by Ed McBain
On the twenty-eighth day of December, the Ba brothers came to report what they had learned.
At peril to their own lives, they said.
'Velly dange-ous,' Zing said.
'Henny Shoe fine out, tssssst,' Zang said, and ran his forefinger across his throat.
'You want to be wimps or winners?' Herrera asked.
The Ba brothers giggled.
Somehow, their laughter made them seem even more menacing.
Zing had done most of the talking. His English, such as it was, sounded a bit better than his younger brother's in that he never said ain't. Herrera listened intently. Partly because Zing was difficult to understand if you didn't listen intently and partly because the content of Zing's report was causing Herrera's hair to stand on end.
Zing was talking about a million-dollar dope deal.
'Millah dollah,' he said.
A hundred kilos at ten thousand per. Discounted because Tsu was making a quantity buy.
'Hunnah kilo,' Zing said.
The shipment was coming up from Miami by automobile.
On the twenty-third of January.
'Tessa-tay one play, pee up-ah ress not same,' Zing said.
'What?' Herrera asked.
'Tessa-tay one play, pee up-ah ress not same,' Zing repeated, exactly as he had said it the first time. He showed Herrera a slip of paper upon which several addresses were written in English in a spider-like hand. 'Tessa-tay play,' he said, indicating the first address.
'What?' Herrera asked.
'Tessa-tay.'
'What the fuck does that mean?'
Through a series of pantomimes, Zing and his brother managed at last to transmit to Herrera the idea that the first address on the slip of paper was an apartment where the testing and tasting would take place. . .
'Fi' kilo,' Zing said, and held up his right hand with the fingers and thumb spread.
'Five kilos,' Herrera said.
'Yeh, yeh,' Zing said, nodding.
'Will be tested and tasted at this place . . .'
'Yeh, tessa-tay play.'
'And if it's okay, the rest'll be picked up at this second place.'
'Yeh,' Zing said, 'pee up-ah ress not same,' and grinned at his brother, letting him know the benefits of a second language.
'Where only some of the bags will be tested at random.'
'Yeh, ony some.'
'What if the first stuff tests bad?' Herrera asked.
Zing explained that the deal would be off and the Miami people and the Tsu people would go their separate ways with no hard feelings.
'No har feeyin,' he said, and nodded.
'But if the girl is blue . . .'
'Yeh,' Zing said, nodding.
'Then they hand over the five keys and Tsu's people hand over fifty thousand.'
'Fiffee tousen, yeh.'
'And then they go to this next address to do some random testing and pick up the rest of the shit'
'Yeh, ressa shit.'
Herrera was thoughtful for several moments.
Then he said, 'These Miami people? Are they Chinese?'
'No, no, Spanish,' Zing said. Which was what Herrera figured.
'I need to know how to get in touch with them,' he said. 'And I need to know any code words or passwords they've been using on the phone. Can you get that information for me?'
'Velly har,' Zang said.
'Velly dange-ous,' Zing said.
'You wanna make velly big money?' Herrera asked.
The Ba brothers giggled.
Herrera was thinking that if he could buy those five measly keys set aside for testing and tasting . . .
Buy those five shitty little keys with the money he'd stolen from Hamilton . . .
Why then he could turn the pure into fifty thousand bags of crack...
At twenty-five bucks a bag . . .
Jesus!
He was looking at a million and a quarter!
Which if he split with the Chinks as they'd agreed . . .
'Velly big money, you bet,' Zing said, laughing.
'You bet,' Herrera said and smiled at them like a crocodile.
Now - at twelve noon on the twenty-second day of January - Herrera made a long-distance call. Just dialing the 305 area code made him feel like a big shot. Spending all this money to make a telephone call. Then again, it was Hamilton's money he was spending.
The person who answered was a Colombian.
The two men spoke entirely in Spanish.
'Four-seven-one,' Herrera said. The code numbers the resourceful Ba brothers had supplied. Chinese magicians.
'Eight-three-six,' the man said.
The counter code.
Like spy shit.
'A change for tomorrow night,' Herrera said.
'They're already on the way.'
'But you can reach them.'
'Yes.'
'Then tell them.'
'What change?'
'For the test. A new address.'
'Why?'
'Heat.'
'Give it to me.'
'705 East Redmond. Apartment 34.'
'Okay.'
'Repeat it.'
The man read it back.
