Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

WIGGY:

All these files labeled with girls’ names.

TIGO:

Whut you mean names?

WIGGY:

Rina and Bela and Ada and Gina and Tessie, and here’s the one really got me … Diana.

TIGO:

Like Princess Di?

WIGGY:

Yeah, but it’s Diamondback. It’s code for Diamondback.

TIGO:

How you know that, Wigg?

WIGGY:

It was on the PC. Man left it wide open for me when I showed him the ugly. D-I-A-N-A. Right there in the name Diamondback, juss mixed up and turned all aroun, is all.

TIGO:

If the man put a code in there, why he want to gosplain it to you?

WIGGY:

Nobody splained it to me, man. I doped it out all by myself. Same as how B-E-L-A is for Lebanon. And G-I-N-A is for Nicaragua.

TIGO:

Why they want to do that for, Wigg?

WIGGY:

To hide what theydoin in those places. Man, don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a shit bout the mischief they into anyplace else. But when they buyin dope in Mexico and sellin it up here in Diamondback …

TIGO:

We selling dope here, too, Wigg.

WIGGY:

It ain’t the same thing, man. They sellin dope up here for altogether different reasons. Man, they shittin on us black folk is what they doin.

TIGO:

I just don’t know, Wigg. I mean …

WIGGY:

What is it you don’t know? I justtole you what’s happening, what is it you don’t unnerstan?

There was a long silence on the tape. Ollie peeled another banana. He looked at Carella again. Carella shrugged again.

TIGO:

You really think all this is true, huh? Cause to me …

WIGGY:

Man, I was lookin straight in they computer! I seed all this stuff with my own eyes!

TIGO:

It just sounds, you know, like science-fiction, you know? This file named Mothah you can’t open cause you need a password, an all this money floatin aroun, and these people causin trouble all over the world, an tryin’a fuck us right here in Diamon’back, I mean, man, it sounds like suppin you’d see in amovie, you know what I’m sayin, man?

WIGGY:

It’d make agood movie, that’s for damn sure, but it’strue, man! I got it from theycomputer

TIGO:

That don’t mean it couldn’t of been garbage in there.

WIGGY:

The point is, whut we gonnado about it, Tigo? I mean, these guys are messin with ourpeople!

There was another long silence.

“What the hell’s he talkin about?” Ollie asked.

“Shhh,” Carella said.

WIGGY:

I think we should go to the police, tellthem the story.

“Good idea,” Ollie said to the tape.

There was the sound of a phone being dialed.

“He’s calling me,” Ollie said.

“I figured.”

They listened to Wiggy’s end of the conversation. Ollie opened a bag of potato chips. Carella finished his glass of milk. There was the sound of the phone receiver clicking onto the cradle. Ollie dipped into the bag of chips.

WIGGY:

Weeks is on the way.

TIGO:

That’s just great.

WIGGY:

You maybe seed him aroun the streets. Fat Ollie Weeks. He’s this big fat guy.

“Hey, watch it,” Ollie said.

TIGO:

You goan tell him you a drug dealer?

WIGGY:

No, I don’t have to tell him that.

TIGO:

Then how come youknow these people are sellin dope up here?

WIGGY:

I coulda heard.

TIGO:

Howyou coulda heard, Wigg? You goan tell the fuzz this man Hoskins come up here Christmastime, sold you a hundred keys of coke to distribute to li’l kiddies in the streets?

“Here we go,” Ollie said.

“Shhh,” Carella said again.

WIGGY:

No. But I could …

TIGO:

You goan tell him you shot this man Hoskins back of the head an dropped him in a garbage can? You goan do that, Wigg?

“Go for it, man,” Ollie said.

WIGGY:

I’m sayin’ it don’t seem right, what these mothahs are doin to our people.

TIGO:

They’s evil folk in this world, itis a shame.

WIGGY:

You know what the name Nettie stans for?

TIGO:

Nettie, you say?

WIGGY:

N-E-T-T-I-E. You know what word that name is hidin’ in?

TIGO:

No, I has to admit I do not.

WIGGY:

Counterfeit. That’s the word. You search that word, you find Nettie lurkin in there. You double-click on her name, you transported straight to Nettieland. You want to hear this, man, or you want to stay ignorant the ress of your life?

“This is all bullshit,” Ollie said.

“Let’s hear what the man …”

“He’s hallucinatin,” Ollie said.

“For Christ’ssake!” Carella said, and snapped off the recorder, and shot Ollie a look. Ollie dug into the bag of chips again. Carella hit the rewind button. Ollie looked offended.

WIGGY:

… hear this, man, or you want to stay ignorant the ress of your life? What these mothahs doin, they buyin fake money in I-ran. Hunnerd-dollar bills. So good you want to lick’em right off the page. They buy ’em at a fifty-percent discount. That means they pays half a century for a C-note, they ahead of the game by fifty already, you dig, man?

TIGO:

I’m listening.

WIGGY:

They takes this fake money to Mexico, where they buy high quality shit with it. You member what that white dude was sellin us aroun Christmastime?

TIGO:

The one you shot and thowed in the garbage can?

WIGGY:

The hunnerd keys we tested, you member it?

TIGO:

I member you shootin him. Why’d you kill that man, Wigg?

WIGGY:

Point I’m makin is them hunnerd keys was purchased with funny money, man. They gettintwice the dope they should be gettin cause they payin for it with bills coss ’em onyhalf what they face value is. You see the scam they got goin here, man?

TIGO:

Wish we’da thought of it, Wigg.

WIGGY:

Butweain’t gettin no fifty-percent payback here in Diamondback, man! We payin the full an honorable price for the shit. And they takin the big profit they make up here an usin it for financin all they activities all over the world, you know what I’m sayin? Man, we payin ’em good money, an they usin it to start some revolution inAfrica someplace!

TIGO:

Who you mean bythey, man? Who’sthey?

WIGGY:

I don’tknow who they is. But I’ll bet you any amount of money it’s right there in that folder markedMothah. You fine the password to that folder, man, you on the way to trackin downzackly who these people are.

TIGO:

Why you so keen on knowin that, man?

WIGGY:

What’s the matter with you, Teeg, you some kind of fool? They fuckin us six ways from the middle! You close Nettie and you double-click on Diana, you know what you fine in that Diamondback file? You fine what the plan is forus, man. You see what theyreally doin up here, you see how this thing comes full circle.

TIGO:

What is it they doin, Wigg? I’m sorry, but I don’t see what …

WIGGY:

They buildin a community ofdope fiends, man. They keepin the nigger in his place so he can’t work, he can’t vote, he can’t do a fuckin thing but shoot H in his arm or sniff coke up his nose! They turnin us into fuckin slaves all over again.

TIGO:

Man, Wiggy. wiggy: Yeah, man, is right. That’s why I called that fat hump cop. They got to know what’s goin on here, Teeg. Somebody got to put a stop to it.

TIGO:

One thing I don’t get, Wigg.

WIGGY:

What’s that?

TIGO:

These dudes in I-ran? The ones gettin paidreal money for the fake stuff?

WIGGY:

Who gives a shit about them, man? You unnerstan what I’msayin here?

TIGO:

I was juss wonderin what theydo with that money, that’s all.

The shots exploding from the recorder startled both detectives. Ollie actually dropped the bag of potato chips. Screams erupted over the ugly stutter of automatic gunfire. A woman’s voice shouted, “The window!” There was the sound of glass breaking. Heavy breathing. More shots. Footsteps clanging on metal. The breathing harsher now. Yet more shots. More footsteps pounding. And then Carella’s own voice came from the machine.