Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“How is tea?”

“Super.”

Dickie Huan also hated tea, but believed in tradition. He smiled gently over his raised cup. “What brings me the pleasure of your visit?”

Colin swallowed hard. This bit needed great balls. “I’m looking to expand my market.”

Dickie Huan said nothing. This was obvious. Everybody was looking to expand his market.

Colin continued: “I want to enlarge the scope of my operation.”

Again, Dickie didn’t respond-just for fun.

Colin spit it out. “I want to buy heroin from you.”

“Everyone does.”

Colin tugged at his collar. The tie felt like a noose around his neck. “I understand you’re expecting a shipment.”

Dickie raised an eyebrow and smiled, although he was very pissed off that this round-eye freak with pins through his ear knew this much about his business. “So?”

“I want to buy a piece of it.”

“Where will you get this kind of money, Colin?”

“I’ll ‘ave it. Saturday.” Give myself a day to take care of Neal, he thought.

“Saturday is not today.”

What are you, a fortune cookie? Colin thought. But he said, “I’ll buy up to twenty thousand pounds’ worth.”

Dickie took a long time to answer. He wanted to phrase the insult just right. “I usually don’t sell such small allotments.”

“Then you must have a small amount to spare.”

Not bad, Dickie thought. Not bad at all. “Sorry, Colin. I have promised another party every little bit.”

Colin took a big chance. He thought for a moment about his fingers becoming Moo Goo Gai Colin, and then said, “I can put you into markets that John Chen can’t touch.”

Dickie’s burst of Cantonese obscenities brought three waiters trotting to the table. One carried a double Beefeater with a twist. The other two hastily cleared the teacups as their boss regained his composure. “How you know so much?” Dickie asked as he knocked back his drink.

Colin felt a sweet surge of confidence. “I keep me ear to the ground. Now, Dickie, this bit is just the first. I can put you in markets all over the city. Places Chinese can’t go.” Dickie Huan needed no reminder of the unsubtle racism of Britain’s punks. He colored slightly at the insult but decided to ignore it for the time being. After all, he wouldn’t mind expanding his own markets.

“Why you come to me, Colin?”

Colin smiled his most engaging smile and told the truth. “You’re the only one who might give me credit, Dickie.”

So the punk comes to the chink, Dickie thought. Outsider to outsider. He liked the symmetry of it.

“Come on, Dickie. I’ve never let you down on the hash deals, have I?”

“That is child’s play, Colin. Heroin is real business.”

“Then think about real business. Think about where I’ll be selling your heroin. Twenty thousand is just the start.”

Dickie Huan thought about it. He had indeed told John Chen he could have the whole shipment. But he could give Chen twenty thousand back, tell him that the shipment was smaller than he’d thought. A chance to break into the round-eye neighborhoods didn’t come every day.

“Come back into the kitchen, Colin,” Dickie said. He saw Colin turn pale. “You see too many films. Come on.”

Colin followed him back into a little steamy kitchen, where a half dozen sweating cooks were getting ready for the dinner crowd. Dickie leaned against a big, squat wooden chopping block. “Colin, you know if I save a piece for you, I cannot offer it back to the other party.”

“You’ll never miss him.”

Dickie nodded and said something in Cantonese to one of the cooks. The cook handed him a meat cleaver and stepped aside as Dickie grabbed a large piece of pork and slapped it onto the chopping block. Dickie was the son of a Nathan Road butcher and knew what he was doing. With rapid strokes, he chopped the piece of meat into slices and then whirled the cleaver again and chopped the slices into little squares. The whole demonstration took ten seconds, then he swept the cubes of meat into a pan. He hadn’t as much as touched the sleeves of his three-hundred-pound suit. He looked up at Colin and smiled. “Twenty thousand pounds. Saturday night. Don’t disappoint me, Colin.”

Colin left the restaurant whistling. Meeting Neal had been luck, he knew, but a lot of blokes would have settled for the twenty thousand. Colin had the balls to go for the big time.

Allie pirouetted prettily. The changing-room attendant beamed at her and then at Neal. They were such a cute couple.

“Do you approve?” Allie asked him.

“I approve.”

She tilted her head in a parody of fashion-magazine models. She looked drop-dead gorgeous. The new dress was a simple black sheath, off the shoulders and cut just low enough to hint at the pleasures of intimacy. A gold necklace highlighted the dress, her hair, and her eyes. The makeup was subtle.

“Will there be anything else?”

Neal looked to Allie.

“It’s your movie,” she said.

“That will be all, thanks.”

“Come on then, dearie, we’ll get it all wrapped up.”

As soon as the saleslady turned around, Allie stuck her fingers in her mouth, pulled her lips apart, and stuck her tongue out at Neal. Then she went to change.

Out on Oxford Street, he asked her to lunch.

“I didn’t know crooks went to lunch,” she said.

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m hungry. Where do you want to go?”

“New York.”

“For a burger, right? I know what you mean.”

“They have good burgers in Stockton?”

“They have McDonald’s.”

They found a funky little French place that didn’t care he wasn’t wearing a tie or she was wearing jeans.

She knew her way around the menu, he noticed with amusement. Stockton is famous for its continental cuisine. She ordered the vichyssoise, a fillet, tarragon chicken, and apricot mousse. She also suggested the wines. He had what she had.

Maybe there was still tine to do this the easy way, he thought.

“Ever think about going home?”

“What for?” she said through a mouthful of potato soup.

“Burgers.”

She shook her head.

“Family?”

“That’s what I ran away from.”

“Maybe it would be different.”

“It wouldn’t be.” She took a sip of the white wine and sat back in her chair. “Anyway, what about Colin?”

“I dunno. What about Colin?”

She gave him a cold smile, a practiced, ambiguous gesture meant to indicate simultaneous interest and indifference. A poker player calling but not raising the pot.

“Are you coming on to me?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

She went back to her soup.

“How come you don’t like me?” he asked. “What did I do?”

“I like you. Let’s just say I haven’t had a real good experience with men, okay? Nothing personal.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

During the chicken, she said, “I’m in love with him.”

“With him or with his dope?”

“What’s the difference?”

None.

It was a great lunch and the bill said so. He paid it and left a generous tip.

“Thank you for lunch,” she said when they got outside.

“What did you say?”

“I said thank you. It was nice of you. Not part of the bargain.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for the company. You want to take a walk in the park?”

She looked at him hard and smiled. “You are coming on to me,”

“I’m just saying you have options.”

“Yeah? What kind of options?”

“You can take a walk… in the park.”

“If I told Colin you came on to me, he’d kill you.”

“He’d try. You’re a valuable piece of property.”

“He loves me.”