BILLY “BOB”
Before Roger left Oklahoma, he held a business meeting in his hotel room with Dave and Mike. Mike told him of the “sweet spot” outside the town of Enid, and Roger told them to scout the surrounding area and learn the movements of the locals, then get maps and find back road access in and out of the location.
“I won’t have time to see the place myself, so lay out your strategy of entering and exiting with a load and devise an alternate plan,” he said. “When you finish that, Mickey wants you guys to go to Birmingham and get some birth certificates. We’re gonna need new IDs for the gig. Mickey and I need at least two and pick out some for yourselves. If it feels right, get extras. You’ve done this for Mickey before, right, Dave?”
“Yeah, it’s a piece of cake,” Dave nodded. “Should take less than a week.” Mike looked puzzled. “It’s easy, man.” Dave went on. “We go to the library and look through the micro-fiche for newspapers around the time we were born. Find the obituaries, get some names that match our looks of kids who died within a year of birth. Pick the ones that list all the information on surviving relatives, like mother’s maiden name, place of birth, that sort of thing. Filter out the best one and memorize all the data, then go to the Department of Health and ask for the birth certificates. Sometimes they quiz you a little to see if you’re the person you’re asking for, but last time, I gave them enough info they skipped the twenty questions and gave them to me straight up.”
“Why Birmingham?” Mike wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Dave shrugged. “I guess some guy turned Mickey on to it, and that’s where he sent me. You could do it anywhere but this place is so cool. Last time I got four different ones in one day from the same lady!”
“The important thing,” Roger interjected, “is to get the ground work done in the library. I worry about you spending too much time in a government building. If you get the chance, cool, but don’t push it if it doesn’t feel right. Once we have the info, we can get mail drops, and for five bucks a copy they’ll mail them up.”
“Why do we need so many?” Mike wondered.
“You can never have too many birth certificates,” Roger answered. “I never use the same one twice. Some I use to build a full set of IDs, and that’s all you need to get into Belize, Mexico or anywhere in the Caribbean. Others I call throwaways and use for immigration entries. In this business, the Feds don’t catch you, you catch yourself. All that fancy TV stuff is BS. The DEA guys mostly just sit at their desks waiting for some police department to call with some guy spilling his guts, or they stumble across a sloppy operator—and leaving a paper trail is the worst kind of slop.”
“Some people counterfeit them and say they work just as good because there are so many different kinds of birth certificates anyway,” Dave went on, “but I like the idea of there being a record of the person actually existing somewhere. Once you have it, building the ID set’s easy. Hell, one time I went to a swap meet, and some guy had a picture ID machine, so I got a bunch that matched the certificates, then used those bogus-looking things with the birth certificate and got a Florida driver’s license. With that, everything else was cake.”
“Amazing,” Mike muttered, shaking his head at the ease of it all.
“Okay,” said Roger, handing them each a stack of cash for expenses, “I’m not sure where I’ll be. I got a lot of running around to do. If something comes up, leave a message on my service. In fact, leave one every day just to keep in touch. If it’s something real important, bang one out to Mickey too.”
The two men walked out of Roger’s room, leaving him alone and, for the first time in months, with nothing to do. He flopped back on the bed and enjoyed it for five minutes, then grabbed his bag and closed the door behind him when he left.
“It’s all good, buddy,” Mickey said to Roger back in Illinois a couple of days later. “This trip went as smooth as the other one went rough. Actually, it went off quite well, considering.”
“Quite well considering the nervous pilot, idiot Bushman and greedy Cookie Monster?” Roger grinned.
“I took some precautions after the last trip and everything went routine. Nothing happened out of the ordinary.”
“I expected nothing less from you,” Roger said. “Still, it’s a relief and definitely good news after all the drama of the last few weeks.”
“Good thing you won the meet or I wouldn’t be speaking to you now.” They laughed comfortably together. “Seriously,” Mickey added, “congrats on winning the gold, buddy. Helluva an accomplishment.”
“Thanks, man, it was something, all right and as it turned out, the biggest challenge of the week was keeping Kong from killing somebody.”
“So it was no different than any other week,” Mickey deadpanned.
“True, except this time somebody took Kong out in freefall, then bit him on the leg.”
“No way! Then what?”
“Well, let’s just say it took a woman’s touch to keep Kong’s .45 in the holster, but nobody went to jail or the hospital so it was all good.”
“Oh, man!” Mickey laughed. “What a trip—and everyone I run into says there’s a whole new vibe out there now that somebody finally beat California’s streak.”
“Yeah, it was pretty special, so thanks for taking care of things while I did that.”
Mickey, leaned forward, all business again.
“I found a broker who cashed us out of the plane, so we didn’t have to worry about stashing it or me getting tempted to do another Jamaican run. Plus now we got a few more bucks towards the next one, so how about it—you ready to run Sugar Alpha to B-ville?”
“Whoa, Nellie, we don’t even own her yet,” Roger protested.
“And I spoke to Blind Jeff about flying her,” Mickey added, ignoring that little detail, “and he’s hot to trot!”
Roger smiled inwardly. Roger knew Blind Jeff well. He’d worked with Hanoi and him on many trips and he knew that Jeff could fly anything from small singles to four-engine transports as long as he had on his Coke bottle-thick wire rim glasses. But Roger already had the pilots for Belize.
“Moving and stashing a plane the size of Sugar draws heat,” Roger said, “and I had some reservations about using her after having it at the airport anyway, so I talked to the guys with the Howard 500. It can’t haul as much, but it’s lower profile.”
“Yeah, I heard about that paint job,” Mickey laughed. “Anyway, nothing’s cast in stone with Jeff. I just ran the idea past him ’cause he has a lot of Three time.”
