Street-level addicts willing to flip for a get-out-of-jail-free card came a dime a dozen. Back when it was crystal hammering the mountains, tweakers came in so jacked up and paranoid you could twist a story around and have them believing in dragons. It was best to hit them before the drugs wore off. Get somebody who’d been up a week straight and they’d tell you anything you wanted to know.
The junkies, though, were a different breed. If they were nodding out, it was like talking to a mailbox. Unlike the crankers, it was best to let them sit in a cell and stew for a day or two till the withdrawals got the better of them. Wait till the anxiety hit and their faces blistered with sweat and they’d get to talking so much you’d have to beg for quiet.
Agent Ron Holland knew the game. He also knew that only a quarter of what an addict told you would hold water. On top of that, even if the intel gave you the drop on a bottom-tier dealer, the folks selling were harder to turn. Sometimes you might climb the ladder to some mid-level player who might very well know the supplier, but few got that far without knowing a stint in prison sure beat a casket. Holland had been at it long enough to know the cat-and-mouse bullshit was always two steps forward and ten steps back.
That was part of the reason he was surprised to hear one of the dealers they’d been watching over the past year had come to the table ready to play. Then again, this fellow never had fit the profile. He was some punk ass kid from an upper-class suburb who’d gotten in over his head. Privilege and money will buy you a lawyer. A lawyer will get you a deal.
Just so happened this kid was the right skin tone and hadn’t ever been in trouble. When they raided the house, the crow-chested little shit was cutting eighty grand of powder heroin with dry milk in his underwear while Full Metal Jacket blared on the television. What would’ve gotten anyone else a minimum of ten years, twenty if they could’ve tied a single overdose back, would probably only amount to a slap on the wrist and five years’ probation for the simple fact he was well-off and white.
Holland didn’t care. This was America. The whole idea of justice was comical. If a man in this line of work got caught up in the rights and wrongs of the criminal justice system, he might as well shove his service weapon into the back of his throat and get it over with. The only thing you could do was work the case. Save yourself the headache: leave the bullshit for someone else to decide. That was hard for some people, but he was better than most at compartmentalizing the work.
The lawyer had signed a Queen for a Day proffer letter with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and if the information seemed legit, the kid would get a deal. Holland had driven four hours from Atlanta to an SBI office in Asheville to question him. The last thing on earth he wanted to endure was some smug attorney in a thousand-dollar suit, but that’s what the day looked like. He carried a pot of coffee into the interrogation room and didn’t offer a drop to the lawyer or the kid. He filled an empty Styrofoam Hardee’s cup from the road and started the tape recorder. A video camera was already running in the corner of the room, but his routine was a matter of habit and consistency. He was old school.
The kid was wearing a white short-sleeve dress shirt and a black tie like he might’ve been about to knock on your front door and hand you a pamphlet about Jesus. A navy sports coat was draped over the back of his chair. He’d cut his hair and shaved the patchy beard since his mug shot, going from patchouli-drenched hippie to preacher’s son overnight. Holland had beaten the shit out of kids like him in high school. He’d have beaten the shit out of him right then if the lawyer wasn’t present and the camera wasn’t rolling, or at least he would’ve wanted to.
“This is Agent Ronald Holland of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration Field Division.” He glanced at his watch. “We are conducting this interview in the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation offices in Asheville, North Carolina. The interviewee is one Russell Parker, age twenty-three, of Asheville, North Carolina. He’s here with his attorney . . .”
“David King. King, Kraft, and—”
“His attorney is David King. Our conversation is being recorded. Should either of you wish to end the conversation at any point in time, you’re certainly within your rights to do so. Do you understand?”
The kid glanced at his lawyer. The lawyer nodded his head. “Yeah,” he stuttered.
“Mr. Parker, how long have you been involved in drug trafficking here in western North Carolina? About how many years?”
“He’s not here to talk about what role he played in your investigation.”
The statement caught Holland off guard. “Then why is he here?”
“He’s here to address the specific questions outlined in our letter.”
“Okay, Mr. Parker, during the course of your involvement, who was your primary source of narcotics, and specifically the heroin?”
