“Well, that all depends on the value of the information you have for us, eh,amigo?” Ollie said, still affably.
Tigo didn’t like to be called“amigo.” His father was from Puerto Rico, true enough, but his mother was black, and he was proud of his heritage on her side of the family. As pleasantly as he could—these were, after all, cops he was dealing with—he said, “I don’t speak Spanish,amigo,” which was a lie, but which seemed to make his point.
“Oh, sorry,” Ollie said, “I didn’t realize. So tell us why you wanted to see us.”
“There was this buy on Decatur Av?” Tigo said, making it sound like a question. “Guy runs a posse from a crib on the whole second floor there, knocked out the walls of three apartments? He brings up dope from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, sells it in ten-kilo lots for forty, fifty a pop, whatever the traffic will bear. I’ve been workin for him almost two years now, you’d think he’d start talkin bout makin me a partner, but no. He’s still got me on salary …”
So that’s why he’s ratting him out, Carella thought.
“… treats me like a fuckin courier, don’t get me started. I used to make more money driving the truck. I used to drive a tow truck for this auto body shop on Mason.”
“What’s this guy’s name?” Carella said.
“First tell me how much the commissioner’s gonna okay on this,” Tigo said.
“Well, we haven’t talked to him yet,” Ollie said affably. “We have togo to him with something, you see. We tell him there’s this guymaybehas information, he’ll say go take a walk, fellas.”
“Can you at least tell us when this buy went down?” Carella asked.
“Sure,” Tigo said. “Four, five days ago.”
“When exactly?”
“What’s today?”
“The twenty-eighth.”
“So it must’ve been … let me see.” He began counting back on his fingers. “Last Saturday night? When was that? Christmas Eve?”
“No, the twenty-third,” Ollie said.
“So that’s when it was. Like I said. Four, five days ago.”
“Where?” Carella asked.
“I told you, this crib on Decatur. It’s these three apartments, this person we’re talking about knocked out the …”
“What’s the address?”
“1280 Decatur.”
“Were you there when the buy went down?”
“Yeah. This dude was waitin in the front room while we tested the shit. He was supposed to get a mill-nine for the hundred keys.”
“What was his name?”
“Frank Holt. But his picture in the paper said he was Jerry Hoskins. The same guy, right?”
“The same guy,” Carella said. “Tell us what happened.”
“This is where the bus stops,” Tigo said. “Go talk to the commissioner.”
“Suppose we go to 1280 Decatur instead, talk to whoever’s got the second floor there, tell him his trusted employee just ratted him out?” Carella said.
“Now, now, Steve,” Ollie said affably. “The man hasn’t ratted out anyone yet, have you, Tigo?”
“Not till I see the green.”
“You just told us you participated in a drug deal, do you realize that?” Carella said. He was thinking this was an odd reversal of roles, him playing Bad Cop to Ollie’s Good.
“Gee, did I?” Tigo said. “Are you wired, Detective? If not, who’s your witness? Another cop? A bullshit bust, and you know it.”
“I can tell you right now, nobody’s giving you fifty thousand dollars so we can nail a two-bit drug dealer in Diamondback.”
“Even if it’s murder?”
“Even if he raped the Mayor’s mother.”
“How muchare you prepared to give me?”
Sounding like a fucking lawyer all at once.
“You tell us you witnessed a murder, you give us all the details, you agree to testify at trial, we can maybe scrape up two or three …”
“Goodbye, gentlemen,” Tigo said, and got off the bench.
“Sit down, punk,” Ollie said.
Tigo looked surprised.
“Isaidsit the fuckdown.”
Tigo sat.
“Let me tell you what you’re gonna do for us,” Ollie said.
“OKAY, I got a better idea,” Wiggy was telling the two Mexicans. “We go in heavy, all three of us. Semi-automatics under our overcoats. We hold the mother-fuckers hostage.”
Villada looked at Ortiz.
“We go in early tomorrow morning. They got the whole fourth floor, ain’t nobody but us gonna know we’re in there holdin guns on them. We stay there till they come up with the cash.”
“The banks will be closed till Tuesday,” Ortiz said.
“It’s the long weekend,” Villada said, nodding agreement.
“Man, they stole a mill-nine from me, you think they put that in abank?These people are thieves, man. They got that moneystashed someplace, is what. All we got to do is ask that white-haired fuck to take us to wherever it is.”
“What aboutour money?” Ortiz asked.
“We’ll get that, too, don’t worry,” Wiggy said. “One thing I know for sure, you stick a piece in some dude’s face, he’s gonna give you every fuckin nickel he has.”
Actually, Wiggy didn’t give a rat’s ass about their money. Far as he was concerned, they could eat tacos and beans the rest of they fuckin lives. All he needed them for was the extra muscle they brought to the gig. He was already figuring they would be the ones who stayed behind to watch the others while him and Halloway went to retrieve the money that was rightfully his.
Ortiz was ahead of him.
“Who goes for the money?” he asked.
“Halloway. Their boss.”
“Who goeswith him?”
“Any one of us,” Wiggy said.
“I think it should be either me or Cesar,” Ortiz said.
“Sure, whoever,” Wiggy said, and grinned.
TIGO SAID NO, he would not go in with no wire on him.
Ollie said either he wore the wire or they would bust his ass for the Fire Lane Scam.
“What the fuck is the Fire Lane Scam?” Tigo asked.
“You drove the tow truck, remember?” Ollie said affably. In fact, he was actually smiling.
“What’s the Fire Lane Scam?” Carella asked.
“What I done when Tigo called me,” Ollie said, “was see what we had on him in the files. Aside from a bullshit marijuana violation two years ago …”
“I was acquitted.”
“I told you. Bullshit. In fact, I was just about to tell Detective Carella here that there didn’t seem to be anything else on you. So I figured you were clean.”
“I am.”
“Except for participating in a drug deal last Saturday night,” Carella said.