Johnny burst out laughing. "God, girl. You do have a mouth. Tell me more."
"It's been catch-as-catch-can-a grab bag approach with no real organization. You want to change that, you have to do a few things different." She held up one finger. "First, be the sole supplier-besides a few freelancers who you don't need to worry about. Put a business manager you can trust up there and either make deals with the local competition or force 'em out. Right now it's like you're shipping product without having a retail outlet to draw in customers. Crack houses work on that principle, which is why they're tough for the cops to bust-it's a controlled environment. I can set that up for you."
She held up another finger. "Second, the people you send up there stick out like sore thumbs-we already talked about that. They're junkie-city-flatlanders from a mile off, and they're unreliable to boot. They drop out of sight, they get busted, they die, or they rat you out to the cops. I can give you stability there. A lot of local people who aren't junkies will deal for us for old-fashioned cash. I can find them and put them on the payroll."
A third finger went up. "Last but not least, you don't know anyone up there who isn't either a customer or a buyer with customers-people in the business. By living in the community, I'll get to know more, including how the cops do what they do and who their snitches are. That was the mistake the gangs like Solidos made when they tried to move into Rutland way back when. They didn't pay attention to how the locals work, which is way different from city people."
"What about the money?" he asked. "How're you gonna handle that? I'm supposed to trust you with everything just 'cause you say so?"
She shook her head. "I told you that before, too. Pick out a banker for me. Like an accountant or a treasurer. Someone you trust. I don't care who it is. I can set up the business, he can run the books and the inventory. I don't care if I don't see the dope or the money." She smiled suddenly. "Well, I want to see the money, but at the far end, as part of the profits."
Johnny scratched his head, obviously a little overwhelmed. "Why so complicated?"
She stared at him wide-eyed. "What're you in this for?" She pointed at the barricaded windows. "You're risking your life here. Why did you piss off everybody grabbing this turf?"
His eyes narrowed, as if confronting a trick question. "The money?"
She rewarded him with a laugh. "Right." She slapped the map with her palm. "We're talking Rutland now, 'cause that's what's hot and that's where you need help, but remember those freelancers I talked about? The ones you don't have to worry about yet? Well, them and Torres and the Canadians and some upstate New Yorkers are selling in Barre and Burlington and around St. Johnsbury and a dozen other places. We want to know who they all are. We want to either work with them or take them over, or just knock them off. Look at that map, Johnny. We do this right, maybe you can get hundreds of thousands out of Rutland every year-maybe. We do the same thing to the whole damn state, and we're talking millions. You can move out of this dump and live like a real man-make the rest of these so-called Holyoke bigwigs look like losers.
"But," she added, dropping her voice, "if you want to do that, you're gonna have to think big. Maybe it sounds complicated now, but you need a good foundation to make a business work."
He looked back at the map, shaking his head as if he were seeing it for the first time, which in a way he was. "Sounds good."
Sam went in for the clincher. "It'll make you a man to respect."
They stood next to each other for half a minute or so, gazing at their separate destinies, Sam hoping she'd just given another quarter turn to this man's cell door lock, and Rivera wondering if and how he'd ever get this woman into bed.
* * *
Joe waited patiently, listening to reports about the Hollowell/Lapierre double homicide, mostly from Chick Wilson, Rutland's deputy police chief. For these meetings in which Sammie Martens's activities might be discussed, only Joe, prosecutor Mara Coven, task force leader Rick McCall, Chick, and Peter Bullis of the local drug unit were invited.
"Long story short," Chick was concluding mournfully, "we still don't have much to go on. Usually, these people spill the beans pretty quick, but either the ones we've been squeezing really are clueless or somebody's got 'em more scared than we do. Sure as hell, if Hollowell was killed as a warning, nothing we can do will compete."
He turned to Joe. "Any hints from Sam about that?"
"Just the implication that Hollowell was part of Rivera's operation, but that's still iffy. She's on the inside now, ready to move in as Rivera's Rutland lieutenant, but as of our last phone chat, she still doesn't feel she can ask those kinds of questions yet."
"How is she going to set up here?" Bullis asked, curious about this complication on his home turf.
"Be best if we could find a rental property on the west side of town," Gunther explained. "Something a dealer would find appropriate, and we could rig for sound and video. Is that a possibility?"
"Assuming we can get a search warrant," McCall cautioned.
Joe rubbed his forehead. "Right. I forgot about that." A few years earlier, Vermont law was changed, requiring the police to get a so-called wire search warrant anytime they wanted to covertly record a conversation. "That going to be a problem?"
McCall shook his head. "I doubt it. I'll go after it the way I usually do. They're used to me by now. You gonna use your own equipment or ours?"
Gunther laughed. "All ours, Rick-that was the deal. The trick'll be to get into the house and rig it before they come shopping, and then steer them to the right place."
Rick looked at Bullis. "What do you think?"
"I don't see a problem," he said. "One of my CIs should be good for the second part of that. I just wish I had a better handle on how the street dealers are sorting themselves out in this supposed switchover. Right now it's hard figuring out who's with Rivera and who's not."
"That'll be part of Sam's job," Joe said, "but it does bring up another question: You've given us a pretty good idea of the players in the Rutland drug world, and I've passed that along to her, but a lot of it may be old news to Rivera. Is there any way we can make Sam look like a hotshot-as if she had the insider knowledge she's pretending to have?"
Bullis thought for a moment. "We know a lot of stuff we can't move on," he admitted finally, "mostly because we don't have enough evidence or time or manpower. I just. ." He stopped in midsentence and smiled. "I have an idea," he resumed. "There may be someone we've never much bothered with, mostly because he's small potatoes and a little out of our area of interest. But he might be a great source. Let me work on that. I'll do it fast. Promise."
"I have a question about Sam," Mara Coven then said, having largely kept silent up to now. "How is she going to be the local lieutenant and avoid making drug sales?"
"She may not be able to at first," Joe explained. "We'll have her sell to informants first, to establish credibility. After that, she can claim executive privilege or whatever and hand it over to a flunky-probably Manuel. I've been told they'll be setting this up along business lines, with different people doing different jobs, so that should give her some wiggle room.
"But that's another reason I think a video record will help," he went on. "Not just to capture what happens, but for what doesn't as well. If somebody in court later claims Sam sold them dope direct, we can ask for a time and date and show them the transaction-at least that's the perfect-world scenario."