A Cool Breeze on the Underground

by Don Winslow

  “What else—”

  “I take it easy on the smack.”

  “How easy?”

  “One pop.”

  He offered her a beer. She offered him her middle finger.

  “Colin?” he asked.

  “We wait for an hour outside Albert ‘all, if she doesn’t come out, we go to the tube station at Covent Garden. We watch for you. If you have your jacket off, then it’s fucked and we make an ‘asty exit. Jacket on, we follow you into the street. We get into the cab behind you. Follow you to the buyer’s ’ouse. Wait outside. You come out— an’ you better come out—with two bags. One wi’ our money, one wi’ yours. You give us ours and get back in your cab. We sit in the cab for five minutes so we don’t know where you’re takin’ your nicker, you mistrustful bastard. You meet us ’ere, later. We hide you till it’s safe.”

  “Vanessa.”

  “I wait here by the phone to take messages. Sexist and boring.”

  “Questions?”

  There weren’t any. They’d been over it so many times the past two nights that they didn’t want to take a chance that he’d make them do it again.

  “All right.” Neal stood up and stretched. The rest of them hustled for their drug of choice. Colin opened two pints and handed Neal one of them. Vanessa and Crisp lit a bowl of hash and flipped on the telly. Allie slipped into the bathroom.

  “She’s a junkie,” Neal said.

  “She’s not.”

  “How many times a day now?”

  “Two or three. Just little pops, rugger.”

  “Not in her arms, I hope. Goldman sees needle tracks, might turn him off.”

  “This little piggie went to market, this little piggie stayed ’ome. This little piggie went wee-wee-wee …”

  “Doesn’t it bother you? You love her, right?”

  “She’ll get off it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Neal stepped out on the balcony. Colin followed him.

  “Five now,” he said. “A thousand a month for two months, assuming I’m still in one piece.”

  “Done.”

  Oh, Colin, Neal thought. You agreed to that one awfully fast. What are you up to?

  “I’ll take Alice shopping tomorrow,” Neal said. “Get her something killer.”

  “You do that, Neal lad.”

  Yeah, Neal, Colin thought, you go shopping. I’ll go shopping.

  23

  Colin hated tea. Hated the smell, the taste, even the feel of it as it slithered down his throat. He had sworn when he split the home scene that he’d never choke down another cup of the omnipresent shit the rest of his natural life.

  Nevertheless, he sipped it graciously as he sat in a booth in the back room of the Hunan Garden across the table from a smiling Dickie Huan.

  Dickie Huan was a middle-aged Chinese who had several restaurants, an unshakable faith in free enterprise, and a great tailor. On this particular afternoon, he sported a dark gray three-piece pinstripe, a silk salmon shirt, and a blood-red tie. Aware of Dickie’s sartorial sensibilities, Colin had done his best to dress for the meeting. He was aware that his all-white suit looked a bit gamy compared to Dickie’s conservatism, but it was the best he could do for the occasion.

  “How is tea?”

  “Super.”

  Dickie Huan also hated tea, but believed in tradition. He smiled gently over his raised cup. “What brings me the pleasure of your visit?”

  Colin swallowed hard. This bit needed great balls. “I’m looking to expand my market.”

  Dickie Huan said nothing. This was obvious. Everybody was looking to expand his market.

  Colin continued: “I want to enlarge the scope of my operation.”

  Again, Dickie didn’t respond—just for fun.

  Colin spit it out. “I want to buy heroin from you.”

  “Everyone does.”

  Colin tugged at his collar. The tie felt like a noose around his neck. “I understand you’re expecting a shipment.”

  Dickie raised an eyebrow and smiled, although he was very pissed off that this round-eye freak with pins through his ear knew this much about his business. “So?”

  “I want to buy a piece of it.”

  “Where will you get this kind of money, Colin?”

  “I’ll ‘ave it. Saturday.” Give myself a day to take care of Neal, he thought.