“Buying Sugar from Paul without raising his suspicion might be tough, too,” Roger added, “especially now that Nationals is over and Mr. D will be back up in a few weeks, but I got to admit it’s a nice back up if something falls through.”
“I also spoke to Terry,” Mickey continued, “but he’s too high and mighty to do a pot gig now that he has something going with the Colombians. They sent him to a Texas flying school, and he connected with some guy named Jotham King.”
Roger shook his head unhappily.
“That’s crazy, man, thinking about strangers for a load like this. Those are the guys the Feds love the best. How does he know this guy is cool?”
“Same Colombians sent him to the school too. Believe me, I know these guys,” Mickey said defensively. “Won’t be no funny business!”
“That’s what you said about the Bushman,” Roger snapped. Mickey looked hurt for a moment, then let it pass and continued his train of thought.
“Anyway, Jotham knows Tony, who did three Merlin trips into Norman’s Cay in the Exumas for Joe Lehder. Then he did something stupid and they cut him out.”
“Lucky he’s still alive,” Roger reflected. He’d known Tony since he was an egghead student at the University of Tampa, flying jumpers for Mickey on weekends. Mickey finally introduced him to smuggling, and he slowly became a monster; ballsy but talented. Roger respected Tony’s piloting abilities. However, when Mickey kept expanding the group, Roger bowed out, and Mickey and Tony became partners. Tony flew, Mickey unloaded.
Then Tony met the Colombians and jumped the connection, cutting Mickey out of the loop and ruining their relationship. Roger had no doubt Tony now worked with some major players in the cocaine trade and made a great deal of money.
Mickey, on the other hand, was still importing marijuana, which suited Roger. He disliked the cocaine trade, even with its big profits, because the heat was higher and people in the business were nasty and violent. With them, getting busted was the least of your worries. It was a good way to end up dead.
Mickey thought Roger was pondering the deal, so he sighed and leaned forward.
“Look, man, I don’t like sub-contracting the plane, but this is your deal, so what’s it gonna take for this gig to put a smile on their faces?”
“Nothing firm yet,” Roger answered. “I just said I’d make them happy. They think we can haul around five thousand pounds and carry fuel for fifteen hundred miles. I question if we can get that much in before we cube out because that happened on all the previous trips.”
“I know some guys flying sinsemilla out of Mexico in a Lodestar at forty-five hundred a pop,” Mickey said. “Pretty much the same size, so why not start with that and figure it?”
Mickey and Roger rounded down to an even four thousand pounds and did a projected cash flow to determine the bottom line. They smiled at the results.
“Okay,” Roger said, “plenty of room for Ron and Jim’s cut.”
“Man,” Mickey marveled, “can you imagine what a Three would do if this is what a couple of tons works out to?”
“Yeah, and with a Three we’d have lower expenses,” Roger conceded, “and the extra weight would all be gravy, but these numbers are fine, and all we got to do is pitch and unload. Now, since the load is easier and smaller, we need to cut down on staff, for money of course but mainly for the exposure, so I’ll get rid of Billy, and you dump the Bushman.”
“Hey come on man,” Mickey frowned, “I owe the guy!”
“I don’t.”
“He did a great job on the last one.”
“Great, so now he’s one for three. Listen, I’m not going to have Jim and Ron risk their asses with someone who doesn’t have his shit together. How would you like it?”
“Hey man, I’ll be running the ground crew.”
“If it was just our gig, no problem, but it’s not. I told you from the start that this will be a class act or nothing. I will not compromise it with any weak links. Isn’t about friendship—this is business. I don’t care how close you guys are.”
Mickey chewed on his lip for a long moment, studying Roger’s face, but the set of his long-time partner’s jaw made it clear that there would be no negotiation on this point.
“Okay, then that’s the way it’ll be,” Mickey sighed. “I’m not gonna argue with you.”
“Good,” Roger said in a clipped tone, “but listen, I don’t want you going through this unhappy. We got to be on the same wavelength for this one.” Mickey waved Roger off and smiled.
“No. No, man,” he said, “I’m good, and I mean it. You’re right. It’s just gonna be hard to swing the ax, that’s all. But I’ll handle it. There’ll be other things for him.”
The two men smiled and shook hands.
While Roger and Mickey were planning the Belize run, Billy and the Cookie Monster had set up their own. They planned out their virgin run using Mickey’s connection, Winston, and Mickey’s cash that Cookie still had from their last load. Their thinking was that, since Mickey still owed them for the trip they just completed, they were entitled to the first money back.
“Besides,” Cookie had said to Billy as they discussed it, “we’ll replace what we spend after we get back and I’ll give Mickey the runaround on his dough until then. Nobody’ll ever find out.”
They’d planned to use Mickey’s plane, too—until he sold it, which threw a monkey wrench into the plan. Cookie was undeterred, though; he approached an older fellow he knew who owned a Cessna 210 and negotiated a deal that gave the owner a bigger than usual cut, conditional upon on a successful shipment. The pieces had fallen together quickly, so they were both jazzed and Billy quickly called Winston and scheduled a pickup for the following day.
Then they scrambled to meet the deadline without luxuries such as a back-up plan or radios, using everything they could from Mickey’s playbook, including the same landing site. Only at the last minute did Billy realize that he hadn’t thought of how to carry extra fuel for the six-passenger, single-engine plane.
“What are you talking about?” Cookie smirked. “More than enough for this run in the wing tanks, and every extra gallon costs us thousands in product!”
“Cooks, you gotta trust me on this,” Billy pleaded, knowing from his first run with Roger how extra fuel was critical to success. “More dollars from extra product sounds great, but it doesn’t mean shit if you splash because of weather, or a tail, anything that stretches out the run.”
“You’re overreacting, buddy,” sneered Cookie. “This trip was cake before, why won’t it be cake now?”
