by Parnell Hall
The bag was rolled up and held by heavy-duty rubber bands. I slid them off and unrolled it. Inside were huge chunks of a white, rocky, crystalline substance. I pulled apart the top of the bag, stuck my finger in, got a few small chips on my finger, and stuck it in my mouth. It was bitter, which was a good sign, and it numbed my gums, which was another good sign, so I figured it must be coke. But then I remembered a friend of mine telling me that some of the things they use to cut cocaine, procaine for instance, had the same properties as cocaine. So this could either be coke or cut. The only difference was, one got you high, and one didn’t. I had to be sure, so I figured the only way to be sure was to sample some.
This presented a bit of a problem. Even if I’d had a razor blade, which I didn’t, the coke was so hard and compressed that chopping a line fine enough to snort was going to be quite an undertaking. I sealed up the package, locked it in my briefcase, and stashed the briefcase under the bed.
I went out and hunted up a head shop. I was a little nervous about it. I couldn’t help wondering if narcs kept watch on head shops and tailed people who bought drug paraphernalia, but logic told me no. They’d have to follow everyone.
I went in and told the guy at the counter I wanted something to grind up a crystalline substance. He gave me a look not unlike the one given me by the guy at the safe deposit counter in the bank, then showed me a three-piece plastic grinder that was just the ticket. When I told him it would do, he asked me knowingly if I’d be interested in a straw. I allowed as to how I would, and he showed me one. It was gold-plated on a gold neck-chain and went for $85. I asked if he had something simpler. The cheapest straw he had was of a baser metal—price $9.95.
I decided to pass on the straw. I stopped at a newsstand down the street and bought a can of cold soda for 65 cents. The proprietor put it in a paper bag with a straw. Outside, I threw the paper bag and the can of soda in the garbage, and put the straw in my jacket pocket.
I walked back to the hotel, went up to my room, and made sure the door was securely locked. I took the briefcase out from under the bed, put it on the table, opened it, and took out the plastic bag. I unwrapped the grinder, took it out, and unscrewed and took off the grinder top. I removed a couple of smaller chunks from the bag. They were so hard I was afraid they would break the screen. I took out my pocket knife, and crunched them up against the top of the table, and then scraped the results onto the screen of the grinder, screwed on the top, flipped out the lever, and began to twist. The sound was somewhat grating as with each bumpy revolution the plastic blades on the grinder pressed the tiny rocks into the screen. The grating gradually lessened, and the grinding got smoother. I stopped, unscrewed the bottom of the grinder. It was covered with a fine, white powder about a quarter of an inch deep. I dumped some of it out on the smooth surface of the table, took a matchbook cover, compliments of the hotel, and fashioned a decent-sized line.
I took the straw out of my pocket, unwrapped it and, with my pocket knife, cut it in half. I murmured, “Cheers,” stuck the straw in my right nostril, leaned over the table, and snorted the line.
I must admit that my experience with coke had been rather limited. In fact, it consisted of the time a guy at one of the poker games had persuaded me to try a line. It was not a particularly memorable experience. Aside from a general sense of well-being which lasted about a half an hour, I don’t remember feeling anything much at all. I just remember thinking that, as far as cocaine was concerned, I really couldn’t see what all the shouting was about.
In light of that experience, I was in no way prepared for what happened next. My head shot back, my eyes teared, and my breath shot out in a whoosh. Jesus Christ! That’s not coke. What the hell is it?
Then I realized. The coke I’d snorted at the card game had passed through many hands, and been cut and recut many times, so it was doubtful if it was even a tenth as pure as the line I’d snorted now. This stuff was, as Coca Cola puts it, “The Real Thing.”
I’d just had time to work this out when the coke hit me. Christ, did it hit me! My whole outlook changed. I could rule the world. Suddenly, I wasn’t douche-bag, ineffectual detective; I was super-cool, super-successful, super-stud detective. Hell, I’d come to Miami, hadn’t I? Walked into the bank and walked out clean with ten C-notes and a key of pure snow. All deduced and tracked down from the vague ramblings of a paranoid client who couldn’t or wouldn’t get to the point. God, I was doing great. Hey, I thought, give me a shot at Tony Arroyo’s proposal now. Give me another chance to play that scene and I’ll show you some cool moves. Christ, I’d have the dope ring rounded up and Albrect’s murderer in jail by this time tomorrow.
11.
LIKE ANYONE CAUGHT IN THE grip of delusions of grandeur, I was sure I could get away with anything. Which is why I called my wife from the hotel phone to tell her I’d be late for dinner. Hell, I charged it to my room number, so she wouldn’t even catch on when the telephone bill came next month. It was a piece of cake.
There’s nothing that brings you down faster than a good dose of reality, which in my case is usually a good dose of my wife. As I’ve said, my wife is a very nice person unless she’s provoked, and this time I had the misfortune to catch her provoked. She was really pissed off.
“Where the hell are you?” she asked.
“Working,” I told her. “I’m out on a case.”
“That’s not what your office says. They’ve called here three times. Some client out in Brooklyn is having a shit fit because you never showed up. They’ve been beeping you all day, but you don’t answer.”
