A plane came in low overhead. The lamp on the nightstand rattled.
“That’s good shit,” C-Love said. “Best hydro around right now.”
Underneath, two brown plastic prescription bottles without labels. He twisted the top off one, saw the Vicodin inside.
“What you need that shit for, dawg?” Mikey said. “You never told me.”
The tablets were five milligrams each. Morgan broke one in half, put it on his tongue. He dropped the other half back in the bottle, put the cap on. He went into the bathroom, palmed water, swallowed it.
“That shit will fuck you up,” Mikey said.
Morgan drank more water, came out of the bathroom.
“You scarfing down those pills so quick,” Mikey said, “you don’t even see what else is in the bag.”
Morgan looked. There was a black plastic bundle at the bottom, ends taped shut with duct tape. He drew it out, knew what it was. “This for my trouble?”
“That’s an advance,” Mikey said. “I need you to take that little trip for me. Shit I told you about.”
“How much is in here?”
“Five Gs.”
“Not much.”
“For expenses, for now. Traveling money. Good timing, too, since Philly’s boys looking for you. There’s that thing with Rohan, too. Gonna be a while before all that shit quiets down.”
“You talk to them?”
“That Trey Dog crew? Can’t do that just now. They’re screaming for blood, and they know you with me. I can get messages back and forth, with an intermediary. But I gotta watch my back on this, too.”
Morgan sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me about this trip.”
“Told you some of it. Pipeline’s been dry since the Colombians went down. Even if they beat the case, they ain’t gonna be up and running anytime soon, if ever. Now I got this RICO shit hanging over my head, and these lawyers, man, they keep wanting more.”
“Go on.”
“Word was some Haitians down in Florida had a good line on powder, shit coming in through the islands. They the new power down there now. Making mad money. We set up a meeting, place called Belle Glade. Curtis went down there.” He nodded at C-Love. “It looked good. They had their shit together, steady source, but they don’t know me well enough to want to do business. And those voodoo motherfuckers don’t trust anyone didn’t grow up poor and barefoot like them.”
“So you sweetened the deal?” Morgan said.
“You know my cousin Leon? He in Rahway now, longtime, but he used to run those corners down near Baxter Terrace. His son Derek was wanting to get ahead, put some work in. Smart boy, too. Going to Rutgers, wanted to be a teacher or some shit. But he got a little one now, a baby mama, too. He needed cash, you know? He came to me, wanted me to help him out, bring him along a little. So I gave him a shot.”
“You sent him down there?”
“Set him up good. Route, expenses, every damn thing. He had a cash advance for the first shipment, prove we were serious.”
“How much money?”
Mikey twisted a thick gold ring on one finger. “A lot, man. More than I could afford.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred fifty K. I threw in some iron, too; as a gift. Island boys love their guns.”
“Why didn’t you send the twins?”
“With their jackets? Some cop pull them over, think he hit the lottery. Derek was clean. No sheet on him.”
“What happened?”
“Some shit I still ain’t figured out. He got pulled over in some cracker town down there. They say he drew on a deputy, but that’s bullshit. They capped his ass and took my money.”
“You know this?”
“Much as I need to. I ain’t known Derek to ever carry, but he might have been, I don’t know. Might have got nervous, cash in the car, dealing with some niggas he didn’t know. But shoot it out with a cop? Nah. He ain’t got the stones.”
“Maybe he got scared.”
“Maybe he did. Maybe it happened exactly like they said. But ain’t nobody said shit about the money yet. And it was in all the papers down there. They impounded the car, probably ripped the thing apart. If they found the money, some motherfucker took it.”
“Or they’re holding it and not telling anybody. Waiting to see who comes looking for it.”
Mikey shook his head. “There ain’t no DEA, no FBI involved in this. If there was, I’d have heard. This is a bunch of redneck Confederate-flag-flying small-town motherfuckers. Whether it was one motherfucker or two, or the whole goddamn town, fact remains. Somebody stole my money.”
“Hard to believe you sent that boy down there on his own like that.”
“Best way to do it. Down there, two niggas in a car get pulled over for sure. Cash was in a panel under the trunk. All he had to do was leave the car where we told him, then rent another, drive back. Didn’t have to deal with them any more than that.”
“So it went bad. Nothing you can do about it. Walk away.”
“Can’t take that kind of loss. Not now. Too much shit going on. I need that money or I need that powder so I can sell it and make that money back. Now I ain’t getting any product out of those Haitians, because that money never got to them, and they not gonna believe me when I tell them what happened. Or care, even if they did. So I need that money.”
Morgan got up. The Vicodin was kicking in, easing the tension in his stomach, taking the edge off the pain. He went to the window, bent the blinds, looked out. It was raining lightly, the parking lot shiny with it. The Suburban hadn’t moved.
“If the cops do have that money,” he said, “they’re using it to build a case. No way you’re going to get it back. And if someone stole it, they stole it. Either way, it’s gone.”
“If some nigga broke into my house and stole three hundred fifty K of my money, you think I’d let it go? Say, ‘what the fuck, it’s gone, forget about it’? Just because that shit happened in Florida doesn’t mean it’s any less fucked up. If I start letting people steal from me, I might as well pack this shit up right now. Or let some motherfucker put a bullet in my head, get it over with.”
“I still say walk away.”
“I can’t, dawg. I need that money. I need you to go get it for me.”
Morgan looked at him, then at C-Love.
“This shit can’t stand,” Mikey said. “I need that money. That’s my money and I’m going to get it back, whatever I need to do. I don’t have no choice.”
“I do,” Morgan said.
“You do. But you ain’t even asked me the terms yet.”
“Terms?”
“Three hundred and fifty K,” Mikey said. “No way whoever took it could have spent it yet. All the shit in the news down there, they’d be laying low. So somebody dug a hole and buried it till things calm down. You find it, keep a third. You find the whole three fifty, you keep an even hundred twenty. That fair?”
A hundred and twenty thousand, Morgan thought. Combined with what was in the safe deposit, it might be enough for the treatment, maybe enough to get him started in another town. More money than he’d ever had at one time before. Might ever have again.
“Well?” Mikey said.
“I don’t know anything about the South. D.C.’s the farthest I’ve ever been.”
“You don’t need to know shit about the South. Like I said, that’s a backwater cracker town, man. They still burning crosses and fucking their sisters. I’ve already got someone looking into things down there.”
“Who?”
“Derek’s shorty. She went down there to bring the body back. She ain’t too happy with the way things played out, but there it is. He took the chances. She don’t want shit to do with me, but she’s looking into things, seeing who’s who, what they say happened, all that shit. Maybe she gets us some names, too.”