Crowe shines his flashlight on the dope-sees red hairs and crystals. Runs some through his fingers, nice and dry, no excess moisture weight. “Very nice.”
Ben shrugs-what did you expect? “You want to smoke up, go for it.”
“No need,” Crowe says. “You want to be a grower for us, maybe we can talk.”
“Pass.”
Crowe tosses the bale to the ground, then another one, and grabs the next bale. He slices into it and pulls out another handful of dope. Smells it and nods approvingly.
“Just wanted to make sure the rest wasn’t ditch weed.”
“Your trust in me is touching.”
“Ain’t nothing about this business that has anything to do with trust,” Crowe says. He turns to Brian. “Load it up.”
“Whoa,” Ben says. “My money?”
“I almost forgot.”
“Good thing I’m here, then.”
“Get the money,” Crowe tells Brian.
Brian goes to the car, comes back with a briefcase, and hands it to Crowe.
207
Chon shrugs his shoulders to make sure they’re relaxed, and recalibrates his aim.
If this is a rip, this is when it goes down.
The briefcase is empty or
Crowe pulls a gun from it or
They pop Ben while he’s counting except
They won’t because they’ll both be dead before they can point their guns at him.
208
OGR hands Ben the case.
“Count it if you want.”
“Yeah, I will.”
Turning his back on them
(Oh, Ben, Chon thinks.) he sets the case down on a bale of dope and counts the wrapped stacks of bills. It’s all there, $42K. He closes the case back up and nods at the dope. “Go for it.”
Brian starts to load the packages into the trunk of their car.
“How about the equipment, you want that?” Ben asks.
“Hold a yard sale,” OGR says.
Brian finishes loading the dope.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Ben says.
“It better be,” OGR says. “We hear anything more about you-you sell as much as a nickel bag to a college kid-you end up with your head on a steering wheel. You got that?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
OGR takes a second to fix him with one more bad-guy glare and then gets into the car.
Ben watches them drive away, thinking
209
Fuck you.
210
Dennis watches the little GPS light blink red on the monitor.
“When do you want to take them?” the other agent asks.
This is when Dennis has a flash of inspiration. He looks at the map with the little red dot, pushes a couple of buttons, points to the screen, and says, “Let’s wait until they’re by that high school.”
Genius.
Vicious.
211
Duane and Brian are cruising past Laguna High when the world explodes. Flashing lights, sirens, cop cars coming from all compass points.
Duane thinks about trying to run for it but sees it’s futile so he says, “Quick, throw the gun out.”
“What?”
“Throw the fucking gun out the window!” Duane yells.
The presence of a gun on a drug charge doubles the sentence, and he also doesn’t want to give the cops an excuse to vaporize them.
Brian throws the gun out and Duane pulls over.
The cops do the whole dramatic get-out-of-the-car-and-walk-backward-toward-the-sound-of-my-voice thing and then the put-your-hands-behind-your-back thing and Duane gets to stand there handcuffed while
Dennis opens the trunk and does the whole well-what-have-we-here thing and then walks over to Duane and does the whole you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent-anything-you-say-can-and-will thing while another cop works on Brian with the whole we-saw-you-throw — something-out-the-window-if-it’s-a-gun-do-the-right-thing-and-tell-us — so-some-schoolkid-doesn’t-find-it-and-get-hurt thing.
Then Dennis gets cute with it. He says, “SB 420 allows you eight ounces of dried, processed cannabis. I’m guessing you’re about a hundred and nineteen pounds over the limit here, chief.”
Duane says nothing.
Then Dennis slices open one of the packages and pulls out a bag of
Heroin.
212
“Uh-oh,” Dennis says.
To which Duane responds