Not surprising. My beeper has a 75 mile radius, which made it fairly useless in Miami. I’d left it in the office.
“Oh shit, my batteries must be dead,” I said. It was a terrible excuse. When the batteries went dead, the beeper automatically began emitting a sickly, wailing beep to inform you of the fact. But my wife didn’t know that.
“Yeah, well then why didn’t you call your office, for Christ’s sake. And what’s all this about some client in Brooklyn you stood up?”
“I didn’t stand her up. I went there and she wasn’t home. It’s the same old bullshit. I wasn’t going to stand around there waiting for her so I went out on some other assignments. I’ve been calling her. First I got no answer. Now every time I call the line’s busy, which must be her wearing out the phone bitching that I’m not there yet. It’s the same old bullshit. What are you getting so upset about?”
“It’s the same old bullshit, but it’s not my bullshit. Why the hell are they calling me?”
“Because you’re there,” I said.
“Oh, great! Good answer. Listen, will you get your act together and get some new batteries and call your office and tell ’em to leave me alone?”
“No problem,” I told her. “And I’ll get a hold of the client and straighten it out. I’ll have to go out there, which means I won’t be home for dinner.”
“What a surprise,” she said, and hung up the phone.
Well, one down and two to go. I called the office, fed them the same bullshit story. I got Susan, which was a blessing this time, as she was more apt to be sympathetic, and less apt to be suspicious. Still, the beeper story didn’t sit well. Susan knew how it worked and knew my batteries couldn’t have just gone dead.
“Listen,” I said. “Do me a favor. Cover for me. The truth is, I forgot to turn the damn thing on.”
She laughed at that and I knew I was home free. I assured her I’d get right on the Rabinowitz case and hung up.
I called Mrs. Rabinowitz and made up another bullshit story. A three-car accident on the Major Deegan. Two people killed. No, I hadn’t been involved, but I had seen the whole thing and the police had dragged me in as a witness after the tow trucks and ambulances had finally left and they’d gotten all the traffic unsnarled. Yes, I should have called, but you know what cops are like. Mrs. Rabinowitz probably didn’t know what cops were like, but she probably had some fairly fixed notions. At any rate
, she went from overtly hostile to mildly sympathetic in the course of the conversation, and promised not to call my office and get me in any more trouble in return for my agreement to be there at eleven the next morning.
When I got off the phone I felt suddenly exhausted. After all, I’d had less than 2 hours’ sleep, and I’d taken a mammoth hit of cocaine which was starting to wear off. I thought of taking another hit and decided against it. A friend of mine once told me that when you do coke, no matter how much you have, you always do it all. I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but seeing as how I had a good kilo on me, it didn’t seem like a very good time to find out. After all, I had an eleven o’clock appointment the next morning. What I needed to do was call the airport and catch the next plane to New York.
I looked at my watch. It was 3.30. That reminded me of something, but for a moment I couldn’t think what. Then I remembered. “7th and Burke N.W 4:00.” It seemed too much to hope for. On the other hand, it seemed stupid to pass up. I pulled out the Hagstrom map and checked the location of the intersection. It was a good distance, but I could probably make it.
I locked up the briefcase again and stashed it under the bed, took the map, went down to the garage, got my car, and headed out.
It was 3:55 by the time I reached the corner of 7th and Burke. I cruised through the intersection slowly, checking out the corner. I couldn’t believe it. There on the corner, large as life, was a businessman in a three-piece suit and tie, holding a suitcase.
I found a parking spot halfway down the block. I parked the car, got out, and walked back to the corner. I walked slowly, to give myself a chance to size the guy up.
The first thing I could tell about him was that he had red hair. I figured a tough detective would call him “Red.” Red was about 30. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was overweight, and he was perspiring, but who wouldn’t in Miami in a three-piece suit. I had on a light summer suit, and I felt hot. But Red was clearly nervous. He kept fidgeting with the suitcase, shifting it from hand to hand. I figured it was his first. More than that, I figured it was probably a one-shot deal. Red didn’t look like he had the stamina to go it more than once. Moreover, if he were a regular, the job would have been filled and Tony Arroyo wouldn’t have been making overtures to me the night before.
I had figured all this out by the time I hit the corner. Then I had a problem. I couldn’t just stand there staring at the guy. I suppose I could have turned and looked in the store window, but somehow that seemed hopelessly theatrical, and the only window at hand in the corner drugstore seemed to be devoted entirely to feminine napkins.
I should have turned around and headed back to my car, but at that moment the light changed, and as the pedestrians on the corner started across the street, I just naturally went with them. It didn’t seem such a bad idea at the time. There was a phone on the far corner, and I could pick up the receiver and pretend I was making a call, and be in a great position to watch Red across the street.
I had no sooner done that than a black Cadillac pulled in at the corner. The driver opened the door and stood up, leaning on the open door of the car. He was a big, solid, muscular Hispanic with shaggy black hair. Floridian #1! He jerked his thumb at Red. Red threw the suitcase in the back seat, got in, and the car pulled out.