  “Saturday is not today.”

  What are you, a fortune cookie? Colin thought. But he said, “I’ll buy up to twenty thousand pounds’ worth.”

  Dickie took a long time to answer. He wanted to phrase the insult just right. “I usually don’t sell such small allotments.”

  “Then you must have a small amount to spare.”

  Not bad, Dickie thought. Not bad at all. “Sorry, Colin. I have promised another party every little bit.”

  Colin took a big chance. He thought for a moment about his fingers becoming Moo Goo Gai Colin, and then said, “I can put you into markets that John Chen can’t touch.”

  Dickie’s burst of Cantonese obscenities brought three waiters trotting to the table. One carried a double Beefeater with a twist. The other two hastily cleared the teacups as their boss regained his composure. “How you know so much?” Dickie asked as he knocked back his drink.

  Colin felt a sweet surge of confidence. “I keep me ear to the ground. Now, Dickie, this bit is just the first. I can put you in markets all over the city. Places Chinese can’t go.” Dickie Huan needed no reminder of the unsubtle racism of Britain’s punks. He colored slightly at the insult but decided to ignore it for the time being. After all, he wouldn’t mind expanding his own markets.

  “Why you come to me, Colin?”

  Colin smiled his most engaging smile and told the truth. “You’re the only one who might give me credit, Dickie.”

  So the punk comes to the chink, Dickie thought. Outsider to outsider. He liked the symmetry of it.

  “Come on, Dickie. I’ve never let you down on the hash deals, have I?”

  “That is child’s play, Colin. Heroin is real business.”

  “Then think about real business. Think about where I’ll be selling your heroin. Twenty thousand is just the start.”

  Dickie Huan thought about it. He had indeed told John Chen he could have the whole shipment. But he could give Chen twenty thousand back, tell him that the shipment was smaller than he’d thought. A chance to break into the round-eye neighborhoods didn’t come every day.

  “Come back into the kitchen, Colin,” Dickie said. He saw Colin turn pale. “You see too many films. Come on.”

  Colin followed him back into a little steamy kitchen, where a half dozen sweating cooks were getting ready for the dinner crowd. Dickie leaned against a big, squat wooden chopping block. “Colin, you know if I save a piece for you, I cannot offer it back to the other party.”

  “You’ll never miss him.”

  Dickie nodded and said something in Cantonese to one of the cooks. The cook handed him a meat cleaver and stepped aside as Dickie grabbed a large piece of pork and slapped it onto the chopping block. Dickie was the son of a Nathan Road butcher and knew what he was doing. With rapid strokes, he chopped the piece of meat into slices and then whirled the cleaver again and chopped the slices into little squares. The whole demonstration took ten seconds, then he swept the cubes of meat into a pan. He hadn’t as much as touched the sleeves of his three-hundred-pound suit. He looked up at Colin and smiled. “Twenty thousand pounds. Saturday night. Don’t disappoint me, Colin.”

  Colin left the restaurant whistling. Meeting Neal had been luck, he knew, but a lot of blokes would have settled for the twenty thousand. Colin had the balls to go for the big time.

  Allie pirouetted prettily. The changing-room attendant beamed at her and then at Neal. They were such a cute couple.

  “Do you approve?” Allie asked him.

  “I approve.”

  She tilted her head in a parody of fashion-magazine models. She looked drop-dead gorgeous. The new dre
ss was a simple black sheath, off the shoulders and cut just low enough to hint at the pleasures of intimacy. A gold necklace highlighted the dress, her hair, and her eyes. The makeup was subtle.

  “Will there be anything else?”

  Neal looked to Allie.

  “It’s your movie,” she said.

  “That will be all, thanks.”

  “Come on then, dearie, we’ll get it all wrapped up.”

  As soon as the saleslady turned around, Allie stuck her fingers in her mouth, pulled her lips apart, and stuck her tongue out at Neal. Then she went to change.