“Because you seriously never know what could happen out there!” Billy persisted. “Plus we’re using a smaller plane. We gotta have extra fuel over extra product. That’s my vote, or I don’t fly.”
“Christ, Mickey’s cautiousness is rubbing off on you,” Cookie muttered, but he paused and pondered the situation, then smiled at Billy.
“So, you uhhh, know how to put on this auxiliary tank?”
“Aw shit!” Billy exclaimed. “No, I don’t.” Cookie laughed out loud, but Billy had convinced him that extra fuel was a good idea, so he helped him jerry-rig an internal fuel tank using tools and a plastic fuel tank they had laying around. They sweated profusely and cursed much as they tightened everything down and tested it briefly to make sure it worked. A few hours later, Billy took off on his first operation as an entrepreneur, hands still sweating, knees still shaking until he was airborne. But he smiled as he soared into the blue and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
“Much better this time. Much better,” he said out loud.
Billy had the last trip fresh in his mind, so making his way back to the mountainous road in Jamaica was easy. He recognized all the inbound landmarks, and he decided to leave the internal tank untouched to save the extra time it would take to refill it for the ride home.
The loading and refueling went routinely. Unfortunately, Billy had based his estimate on how much weight the plane could carry, not how much product would fit into it. Several hundred pounds still sat on the ground as Winston’s crew pushed the last bale inside.
“Whatsa deeel, monn?” Winston asked, one eyebrow arched questioningly.
“Sorry man,” he said. “I thought it would all fit.”
“The way you talk, monn, I thought you have a bigger plane. Mickey, he always know exactly how much, monn.”
“Well, uh—” Billy, stalled as he made his way back to the cockpit.
“You leave me here holding my dick with four hundred pounds, monn,” Winston growled, his easygoing mood evaporating. “I am not so hoppy right now. In fact, I’m downright pissed you leaving me with so much extra risk.”
“Oh yeah, I’m real sorry about that. I am,” Billy fidgeted, “but I gotta get going. I mean, you said you had plenty, you said to keep on rolling, so we’re rolling. I’ll just come back tomorrow for another one and we work it out, right?” Billy backpedaled, zipping up his leather jacket.
“I’ll remember this one, monn,” Winston said, “and we shall see if there is a next time.” Winston turned his back on him and walked away, hustling his crew to put the pot back in his van.
As he flew home, Billy recalculated their profits based on the eight hundred pounds he had aboard instead of the twelve hundred pounds they’d planned on, and the profits still fueled his imagination with thoughts of hot cars and hotter women. Then he snapped out of his daydream as a sense of foreboding intruded.
Nervously, he checked his watch every few minutes as time seemed to pass more slowly than he expected. Finally, he saw the haze of the Cuban coastline.
“Aw shit!” he screamed. “Fuck!” Seeing Cuba meant he’d made a significant navigational error. His knees began shaking and his palms started sweating as he remembered Mickey’s MiG story and pictured fighters shooting him down, saw himself surviving the crash only to be eaten by sharks.
He shook his head to ward off these thoughts and dropped below radar coverage, leveled off at two hundred feet and watched whitecaps ripple beneath his wings. Rough water, he noted, but he was good to go now.
He worked his way east, undetected, through the Windward Passage and towards Bahamian waters. However, the distractions had sidetracked his fuel management procedures and, once clear of Cuba, he remembered to check his fuel, where he realized he’d almost exhausted his main tanks.
He reached beneath his seat and opened a valve on a black rubber hose, then rotated his fuel selector handle, relieved that he’d caught the error before starving the mains—and even more relieved that he’d convinced Cookie Monster to add the extra tank. Still, he couldn’t shake a growing sense of impending doom. The sight of Cuba had destroyed his confidence, and he flew onward, wide-eyed and anxious.
Fifteen seconds later, Billy’s fears were confirmed as the Cessna’s engine sputtered and stopped. His whole body tensed, and he put a death grip on the yoke. He sat frozen, trying to think through the reason for the stoppage. He had only switched to his reserve fuel! He thought, and quickly switched back to the factory tanks, hoping to undo the damage.
But he was too late, and too low. The heavily loaded plane sank towards the whitecaps as he struggled to maintain altitude and restart the engine, but he stalled it and the plane smacked into water and broke apart, spitting metal and marijuana bales in all directions.
The impact threw Billy into the water with the rest of the wreckage and, shocked he was still alive and conscious, Billy swam frantically away from the already-sinking plane.
Then he started sinking too, his heavy leather jacket dragging him down. With his last strength, he squirmed free of it and kicked upward until his head broke through the rough chop. He gasped for air and sucked in seawater and sank again. He grabbed the bottom of a nearby bale and dragged himself to the surface again and clung to it like a leech.
Finally, he had a moment of calm as he bobbed up and down amid the debris. At least the water’s warm, he thought, and I’m okay, though as he floated he became aware that his head and right ankle throbbed from injuries. He hoped he wasn’t bleeding.
He watched the 210’s tail slide beneath the waves, another smuggling plane claimed by the Caribbean, soon to be followed by its pilot. He was sure he’d soon be shark bait whether he was bleeding or not—or maybe he’d just drown in the rough water.
A second bale bumped him from behind and he almost died of fright until he realized what it was and grabbed it, then tied the two bales together with their twine and climbed aboard. He sighed in relief at being aboard the crude raft and safe at least for a while from sharks.
Billy spent the next hour bobbing up and down, wondering how long it would take for his raft to become waterlogged and sink. His head and right ankle still throbbed. The waves kept him soaked. Still, he had moments to reflect on what had gone wrong.
