“It’s just hard for me to believe,” I said, looking over the papers, “that there are that many heroin users around here. It seems like such a sleepy town. Touristy, sometimes, but not full of drugs.”
“Smackheads stay inside,” Korman said. “You’re not gonna see ‘em much. A lot of it happens in the hills, ‘ol broken down shanties out of plain sight. Go check out the west side of Leadville sometime.”
“Just seems odd. This is like a vacation destination.”
“Mountains’ve had drug problems since the dawn of time. This place is no different. Something about the isolation, I think. Just like booze in Alaska. I was out here twice—shit, maybe three times—back in ’76. Whacked out back then, too. It was crack then, but same concept.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Keep reading.”
Vincent Decierdo did not exist.
“Name’s Ben Murray,” Korman said. “Originally from North Dakota. Started college but dropped out early. Has a few arrests, petty stuff mostly; theft, weed, drunk driving. Did a month in the pen once, got out and moved out here. Started selling weed. One arrest in Colorado for possession, but no charge.”
“How do you know this?”
“You paid me to know this. Builds the weed business up, gets in bed with the cops at some point—lazy ass handout lookin’ motherfuckers—then moves on to hard shit. Been holed up in the Rockies ever since, somethin’ like fifteen years.”
“So Vince is actually Ben.”
He nodded. “Started goin’ by Decierdo when he moved here. Must like how it sounds. Think about it—does that guy look like a Vincent Decierdo?”
I thought about his flat face and golden beard and shook my head. “No. What name is on his legal documents?”
“Probably Murray if he had ‘em, but he really doesn’t. Everything’s off the books, he doesn’t need anything official. You ever see him drive?”
I shook my head again.
“He had a license at one point, but my guess is it expired. Son of a bitch gets chauffeured everywhere.”
“Even if he got pulled over, the cops wouldn’t arrest him,” I said.
“Yeah but he doesn’t risk it. The guy’s careful. Only goes to places he knows he’s protected. Doesn’t put a name on shit.”
I turned the page. “What about Damon?” I asked.
“Well, he isn’t in Arizona,” Korman said. “No matches for a Damon Peters with his description in Phoenix, or anywhere near. To find out more would take a longer investigation and more money. But from that and what we know from your girl…” he snapped his fingers and pulled the name from air, “Suzanne, I think we can reasonably draw a conclusion.”
“Dead.”
“They probably offed him by the side of the road and buried the body in the hills. Just easier for them. One bullet, problem gone. Places like this, there’s so much blank space on the map. Probably dozens of corpses from the drug trade dumped up here, off quiet roads, away from civilization. It’s the perfect hiding space; in the ocean, you gotta worry about ‘em washing on shore. Mountains don’t move.”
The section on Suzanne was incomplete.
“How long ago did you say you saw her?” Korman asked.
“Couple weeks.”
“Far as I can tell, they haven’t gotten to her. She’s probably long gone by now. Wouldn’t be surprised if she stuck around long enough to contact you, then skipped town. Badass chick if you ask me. Ain’t easy slippin’ a kingpin.”
“Where would she have stayed?”
He shrugged. “With a trustworthy friend, or some campsite in the woods.”
“In the winter?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
From what I knew, there were no trustworthy friends.
“She’s a slick one, though. Usually I can run their info and at least get an idea of where they went. You know if that’s her real name?”
“No idea.”
I hoped he was right, that she was somewhere else, far from here. I pictured her on a lounge chair by a pool, sunglasses on her face, lips no longer chattering. It was a romantic thought. Wishful. I made myself think it.
“The wild card here is Vin…Ben Murray’s girl, Adeline. The one you plowed. Real name. Prep school priss turned gangbangin’ drug wife. Don’t usually see that.
“I pulled her info, reads like a slice of Americana. Good school, good family, straight-A’s. Degree in econ. No run-ins with the law or signs of trouble at home. Moved out here after college, and just started runnin’ with the wrong crowd.”
“Wild card,” I said.
“Yeah, well, a broad like that just wouldn’t generally fit with some smack-sellin’ killers. I’ve seen ‘em try before—little miss perfect takes a trip to the other side of the tracks, thinks she wants to run with the big dogs. But they always come screamin’ back, scared shitless.”
“But Adeline stayed,” I said to the papers, following along.
“Seems like she thrived. I ain’t sayin’ she’s lyin’ or nothing—she is who she says she is. My intel’s rock solid, believe that. But I don’t know. Either she’s oblivious to what’s going on—seems real unlikely—or she’s into it. She’s a hard bitch.”
“She isn’t soft,” I said.
The police in Eagle County, Summit County, Lake County, and probably a few other mountain counties, were deeply corrupted and eager to accept money from anyone who had it. They had taken bribes and kickbacks from Ben Murray for long enough that it had become a consistent payroll. They openly allowed the trafficking of heroin and cocaine through the mountains, and regularly bought and placed local political officials. The Eagle County police chief lived in a four million dollar house in Vail, one of his three homes. His Summit County counterpart kept a ski-in/ski-out luxury condo at the base of Breckenridge and had a garage full of BMW’s. Korman had to do some light investigation to uncover the details, but most of it was easily attainable knowledge. Nobody tried very hard to hide it.
“You gotta understand, these mountain towns, they work different than other towns,” Korman said. “I grew up in the Catskills. Not the same, but not that different, either. Mountain business is mountain business, my man. It’s their own rules up here.”
I nodded. “Which is why Raphino was so hesitant to ask the other police for help.”
Korman chuckled. “Shit, you’d be better off takin’ the case to Murray himself. The cops are just as dangerous; they’d probably off ya just for bringin’ it up. Once a man gets some money, he cares about two things: protecting what he has and getting more.
“Hell,” he continued, “I’m flabbergasted your boy Raphino managed to stay straight. Real solid cat, that one. Morals and shit. Can’t say I understand it, but I respect it.”
“So if the cops knew that we knew all this…”
“Don’t even finish that sentence.” Korman lowered his voice for the first time. “Listen, this is volatile shit. You’re fuckin’ with a lotta people’s livelihoods. I’ve seen guys get iced over less. You guys gotta do whatever you’re gonna do and get on with it.”
I exhaled and took a drink of cola. “So what are next steps?”
“That’s up to you all. I’m afraid my work here is about done.”
“You can’t help us…take these guys down? We have money.”
“Listen,” he said, “I’d love to. I’d love to take down all the bad guys. But it’s not my business. I gather info. I dropped the desperado shit a long time ago.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
“I can’t tell ya that,” he said. “I can give you a suggestion if you want, but that’s about it.”
I rubbed my face. This new information—suspicions confirmed, others revealed—and still we hadn’t gotten anywhere. “Well, yeah,” I said, “I’d like the suggestion.”