“There’s no way,” he said, eyes wide and fixed on the road.
“Is it really that hard to believe?” I asked. “Look at the facts: they purposely keep the cargo a secret. They pay us way more than they should to drive a car for a few hours. If Vince was hauling normal freight, wouldn’t it be in semis or something? We drive sedans and pickups.”
He shook his head. “Shit man. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“I know,” I said.
“Fuck. There’s no way.”
“There is. It doesn’t take that big a mental leap, when you think about it.”
“Listen man,” he said, putting a hand on his head. “I’m not as smart as you man, alright? Big east coast stockbroker and all that. I’m from Leadville, man. I don’t think about shit the way you do.” His voice rose. It was sinking in.
“I thought you were from Arizona.”
He shook his head. “Born there, yeah. But I grew up in Leadville. I’m a mountain boy, that’s it.”
“It’s not that I’m smarter,” I said. “You just didn’t think about it. I’m more nosy, I guess.”
He shook his head. “No man. That ain’t true at all. Fuck. How could I be so stupid?” he yelled.
“Thinking that way won’t help us,” I said. “We’re both in this. We have to figure out what to do.”
“Fuck,” he said again, and shook his head. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“You don’t think,” he said, pausing to look around the car, then lowering his voice, “you don’t think the car is…like…bugged?”
He exited and parked on the side of a frontage road, and we both got out.
For ten minutes we both searched the inside of his car, neither of us knowing what we were looking for. We looked under seats, beneath the floor mats and on the roof. He emptied the glove box. I ran my hands along the door jambs and trim, feeling for signs of foul play. There was nothing.
We gave up and rode in silence the rest of the way. When we reached our destination, we got out and stood in the dim light of that industrial warehouse district. He looked at me, confused, waiting for me to figure out how to get out of this mess. An Oldsmobile Cutlass and a Chevy Malibu sat parked a few spots down, waiting for us. Mocking us. Damon looked at the cars, then back at me.
“Here’s the plan,” I said, and made it up on the spot.
We would get in the cars and drive east like usual, because they could be watching. We would drive—Damon following close behind me—until we reached the spot I’d pulled off and parked last time. There, we’d open the trunk of his car and examine the contents. This would alleviate any lingering doubts he might have about my story, and seal his allegiance to me. Then we would complete the run like normal, and regroup the next day to work out a long-term plan. At this point, we were knowingly committing a felony, but I didn’t see another viable option. We couldn’t abandon the run without risking a disastrous backlash from the management, the nature of which I did not know and did not want to find out. Furthermore, we had both committed this felony numerous times—me, dozens, him, hundreds, probably. Legally, we were so far up shit creek already, a few more strokes of the paddle wouldn’t make much difference.
This plan—though hastily arranged and moderately risky, with us diverting from our route and snooping through the trunks—went fine, at least the part we discussed. Damon followed me down I-70 until the exit and frontage road, which the memory was still fresh enough to find easily. I checked my mirrors often. My hands began to sweat when we turned down the dirt road, now deep in the woods. I imagined he was on edge as well.
The contents of the first trunk were eerily similar. It still baffled me they weren’t locked, but once again I pressed the trunk release button and it popped open, flooding light into the darkness of the mountain night. I instructed Damon to do the same, and we peered into the trunk of his Malibu.
“Speakers,” Damon said, motioning toward the scattered boxes that lined the bottom of the trunk. Probably two dozen of them; small, desk-sized speakers.
“It’s always electronics on top,” I said as I shoved them to the edges, clearing a space in the trunk. I found the handle for the spare tire compartment—placed a foot from the last car I’d driven—and pulled up.
Spare tire. Car jack. Tire iron. Brown heroin. Bricks of it.
Damon needed a minute. He paced around and came to terms with the fact that he was a felon, facing decades in federal prison if caught, ignorance be damned.
When he was ready to go, I patted him on the shoulder and assured him we’d figure out a way out of this, as if I had some master plan. I did not, of course. We got in the cars again and took off, me in front, him in the rear.
When I saw the flashing lights, it was like a dream. We were no more than ten miles down the freeway from where we’d pulled off when my rearview mirror lit up with a maelstrom of blues and reds and whites. I was numb immediately, filled with the sinking feeling of impossibility. This could not be happening. There was a police officer behind me, and he was going to pull someone over.
I glanced down at my speedometer. Eleven miles per hour over the limit; my speed had crept up to try to make up time lost by stopping. That stupid. Stupid.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid
The lights got brighter and I slowed down, at once resigned to the fact that I’d been caught and fabricating flowery scenarios in which I wouldn’t get caught. I pulled to the right shoulder and realized he was pulling over someone behind me. The police officer with the flashing lights was pulling over another car, and not mine. My heart leapt.
It was Damon. My heart sunk.
My car now idling on the shoulder, I saw clearly in my rearview that it was Damon. The officer’s spotlight shone brightly on the Malibu, illuminating its burgundy paint job.
He was screwed. Or he wasn’t. From an outsider’s perspective, there was nothing to indicate Damon’s car held thousands of dollars worth of heroin. Unless the officer had a dog, there was no way to tell. Perhaps it would be a routine speeding ticket. Perhaps Damon would play it cool, be polite, crack a whimsical joke, and send the officer on his way.
Perhaps.
I got back on the highway and drove. It was all I could do—sticking around would only raise suspicion. I carefully stayed under the speed limit until I reached the drop point, where I waited for Damon.
35
He never made it. I waited for an hour, insisting to the handler he would show up any minute. They got agitated, those faceless individuals who received the cars at that shadowy location in the hills, then the handler drove me home. They were always stoic and mute, going about their business with focused intention, but that night, they were agitated. They asked me questions that bordered on interrogations. Where was he? What happened? Was I involved? They were not used to things going awry.
Initially I considered lying to them, telling them I didn’t know anything, but I thought better of it. If he was really in trouble, they might be able to help. Vince might be able to use his influence somehow, and make this go away. So I told them about Damon getting stopped, and that was when they started freaking out. A young, skinny guy put his finger in my chest. Another man dialed his cell phone and walked into the shadows. This was not normal.