They sat down and Robert said, "You learning anything?"
"Rap rivals Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown were involved in a shootout, in New York."
"The place to have it. My money's on Lil' Kim," Robert said, "even though she's chubbier than I like."
"One was going in a radio station," Dennis said, "when the other was coming out and their posses started shooting at each other."
"Nobody killed, huh?"
"One guy hit, a minor wound."
"They think they gangstas, the hangerons, the en-tou-ragers, shit. All they are's unemployed niggas. Ask me where I been."
"Where?"
"Junebug's. I took Jerry and Tonto to see the place and another one's joined us, Hector Diaz from Mexicantown in Detroit. Use to be a bullfighter."
"What's he do now?"
"What we all do, man, help Jerry develop land."
Dennis said, "Land or territories?"
Robert didn't speak for a moment, looking at him.
"You know what you talking about?"
"Carla says Jerry's a gangster. She said, `I thought you knew that.' From my hanging around with you."
"Bad influence."
"You told me yourself you sold drugs."
"When I was a child."
"Young Boys, Incorporated," Dennis said. "I think you have your own young boys now, your own crew."
Robert was shaking his head. "Gangs, Dennis. You recruit the gang, walking around in their colors, nothing to do. They Young Dogs now I send on the road. Go to Fort Wayne, South Bend, Muncie, Kokomo. Was in the paper, two out of three dealers in Muncie, Indiana, are from Detroit. We move over to Ohio, set up Young Dogs in Lima, Dayton, Findlay. You ever hear that joke, the traveling salesman gets laid in Findlay, Ohio, and goes to confession?"
Dennis said, "And then gets laid in New York and goes? Yeah, I heard it."
" Canton, Ohio, man, there's a neighborhood there, projects, they call Little Detroit account of all the Young Dogs operating there. There's gangs from L.A. working into the same territories. It's how come you have your drive-bys. Mostly the trade is crack, 'cause you make more cooking and then cutting a hundred-dollar gram of coke into a hundred rocks you can sell for ten each. The Young Dogs go to a town, set up crack houses. It's like a franchise, Dennis, the McDonald's of drugs."
"What do the Dogs need you for?"
"The product, man. Where these kids gonna score it in quantity?"
"They could skim on the profits."
"I sell 'em the hamburger patties, the McNuggets. They sell it and come to me for more."
"Now you're looking at Tunica County? Working south, setting up your franchises?"
Robert said, "Dennis, you approaching your crossroads. You know what I'm saying? You come a long way, baby, and you almost there."
"Playing your stooge. I make your con game look legitimate. The con throws them off while you look into the drug business here."
"Having some fun with 'em. But listen," Robert said, "tonight I took Jerry and Tonto and Hector to Junebug's-"
"You took Tonto the other night."
"We didn't make it. Tonto saw a hooker in the hotel bar looked good to him. This is tonight, we sitting at a table talking to Arlen. Also the one you said was his shooter, Fish."
"Vernice said that."
"I accept her word," Robert said. "This young dude, the Fish, sits there, Tonto staring at him through his shades, Tonto seeing if the man would stare back. And he did, almost the whole time. You understand? The two of them getting on a personal basis. But see, what I wanted to know was if Arlen worked for Mr. Kirkbride or Mr. Kirkbride worked for Arlen."
Robert waited, giving Dennis time to think about it while bugs hit the screen going for the lamplight. All kinds of bugs making noise down here in the summer.
"You told me," Dennis said, "Kirkbride's a fool. I took that to mean harmless."
"It was a hasty call. See, then I got to thinking, this Arlen is too dumb to run an outfit. What's he do with all the money they make? I said to Arlen, we're sitting there-" Robert paused. "See, I had already fucked with the man's head, saying I knew he ran the Tunica drug business. I said to him, Junebug wasn't any loss, was he? Long as you had a man like Kirkbride with you."
"What'd he say?"
"Was what he didn't say. Mr. Kirkbride? You crazy? Any kind of shit like that. No, what he said, Kirkbride wasn't a bad guy to work for."
"He didn't get it. What you meant."
"He got it. I watched him. He skimmed over it and went to something else."
"You're telling me Walter Kirkbride 's in the drug business?"
"Yes, I am."
"And you're gonna take over whatever they have going?"
"Yes, we are." Robert paused and said, "You ready?"
"For what?"
"You at the crossroads, Dennis. I'm about to make an offer to buy your soul." Dennis said, "How much?" And Robert beamed.
"You're my man, Dennis. Hundred and fifty thousand the first year, two hundred the second and so on. Plus what you make off your business. That's yours, too."
"What business?"
"The one we set up for you." "I'm the front."
"You the Mr. Kirkbride of the deal. Look at him. Nobody knows what he's up to except one that knows one. You'd have the same deep cover. You the store that local business goes through. You take over Junebug's and clean it up, get rid of Wesley. Put a man in there wears a red vest, he's the seller.
You're playing golf, you don't know shit what he's up to."
"I run a honky-tonk," Dennis said.
"You keep an eye on things. But your main business… You ready? You set up a traveling highdiving show, a big operation, Dennis Lenahan's Dive-O-Rama, bunch of young good-looking dudes, some cute girls that dive, but you're the name, World Champion Dennis Lenahan, been doing it twenty-two years."
"The diving show," Dennis said, "cleans the drug money."
"Distributes it here and there-that's something we'll get into later. Jerry wrote the book on how to do it."
"And went to jail."
"For not paying his taxes. He was into something else then, burning down buildings people wanted the insurance on. Jerry's good with high explosives, too. He put a man out of business was fuckin with his brother. I'll have to tell you about Jerry sometime."
"And the lovely Anne."
"You picked that up from Carla, didn't you? That Carla's as cool as Mr. Billy Darwin, you know it? I look at the two of them-they must have it going."
"They don't," Dennis said. "I asked her."
It brought Robert's smile. "You working in there? Never mind. But if you gonna be staying here and she's here…?" He could see Dennis taking his time now, looking at the offer.
"I don't handle any product? Drive around with drugs under the seat?"
The man just got himself a car.
"What kind you want, Mercedes, Porsche? No, man, you never touch the product. Not directly. Tonto's the one gets it up from Mexico and Hector Diaz sees to where it goes. We get you a Dive-ORama accountant to handle the business, keep the books. I imagine the same as Mr. Kirkbride, if he knows what he's doing."
"There's still risk," Dennis said.
Robert liked him saying that, the man leaning, looking for a way he could accept the offer. Robert answered him straight. "Sure there's risk. That's why I picked you out. You know all about high risk, it's your friend, it's what keeps you going. Soon as I saw you up there on the ladder, the other evening, I said to myself, that's my man. I didn't even need to speak to you, I knew it."
"You sound like you already have the business here."
"It's sitting there waiting on us."
"How do you take it away from the Dixie Mafia?"
"That's the fun part," Robert said. "Remember you asking-we just met, I'm driving you home and you ask me, being funny, if I'm checking out the historical points of interest? And I said history can work for you, you know how to use it."