What happened to the fuel? he asked himself. It was a good decision to build the tank, but why didn’t it work? he wondered as he watched the sun draw closer towards the horizon. Then it came to him and he pounded the wet bales in helpless fury.
“The vent!” he wailed to the mocking sky. “I forgot to put a fucking vent in it. No wonder it wouldn’t flow. Aw shit. Fuck!”
Then, as he wailed and cursed, he saw a white ship approaching like a mirage from the north, a wide orange stripe cutting across its hull. He waved frantically to catch its attention.
“I don’t give a shit what happens, God,” he shouted at the sky, “just please, please don’t let me become another doper lost at sea.”
As if in answer to his profane prayer, the ship turned toward him. He saw an American flag flying from its mast, some white uniformed sailors along its railing, and a big gun on its bow. The United States Coast Guard.
Billy had never been so glad to see The Man in his life and laughed hysterically as the very people he had hoped never to encounter were now his ticket to life.
In a final effort to save his ass from jail, Billy jumped from the bales into the warm water and swam as fast as he could toward the oncoming ship, where caring hands dragged him aboard a Zodiac inflatable that had been lowered over the side and was then winched back aboard—just as the sun dipped below the horizon, hiding the remaining evidence of his misdeed from view.
A Coast Guard medic steered Billy into a small room off the main deck and checked out his vitals and examined his swollen ankle.
“A sprain,” he said. “Nothing broken.” He looked at Billy’s head. “Any dizziness, sir?” Billy didn’t respond immediately. “Sir?”
“Oh, you mean me?” Billy laughed. “No, I’m fine. Hurts a little, but I’m okay. In fact, I’m great now that I’m on this ship.”
A stern-looking young officer entered and surveyed the scene.
“Sir, this is Captain Johnson,” said the medic. “He’d like to ask you a few questions.” Before Billy could answer, the medic disappeared out the door. Captain Johnson held out his hand and they shook.
“Welcome aboard, sir. What’s your name?”
“Dave… Dave DeWolf.”
“Well Mr. Wolf, how the hell did you get yourself all the way out here?”
“I was out deep sea fishing… and my engine quit, and my boat has a tendency to take on water, so I’m down there trying to fix the engine and next thing I know I’m out to sea and sinking. I tried to bail ’er out but—”
“You didn’t call for help?”
“Well, I been meaning to fix my radio, but, you know… anyway, I’d been floating for a while on a few pieces and, well, you guys saved my life!” Captain Johnson studied Billy for a long moment before speaking.
“That’s quite a story Mr. DeWolf. You’re lucky we found you. We had a report of a plane going down earlier today and were following up on that call.”
“Thank God you found me!”
“That’s our mission, sir. You’ll need to sign a statement about what happened before we put you ashore, but until then, let’s get some food in you and dry out your clothes.”
“Great, thank you!” he said and saluted the captain to the best of his ability. Captain Johnson smiled at Billy’s lame salute, then left the room and was replaced a moment later by another polite sailor, who ushered him down to the officer’s mess.
That same night, Mickey received an unexpected phone call on his special line. It was Winston.
“Hey buddy, what’s happenin’?” Mickey asked cheerfully.
“You tell me, monn,” said Winston, and Mickey could tell instantly that the always-happy Jamaican was not happy at all.
“Tell you about what?”
“Tell me all is good.”
“All is good, but how about you?”
“Your little friend took off early today with his date.”
“Friend? Date? Today? What the hell’s going on?”
“We drop Mary off and I think you are her date, monn, but it look mebbe like we have a cheater. I felt so when he left early.”
“Damn it! I gotta get to the bottom of this. I’ll call you soon as soon as I can clear this up. Sorry, man, sorry.”
“Me too, monn, but we fix it, yes?”
“You bet your ass I’ll fix it. Talk to you soon.”
Mickey hung up, pissed and worried about what Billy had done. Not sure what to do next, he called Roger.
The next morning, Billy signed a bogus statement and hit the street. He called the Cookie Monster and they met a few miles outside the city. Cookie listened to Billy’s story and didn’t believe him—he figured Billy would do exactly what he, Cookie, would do if he had the chance—stash the load and stiff his partner.
The following day, Billy showed Cookie a newspaper story of his rescue by the Coast Guard, so Cookie accepted Billy’s claims. Now they had to explain it all to Mickey, Roger, Winston—and the owner of the plane. They agreed that Billy would break the news while Cookie scrambled to collect as much money as he could. On the way to Illinois, however, Billy got cold feet and decided to call instead. Mickey wouldn’t talk, so he had to follow through with a meeting at a motel outside Chicago.
“Trying to pull a fast one on us already?” Roger said icily as he sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at his double-crossing pilot as the still-rattled Billy told his tale.
“No, no!” whimpered Billy. “We were going to give you a cut, I swear. We were gonna do it like partners. It’s just that, well, it didn’t go as planned.”
“What you did was jump our connections and try to do it all yourselves behind our backs,” Roger said.
“And then fucked it all up royally!” Mickey snapped. “You fucking money-hungry amateurs!”
“I tried to tell you,” Roger continued. “I tried to tell you to be patient, to learn the business, but you wouldn’t listen and you couldn’t wait.”
“And now you fucked up for all of us.” Mickey added.
“C’mon Mickey, you understand, though, right? I’m your man.”
“My man? You jump my connection and cheat me, put my connection in danger. I don’t think so, Billy. I don’t have any men who act like that.”
“So you bobbed in the ocean until the Coast Guard picked you up?” Roger said. “You really expect us to believe that?”
Billy showed them the article. Roger read it and then sat back in his chair, staring at Billy.
“How nice, Billy… Bob. Yeah, that’s what we’ll call you from now on—Billy Bob, the floating pilot. You know, I can’t blame this on you because I knew you were a…” Roger bit his tongue. “Now, you’re a hot potato for all of us.”
