Lullaby

'There is no ship coming in tomorrow,' he told Kling. 'Not with dope on it, anyway. You said from Colombia?'

'That's my information.'

'Scandinavian registry?'

'Yes.'

'Nothing,' Palacios said. 'I talked to some people I know, the ports are dead right now. Not only for dope. I'm talking bananas, grapefruits, automobiles. There's people saying a strike's in the wind. Ships are holing up at home, afraid to make the trip, they get here there's nobody to unload.'

'This one would be unloading outside.'

'I know, you told me. A hundred keys. A million bucks' worth of coke. Aimed for a Jamaican posse.'

'That's what I've got.'

'Who gave you this? Herrera? Who, by the way, I know where he is.'

'You do?' Kling said, surprised.

'He's shacked up with a chick named Consuelo Diego, she works for you guys.'

'She's a cop?'

'No, she answers phones down 911. Civil service. She used to work in a massage parlor, so this is better. I guess. They moved into a place on Vandermeer a coupla days ago.'

'Where on Vandermeer?'

'Here, I wrote down the address for you. After you memorize it, swallow the piece of paper.'

Kling looked at him.

Palacios was grinning.

He handed Kling the slip of paper upon which he'd scrawled the address and apartment number. Kling looked at it and then slid it into the cover flap of his notebook.

'How reliable is this guy?' Palacios asked.

'I'm beginning to think not very.'

'Because something stinks about this, you know?'

'Like what?'

'You say this is a Jamaican buy, huh?'

"That's what he told me.'

'A hundred keys.'

'Yes.'

'So does that ring true to you?'

'What do you mean?'

'The Jamaicans aren't into such big buys. With them, it's small and steady. A kilo here, a kilo there, every other day. They step on that kilo, they've got ten thousand bags of crack at twenty-five bucks a bag. That's a quarter of a million bucks. You figure a key costs them on average fifteen thou, they're looking at a profit of two-ten per. Still want to be a cop when you grow up?'

Palacios was grinning again.

'So what I'm saying, you get a Jamaican posse making even a five-kilo buy, that's a lot for them. But a hundred keys? Coming straight up the water instead of from Miami? I'll tell you, that stinks on ice.'

Which was why Kling liked hearing stuff that didn't come from police bulletins.

* * * *

Henry Tsu was beginning to think that Juan Kai Hsao would go far in this business. Provided that what he was telling him was true. There was an ancient Chinese saying that translated into English as 'Even good news is bad news if it's false.' Juan had a lot of good news that Sunday afternoon - but was it reliable?

The first thing he reported was that the name of the Hamilton posse was Trinity.

'Trinity?' Henry said. This seemed like a very strange name for a gang, even a Jamaican gang. He knew there were posses called Dog, and Jungle, and even Okra Slime. But Trinity?

'Because from what I understand,' Juan said, 'it was started in a place called Trinity, just outside Kingston. In Jamaica, of course. This is my understanding.'

'Trinity,' Henry said again.

'Yes. And also it was three men who started it. So trinity means three. I think. Like in the Holy Trinity.'

Henry didn't know anything about the Holy Trinity.

And didn't care to know.

'Was Hamilton one of these three?' he asked.

'No. Hamilton came later. He killed the original three. He runs the posse now, but he takes advice from a man named Isaac Walker. Who has also killed some people. In Houston. They are both supposed to be very vicious.'

Henry shrugged. From personal experience, he knew that no one could be as vicious as the Chinese. He wondered if either Hamilton or Walker had ever dipped a bamboo shoot in human excrement and stuck it under the fingernail of a rival gang leader. Shooting a gun was not being vicious. Being vicious was taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of another human being.

'What about Herrera?' he asked. He was getting tired of all this bullshit about the Hamilton posse with its ridiculous religious name.

'This is why I'm telling you about Trinity,' Juan said.

'Yes, why?'

'Because Herrera has nothing to do with it.'

'With what? The posse?'

'I don't know about that.'

'Say what you do know,' Henry said impatiently.

'I do know that it's not Herrera who's spreading this rumor. It is definitely not him. He has nothing to do with it.'

'Then who's responsible?' Henry asked, frowning.

'Trinity.'

'The Hamilton posse?'

'Yes.'

'Is saying we ambushed Herrera and stole fifty thousand dollars from him?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I don't know why,' Juan said.

'Are you sure this is correct?'

'Absolutely. Because I talked to several people who were approached.'

'What people?'

'Here in the Chinese community.'

Henry knew he did not mean legitimate businessmen in the Chinese community. He was talking about Chinese like Henry himself. And he was saying that some of these people . . .

'Who approached them?' he asked.

'People in Trinity.'

'And said we'd stolen . . .'

'Stolen fifty. From the posse. That a courier was carrying for them. Herrera.'

'How many people did you talk to?'

'Half a dozen.'

'And Hamilton's people had reached all of them?'

'All of them.'

'Why?' Henry asked again.

'I don't know,' Juan said.

'Find out,' Henry said, and clapped him on the shoulder and led him to the door. At the door, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip holding a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills, peeled off five of them, handed them to Juan and said, 'Go buy some clothes.'

Alone now, Henry went to a red-lacquer cabinet with brass hardware, lowered the drop-front door on it, took out a bottle of Tanqueray gin, and poured a good quantity of it over a single ice cube in a low glass. He sat in an easy chair upholstered in red to match the cabinet, turned on a floor lamp with a shade fringed in red silk, and sat sipping his drink. In China, red was a lucky color.

Why bad-mouth him?

Why say he'd stolen what he hadn't stolen?

Why?

The only thing he could think of was the shipment coming up from Miami tomorrow night.