David Drake - Balefires

Smokie Joe's laughter as he stood was suddenly a terrible thing. He faced the window for a rippling but unshaded view through the Lexan panels."And these kids, they're so smart. They 'know' they can't get hooked if they only snort the stuff, it doesn't put enough in their bloodstream. Only they don't know that what we sell is 97% pure heroin-not until it's too late for them to care."

Big Tom pressed his temples. The wealth that had trickled, then poured in over the past months had not improved his appearance. His suits were tailored silk, but his belly had begun to slop over his belt and sweat quickly marked whatever he wore. Perhaps his hair had not really thinned and it was only the heightened ruddiness of his face that made it seem so. "What about Angelo, then?" he asked.

Smokie Joe turned. "You sell a customer what no one will give him," he said quietly."I think a tour will do better than any words I could use to explain. Come on, let's take a ride down to Third Street."

"At three in the afternoon?"

Joe cocked a thin line of eyebrow."At ten in the morning, Big Tom. Even bankers have started staying open the hours customers want-and we're selling what they can't get free, remember?"

The drive was short and without further discussion. Big Tom's headquarters were in the old industrial section, near the railroad station and the car shops. Angelo had set up in a huge frame house, a Victorian leftover on the outskirts of the business district. The previous owner had once refused to sell, Mullens remembered, preferring to hold the property against future rezoning to commercial or apartment use. Until now, Big Tom had not wondered why the old fellow had decided to sell to Angelo.

Smokie Joe swung the car through the alley entrance to the fenced courtyard behind the house. There were already three cars within: a Buick, a Chrysler, and a rusted gray Nash. "The staff doesn't park here," Joe said. "Of course the girls don't leave at all."

The door opened before either of the visitors rang. Angelo gave Smokie Joe a brief nod that could have been either recognition or obeisance."Good you could come, Mr. Mullens," he said."I think you'll be impressed by our operation-your operation, that is."

Within, the house appeared to have been little modified from its original design. Down the rear stairs came a pair of laughing men, a huge black with boots, a loincloth, and a whip; and a middle-aged white man who used the brim of his hat to shield his face when he saw Big Tom. Mullens had already recognized Judge Firbairn.

Firbairn scurried out the door. The black nodded to Angelo, eyed Joe and Mullens with mild interest before he swaggered down the front hall and into a room to the side. Something had dripped from his quirt onto Big Tom's wrist. It seemed to be blood.

"That's Prince Rupert," Angelo volunteered. "Some of our customers prefer watching to doing. Rupert does real nice for them. And we use him for other things too, of course."

"Why does he pad his crotch that way?" Big Tom asked, disgusted but unwilling to admit it.

"It's not padded," Smokie Joe cut in, heading his employer down the high-ceilinged hall. "He has lymphogranuloma, and the scarring in his case has led to elephantiasis."

"Jesus God!" Mullens grunted. "I don't know how you could pay a woman enough for that."

"We couldn't," agreed Angelo with a smile. He unlocked the first doorway to the left. "Not money, at least. All the girls are strung out. So long as they get their four jolts a day, they don't care-they don't evenknow- who does what to them."

He threw open the door. Big Tom gagged as he took in the bed, the extensive props, and the mewling woman who lay in the midst of them. He pulled the door closed himself. "She's only eighteen!" he said.

Angelo spread his palms. "They age quicker than you'd think," he replied. "Then we got to sell them south or to Asia."

"They come to us, Big Tom," said Smokie Joe. His eyes were as intense as diamond needles. "Remember that. Everyone of the masks, uses the words, for everything that's done to her. If they change their minds later, that's too bad."

Mullens shook nausea from his mind."How in Hell are you running this? No fix on earth would cover up a deal like-" He waved his hands to save words he did not want to speak.

"Think Judge Firbairn would sign a search warrant for this place?" Smokie Joe gibed.

"There's other judges in the district. They haven't all been here."

"You'd be surprised," said Angelo. "And even some who don't…

"

His voice trailed off but Smokie Joe had already opened the door of a converted broom closet and unlocked a drawer of the filing cabinet within. "Suppose you were about to launch a push against-well, you'd call them 'the forces of crime and decay' when you held your press conferences, I suppose. Then your daughter got drunk enough to take a dare from some girlfriends-girls she'd grown up with, though maybe if you'd paid more attention you wouldn't have cared for some of the company they'd been keeping recently. Took a dare and got in a little deeper than she expected.

"So the next morning," Smokie Joe continued, snaking out a packet of photographs, "a messenger brings you a roll of Super-8 movie film. What do you do then, Mayor Lawrence?"

Big Tom Mullens riffed through the photographs. "Jesus Christ, youdid get Betty Jane Lawrence! Jesus Christ! She goes to school with my son, he'sdated her!"

"Still think Prince Rupert wears padding?" Angelo asked.

"That's-God, I want to puke," Big Tom groaned, handing the stills back to his smiling lieutenant. "His cock, it looks like it'srotting."

"Well, LGV is an incurable disease, you know," Smokie Joe agreed. "Not so very bad for a while, if you have the personality Prince Rupert does. And if you have an employer who gives you some fringe benefits.

"Want to see more?"he asked, waving at the scores of file folders. When Big Tom shook his head sickly, Joe slammed the drawer and continued, "Between payoffs and this kind of pressure, Angelo here isn't in any danger. Nick's operation is a little different, though, since the heat on him is mostly state and we don't have the same kind of locks on that."

"What's the matter?" Big Tom asked, turning toward the outside door as if it were the gate of his prison. "Couldn't you get a picture of the whole Drug Enforcement Division having a circle jerk?"

"Oh, anything is possible," Smokie Joe said agreeably, following the big racketeer down the hall. "We'll have better luck if we give the state boys something to go after besides us, though. Shall Nick arrange a little diversion for them, Big Tom?"

"Arrange whatever you want," Mullens said. "I'm not sure I give a goddamn about anything. Except that I don't want to see you any more today, and I don't want to see Angeloever."

He slammed the door behind him, within inches of Smokie Joe's smile. From the front of the house came a scream, then another and another in rhythmic pulses. The smile grew broader.

Big Tom Mullens slapped folded newspaper down in front of Smokie Joe who waited for him with a stack of account books. "I'm getting goddam sick and tired of people playing goddam games with me," he snarled. "I get a call from Shiloh Academy saying Danny hasn't showed up for classes in a month and a half. I get here and Nick hands me this paper, asking how I like the job he did for me. What job?"

Joe calmly unfolded the paper."It's not unusual for boys your son's age to drop out of school, you know," he said.

"I'm not spending eight fucking grand a year for that kid to drop out!"Big Tom said."He's getting chances I never had to really make it by going straight, mixing with all the kids whose folks had money without having to scramble for it. If Danny thinks he's going to throw that away, I'll blow his fucking head off!"