“Hey, I’m the one who almost died!” Billy “Bob” whined. “And I almost died when Bushman screwed up too. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you guys were trying to take me out on purpose. But hey, I forgive you, and I want to work this debt off, just to show you I am still your man.”
That was the last straw for Roger and Mickey. They looked at each other, amazed at Billy Bob’s babbling, and without a word or even a look at him, got up and left, shutting the door quietly behind them.
“Aw shit,” Billy Bob whispered to himself. “Fuck.”
Outside, the two men climbed into Roger’s truck and sat staring through the windshield for a long moment.
“And here I thought our luck was turning,” Roger said quietly.
“Your retirement plan is looking better and better,” Mickey said bleakly. Roger started the truck and they drove out of the motel parking lot.
“Except now we got another debt with Winston and who knows how much heat Billy drew,” Mickey sighed.
“You really think he might make us pay for Billy Bob’s load?” Roger asked. Mickey just shrugged. “And I wish I had a better handle on the heat. I mean, the story he gave the Coast Guard… does he really think they bought it? And then he says he wants to work the debt off. What is he, nuts? And I wonder what he’s going to tell the two-ten owner? I hope I never see that idiot again—reminds me what a fool I was for getting him involved.”
“I got a feeling Cookie was the main instigator, though.”
“Maybe, but Billy Bob didn’t need much instigating, I can tell you that. That’s why I warned you about him.” Roger just shook his head in disbelief.
The men sat deep in thought struggling to form a plan as the dark highway streamed around them, largely deserted this late at night. But they’d been in tough spots before, so while the truck cab atmosphere was intense, it was pretty relaxed. Mickey turned towards Roger and smiled.
“You know, I think Winston’ll be satisfied if we only pay him for our last load,” he said. “I’ve done too many good gigs with him for the relationship to sour now. They really did crash on the Titan run, and we had nothing to do with the last one.”
“Well, you got to get that straight with him,” Roger said, “but if there’s some confusion, we owe the guy.”
“Agreed,” Mickey said, “and, regardless, when things get rolling later, we’ll throw something at him for the ones that didn’t make it. Sound good?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Okay, good. He’s gonna meet me in Miami tomorrow afternoon and I’ll get something worked out.” Mickey looked at his glowing watch dial in the dark cab. “Cool. I can get back and catch Cookie Monster and get some money while it’s still there.”
“Never liked Cookie Monster,” Roger muttered, “and never met Winston, so I’m gonna let you sort out this mess, and while you’re doing that, I’m gonna go to Belize and see what’s happening. We’ve lost too much momentum with all these setbacks. It’s time to pick up the pace and get back on track. If we keep things moving, we’ll at least stay well ahead of the Feds even if they are sniffing around Billy Bob. One thing for sure—no more Jamaica. Too much bad luck on that route, although it did serve one purpose—it put to rest the discussion about why the next team needs to be cream only.”
“Agreed,” said Mickey, and they smiled at each other.
“All right, then,” said Roger. “Let’s hope things are about to get better—way better.”
They went into the airport together and continued planning while they waited at Mickey’s departure gate, then checked their messages before separating.
“Hey man,” Roger said to Mickey. “I just got a message to call Tony.”
“Really?” Mickey said, arching his eyebrows at the news and heading for his gate as the final call announcement echoed through the terminal. “Let me know how that goes.”
Roger walked back to a pay phone and dialed Tony’s callback number.
“Hey man, what’s up?”
“Oh man, am I glad to hear from you. I just finished up a serious run, and I’m rolling in it. You sure you don’t want to step up to the big time? I’m sure I could set you up, you know—leave those hippie stoners in your dust.”
“Not interested.”
“You sure? With your connections, we could really set up some good trade.”
“Very sure.”
“Yeah, well, your loss. Look man, you know of any opportunities for a guy to ‘invest’ some cash? I’m open to anything, really: new ‘ventures’ or maybe something blue chip. Know of anything?”
“Not really.”
“Well hey… I know you’ve got a guy with the Midas touch. Can you at least set that up for me?”
“Yeah, I suppose. When will you be up?”
“Hey, that’s great man. I’ll be up in a few days. And let me know if you hear of anything else won’t you?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Ciao man.”
On the flight south, Mickey wondered why Tony called Roger. He pounded down several drinks to help him mellow out and tried to use an attractive stewardess as a distraction. Mickey reflected on his falling out with Tony, on Billy Bob’s backstabbing, and then on Roger’s integrity to exorcise the worst scenarios clouding his mind.
When he got off the plane at his first stop in Orlando, Mickey went to the closest pay phone and retrieved his messages. His first call went to Roger.
“Hey, what’s up with Tony?”
“He’s been workin’ and wanted to know if I wanted in. Sounded like he’d clicked off a good one. You know what I told him. Then he asked if I had anything he could invest in—so I said I’d help him buy some gold.”
“Man, it does sound like something big just went down. I’ll bet it’s got something to do with that thing I told you about with Terry.”
“Like I said, I said I’d help him buy gold because I haven’t done anything with him for a couple years. Why would he call me now?” Mickey laughed.
“You may think you’re operating secretly, but the word’s out that you’re working. Hell, just the fact you’re not in touch with these guys makes them gossip.”
“Anyway, he said he’d be up in the next day or two.”
“Watch out for him man, he’s a real snake. If you cut a deal with him, he’ll want all the money and do nothing for it. His loyalty is only to himself.”
Roger heard the pain in his friend’s voice over past betrayals.
“Thanks, but you can calm down. It’s just that since we’re stockpiling alternatives, I think it would be nice to have some cash sitting in reserve in case Cookie Monster does it to us again. You know what I think of Tony. If I have to work with him, I’ll eat him alive in the negotiations. You know that’s my specialty. I’ll have his greed so worked up he’ll take any arrangement just so he won’t miss out.” Mickey laughed again.