'See you tomorrow,' Herrera said.
The man said, 'And?'
'And?' Herrera said, and realized in a flash that he'd almost forgotten the sign-off code.
'Three-three-one,' he said.
'Bueno,' the man said, and hung up.
* * * *
The Cowboy's shop was closed on Sundays, and so he met Kling in a little tacos joint off Mason Avenue. At a quarter past one that afternoon, the place was packed with hookers who hadn't yet gone to sleep. Palacios and Kling were both good-looking men, but none of the women even glanced in their direction. Palacios was eager to get on with the business at hand. He did not like having his Sunday ruined with this kind of bullshit. Besides, he was not at all happy with what he'd come up with.
'There is no ship coming in tomorrow,' he told Kling. 'Not with dope on it, anyway. You said from Colombia?'
'That's my information.'
'Scandinavian registry?'
'Yes.'
'Nothing,' Palacios said. 'I talked to some people I know, the ports are dead right now. Not only for dope. I'm talking bananas, grapefruits, automobiles. There's people saying a strike's in the wind. Ships are holing up at home, afraid to make the trip, they get here there's nobody to unload.'
'This one would be unloading outside.'
'I know, you told me. A hundred keys. A million bucks' worth of coke. Aimed for a Jamaican posse.'
'That's what I've got.'
'Who gave you this? Herrera? Who, by the way, I know where he is.'
'You do?' Kling said, surprised.
'He's shacked up with a chick named Consuelo Diego, she works for you guys.'
'She's a cop?'
'No, she answers phones down 911. Civil service. She used to work in a massage parlor, so this is better. I guess. They moved into a place on Vandermeer a coupla days ago.'
'Where on Vandermeer?'
'Here, I wrote down the address for you. After you memorize it, swallow the piece of paper.'
Kling looked at him.
Palacios was grinning.
He handed Kling the slip of paper upon which he'd scrawled the address and apartment number. Kling looked at it and then slid it into the cover flap of his notebook.
'How reliable is this guy?' Palacios asked.
'I'm beginning to think not very.'
'Because something stinks about this, you know?'
'Like what?'
'You say this is a Jamaican buy, huh?'
"That's what he told me.'
'A hundred keys.'
'Yes.'
'So does that ring true to you?'
'What do you mean?'
'The Jamaicans aren't into such big buys. With them, it's small and steady. A kilo here, a kilo there, every other day. They step on that kilo, they've got ten thous
and bags of crack at twenty-five bucks a bag. That's a quarter of a million bucks. You figure a key costs them on average fifteen thou, they're looking at a profit of two-ten per. Still want to be a cop when you grow up?'
Palacios was grinning again.
'So what I'm saying, you get a Jamaican posse making even a five-kilo buy, that's a lot for them. But a hundred keys? Coming straight up the water instead of from Miami? I'll tell you, that stinks on ice.'
Which was why Kling liked hearing stuff that didn't come from police bulletins.
* * * *
Henry Tsu was beginning to think that Juan Kai Hsao would go far in this business. Provided that what he was telling him was true. There was an ancient Chinese saying that translated into English as 'Even good news is bad news if it's false.' Juan had a lot of good news that Sunday afternoon - but was it reliable?
The first thing he reported was that the name of the Hamilton posse was Trinity.
'Trinity?' Henry said. This seemed like a very strange name for a gang, even a Jamaican gang. He knew there were posses called Dog, and Jungle, and even Okra Slime. But Trinity?
'Because from what I understand,' Juan said, 'it was started in a place called Trinity, just outside Kingston. In Jamaica, of course. This is my understanding.'
'Trinity,' Henry said again.
'Yes. And also it was three men who started it. So trinity means three. I think. Like in the Holy Trinity.'
Henry didn't know anything about the Holy Trinity.
And didn't care to know.
'Was Hamilton one of these three?' he asked.
'No. Hamilton came later. He killed the original three. He runs the posse now, but he takes advice from a man named Isaac Walker. Who has also killed some people. In Houston. They are both supposed to be very vicious.'
Henry shrugged. From personal experience, he knew that no one could be as vicious as the Chinese. He wondered if either Hamilton or Walker had ever dipped a bamboo shoot in human excrement and stuck it under the fingernail of a rival gang leader. Shooting a gun was not being vicious. Being vicious was taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of another human being.
