Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

“I’m, I’m not authorized to give a quote.”

A PR guy not authorized to give a quote? What’s next, a plumber not authorized to flush toilets?

“I’m not trying to say you guys did anything wrong,” I explained in an attempt to calm him. “I just want an authoritative voice on drugs to add to the story. How about a quick interview with your boss?”

My attempt to soothe his nerves-to lure the timid, furry animal out of his hole with a few kind words and some bits of bread-was backfiring. I was only scaring him more.

“My, my boss?”

“Yeah.” I scanned the Web site and pulled the name off the roster. “Randall N. Meyers.”

“What’s he got to do with it? We don’t have anything to do with this case.”

“I know, but it’s a big case and I thought, with all the times we put news about your guys’ airport busts in the paper, Randall Meyers would be a name our readers would recognize and trust on this subject.”

That’s it. Soften him up. C’mere, little guy. C’mere. .

“Randy won’t. . uh, Agent Meyers won’t. . is unavailable for comment.”

“So you guys are a no comment,” I said. I didn’t know if I would stoop this low, but no comments could be useful as a sleazy, backdoor way to force unverified news into the paper, the classic being “Senator Gobble D. Gook had no comment on whether he was beating his wife.”

“No, no,” L. Pete corrected me. “I didn’t say ‘no comment.’ I said ‘unavailable for comment.’ It’s different.”

So it was. It was also less useful. And frankly, I was beginning to lose interest in this exchange, which wasn’t at all going the way I hoped.

“All right,” I said. “If you guys don’t want to be mentioned as respected experts on this subject, that’s up to you, I guess.”

It was my last attempt and I thought he just might take the bait. But no, he took it as his exit strategy, quickly thanked me for calling, then hung up.

I was still pouting a little when Tommy returned from the flower shop.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Just a conversation that didn’t go well,” I huffed. “My life needs better scriptwriters.”

“Yeah. You should get those people from Will and Grace. They’re not doing anything these days. You could stand to get in touch with your queer side.”

“I thought hanging out with you filled my daily gay quota.”

“You can never get too much gay in your day,” Tommy said.

“Now what would your father think if he heard you say that?” I asked. Tommy still lived with his parents. At home, he was so far in the closet he was rearranging his sweaters.

“He’s so clueless, he’d probably think I was talking about vitamin supplements,” Tommy replied.

“Very nice. How was the flower shop anyway?”

“Helpful,” Tommy said, flipping open his notebook. “The owner was this sweet little Costa Rican lady. She kept talking about how she had a daughter my age and how I looked like such a nice boy and how I should come back when her daughter was around.”

Tommy is a good-looking guy, to be sure-dark, handsome features; small, wiry body; neat, natty clothing. But his sexual orientation is as obvious as three snaps in a Z-formation.

“So we have a flower shop owner with no gaydar whatsoever,” I said.

“Yeah, but luckily she does have caller ID. Tynesha placed the order from this number,” he said, showing me his pad.

“Great,” I said, hauling up a reverse lookup service on my screen. I typed in the number. No luck.

“Well, so much for the easy way,” I said. “Let’s try it the old-fashioned way.”

I dialed the number. Tommy leaned over by the earpiece so he could eavesdrop.

“Hello,” said a female voice I assumed belonged to Tynesha. It was cold, impersonal.

“Hi, is Tynesha there?” I said.

“Heeyyy, baby,” Tynesha said, having suddenly warmed up by a hundred degrees. “How you doin’ today, cutie-pie?”

“Uh, I’m fine,” I said, confused.

“Where you get my number from, honey? Lucious give you my number?”

“Lucious?”

“Yeah, what price he give you?”

“Uhh,” I said, trying not to sound like an utter imbecile. “I’m not sure.”

“Okay, let’s just call it a hundred, okay? A hundred and you can do whatever you want for an hour. One-fifty for two.”

My confusion instantly evaporated. Tynesha was a hooker.

Tommy doubled over in noiseless laughter.

“An hour. . an hour would be great,” I said, blushing. “Where can I find you?”

“You know where the Stop-In Go-Go is?” she said.

“The Stop-In Go-Go,” I said. “You mean that place in Irvington?”

“Yeah, baby. I’ll be dancing there tonight,” she purred. “I’d looove to see you there. I can just tell from your voice you’re a gorgeous white boy.”

Tommy was now quietly hitting his fist on the table as he bit his lip to keep from laughing aloud. I swatted at him. This was hard enough without his histrionics.

“What time are you dancing?” I said.

“I’m on stage from six to seven and again from nine to ten. In between, I’m all yours, baby.”

“Great,” I said, unsure of what else to say. My career in journalism had helped me develop a great many skills. Soliciting prostitution had not been one of them.

“So,” I continued, “how does this, you know, happen? I’ve never done this before.”

“Of course not, baby,” she said. “Neither have I.”

I didn’t want to think about how thoroughly untrue that was.

“No, I mean, how will you know who I am?”

“Oh, don’t worry, baby, I’ll know who you are,” she said. “You’ll be the one who tips me the most during my dance.”

I had to admit, she was good.

“Right,” I said. “Of course I will be. I guess I’ll see you later on, then?”

“Bye, baby. I’m looking forward to it.”

I hung up the phone and Tommy finally let his pent-up laughter explode outward.

“Nice job, stud!” he howled when he was done, then started another laughing fit.

Half the heads in the newsroom turned our way.

“Carter has a date with a hooker tonight!” Tommy exclaimed.

Suddenly, Tommy wasn’t the only one laughing. They all were-and hooting, and whistling, and mocking. Some comedian from over on the copy desk started clapping, and soon I was getting a full standing ovation. I could feel my face, which had already been red, cycling through about six different shades of scarlet until it settled on something close to purple.

“You know me, anything for a story,” I said, waving my hand in the air to acknowledge the cheers, which slowly died down. “Let’s get out of here, Tommy.”

I walked out of the newsroom to a variety of catcalls-“Go get ’er, Casanova,” “Remember, she won’t kiss on the mouth,” and, lastly, “Don’t forget to double-bag.”

The Director enjoyed the irony of how he had gotten into business in the first place. He was always reminding Monty: they owed all their success to the U.S. government and the things it had done unwittingly to prop up the East Coast heroin trade.

The first was to declare war on Colombian cocaine during the mid and late eighties. For a while, the Colombian cartels stubbornly continued to harvest their coca crop. But even they couldn’t fight glyphosate-an herbicide better known by its stateside brand name, Roundup. Using spy satellites to determine where coca crops were being planted, the U.S. government helped the Colombian government dump tons of the gook on the countryside from airplanes. The Aerial Eradication Program, as it was known, was hailed as a tremendous success in the War on Drugs.