“Again, Agent Holbroooo . . . is it Holbrook?”
“Holland.”
“My apologies, Agent Holland. As I said, my client is here today to field specific questions as outlined in our letter to the AUSA.” The lawyer opened a thick, black leather folder and pulled out a stack of papers. He offered the papers across the table and Holland waved him off.
“Speaking of the AUSA, where is he?”
“She,” the lawyer corrected him.
“Well, where is she?”
“My understanding is that she had to cancel last minute, some sort of family emergency. But she said we could move forward with the meeting as long as I was okay with her not being here. With you having driven all the way from Atlanta, I hated for you to have to turn around.”
“So if your client doesn’t want to talk about his involvement and he doesn’t want to give up any names, what exactly does he want to talk about today? I’ve driven four hours to hear it, so believe me, I’m all ears.” Holland took a long sip of coffee and leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He stretched his legs straight and crossed one foot over the other.
“The offer was that my client would provide the location of the supplier and that in turn he would plead guilty to a first offense federal trafficking of a schedule one narcotic, and that by doing so the amount would be reduced to nine hundred and ninety-nine grams. The not-less-than-five sentencing normally associated with that offense would then be waived. So we’re not here to discuss whom, but where.”
“You know just like I do that your client can say anything he’d like in here today and that none of it can be held against him. That’s the way the game works, right? You parade your client around the office, we get to ask him questions, he’s not prosecuted for any crimes he talks about, and assuming it checks out, he gets the deal.”
“Regardless of how the game works, we also know this boils down to specificity.”
“Okay. So where exactly were you getting the heroin, Mr. Parker?”
The kid looked at his attorney and the lawyer nodded his approval. “Cherokee.”
“Cherokee.” Holland chuckled and shook his head. “Any specific place in Cherokee?”
“No.”
“Just Cherokee?”
“Just Cherokee.”
The chair Holland was seated in skittered across the floor loudly. “Well, I’d like to thank you both for coming in today. I sure know it was worth every bit of my time to get up here.” He slid the recorder into his pocket as he stood, took his cup in one hand, the pot of coffee in the other. “How about one of you gentlemen get that door for me?”
The lawyer stood and opened the door. The kid glanced back over his shoulder with one hand floating in front of his mouth to hide his smirk. Holland wanted desperately to dump the pot of coffee over that boy’s head and watch it melt the skin off his face.
Halfway down the hall, an agent named Rodriguez hustled out of a side room and pulled a set of headphones off his ears. He’d been listening over the video feed. He was the undercover who’d worked the kid’s case and organized the local PD to make the arrest.
“What in the fuck did you call me up here for? Cherokee. Cherokee, he said. You could’ve told me that on the goddamn phone.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I thought he was here to play.”
“And where the hell is the AUSA? She cancels and you send me in there blind?”
“I didn’t know till the lawyer got here, sir.”
“Did you not read the letter?”
“I thought it was full cooperation.”
“So did I. So, again, did you not read the letter?”
“No, sir.”
“Exactly. If that’s all the information he had, then the assistant attorney should’ve told that lawyer to shove that letter up his client’s ass. Cherokee. Cherokee, he said. And that’s supposed to get him a goddamn deal when we found him with eighty grand of heroin sitting in his lap.”
Rodriguez looked like he’d just been caught having pissed his pants. Truth was, he was gung-ho and got ahead of himself, made a rookie mistake and obviously felt like shit about it. Holland knew he was the best street-level agent on his team and that once he got a few more years under his belt he’d likely make his own way. But Holland wasn’t about to coddle him and he damn sure wasn’t going to offer a hand to pick him up.
“Have them take him back into custody.”
“What about the deal?”
“He’s not getting a fucking deal.” There was nothing else to say, no other reason for being there. If Holland didn’t hit traffic, he’d be back to the office by seven, but it was Atlanta and there was always traffic.
His son, Garrett, had a basketball game that night, and looking at his watch, Holland knew there was no chance in hell he’d make it. It was bullshit like this that ended marriages, and for months his had been hanging from the tip of his finger like a drop of water. Fifteen years in and halfway to pension, he was nothing more than a badge-wearing cliché.