  Out on Oxford Street, he asked her to lunch.

  “I didn’t know crooks went to lunch,” she said.

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “I’m hungry. Where do you want to go?”

  “New York.”

  “For a burger, right? I know what you mean.”

  “They have good burgers in Stockton?”

  “They have McDonald’s.”

  They found a funky little French place that didn’t care he wasn’t wearing a tie or she was wearing jeans.

  She knew her way around the menu, he noticed with amusement. Stockton is famous for its continental cuisine. She ordered the vichyssoise, a fillet, tarragon chicken, and apricot mousse. She also suggested the wines. He had what she had.

  Maybe there was still tine to do this the easy way, he thought.

  “Ever think about going home?”

  “What for?” she said through a mouthful of potato soup.

  “Burgers.”

  She shook her head.

  “Family?”

  “That’s what I ran away from.”

  “Maybe it would be different.”

  “It wouldn’t be.” She took a sip of the white wine and sat back in her chair. “Anyway, what about Colin?”

  “I dunno. What about Colin?”

  She gave him a cold smile, a practiced, ambiguous gesture meant to indicate simultaneous interest and indifference. A poker player calling but not raising the pot.

  “Are you coming on to me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  She went back to her soup.

  “How come you don’t like me?” he asked. “What did I do?”

  “I like you. Let’s just say I haven’t had a real good experience with men, okay? Nothing personal.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  During the chicken, she said, “I’m in love with him.”

  “With him or with his dope?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  None.

  It was a great lunch and the bill said so. He paid it and left a generous tip.

  “Thank you for lunch,” she said when they got outside.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said thank you. It was nice of you. Not part of the bargain.”

  “You’re welcome. Thanks for the company. You want to take a walk in the park?”

  She looked at him hard and smiled. “You are coming on to me,”

  “I’m just saying you have options.”

  “Yeah? What kind of options?”

  “You can take a walk … in the park.”

  “If I told Colin you came on to me, he’d kill you.”

  “He’d try. You’re a valuable piece of property.”

  “He loves me.”

  “Sure, why shouldn’t he?”

  “It’s not just for the money I make.”

  “Yeah? What’s your share. of this job? What is he cutting you in for? Five thousand? Three? Two? We’re running out of numbers here, Alice.”

  She blushed. “Colin handles all the money. He takes care of me.”

  Neal laughed at her. “He takes care of you?”

  “He says I won’t have to do that anymore after tonight. He promised … no more dates.”

  “Until he needs money again … then he’ll turn you back out, and he will need money. You’ll shoot it all up your arm.”

  He saw her wince and watched her think.

  “Which park?”

  “There’s another option right there.”

  She signaled a cab. “St. James’s Park,” she said. “By Horse Guards Road.”

  He let her lead him to the tea kiosk there, where she bought two huge sweet rolls.

  “After that lunch?” he asked.

  “Not for us, idiot. Come on.” She walked him over to the lake, where the ducks drifted off the shore, waiting for silly people with huge sweet rolls to feed them. She handed Neal one of the rolls and said, quite seriously, “Now, you break it up into little bits and toss it to the ducks. And try to spread the wealth around, so they all get a little.”

  He watched her feed the ducks. She gave it all her attention, as if she was the only person there and that was all she had to do in the world. Her smile lost its angry edge for the ten minutes or so that the roll lasted.

  “You do this a lot?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  She trembled a little. “We better get going,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Big night tonight.”

  “Are you cold? It’s a hundred and ten out.”

  “I need to go home.”

  “Because the smack is there.”

  “I need to get ready, Neal.”

  “Just breathe deep.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “It’ll get worse, Alice.”

  She sat down on a bench. He sat beside her. “So, tonight’s my last date, huh?”

  “If you want.”

  She nodded her head a few times. The color was starting to leave her face. “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

  “Then it’s your last date.”