“That’s my partner,” he said proudly. “So I’ll handle Cookie and I’ll also call Terry. He just left a message so I’ll let you know what’s happening. Later!”
Mickey smiled when Terry answered the phone, remembering the sloppily dressed, overweight Minnesota farm boy who’d grown up with Hanoi. They’d learned together to fly and skydive at a small airfield near their homes and Terry had flown the first Sugar Alpha loads from Colombia to the Bahamas for Roger and Mickey. Like many in his profession, though, his greedy side had led him to enter the emerging cocaine trade and its higher wages.
Mickey recalled how Terry’s frumpiness contrasted with Tony’s slick manners and ability to manipulate others that helped him rapidly advance in the trade. Tony had first conned Mickey into picking him instead of Terry as a partner after Roger left. As his reputation spread, Tony then broke into the cocaine trade well before his pot smuggling peers, hosing Mickey along the way, but he’d also established a reputation as a good source of information on the latest smuggling methods and, as his “Tony the Snake” nickname suggested, for other personality traits too.
“Had some friends from Wisconsin who were running three and four kilos at a time out of Bolivia by sewing it in the comfort pad of hiking backpacks,” Terry said after Mickey asked him what was up with Tony. “It was the finest quality anyone had ever seen locally, and I wanted a piece of the action so I proposed that we make direct flights into the States instead of taking commercial flights. They liked the idea, so I told Tony, who instantly saw an opportunity.”
“You shoulda known better,” Mickey said bitterly.
“No shit, especially after what he did to you, but I thought I could keep an eye on him so I told him Jotham was interested and had a Cessna 310 equipped with really big tanks. So we made a three-way deal, but then we were worried flying through the Andes—man, those fuckers are big—so we hooked up with your old pal in San Cristobal—”
“Esteban?”
“Sí. He’s on the border so we could fly around the mountains instead of through them, then refuel there. It was a sweet plan, and we all chipped in money, and used the amount we all risked as the formula for our investment return.”
“Apparently the trip went okay,” Mickey speculated.
“Damn straight,” Terry said proudly. “Tony and me landed in the high desert kinda low on fuel, but we loaded 67 kilos no problem, refueled no problem, out here into your favorite logging road no problem. Then I had this bright idea that we should leave the load on the ground for a day in case we were detected coming north, and we all decided to have someone more expendable fly the final leg, so Tony had his younger brother rent a Cessna 172 and fly it to Florida.”
“Where Tony scammed you all, right?” Mickey guessed.
“It had all gone so smoothly,” Terry said glumly, “but yeah, Tony ended up screwing all of us and taking almost all the money. Fucker used the weeks between the shipment’s arrival and its cash return to scam us, plus he took advantage of us being scattered around. He was so smooth we couldn’t even figure out how he cheated. Hell, Jotham even threatened him but he just laughed it off; he knew we weren’t hard-core enough to do shit except stamp our feet and never work with him again. What a fucking dick. We barely made back our investments. It was like we fucking worked for fucking minimum wage for Christ’s sake.” He paused. “I sure do miss doing business with trustworthy partners, man, so I want to help you with your next load.”
“You want me to share my dinner when there’s only enough for my family?” Mickey asked, thinking back to how Terry’s greed had led him to dump Mickey cold when coke money floated in front of him. “Well, there’s no dinner tonight anyway, so I’m sorry, buddy, but there’s no deal.” Terry sighed, then changed the subject.
“I was talking to Kojack at the Grave Yard in Great Harbour and do you know what he told me?”
“What?”
“You remember Operation Grouper last year?” Mickey nodded. “Well, the secret source that set up more than a hundred people is your attorney’s cousin, Travis Miller! That’s the campaign that kicked off the South Florida task force Bush runs.”
Mickey sat back, stunned. Travis Miller’s cousin Parker and his uncle Alvin Miller were the attorneys who set up the secret corporation that owned his Bahamian property.
“Shit!”
“There’s more. While we were talking, a friend came in and told us Pindling has promoted Howard Smith, the last Great Harbour cop, and who is now the assistant police commissioner, to head the Bahamian Strike Force. Can you believe that? You know how dirty he is! All the officers working with Smith are being moved up through the ranks and repositioned. They’re setting up for the loads to get bigger and making some serious money handling the trans-shipments. Kojack asked Smith about the Bahamians working with the South Florida Task Force and he just laughed. With Smith heading the Bahamian task force and Pindling running the country, it sure sounds as if the fox is guarding the hen house, huh? Our friend said that the Americans are fools buying the same line we were sold in the Vietnam interdiction. Now the former head of the CIA at the time that same CIA coordinated the opium and heroin smuggling out of Indochina, is our Vice President and overseeing America’s new drug task force.”
Mickey shook his head at the news. He knew Kojack was an emerging smuggler who had the customs and immigrations officials at Great Harbour in his pocket. The news about Howard Smith being repositioned signaled that things were about to get really active in their beautiful country. But he didn’t have time to digest it all.
“Sorry, man, thanks for the poop, but I gotta jet,” he said abruptly.
“Thought you said nothing was going on,” Terry said petulantly.
“No man,” laughed Mickey as he lied, “I got a flight to catch. Gonna do some fishing at the house.”
“Sure, man,” Terry said. “Just remember your old friends when some big fish show up, wouldja?”
“Of course,” Mickey said cheerfully. “Thanks for getting in touch.”
Mickey hung up the phone.
“Holy fucking shit,” he said under his breath, then headed out for his appointment with the Cookie Monster.
They met on the Cookie Monster’s doorstep.
