Читать книгу The Last Flight of the Ariel - Joseph Dylan Dylan - Страница 5

Jake Townsend was not a happy man. Nor was he a man to keep his feelings to himself. Compared to his cousin, Hewlett was two or three inches shorter, but whereas Townsend was thin through the shoulders with a pensioner’s slouch. Hewlett looked as though he might have just come off the football pitch. Though possessing a full head of dirty blonde hair like his cousin’s, Townsend’s was even more full of curls — curls that his mothers’ friends could not help but tousle whenever Townsend was in close proximity.

While Hewlett graduated summa cum laude at Dartmouth, Jake Townsend struggled through the ranks at the University of Texas, matriculating in college just to avoid being drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam where the war was winding down like the end of a Kabuki play. Townsend had light blond hair that he kept fashionably long, wearing a mustache that made him look like the main character’s friend in a “B” movie. Looks, though, could be deceptive. Hewlett was always friendly, helpful and outgoing. Given to erratic moods, shifting like a weather vane in a tropical storm, Townsend at one moment could be cheerful and the next dour and spiteful. Not infrequently he erupted when frustrated, leaving friends, colleagues and staff stung. Once subjected to one of Townsend’s mood swings, they kept their distance from him in the future. Hewlett, however, having known his so long, had learned to tolerate the man. When not at work together, the two often jogged together and moved in the same social circles. Clusters of friends would often light up at the sight of Hewlett, whereas they felt they were walking on eggs when Townsend appeared. Though Jacob Townsend liked to think of himself the head of their small operation, it was really Hewlett who was the brains. The one who made final decisions when it came to moving product. Originally working for the firm Hauser, Longo and Fauci together, it had been almost two years since they had broken off from the large money management firm and started their own brokerage operation, calling their firm the West Beach Investment Corporation.

Taking their breakfast together at a diner down the street from their offices, Jake characteristically exploded when he found out how much Davis demanded for his flying services. “You know where he can shove it!”

“Jake, Jake, hold on. I can understand his reasons. It’s a tremendous haul. If something goes wrong no one walks away. He wants this to be his ride into the sunset. He’s had a long career and wants to go out a winner. There’s also a history between the two of you. You never completely reimbursed him for the work he did for you last winter. Something off the books I didn’t even know about.”

“You were up in Aspen.”

“I was in Vail. You had my number. Our ‘friends’ find out about this, there will be consequences.”

“An associate of Scruffy’s came to me with a small deal while you were gone. Scruffy knew a pilot. It just happened to be Davis. It was just a matter of hauling up some product from the Dominican Republic. It was only marijuana. Like the old days. I was to make a twenty percent share in the profits.”

“Did you tell Rosario?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Oh, I bet you he already knows. There’s not enough coming to us now?”

“Like I said, it was just a small deal.”

Wanting to say something sarcastic, Hewlett bit his tongue. “Let’s get back to the present. Sooner or later they are going to hear about it. If this goes well, they may just be vexed. You don’t fuck with their people.” For the next several minutes, they discussed the logistics of the operation. Both of them expected a large financial landfall from the deal. Though Hewlett had not given any thought to how or when he would spend his money that had taken some months to set up, Townsend had already decided to buy a boat. When Hewlett heard this, he groaned. Townsend undoubtedly wanted something that would stir a jealous eye at the Palm Beach Yacht Club. Townsend told him that he’d already had his eye on a sailboat that was up for sale. “It had teakwood decks,” he informed his cousin.

“Jake, I love you because you’re my cousin and my friend. But for God’s sake, don’t buy anything which draws attention to us.”

“For once, don’t give me grief about what I buy! It’s not your money.”

“But it’s my ass if the DEA decides to look into our after hours trading. You always have to have the best, the most expensive. Buy your boat if you want, but be discreet about it. More discrete than that Beechcraft Bonanza you wanted or the Maserati you drove home that one time.”

“Well you made me swear off airplanes, and you made me return the Maserati.”

“I did it for your own good. Maybe in five or ten years, you can buy those things, but only after the firm becomes successful enough for such conspicuous consumption.”

“You’ll never give in.”

“How much are they asking for the boat?”

“They said something like eighty-three thousand.”

“Well, that might be doable. Might be. We’d have the DEA breathing down our necks if it was any more. Miami is Grand Central Station for the distribution of cocaine. They watch out for people who are living beyond their means. You’d be Number One on their list with that Maserati. No, what you need is something more subtle. I’ll go along with the boat, but only after this next operation. If they ask you where you got your money, say I loaned twenty grand to you and that the rest you got from the bank. Once we have our money, you can go down to First National and take out a loan for the rest. This has to look like it’s on the up and up.”

“How much are you banking on what we’ll take home from the haul?”

