Джон Сэндфорд - Ocean Prey [calibre]

“A Schedule 1 drug, same as cocaine and heroin,” Lucas continued. “The president decided we needed to take you off the street and you know what? I checked your sheet and you qualify for the federal three-strikes law.”

Bob pulled handcuffs out of his pants pocket. “So, let’s get the cuffs on. Listen, don’t worry about federal prison, Axel. Can I call you Axel? Turn around here, Axel. They’ve got really good medical care in the federal prison system, especially for you older guys.”

“I’m not older . . .” Morris said, as he turned to the cuffs. “I’m not even forty.”

“You will be older, with a three-strike conviction,” Bob said. “In fact . . .” He turned to Lucas. “With a three-strikes, will he ever get out?”

“Don’t believe he will,” Lucas said. To Weeks: “We’ll stay in touch, Walker. We’ll need you to testify about the weed.”

“Absolutely. Happy to do it,” Weeks said. “Glad to scrape this piece of shit off my shoe.”

Lucas said to Morris, “Like Bob was saying, being in prison is not really much different than, you know, hanging out all day in any crappy building. Like a high school. Or this club, for instance. Of course, there’s no pussy inside . . . unless you’re the pussy.”

Bob had Morris hooked up, his hands shackled behind his back, and Morris exhaled in exasperation and asked, “Okay, what do you want?”

“I don’t think we’re dealing, are we?” Lucas asked Bob.

“I’d be reluctant to deal,” Bob said. “Axel is sorta a big wheel. Get it? Axel, wheel?”

Morris said, “I’ve heard that joke a thousand times. And you guys are dealing. You wouldn’t even talk to me if you weren’t.”

“If we gonna deal, it’d have to be on something large,” Bob said. “In the meantime, you have the right to remain silent . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it by heart,” Morris said.

“I got to say it,” Bob said. “So shut up or I’ll smack you in the head.”

The club manager came around the corner at the front of the building, followed by the bouncer, who had an iPhone in his hand, holding it above his head, a bright light shining at them, apparently making a movie of the arrest.

“Smile, we’re on video,” Lucas said to Bob.

“Fuck ’em,” Bob said. To the bouncer: “You keep shining that light on me, I’m gonna shove that phone where Find My Phone won’t find it.”

Weeks looked from Bob to Lucas and said, “You guys really aren’t the FBI, are you?”

They left Weeks talking to the club manager, put Morris in the back of the SUV with hands cuffed behind him and Bob sitting next to him. Morris said, without prompting, “I’ll tell you everything I know about everything if you drop me off and we forget this goofy drug shit. I got work to do tonight.”

“Everything you know? Smart guy like you, that could take years, which we ain’t got,” Bob said. He said over Lucas’s shoulder, “You want to take him to the federal lockup now, and then go to McDonald’s, or McDonald’s first?”

“Well, we know where that McDonald’s is, and I’m hungry,” Lucas said.

“I could use a Whopper,” Bob said.

“You guys . . . where the fuck are you from? You from Arkansas or some fuckin’ place?” Morris asked. “Whopper is Burger King. McDonald’s is Quarter Pounder.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t say Oklahoma, I’d punch you in the kidneys by accident,” Bob said. And to Lucas: “Let’s hit the McDonald’s. Maybe Axel can tell us about something more interesting than he is.”

There weren’t many patrons in the McDonald’s and they got three Quarter Pounders with Cheese, large fries for everybody, and two shakes, and one Diet Coke. Bob took the cuffs off Morris and said, “Don’t try to climb over me and run. You wouldn’t get anywhere with that boot on your foot and it’d piss me off and I’d beat the shit out of you.”

“What’s this violence thing you keep rockin’, man? Whacking people in the head? Kicking their balls off? Punching them in the kidneys? I mean, Jesus, you ever hear of Xanax?”

Lucas: “So you’re not gonna run?”

“I’m not running, I’m dealing,” Morris said. “What do you want?”

They had wedged him into the farthest back booth, Bob sitting next to him on the outside, Lucas across, and Lucas said, “The president—we talked to him before we came down—he said, ‘Get that fuckin’ Axel Morris off the street . . . ’”

“You know, you’re not funny. This isn’t funny,” Morris fumed.

“‘. . . and find out who killed those Coast Guard guys. I don’t want to hear any excuses.’”

“You can tell your president to kiss my rosy red rectum,” Morris said. “Tell me what you want. Like I said, I got things to do tonight.” He looked at his Quarter Pounder. “You got another one of those ketchups?”

Bob pushed a ketchup packet across the table and Lucas said, “If you’ve got anything on those shootings, anything we can use, we’ll leave you here with that sandwich. If you don’t, we’ll lock you up so the president won’t be totally pissed with us.”

Morris stopped fiddling with his sandwich, looking first at Bob and then at Lucas, and said, “I might be able to help. If anyone hears I’ve been talking to you . . .”

“Nobody will hear anything from us,” Lucas said. “You know who was involved?”

“No. I don’t know any names or anything like that.” Morris popped the top on the Quarter Pounder and squeezed the ketchup packet on the meat patty. “But . . . I do know some stuff.”

“Tell us,” Lucas said.

Weed, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, Morris said, came in from Yucatan for local distribution, with boats crossing the Gulf of Mexico and landing on Florida’s Gulf Coast or in the Keys. “That’s been set up for a long time, and it’s smooth, and fuck the DEA,” Morris said. “I don’t personally know the big guys in that business, or anything about them, except what I see on TV. They’re all Mexicans, both sides of the Gulf. They’re over in Naples or Fort Myers. I’m about five steps down the line, but that’s where my goods come from—Mexico.”

He’d heard, though, that there was now a second group operating in South Florida, that did no local distribution. “All I know is these rumors. The rumor is, they bring the goods in from Venezuela or Colombia, but it’s not sold here. They don’t want to fight the locals. They move it up to New York and New Jersey. The rumor is, it’s the Mafia and they made arrangements with the Mexicans not to mess with each other. Maybe the wops even buy a little from the pepperbellies.”

“Ah, Jesus,” Bob said, rolling his eyes. “The Mafia.”

“It still exists, sorta,” Lucas said.

“And that’s what I heard,” Morris said.

“Where are they down here? The Mafias?”

“They aren’t any one place. I mean, they’ve got condos, like everybody else,” Morris said. He peered at the side of the Quarter Pounder, then took a bite.

“So basically, you don’t know anything,” Lucas said. “It’s the Mafia, they live in condos.” Lucas looked at Bob. “Don’t put the cuffs away.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Morris said. “I’ve heard that they hang out together, down on Miami Beach. There’s a hotel called the Angelus, it’s right on the beach. Nice place. I’ve been there. Supermodels showing their tits around the swimming pool. About a hundred Porsches parked outside. The manager of the place is supposedly connected, so the Mafia guys feel welcome.”

“The Angelus.”

“You can’t tell anyone you heard it from me,” Morris said.

“Do your suppliers know who these people are?” Lucas asked. “Specifically? If they have this arrangement . . . I mean, there are all kinds of Mafia groups.”