  She chortled. “Oh, you’ll protect me, right? Get me off the smack? Keep me off the street?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, white knight,” she said, standing up. “Get me into a cab. I have to get home.”

  He dropped her at her flat, kept the cab, and went back to the hotel He didn’t feel like watching her shoot up, and he had stuff to do. As the lady said, big night tonight.

  24

  Neal sat in one of the overstuffed wing chairs in the lobby of the hotel. He had chosen a seat where he could see both the elevators and the revolving door that led to the street. He tried hard to look composed and relaxed, but his stomach was jumping and his heart beating about eight trillion times a minute.

  Please, Mrs. Goldman, get going. You don’t want to be late for the concert. Please come out of the next elevator. She didn’t.

  He glanced out into the street, where he knew Colin and Crisp were waiting. Patience was not Colin’s long suit. Come on, Mrs. Goldman. Another elevator. Two well-dressed American ladies, neither of them Mrs. G. Who’s that? Another woman, not Mrs. Goldman.

  He wondered about Allie, waiting in the hotel bar. At least he hoped she was waiting in the hotel bar, not shooting up in the ladies’ loo, or worse yet, out on the street looking for a connection. Time was not on his side in this thing, so, Mrs. Goldman, any haste would be appreciated. The elevator bell rang again. He had followed her to her room a bare two hours ago and held the surveillance, so he knew she was in there performing the complicated ablutions and ritual that go with a big night out. Let’s slip the frock on now, Mrs. G., and haul it down here. She wasn’t in the elevator.

  Colin shifted his weight from one foot to the other again and gave Crisp a dirty look. Not that it was Crisp’s fault, he knew, but because Crisp was the only one there, and didn’t mind, anyway. That was what he was there for.

  “Tardy, tardy,” Crisp said through a mouthful.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “She’s late, that’s all. Maybe she’s giving the old man a quick one.”

  Colin shot him an especially filthy look. “That would be just lovely, now, wouldn’t it?”

  Allie was trying to hold it together. Her hand shook a little as she reached into he
r, bag for a handkerchief. Goddamn Colin,

  anyway, she thought, and double goddamn that bastard Neal Carey. If they had let her have one little shot, just one little shot, she’d be all right. She’d be perfect. She’d be fan-fucking-tastic. Colin had even subjected her—no doubt at that prick Neal’s urging—to a search. The fact that’d turned up a little envelope of powder didn’t make it all right. She’d get even with him later.

  Now she just wanted to get this over with. Do this john, pick up that triple motherfucker Neal, and get home for the promised fix. She didn’t even care that this was her last trick, ever; that Colin had told her this was her farewell performance, her retirement party, her swan song. Fine and dandy, Collie baby, but I need a little taste. And if Neal doesn’t hurry up and get in here, I’m going to go out and find one. One thing she’d learned in her short career as a lady of the evening: Every place has a back door.

  Mrs. goldman looked good. Almost worth the wait, Neal thought as he watched her stride through the lobby and out the revolving door. He gave her a few paces and then picked her up. She asked the doorman to get her a cab, and as he stood blowing his whistle, Colin and Crisp walked to the corner, where they had a cab waiting. Neal watched Mrs. G. climb into her taxi, and watched the car carrying Colin pull into traffic behind her. Colin looked out the window, saw Neal, and gave him a quick thumbs-up sign. Let’s hope so, Colin, let’s hope so.

  He found allie in the bar working on her third gin. He walked up in back of her and leaned over her shoulder. She jumped when he whispered, “Give it five minutes, then come up.”

  She whipped her head around and glared at him. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Easy. Steady. You look great.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Five minutes.”

  Neal went up to his room and fixed a tall gin and tonic and a scotch. He dropped four muscle relaxers into the G&T, sat down on the bed, and waited. A few minutes later, a soft knock came on the door.

  “Come in. It’s not locked.”

  She made an entrance. Slinky black dress, bright smile, her long strand of pearls held in one hand. Sexy, young, willing. It was a great act.