There was no time for me to get back to my car. Even if there were, I was pointed in the wrong direction. I dropped the phone, stepped out into the street, and hailed a cab.
Luck was with me. One stopped at once. I hopped in, slammed the door, leaned forward, pointed, and said the words I’d dreamed of saying all my life, ever since I was a small boy: “Follow that car.”
The driver, who couldn’t have been more than 20, had probably never heard those words said in his life either. He turned around in his seat.
“Are you kidding?” he said.
I whipped out my I.D. and flashed it under his nose. “I’m a private detective,” I said. “There’s ten bucks in it for you if they don’t get away.”
The cabbie’s eyes widened. “No shit!” he said. He slammed his foot to the floor and the cab shot away from the corner and hurtled down the street.
“Hey, don’t let them know they’re being followed,” I said.
“Why should they think that?” he said. “Hell, I always drive like this.”
We caught them in five blocks, and the cabbie was forced to slow to a more reasonable pace.
“This is more apt to make them suspicious,” he told me.
“I can’t help that. Just stay about a block behind ’em, but don’t let ’em out of sight.”
“Right, boss.”
We followed the car out of town to a residential area. The houses started getting larger and further apart.
“Pretty ritzy neighborhood,” the cabbie said.
“Yeah.”
“Drug deal?” he asked.
“The reason you’re getting ten bucks on top of the fare,” I said, “is not just because you’re a good driver. It’s because you’ve got a lousy memory and you’re not nosy.”
“Right, boss.”
The Cadillac pulled into a driveway on a tree-lined lot that fronted what had to be a two-and-a-half-million dollar house. I had the cabbie stop half a block away, giving them time to get into the house.
“All right,” I said. “Pull by slow, not so slow that anybody gets suspicious, but slow enough that I can get the house number.”
“You got it.”
We cruised by the driveway. I copied the address into my pocket notebook.
“Now what?”
“Go down to the next intersection and turn around.”
The cabbie did so, pulling a beautiful U-turn just as the light changed.
“Now what?”
“Pull into the side and park.”
We parked about a block past the driveway to the house, facing back the way we came.
“Should I kill the motor?” the cabbie asked. “We gonna be long?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
I was right. Less than ten minutes later the Caddy came out of the driveway and headed back the way it had come. We pulled out and followed along, keeping a block behind.
Floridian #1 drove straight back to the corner where he’d picked Red up, and let him off again. Red still had the suitcase, but I would have bet you it didn’t have the same thing in it as when he’d started.
The Cadillac pulled away from the curb and the cabbie started to follow, but I stopped him. The car wasn’t important any more. I had the license number. I could trace Floridian #1. I had the house number. I could trace Floridian #2. Red was the one I wanted now.
Red lugged the suitcase half a block to where he’d parked his car. More coincidence. It was right in front of where I’d parked mine, but I wasn’t going to take the chance of hopping out and switching cars now. I stuck with the cab.
Red got in his car, drove to the Essex Hotel, and pulled into their underground garage. He rolled down his window and flashed his hotel key at the attendant, who waved him. on.
A large sign on the garage entrance said “REGISTERED GUESTS ONLY.” Even if it hadn’t, the taxi wasn’t going to pass muster.
“What now, boss?” the cabbie said.
“Back to where his car was parked,” I told him.
“Why?” he asked. I just stared at him. “Right you are, boss,” he said.
We turned around and headed back.
The cabbie dropped me off right next to the space where Red’s car had been parked. Another car was now in the space.
“That’s gonna make it harder, isn’t it?” the cabbie said, jerking his thumb at the car. I said nothing, but counted out the fare into his hand and laid a ten on top of it. I got out of the cab and stood on the sidewalk. The cabbie sat there watching me. He wanted to see how I looked for evidence. I looked at him and jerked my thumb down the street. Slowly, reluctantly, he drove away.
As soon as he was out of sight, I got in my car and pulled out
. I turned a few corners, just to make sure no one was following me. When I was sure the cabbie wasn’t lurking around somewhere trying to learn a little more about my investigative technique, and sure Floridian #1 wasn’t backtracking me with the thought of turning me into a eunuch, I stopped at a pay phone and made a few calls.
12.
I DON’T USE ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE in the course of my business. In fact, I don’t even do surveillance in the course of my business. I don’t even follow wayward wives around to get evidence in divorce cases. Of course, I knew about electronic surveillance, and I even had a few catalogs of electronic surveillance equipment that the companies that make that sort of stuff would send me from time to time just because I was listed as a detective agency. But I’d never really looked at them, other than thumbing through them now and then on a slow day. So I was out of my depth when it came to buying that sort of equipment, and both I and the guy in the store knew it.
“You want a what?” he asked in response to my request.
“I want a tracking device. The sort of thing you attach to a car that tells you when the car is moving and where it’s going.”
“You want a transmitter,” he told me.
“Is that what I want?”
“Yeah, that’s what you want. You want a transmitter and a homing unit. The homing unit emits a beep when the car moves and shows you the direction it’s heading.”
“That sounds about right,” I said.
“We have several units of that type,” he said. “Starting at $79.95 and going on up.”
“Depending on what?”