burning fiercely behind his glasses.
“I?m goddamned embarrassed, if you want to know the truth,” he said. It was one of the few times I
heard him use profanity in English.
“Don?t take it personally,” I said. “These people have much more experience taking care of each other
than you or I. If they can?t keep themselves alive, it?s not our fault.”
“Look, I?m really sorry, old man,” Charlie One Ear said, “but I may have a consolation prize for you.
I?m not sure whether it ties in or not, but a chap I know is carrying a rather large snow I monkey. He
says the coke market?s been dry for more than a month, but the local snowbirds are dancing in the
street. The word is, the drought is about to end.”
“Harry Nesbitt mentioned that,” I said.
“When?s this snowstorm going to happen?” asked Dutch.
“Imminently.”
“Does this snitch know who the importer is?”
“I wish you?d refrain from calling them snitches,” Charlie One Ear said. “Some of these people take a
great deal of pride in working for me. It?s rather like a public service for them.”
“Charlie, all canaries sing alike. Does he know who the distributors or not?”
“He only knows his own street connection.”
“Want a guess?” I said. “Bronicata. It?s his game.”
“That makes sense,” Stick said. “Unless maybe it?s Longnose Craves.”
The Mufalatta Kid broke his silence. “Nose don?t touch hard stuff,” he said.
“Times are changing,” I countered. “This place is ripe for toot; it?s wallowing in heavy rollers.”
“I ain?t stickin? up for the dinge,” the Kid said. “On the line, he ain?t nothin? but a shanty-ass, nickeldime nigger, say. He just don?t fuck with heavy drugs, man. Ain?t his style.”
Dutch stepped in. “Any idea how much coke we?re talking about here?”
“Rumours vary. I would say fifty kilos, pure.”
“Gemutlich!” Dutch rumbled under his breath.
Salvatore whistled softly through his teeth. “We?re talking bucks here,” he said.
Charlie One Ear took a thin, flat calculator from his shirt pocket and started adding it up.
“Let?s see. A hundred and ten pounds of stuff, which they?ll likely kick at least six, perhaps eight, to
one. Let?s say roughly eight hundred pounds, which is roughly thirteen thousand ounces, which is
roughly three hundred thousand grams. At eighty dollars a gram, that would come to twenty-four
million dollars along the Strand. Roughly.”
That stopped conversation for almost a minute. Stick broke the silence.
“Well, that?ll cover the old car payment,” he said.
