it in the paper.”
“Damn right you gonna read about it. Over a million dollars, wholesale. You know they gonna try and put me away for a long time. Actin like I’m Rayful Edmond and shit. But I never sold cocaine or heroin. I wouldn’t.”
“In the eyes of the law it’s all illegal.”
“And it’s gonna stay illegal. ’Cause that’s how they fill up the facilities and generate the construction of more jails. Hire more guards. More administrators, guard unions. The aim is to keep this big prison industrial complex rolling. When I was a kid, the majority of people in lockup was in for violent crime. Now most of the people in prison are in for nonviolent drug offenses.”
“There’s violence attached to it.”
“Don’t I know. That stash you got up in your bedroom drawer, somewhere down in Juarez they be cutting someone’s head off behind it. If it was legal, that shit wouldn’t be happenin.” Hawkins leaned forward. “It’s a prop, man. Don’t matter what the thing is, exactly. You make, I don’t know, possession of milk against the law, you gonna give birth to an underground economy where people be sellin milk on the corner or behind closed doors. And some people gonna kill behind that carton of milk. But not me. I’m not about that.”
Lucas looked into his eyes. “Say why I’m here.”
“I lost something,” said Hawkins. “I understand you specialize in recovery.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Do you know how I used to bring in my product?”
“Mexicans out of California drove it into D.C. in tractor trailers. They’d stop on the side of the road and transfer it into your own trucks. Sometimes they’d even stop on the Beltway or the B-W Parkway.”
“You did your homework.”
“Again, I read about it. That’s a story you don’t forget.”
“Sounds bold or stupid, depending on how you look at it. But actually it worked out fine for a long time. Thing is, we didn’t get busted out on the highway. Someone weak got put under the hot lights and snitched me out. Doesn’t matter who. In my line of work you know that day is gonna come. Once I became a person of interest, it was just a matter of time. The police didn’t want my shipment, they wanted me. The law GPS’d one of my trucks, let it make its run, and followed it back to my storage facility. I had this spot off Kansas Avenue, up there by Lamond, where they got a whole rack of warehouses.”
“I know the area.”
“I was there the day the truck rolled in. And now I’m here.”
Hawkins folded his hands on the table, paused for effect. He was a showman.
“Go on.”
“Even though I got locked up, I couldn’t close my business. I mean, I got employees to take care of, not to mention my legal fees. My second, a young man name of Tavon, continues to bring in product, only now he’s doing it in a different way. You know about the FedEx method, right?”
“Yeah,” said Lucas. “And so do the police.”
“Even with that, it’s hard to stop it. The supplier FedExes a bunch of packages to residences that we identify as unoccupied during the day. We track the packages on the Internet so we know damn near when they’re about to arrive. We intercept the pickups and no one’s the wiser.”
“Except that it’s been in the news lately, in a big way.”
“Uh-huh. First you had that incident out in Maryland where the SWAT boys shot the dogs of those suspects who turned out to be innocent. And then that article they had in the Post, where those people took in that package and discovered it was multiple pounds of weed. Made it sound like it was some kind of new phenomenon and shit.”
“Kids were shipping weed back and forth like that when I was in high school.”
“It is tried and true.”
“Not exactly,” said Lucas. “Someone took you off, right?”
Hawkins nodded with embarrassment. “I lost one. More than one, actually.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago, somethin like that. A thirty-pound package got stolen off the steps of a house in Brookland. And then a box holding another thirty pounds of my property got boosted off someone’s porch just last week.”
“That’s money.”
“Sure is.” Hawkins shook a ropy forest of braids away from his face. “Funniest part of that article was, po-lice said the dealers don’t bother with retaliation when that kind of thing goes down. Said the economics was such that the dealers could afford to be philosophical about that shit and absorb the loss. That’s some bullshit right there. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not lookin to do any kind of violence to no one. Like I told you, I’m not about that. But I can’t be philosophical behind it, either. Situation I’m in right now, I need the money. I paid for that product and it’s mine. I want it back.”
“You want me to recover your lost packages.”
“Or the cash, if they done offed it already. I’m not lookin for any muscle here, Spero. Just get me back what’s mine. No one I got has your skills. I seen what you did for my son. Got to say, I was impressed.”
“What’s the value of the product?”
“Wholesale?”
“Retail,” said Lucas.
“Roughly one hundred and thirty thousand a package.”
“I’d get forty.”
“Thousand?”
“Percent,” said Lucas.
“That’s fifty thousand and change.”
“Fifty-two. Per package.”
“How you come to that?”
“Forty percent’s my standard fee.”
“Your cut,” said Hawkins.
“That’s right.”
Anwan Hawkins sat back in his chair. He stared at Lucas, and a glint of gold showed as he nearly smiled.
“Where’d the second package get took?” said Lucas.
“Why the second?”
“Most likely the trail on the first theft is cold by now.”
Hawkins gave him an address. Lucas said, “Do you know how to get in touch with me?”
“Tell me your cell number. I’ll get it to Tavon.”
“Don’t communicate with Petersen about this again.”
“Understood,” said Hawkins. “Your cell?”
Lucas said it and repeated it. “You’re gonna remember that?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t do trades. I take my fee in cash.”
Hawkins looked him over. “You’re on the cocky side. You know that?”
“It serves me well in my line of work.”
“Don’t go spending that cash just yet,” said Hawkins. “That kinda money you chargin? I ain’t quite decided whether you and I are gonna do business.”
Lucas said, “Neither have I.”
THREE
Spero Lucas had two brothers and a sister, but only one sibling he was close to. This was the brother who was a year older than him. His name was Leonidas, but everyone, except for his mother when she was being stern