'What about Herrera?' he asked. He was getting tired of all this bullshit about the Hamilton posse with its ridiculous religious name.
'This is why I'm telling you about Trinity,' Juan said.
'Yes, why?'
'Because Herrera has nothing to do with it.'
'With what? The posse?'
'I don't know about that.'
'Say what you do know,' Henry said impatiently.
'I do know that it's not Herrera who's spreading this rumor. It is definitely not him. He has nothing to do with it.'
'Then who's responsible?' Henry asked, frowning.
'Trinity.'
'The Hamilton posse?'
'Yes.'
'Is saying we ambushed Herrera and stole fifty thousand dollars from him?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'I don't know why,' Juan said.
'Are you sure this is correct?'
'Absolutely. Because I talked to several people who were approached.'
'What people?'
'Here in the Chinese community.'
Henry knew he did not mean legitimate businessmen in the Chinese community. He was talking about Chinese like Henry himself. And he was saying that some of these people . . .
'Who approached them?' he asked.
'People in Trinity.'
'And said we'd stolen . . .'
'Stolen fifty. From the posse. That a courier was carrying for them. Herrera.'
'How many people did you talk to?'
'Half a dozen.'
'And Hamilton's people had reached all of them?'
'All of them.'
'Why?' Henry asked again.
'I don't know,' Juan said.
'Find out,' Henry said, and clapped him on the shoulder and led him to the door. At the door, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip holding a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills, peeled off five of them, handed them to Juan and said, 'Go buy some clothes.'
Alone now, Henry went to a red-lacquer cabinet with brass hardware, lowered the drop-front door on it, took out a bottle of Tanqueray gin, and poured a good quantity of it over a single ice cube in a low glass. He sat in an easy chair upholstered in red to match the cabinet, turned on a floor lamp with a shade fringed in red silk, and sat sipping his drink. In China, red was a lucky color.
Why bad-mouth him?
Why say he'd stolen what he hadn't stolen?
Why?
The only thing he could think of was the shipment coming up from Miami tomorrow night.
A hundred kilos of cocaine.
For which he would be paying a million dollars.
In cash, it went without saying. In this business, you did not pay for dope with a personal check.
Did the Hamilton posse have its eye on that shipment? Trinity, what a ridiculous name! But assuming it did . . . why bad-mouth Henry? Assuming the worst scenario, a Jamaican hijack of a shipment spoken for by a Chinese gang, why spread the word that Henry had stolen a paltry fifty thousand dollars?
And suddenly the operative words came to him.
Jamaican.
And Chinese.
If Hamilton had planned to knock over a shipment destined for another Jamaican gang, say the Banton Posse or the Dunkirk Boys, both far more powerful than his shitty little Trinity, he'd have done so without a by-your-leave. Go in blasting with his Uzis or his AK-47 assault rifles, Jamaican against Jamaican, head to head, winner take all.
But Henry was Chinese.
His gang was Chinese.
And if Hamilton's Jamaican people started stepping on Chinese toes, Buddha alone knew what reverberations this might cause in the city.
Unless.
All thieves understood retaliation.
In all cultures, in all languages.
If Henry had actually stolen fifty thousand dollars from the Hamilton posse, then Hamilton would be well within his rights to seek retaliation.
The fifty K plus interest.
A whole hell of a lot of interest when you considered that the stuff coming up from Miami was worth a million bucks, but honor among thieves was costly.
Hence the bullshit running around the city.
Hamilton setting up his excuse in advance: Tsu did me and now I am going to do him.
That's what you think, Henry thought, and reached for the telephone and dialed the same Miami number Herrera had called not five hours earlier.
* * * *
It was already dark when they got to Angela Quist's apartment that Sunday evening. She had been rehearsing a play at the Y all day, she told them, and was exhausted. She really wished this could wait till morning because all she wanted to do right now was make herself some soup, watch some television, and go to sleep.
'This won't take long,' Carella said. 'We just wanted to check a lead the Seattle cops are following.'
Angela sighed heavily.
'Really,' Meyer said. 'Just a few questions.'
She sighed again. Her honey-colored hair looked frazzled. Her star sapphire eyes had gone pale. She was sitting on the couch under the Picasso prints. The detectives were standing. The apartment was just chilly enough to make overcoats seem appropriate.
'Did Joyce ever mention a woman named Sally Antoine?' Carella asked.