“Come in, man,” Cookie said solicitously. “I know you’re mad but let me explain before we even get started. I’m so sorry. I really mean it. I let greed get the best of me this time. It made me stupid. I made bad decisions. Mickey please, you have to forgive me.” He thrust a huge pile of cash into Mickey’s hand. “Here! Almost all of what I owe you.”
Mickey was so surprised at the amount that he couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay, asshole,” he said harshly. “You’re forgiven—as long as you tell me how you got this much together.”
“Mickey, you’re the man! You’re the man!” Cookie said, slapping Mickey heartily on the back.
“And you’re still a selfish, greedy, thick-headed fucking idiot,” Mickey replied in a gentler tone.
“I know, man, I know, but I tried to be smarter afterward,” he said, beaming proudly. “I broke our last load up into smaller lots and bypassed the big buyer so I could make enough money to cover the fuckup. That’s most of what I owe you—and I’ll have the rest tomorrow.”
“Really.”
“No shit, man, tomorrow. I worked hard to make it right, man, ’cause yeah, I’m a little greedy, but that’s all—I’m not that bad, right? C’mon Mickey, we’re friends.”
“Watch your words, Cookie, and watch your back while you’re at it too. This greedy streak’ll bite you in the ass one of these days. But thanks for the money, I appreciate it, but I gotta go. We’ll hook up tomorrow for the rest.”
“Sure thing, Mickey. You da man!”
Mickey walked away, shaking his head at the unexpected pile of cash. He was almost even! That was a big relief as he climbed into his car and headed for the airport for his flight to Miami to meet Winston.
“Okay, monn, ‘tings be cool wit’ us now,” Winston told Mickey as they sat in a bar near the airport. “You respond quick to come and you put cash in my hand. You a good monn to work wit’, wit’ out these troubles. When you come back for more?”
“I’ve got to reorganize a bit,” Mickey hedged. “You know, replace a few people, change some procedures. Neither of us can afford to have any more screw ups like this.”
“Yaa monn, I knew ‘tings were strange on dat last one,” Winston agreed. “No call from you. You always call. So I knew it’s not yours, but I go ahead anyway, so my fault as much as anyone. I don’t hold you responsible, monn. It’s hard to find the good people, and I want to do more bizzness wit’ you.”
“Cool,” Mickey said, exhaling in relief. “I’m glad we cleared this up. You know I’d never leave you hanging.”
“Or bring half a plane for a whole load,” Winston grinned, and they laughed together at their situation, sealing the deal on their renewed relationship.
“I’ll be in touch,” Mickey said, “and talk details then. Thanks, my friend.”
Mickey managed to surprise Roger with the news that the Cookie Monster had made good on his debt.
“Congratulations,” Roger said. “That’s the first time in a long time something happened that I didn’t expect.”
“Same for me,” Mickey laughed. “Hell, he even came through the next day with the rest, as scheduled, no snivels. Almost asked him if he’d started going to church or something.”
“And Winston?”
“Says Billy Bob’s debacle is on him as much as it is on us so we’re clear on that one. We still on for New Orleans?”
“Yeah. Now I can get something going when I get down.”
“What do we need?”
“Fifty.”
“All right. See you then.”
Roger hung up and drove to the drop zone, where he told his staff he was burned out from Nationals and was taking a few days off.
“Take more than a few, buddy,” Kimmers said cheerfully. “Take a bunch. We’ll hold down the fort and hopefully have Mr. D. back up before you get back.”
Roger embraced everyone within reach and left with a big smile on his face. Belize or not, he thought as he climbed into his truck, I do need a break from that scene.”
Roger met Tony the next day at the county airport shortly after the pilot arrived in his King Air, gym bag in one hand, a briefcase in the other. As soon as they hit the road in Roger’s truck, he unzipped the gym bag to reveal five kilos of cocaine, distorted football-shaped objects wrapped in brown contact paper and clear cellophane.
“Can you turn them?” he asked, a gleam in his eye. Roger waved him off.
“Don’t have an outlet, don’t want one,” he said curtly. “You know how I feel about that stuff.”
Unperturbed, Tony grabbed his brief case and spun the combination dials. He popped the latches and exposed tens of thousands of dollars. Roger smiled.
“Seems you’ve been doin’ pretty good”
“Fuckin’ A.”
Tony then bragged about his latest ventures as Roger drove along the interstate and listened attentively to the bizarre stories. He liked it when other smugglers ran on at the mouth. That way, he didn’t have to say anything about his own activities and, almost as importantly, he learned a lot about the Feds and their tactics by hearing what happened to the other guys. The things Tony had gotten into most definitely surpassed Roger’s pot runs, but Tony had also exposed himself to multiple strangers, a blatant violation of Rule Number One in Roger’s successful smuggler’s code: Go only with who you know.
“How long will it take to get the gold?” Tony asked after he finished his story.
“Soon,” Roger sighed, glad the brag marathon was over. He pulled into a Denny’s and dropped Tony off, then visited Harris the bullion dealer with the briefcase in hand.
The deal had been pre-arranged, so when Roger handed Harris the briefcase, Harris handed him a strong plastic box Roger knew was filled with stacks of South African Krugerrands.
“Let me know if the count is accurate,” Roger said.
“Will do,” said Harris, as he scribbled out a receipt and handed it to him. “If it’s off either way, we’ll take care of it next visit.”
Roger was back to Denny’s before Tony was served. He handed the pilot the box and receipt, and they settled down to eat lunch.
When they got back on the road, Roger retraced their route back to the airport.
“What’s your rush, man?” Tony asked. “Let’s do the town—or is married life keeping you tame these days? C’mon, what’s going on?”
“Not just married life, man,” Roger said, “kids too. They take a lot of time and I love every minute I spend with them. Wish I was there more, actually.”