“This is supposedly rocks of cocaine. The purest I’ve never seen yet. It’s still in crystalline form. That’s how pure it is. He’s got the coke in one-kilogram sacks. It’s easily enough to bring in twenty million on delivery. I’m sure that they will at least double that at sale. The man has never lied or exaggerated to me about the quality of the product. I imagine that the big boys will give us their customary fee. The standard fee and then on how much product we sell for them. Bobbie Enstrom is talking of taking one to two kilograms off our hands — the same as Higgins. The rest are just waiting to see what the market does. They don’t have the money on hand to move it like the other two do.”

At this, Jake continued his tirade. Hewlett raised his right hand, raising it as though he was the Justice of the Peace in a small town swearing somebody in. The moment that Jake paused, Hewlett said, “Now, back to the deal you made when I was up in Vail?”

“I had to move right away or lose out on it altogether while you were up skiing in Vail. It was just a very small proposition. One you didn’t have to know anything about.”

“It’s not so little now. We need the guy you bit on the ass. Now I have to make this right.” Tamping it down, he felt his ire rise. Anger was not the way to deal with Jake. It was like getting mad at a small child who’d made a mess. Diplomacy was the only way to get through to Townsend, and even that didn’t always work. He would allow Jake to get the boat, but only with the stipulation that he’d never move on any product without telling him. If no amount of diplomacy worked, then he would get angry with his cousin. When one acts like a foolish child, he should expect to be treated like a foolish child. “These guys earn their money. You don’t mess with them for chump change. This isn’t about his fee anyway. The real bullshit was when you didn’t tell me about some small deal that could have potentially put us at risk.”

Townsend started to say something, but his cousin silenced him again.

“For god’s sake, Jake. Just shut up. Shut up while you’re ahead.”

Though he owed Hewlett some sort of apology, none was forthcoming. Hewlett had done everything he could to smooth the waters. But who knew? In this business, one lived and died by his reputation. “I was going to tell you.” They lived and died in other ways, ways to numerous to count. One week a long time ago, while Hewlett was a senior in high school, the DEA busted his friend, Brian Mitchell, a boy a couple years older than Hewlett. The next week, Brian Mitchell was dead. He was found hanging from the limb of a eucalyptus tree just outside the Everglades. Never finding the killers, the authorities just assumed it was a drug deal that went bad. The whole thing was that precarious. A night. A deal. Something gone wrong. Someone died, and there would never be an answer.

“You should have told me the minute things went south.” Hewlett felt as though he were lecturing a young child. To be caught in just such a situation was the writing on the wall for Hewlett to get out.

Together they sat on the park bench next to the sidewalk in Simon Bolivar Park. Their office adjoined the park, and it was scarcely possible for the DEA or any other federal drug enforcement agencies to listen into their conversations regarding their small, but insidious, enterprise when they talked matters regarding business there.

“I still think that the deal you struck with Davis is outrageous.” Jake Townsend inhaled deeply from the cigarette he had smoked nearly down to the filter.

Hewlett, sipping on a can of cold Coca-Cola in the heat, shrugged his shoulders. “An even one million. That’s what he claims. Who knows?”

“That’s big of him.” Townsend had been drinking a can of 7UP. He took a drag from his cigarette and then one last gulp from his can. He dumped the dead cigarette into the can and tossed it toward the metal trashcan at the end of the concrete dais where he sat with Hewlett. The cigarette hit the rim of the trash receptacle and bounced out. Not bothering to pick it up, he prattled on. “Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.”

Hewlett took one last sip from the red and silver can of Coca-Cola crumpling it in one hand and placed it in the trashcan, “How is it I didn’t hear about it?” Pigeons, all grey and white, gathered at their feet. As always, Hewlett fed them crumbs. He then placed Jake’s crushed soda can in the trash receptacle.

Always bringing small morsels of bread for the pigeons, he doled out the breadcrumbs as he sat on the park bench. “Let’s forget it and hope it doesn’t surface?”

The members of the firm didn’t know about either one’s proclivities of their private life, especially when it came to the cocaine.

Although half a dozen years older than his cousin, Townsend had recruited Hewlett to help him sell coke when he was a high school student. As someone old enough to be out of college, Townsend thought dealing to high school age students was an invitation to be arrested. What he needed was a partner. Despite being a recreational user, Paul Hewlett seldom used drugs stronger than alcohol. Though occasionally, he would smoke a joint with an intimate friend. It was when he was a junior in high school that Jake recruited his cousin to help him sell cocaine, a drug he’s tried maybe a half-dozen times. Mesmerized by the sheer margins of money that he could make, he was no less beguiled by the thrill of the illegal transactions. Though outwardly not intimidating, Hewlett, who had practiced martial arts since he was in junior high school, could handle himself if the situation got out of hand, which they were known to do. From the beginning, after several long talks about the business, Townsend was convinced he had the makings for a natural dealer in his cousin. It was a portentous discovery for the both of them.

Hewlett started out at the level of a street dealer. Townsend gave him a list of the high school students who came to him for their coke. It was a list of no more than a dozen fellow high school students, students whom Townsend trusted the most with their shared secret. When the user ran out of coke, he would contact Hewlett, who in turn would pick up the specified amount from Townsend and deliver it to Townsend’s client. The majority of users were fellow students, and they conveyed their need for the product in the hallways. Hewlett took a percentage of the sale. In order to avoid attention, Hewlett set up bank accounts at several banks, listing his cousin’s address as his own. Although he discouraged new clients, the list of people he serviced slowly — very, very slowly — grew. Furtive as a spy, his clients appreciated his discretion as much as he appreciated theirs.

