did someone like Reeves get connected to that?”
Jack sat there, thinking. Not listening to me, but lost in his own thoughts. Then I heard Amanda’s voice from the couch.
“What if Reeves didn’t just use to work for the government?” she said. “I mean, what if he still does?”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “Obviously Reeves fell on hard times somehow and ended up selling his soul for a pile of black rocks.”
“Not necessarily,” Jack said.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever heard of the name Gary Webb?”
“It rings a bell, but I’m not sure why.”
“Okay, well, have you heard of the Dark Alliance?”
“That’s a little more familiar,” I replied. “Something about Nicaragua, right?”
“Something like that,” Jack said. “In the eighties, Gary
Webb was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. ”
“Now it rings a bell,” I said.
“What does he have to do with this?” Amanda said.
“In nineteen ninety-six, Webb published a three-part series of articles in the Mercury News called ‘Dark Alliance.’ See, in the eighties, President Reagan was embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair where it was determined that the
U.S. government had supplied a group of Nicaraguan
Contras with financial aid through the sale of weapons to
Iran, in part thanks to our buddy Oliver North. Our government was supporting the Contras as part of the Reagan doctrine, which supported organizations that opposed communistic and socialistic regimes. The Nicaraguan government in the eighties, let’s just say, fit the bill.
“Webb claimed in his articles,” Jack continued, “that not only did we supply the Contras with funds through the sale of weapons, but through the sale of drugs as well.”
“That’s ridiculous. We weren’t selling drugs,” Amanda said.
“ We weren’t,” Jack said. “But the Contras were reaping millions of dollars through the sale of drugs within the
United States. Crack cocaine spread like wildfire through urban areas in the eighties, and much of the money from those sales went directly into funding the Contras. Webb claimed that members of the NSC, or National Security
Council, were aware that money from drug sales in the
U.S. was being funneled to the Contras. Webb found out that not only was our government aware of this, but members of the NSC purposefully withheld that information from the Drug Enforcement Agency. They felt that by curtailing drug sales and cracking down on shipments, we would effectively stem the flow of money to the
Contras and in turn hurt their efforts to overthrow Nicaragua’s communist FSLN government.”
“So in essence,” I said, “they were selling drugs in our cities, killing our citizens and choking the national crime rates. And we turned a blind eye because we felt it pushed our agenda in another country.”
“Pretty much,” Jack said. “When Webb published these articles, he caused a firestorm unlike many seen in journalism. It was without a doubt one of the most controversial articles of the past twenty-five years. So what happened to Webb? Well, he was completely discredited by the government which issued denials faster than meter maids issue parking tickets. He was eventually pushed out of the Mercury News, and after years in which he failed to get another job at a major newspaper, Webb put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
“Damn,” Amanda said.
“Twice,” Jack added.
“Twice? How does someone shoot themselves in the head twice?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Jack said. I glared at him. “Apologies, Ms. Davies. Sometimes I forget that
I’m around a lady.”
“This lady thinks she could kick your old ass,” Amanda said.
“Now that’s my kind of lady,” Jack said. “Hold on to this firebrand, Henry. Anyway, common thought was that
Webb had been bumped off. But it turns out Webb was genuinely depressed and had written despondent letters to his family. And an autopsy and gun residue test proved that the man really did shoot himself twice. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen if the suicidal person happens to have lousy aim.”
“So, what, you think the sale of drugs in New York
City is being funneled to, who, some shady overseas organization? Some anti-Taliban fighting squad?”
“Not at all,” Jack said. “If what I’m thinking is correct at all, and if this guy Reeves is connected the way I suspect he is, then the sale of drugs in this city isn’t going abroad. It isn’t being diverted to an anti-terrorism foreign legion. What I’m saying is that money gained through the sale of drugs like the Darkness is going directly to the city itself. I’m saying that not only is our government turning a blind eye, but it’s taking a cut of the profits.”
“The layoffs, the deficits,” I said. “You’re saying they’re trying to make up for budget shortfalls by taking a cut of drug payoffs?”
“Words to live by, especially in politics. If something worked twenty years ago, it’ll probably work again now.”
Just then I heard my cell phone ring. I went over to pick it up, but when I saw the caller ID I stopped. Looked at Jack.
“Who is it?” he said.
I shook my head, confused.
“It’s Curt Sheffield,” I said.
“Curt,” Jack said, taken aback. “Well, pick it up!”
I answered the phone. Tried to play it cool.
“Hey, man, what’s up?”
Then I listened as Curt explained to me what was going to happen in just a few minutes.
When I hung up, I looked at Jack and said, “You need to leave.”
Needless to say this was not exactly what he was expecting to hear.
“What the hell are you talking about, Henry?”
“In less than half an hour, somebody is going to come here to sell me drugs. And unless you want to try and pass off as my pot-addicted uncle or something, we can’t have any trace of you in this apartment.”
43
Curt Sheffield had only been working for the NYPD for five years, but the past two days made it feel like a lifetime.
Two days. Twelve dead. All deaths related to this new drug, the Darkness.
For years, New York was considered one of the safest big cities in the world. The crime that existed was relegated to back alleys and dingy apartments. Upstanding citizens had little to fear as long as they used common sense.
The drug dealers were easy to smoke out. They were usually junkies themselves. They sold because that’s all they had, all they knew. They were uneducated, unloved, and an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay was a foreign concept.
And that’s why dealers were so easy to break.
In real life, those dealers in their teens and twenties didn’t have any sort of real loyalty to the drug lords. It wasn’t like television. There was no “game” and no loyalty beyond a wad of cash. Your employer was simply whoever could pay that day.
When a man making seventeen thousand dollars a year selling crack is forced to choose between turning in a
