Kot knew from the slight twinkle in Fong’s eye it was a good answer. Fong turned back to the general. ‘My bid would have been twenty-five,’ he said with a smile. ‘The new Red Pole is more generous than I.’
General Dao was obviously pleased. The Fan showed no expression. His fingers were busy working the colored marbles on the abacus. He held up another combination of fingers.
The entire package would cost $142,500, or 2,850,000 bahts.
‘How does two million eight sound?’ Fong asked. ‘I am most pleased,’ Dao said, slapping his fist into his palm. The deal was concluded. Fong reached into the black bag and took out several packets of purple baht notes and stacked them neatly in front of Dao. When he had stacked the entire two million plus, he did a
‘The entire amount as agreed. When can Mr Kot expect delivery?’
‘Will three days be satisfactory, starting in the morning?’ Dao asked.
‘Excellent.’ And he, too, smacked his fist in his palm. ‘And if it will not offend the general, I would like to make the Hsong a gift of two new trucks, to celebrate the new Red Pole.’
Dao was both surprised and pleased. Two new trucks in the bargain! ‘You are very generous, my friend,’ he said. ‘The Hsong will be most happy to work with Mr Kot.’
Fong was pleased with his choice of Billy Kot and he slapped his new Red Pole on the arm.
‘You did very well in there,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I do not think you will have any problems.’
‘One hundred and fifty kilos of pure for a hundred forty thousand dollars and two trucks,’ Fong said. ‘What does that come to, White Fan?’
The Fan had already figured up the profit, based on the morning street price in Manhattan. He flashed his fingers in the code. ‘Three million, seven hundred thousand dollars,’ Fong said, beaming. ‘Fair work for one day.’
Wherever there were human beings, there were dope traders ready to prey on them. In the Hotel Vitosha in Sofia or L’Hotel Pique in Marseilles or the Garden Hotel in Amsterdam, Syrians, Turks and Lebanese met with Chinese, Sicilian and American gangsters to trade in heroin, cocaine and marijuana. They were the power bosses of the dope trade. They had developed the shipping routes from the Orient to Amsterdam, London and Rome, and from there to major ports in North America, where one thousand kilos — 2,200 pounds — of heroin went for a billion dollars and change before it was even cut for the Street.
Their partners were the Sicilians, for in the years since the end of the Vietnamese war they had made their agreements with the American mobsters and spread their deadly powder to most of the major cities in the United States.
The drug lords had turned smuggling into a bizarre art, a deadly game of hide-and-seek between ‘mules,’ the couriers who did the actual heroin smuggling, and drug and customs agents. The lethal powder was smuggled in hollow gemstones, icons and statues. In Tampax and condoms. In dolls, books, diplomatic pouches, and major shipments of coffee, soybeans and bamboo. It was dissolved in water and then suitcases, paintings, rugs and clothing were soaked in it and carried or shipped into the United States. Smugglers buried it in the desert until they made their deals, then sent it across borders by feeding it to their camels, addicting them, and training them to follow specific routes in order to get more.
For every drug bust there was a new scheme. For every pound that was confiscated, ten pounds got through.
In Bangkok and Hong Kong, Tollie Fong and his White Palms had developed the most obscene and terrifying smuggling techniques of all. Now it was time to make a major drug move on the United States. They had almost three tons of 99.9 percent pure China White secreted in Bangkok ready for a mass shipment to America.
The prediction made by Tollie Fong’s father twenty- three years earlier was finally coming true. The years had been good to them. And Fong had the perfect plan. It had been approved by the old
Tollie Fong was positioned to make war on the sworn enemy of the Chiu Chaos, La Cosa Nostra — the Mafia.
A SUGGESTION
Earp came out of Sweets Wilkie’s office and went up the steps and through the glass beads into the Longhorn Saloon’s ‘Hole in the Wall.’ The Honorable was seated in his stuffed chair, his imposing presence making it seem like a throne. He was reading as usual. The fringed lamp was the only light on in the large alcove. There was no one else in the room, and the lights over both the poker and pool tables had been turned off. Earp pulled up a chair and sat down beside him.
‘Little late for you, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘I’m engrossed,’ the Honorable said, without looking up.
‘My man in Hong Kong just called.’
‘Urn-hum,’ the Honorable said, still reading his book.
‘A man named Hatcher is coming in on the morning plane. Hatcher is an assassin. He works for Sloan.’
‘Perhaps a coincidence?’
‘Not a chance. Sloan comes in. Now Hatcher follows him. No, he isn’t coming for the fucking waters.’