Hewlett had several ground rules in the selection of his clients. First and foremost, Hewlett would not sell to anyone that he didn’t know well, nor would he sell to those less than eighteen, fresh out of high school. In the mid-to-late 70s, drug use in the Miami high schools was rampant. As one police chief left, and another came in, they swore that they’d shut down the drug use within their jurisdiction. Each pronouncement of the police that they were cracking down on drugs brought on an increase in the number of undercover cops. Because of this, Hewlett and Townsend refused to sell to anyone that they didn’t know personally and hadn’t known for a long time. As far as they knew, they weren’t even on the DEA’s radar.

To those whom he’d sell to, there were other equally stringent guidelines. His friend, Tony, who was a bit of a geek when it came to computers and such, said they told Hewlett that in the near future, they would communicate with hand held phones. It wouldn’t be soon enough. Having made contact with one of his clients, Hewlett frequently met them down at the IHOP or Denny’s where the product would be traded, passing the cash and the cocaine under the table. Those who could not follow the rules were dropped from his list of clients; he’d never sell to them again. Those with the inherent inanity to show up at his house were not only dropped from Hewlett’s list, they were subjected to a beating that Hewlett would deliver at his earliest convenience.

Furthermore, he managed to keep up with his classes at school, run cross-country track, and for all appearances, was the “All-American boy.” Little did anyone suspect that in the basement of the Hewlett house in a secret cabinet behind the water heater was often over a thousand dollars worth of cocaine. The sole key to the cabinet was taped to the underside of his bed frame.

As time passed, he got away from dealing. Instead, he would supply other dealers and take a percentage of what they doled out to their clients. He and Townsend would spend hours going through the bona fides of prospective dealers. Though Townsend was more likely to give a prospective dealer a chance at the trade, Hewlett was inherently more cautious. At least half the time, Hewlett would rule out a prospective dealer that Townsend proposed. To Hewlett, they were too talkative or too sloppy, too careless or too credulous.

Hewlett gave it all up when he went to Dartmouth. He was too busy with academics or active in running on the cross-country racing team. Still, he missed the thrill of dealing cocaine. Only once during his four years at Dartmouth, did he snort a line. But as usual, it merely gave him a buzz, leaving him feeling like he was at a red light revving the engine just because it made his foot feel good. Graduating in economics, he had little trouble passing the certifying exam for his stockbroker’s license. Once certified, he had less of a problem finding a good job. It wasn’t long before his cousin recruited him to start dealing again. As before, he only dealt to other dealers, who in turn sold the drug to the person actually using the drug. During the day, he was a stockbroker, but at night, he was available to those who wanted some “blow.”

Initially, he worked at another brokerage firm than that of his cousin. While Townsend was a desk jockey at Hauser, Longo and Fauci, a job that he secured through connections, Hewlett toiled away at Rubenstein and Mercer, a brokerage across town. After four years of selling and buying stock bonds there, though, he talked his cousin into starting their own brokerage firm. Townsend proceeded to obtain the services of three other stockbrokers at Houser, Longo and Fauci to come with him, while Hewlett obtained two from his firm to go with him. For as flashy as he was with his money, Townsend was reticent about his secret dealings with his cousin. Hewlett, ever the fastidious one, ever the loner, never even once broached the subject with any of his partners. To others who worked at West Beach Investment, Townsend and Hewlett were no different than rest of the stockbrokers at the firm. The most that any of the partners could say about either one of them was that they shared nothing stronger than a beer while watching some football game in a sports bar.

Hewlett looked at his watch. He had a stockbroker client he needed to make a call to before lunch. “Look, according to Davis, this is his last hurrah. He wants to go out in style. He wants to go out with enough to tidy him over. He just needs one other good haul after this. Whatever the falling out you had with Davis, I don’t want to know. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all past history. I think Davis is right when he said we could make up the difference by just hauling more product this outing. He told me he goosed the engine up somehow so that it would add forty more horsepower to the Ariel’s payload. That’s just ten bags. His last hurrah.”

Townsend just shook his head.

“Don’t pull that wounded soldier shit with me,” said Hewlett. “This isn’t the first time you’ve pissed someone off. Someday, it’s going to get you in trouble. And when it comes, I might not be there to help you. I plan to make it my last hurrah, too.” Hewlett had grown weary of the drug trade that he’d been involved in since they started the brokerage firm almost a decade ago. All he wanted was to go on being a stockbroker.

“You’re shitting me.”

“No. It’s just that you haven’t been listening to me.”

“I never thought you were serious about getting out while there’s been that much money coming in.”

“No it’s time to get out.”

“Do you think they’ll let you?”

“They sure as hell haven’t yet!”