew’s arms at once.

  Somehow this did not surprise her.

  The touch of his hands was familiar. His hands cupping her face, his hands moving to her breasts, his hands sliding up under her sweater to unclasp her bra. She knew his lips far too well already, his lips on her face, on her mouth, on her nipples. He slid his hands under her skirt, bunched the skirt above her hips, his hands on her buttocks now, clasping her to him. She wished she’d worn sexier panties, but she hadn’t expected the car, hadn’t expected to see him ever again—or had she? He was on his knees now, his hands exploring the leg holes of the panties, she did not want him tearing them open again, she started to say, “Please don’t ruin …” but he was moving the nylon aside, exposing her blond pubic patch, parting her lips with his fingers and searching with his tongue until her sudden gasp told him he’d found her. Her back arched, her eyes closed, her hands clutching the bunched skirt above her hips, she stood b
efore him helplessly trembling as he brought her to orgasm. In a near swoon she allowed him to carry her to the bed. He took off only her panties, sliding them down over her hips and her waist and the long length of her legs, and her ankles, and spread her to him still wearing her pumps and her skirt bunched above her waist, and her sweater raised to expose her breasts. She opened her legs wide to him, raised her hips, and guided him into her.

  He moved against her slowly at first, sliding the full length of him deep inside her, and then withdrawing until her lips enfolded only the head of his cock, clinging there precariously for the tick of a second, and then thrusting deep into her again. She did not know how long he kept her on the edge of screaming aloud, the deep penetration, the slow withdrawal, the fear that she would lose him entirely, but still enclosed, still there, still captured, and then the sudden lunge again, the swift hard rush deep inside her, the near orgasm each time his downward stroke battered her clitoris. And then he began moving against her with a steadier rhythm, and she joined the rhythm and urged it to a faster pace, her legs around him, her ankles locked behind his back. She found herself urging him with words as well, Yes, give it to me, her skirt high on her waist, feeling vulnerable and exposed because she was still dressed and he was fucking her in spite of it, Yes, fuck me, she said, his mouth on her nipples, his hands fiercely clutching her ass, never in her life had she, fuck me, never with Michael, never with the boy at Duke, give it to me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

  At a little before five, she called Michael at his office and was told by his secretary that he was down the hall with the chief. Grateful that she could lie to Phyllis rather than to Michael personally, she asked her to tell him that another teachers’ meeting had been called and since she wouldn’t be home until later this evening, could he please take Mollie to the Italian restaurant on Third for dinner?

  “And tell him I love him,” she said.

  Which she supposed she still meant.

  Down the hall, Michael was reporting to Charles Scanlon, the Organized Crime Unit chief, on the progress being made on the Andrew Faviola surveillance. Scanlon, as usual, was puffing on a pipe and looking meditative. Michael was of the secret opinion that Scanlon felt he was a reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes. Why else the incessantly fired pipe and the sweater with all the burn holes in it? If he didn’t work for the District Attorney’s office, Scanlon probably would have been shooting cocaine in emulation of his literary idol. Charlie, as he insisted all of his people call him, thought he had a deductive mind. Michael wasn’t so sure about that. But he admired his immediate superior for his tenacity, his willingness to go head-to-head with the DA for any one of his people, and his true determination to rid this city of organized criminal activity. His obsession was similar in many respects to Georgie Giardino’s, except that it was not ethnically motivated. He had asked Georgie to attend the late afternoon meeting because his knowledge of the Faviola family was impressive. Both men listened now as Michael told them what he thought was happening.