“You a family man!” Tony snorted. “Never thought I’d see that day!”
When Roger pulled up to the King Air, Tony’s demeanor changed from devil-may-care to downright nervous.
“Look, man, I was counting on you to turn this toot,” he said earnestly. “I can’t take it back with me.”
“Why not?” Roger asked casually, but he was instantly on alert at the transparent attempt to force the dangerous powder on him. “You brought it here with the money.”
“It’s different going into Florida than it is coming out. Come on, man, you’ve got to help me. You got to know someone who’ll take it.”
“No!” Roger barked, “and I’m pissed you’re trying to pull this on me. What were you thinking?”
“I’ll drop twenty-five K off the price.” Roger just glared. “Fifty.” Roger said nothing. Tony waited for several seconds, then gave up.
“All right, but I’m serious; I can’t take it back to Florida. I got a friend in Jersey who wants it, though, so will you hang onto it until I can get back?”
Roger stared daggers at Tony for a long moment, then another of Roger’s two-edged personality traits kicked in: giving people the benefit of the doubt, even though they didn’t deserve it. It was another good trait for life in general, but another dangerous one in the smuggling business.
“Okay, fine,” Roger said reluctantly, “but I’m not responsible for anything except putting it back in your hand as soon as you come back here.”
“Unless you try to turn it,” Tony grinned.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Roger said with his devilish grin, “and you come here to get it. I’m not taking it anywhere for you either. Got that?”
“Got it,” Tony nodded. “We’re cool.”
They shook hands and Tony climbed into the sleek twin-engine turbine and fired it up. Roger watched him taxi to the runway and gun the engines.
“Tony the Snake,” Roger muttered as he watched the King Air take off. “Tony the frigging snake.”
Roger left the airport on one back road, then took several more until he stopped on an isolated section bounded on both sides by thick woods. He carried the bag 100 yards into the trees, walking delicately so as not to disturb the foliage, until he reached a fallen log. He moved it carefully and exposed the top end of a plastic tube. He unscrewed the sealed end, revealing several stacks of Franklins. He placed the packages on top of the money, resealed the tube, replaced the log, and walked out of the woods a different way.
The next morning Roger prepared for his trip to Belize. He reviewed his notes, then grabbed a gray Cordura bag packed with clothes, a roll of duct tape, and several rolls of quarters, and headed for the local shopping mall.
There, he made reservations to Belize via New Orleans with TACA International using the name on one birth certificate. Then he went to a toy store and bought two large bags of simple toys: rubber balls, plastic soldiers, and small dolls. Next was Radio Shack, where he bought several hand-held two-meter radios, spare batteries, miscellaneous parts, and a VCR. Then he stopped at J.C. Penney and picked up two dozen pairs of blue jeans, and two pairs of quality cowboy boots.
He took his goods out to the truck, where he poured the toys into a box in the bed, placed the electronic gear in the center, and duct taped it closed for the trip. Then he stuffed the clothing into the Cordura bag and drove to O’Hare, where he parked in the long-term lot, shuttled to the terminal, paid cash for a round-trip ticket and checked his bags. He looked at his watch. He had time for a quick walk to his gate to make the final boarding call. Good timing, he thought. Good sign.
Roger and Mickey met in a New Orleans motel room, where they started their meeting by counting out their money.
“We finally got ourselves above water again, but that’s it,” Mickey said. “Whatever you do, be careful. It’s been tough keeping this in our hands.”
“Hopefully, it’ll grow into a lot more this time,” Roger grinned.
“Hopefully,” Mickey grinned back.
Mickey set out $50,000 in $5,000 bundles. Roger put his tennis shoes in his bag and took out one pair of the boots he bought. Then he unbundled the money and held a layer around his lower leg while Mickey taped it in place. They repeated the procedure on the other side, then Roger slipped more inside the boot on the bottom, and carefully squeezed his foot into it.
“Glad you brought mostly hundreds.”
“Been there!” Mickey laughed as he watched Roger walk around the room to see if he moved naturally and without obvious discomfort.
“How much more do we have?” Roger asked as he bent over and straightened his tight jeans over the boots.
“Ten. All in twenties.” They broke the blocks into $1,000 stacks and placed eight of them along the elastic of his underwear and one in each pocket. Then he stood in front of the mirror, checking for odd bulges. Satisfied, he looked at his watch.
“Time to tell them I’m coming,” he said, and they left for the airport.
Roger called Belize from a terminal pay phone.
“Hola,” said the voice of an elderly woman that Roger recognized as the mother of George, his contact.
“Hola, Mama,” Roger said. “Is George there?”
“Hola, Roger!” she said happily. “No, George he in the bush two more days, but he say if you call tell you we have warm welcome, sí?”
“Gracias, Mama,” Roger said. “I see you soon. I am on schedule as George and I talked.”
“Excellente, Roger!” said Mama. “We make sure he knows. See you soon!”
Roger hung up, feeling comfortable that a messenger would be dispatched to George announcing his arrival.
Mickey and he carried the bags and box to the ticket counter, where Roger told the agent he had reservations, and handed her his birth certificate when she asked for proof of citizenship. She handed him his ticket and pointed urgently toward his gate.
“They’re boarding now, sir,” she said. “Please gate check your bags and please hurry,” she smiled. “You don’t want to miss your flight!”
“Thanks, miss,” Roger said and with luggage still in hand, they quick-stepped down the concourse to the gate.
“Good luck, my friend,” Mickey said as they handed their gear to a gate agent. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks, man,” Roger smiled. “I’ll be in touch.” Then, in his customary fashion, Roger boarded the jet last and they locked the door behind him. Moments later, the jet backed away from the gate, and he was soon airborne for Belize.