“IT’S A MATCH.”
Donna and Andy were in the lab, which was down the corridor from her cramped little tip-line office, getting the results on the heroin sample from Janet, the forensic scientist.
“It’s the same supplier?” Donna asked, feeling the tingle of excitement pass up her spine: her hunch was becoming a legit case. “It’s Zahir?”
“Give me a break,” Janet said. “I’m good but I’m not that good. I can’t tell you the name of who bagged it up. It’s from the same region. SWA.”
“Southwest Asia.”
“Right. The chemical composition is completely different from samples that come from, say, Mexico or South America. I can even say it probably came from the same country. Afghanistan. One big difference, though. That original sample, from the crime scene? That was like ninety-nine point nine percent pure. This is street ready.” She peered through her glasses at the report on her table. “Contains lactose and cornstarch.” She shrugged. “But it’s still really good. Just about fifty percent pure. If good is the word I want.” She pulled her vape pen from a pocket of her lab coat and peeked down the hall before taking a hit and blowing it at the air vent.
“Good dope means a lot of junkies dying out there,” Donna said.
“Dying happy,” Andy added.
“Cynic,” Donna told him, then to Janet: “You, however, are better than good. You’re the best. Lunch is on me.”
“K-town?” she asked. “Turntable Chicken Jazz?” Janet was Korean-American and while she usually ate every day in the choose-your-own-salad place, she’d been craving spicy fried chicken. She was also a serious jazz nerd.
“I was thinking of the choose-your-own-salad place, to be honest,” Donna told her.
“That chicken is really good,” Andy noted. “And I have the car.”
“Come on, vinyl and spicy chicken, it’s like two of my biggest fetishes in one,” Janet said.
“Fine,” Donna said. “Now I’m craving it too. Okay, here’s the plan. I pay. You order,” she told Janet. “You drive,” she told Andy. “And if we run late, we use the siren.”
But they never made it out to lunch at all that day because when Donna stopped by her office to grab her bag, there was a message from Zahir.
If you’re looking for a nice spot to grab lunch and catch up with an old friend, not many would choose a strip club, but it suited Gio and Joe: it was quiet (they didn’t open till six when the after-work crowd started drifting in), private (it was Gio’s place), and oddly cozy without the noise and sweat and lust in the air; a cool, dark place for two old pals to split two heroes—one sausage and broccoli rabe, one prosciutto and mozzarella—washed down with Manhattan Special Coffee Soda. Gio had picked the order up on the way.
“So you think this Wildwater corporation is behind it? Why?”
Joe shrugged. “Why not? Soldiers smuggled dope back from Vietnam. So in our new corporate age, it’s the contractors. Even the crime is outsourced.”
“Sure. My dad knew some of those soldiers. From Frank Lucas’s crew. But you’re saying the top people in the corporation are in on it.”
“I’m not saying anything yet. But someone in that office was connected to Zahir. Someone who also just happened to have a combat-ready squad and an attack chopper to send after us. That’s no grunt with a balloon full of dope up his ass.”
“Okay, but we still don’t know how they get the shit into the country,” Gio said. “Or who is moving it for them here. Or why a bunch of American businessmen, corrupt or not, would be financing terrorists. What I do know is what’s up our own ass. Our heads.”
“You’re right,” Joe said. “Sorry, Gio. If you want someone else to handle it . . .”
“Who the fuck else is there?” Gio waved it off. Then he sat back in the booth and took a breath. “No. I’m sorry. I wasn’t mad at you. It’s just . . . let’s just say, I’m pretty comfortable outside the law. Sex, drugs, gambling, corruption, even violence when necessary . . . that’s my . . . what’s the word?”
“Career?”
“Métier is the word I was looking for but okay, fine. My meat. I admit it. But this other shit: religion, politics, nationalism, or whatever. People blowing up each other’s children. That I have no fucking idea what to do with.” He smiled sheepishly. “Except send you. Which isn’t fair. So I’m sorry.”
Joe nodded once and drank his soda. Gio took a breath and went on: “Also.” He shrugged. “I guess things have been a little tense at home too. You know, since Paul left us.”
“A little?”
“A lot.”
“I can imagine.”
“I mean, we’re working on it, Carol and me. Trying . . . things. But it’s like . . .” He held up two sandwich halves, one sausage, one prosciutto. “My life had these two sides, dark and light. And now they’re getting mixed up.”
Joe grinned at the sandwiches. “But they’re both still pork.”
Gio laughed. “Well I don’t have a vegan side, I admit.”
“Actually,” Joe said. “I do know what you mean. That trip kicked my dark shit up too. It ain’t easy pushing it back down.”
“I guess that’s also my fault. And I’m sorry about the kid Hamid. But at least you’re back, safe, in the light.” He waved his sandwich at the gloomy bar where topless women would soon be laboring for horny stiffs. “Then again, there are those who would say our light side is pretty dark too.”
“I guess it’s relative. Different cuts of pork,” Joe said and went back to his lunch. Gio’s phone rang. He set his food down and wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin.
“It’s my cop,” he said, and answered. “Yeah? Interesting. Thanks.” He shut the phone. “So . . . that new brand of dope on the scene? The one undercutting Maria and the rest?”
“Yeah?” Joe asked.
Gio reached for his sandwich. “Fusco had the FBI test a sample and it matches the shit you took off of that smuggler you whacked. So, Zahir or Wildwater or whoever the fuck they are, one thing we do know?” He took a big bite of sausage and bitter greens and chewed. “They’re here.”