“So all those rules were meant just for me,” Meadows said dryly.
“You really think I’d come out here with no gun?” Manny sat forward, took one hand off the steering wheel and groped into the waistband of his pants. He withdrew a small, flat automatic and held it up for Meadows to see.
Moe burped, and Meadows got a faceful of hot, beery breath. “How about grabbing me another beer?” Moe crushed the empty can in one hand and heaved it out of the van. Meadows saw it bounce off a parked Cadillac.
“Ten points,” Manny said.
The van turned west on the Tamiami Trail, a treacherous and ancient two-lane highway that bisected the steamy Florida Everglades. Only ten miles out of Miami, and nothing but darkness stretched ahead. Manny flicked on the brights and goosed the van up to seventy. Moe lit a joint.
Meadows fidgeted. He had agonized all day about making the trip, but as he had lain in bed with Patti, waiting for his midnight ride, he had acknowledged something to himself: He’d never been more excited. It was one sort of gratification to see a building born, story by story, until it filled a skyline with one man’s vision. That was a pleasure, but it was meticulous, faultless, too damn well planned.
For what Meadows was doing now, there were no blueprints, no textbooks, no exactitude. Running the blockade was a project that demanded guile, skill and blind luck.
The architect’s nerves were haywire.
“Tell me about Atlanta,” Manny said.
“Muggy in the summer, wet in the winter,” Meadows replied.
“He doesn’t want a goddamn weather report,” Moe said.
“Tell me about business. How was business?”
“Good, for a while. The cops up there are much different. They’re—”
“Meaner,” Moe interjected.
“Yeah.”
Manny took the joint from Moe and sucked noisily. “How do you know about the Atlanta cops?” he asked Meadows. “Did you get popped up there?”
“No,” Meadows said quickly. “Some friends did.”
“Ha! Atlanta’s nuthin. They got damn Nazi cops in Mississippi.” Moe was blasting off.
“Tell Chris about the jail in Hattiesburg. With the dog.”
“That was Meridian,” Moe corrected.
Meadows leaned forward. Moe was beginning to mumble, and he could barely hear him over the engine. “What happened?”
“Aw, I got busted—this was three, four years back—I got busted for possession at an Allman Brothers concert.”
“He was scared shitless,” Manny said, handing the soggy last shred of the joint to Meadows, who passed it along to Moe.
“That’s it for this one,” he said, flicking the roach out the window. “Anyway, I got this ace lawyer who got me off all the charges. I bet I didn’t even pull a week, but while I was in there, the cops raided a farm where this old geezer was growing grass as high as alfalfa.
“So the cops chop it down, except for a couple real small plants, which they bring into the station for a display.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Yeah,” Moe roared, “for the school kids. They gave a tour so that the kids could see what real marijuana looked like. It was terrific. They brought a whole line of ’em just past my cell and pointed me out as some kind of fuckin’ criminal—”
“Which he is,” Manny said.
“But that night,” Moe went on, “the police chief’s dog—he was a beagle—got up on the sill and ate the goddamn grass right off the planters. Chewed it right down to the stem.”
Manny tapped the brakes as a behemoth tractor-trailer rig heading eastbound weaved briefly across the center line in front of them. “Shit,” Manny said, punching the horn. “He’s falling asleep.”
Moe didn’t notice. “Anyway, the chief comes in the next day and finds the pot plants all chewed to hell, and he knows what done it. So what does he do? He locks up the dog in one of the empty cells.”
“What for?”
“He was afraid the thing was going to go crazy, berserk he said, from eating the grass. So he locked the dog up, pulled up a chair, got hisself some fried chicken…and waited.”
“And?”
“And…nuthin!” Moe said. “The dog puked his guts out for about two hours, and that was that. The chief finally let him out after a couple of days.”
Manny, still smiling at the story, turned right down an unmarked gravel road. “So what kind of action you looking for?” Moe asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Meadows chewed nervously at his lower lip. Now, without benefit of any passing headlights, he could see nothing but darkness on Moe’s face.
Manny gave an impatient sigh. The van bounced over washboard ruts, and Meadows shifted his legs to brace himself.
“Man, you know what I’m talking about,” Moe said. “What is it you’re looking for?”
“I want to buy some coke,” Meadows said, laboring for a matter-of-fact tone.
“Who doesn’t?”
“I need a couple of pounds.”
“What?” Manny hooted. “Your timing is fucking hilarious, man.” He guided the van around a manhole-sized pock in the road. Hundreds of insects swirled about the headlights, casting a rush of dot-sized shadows before them.
“I don’t get it,” Meadows said.
“There ain’t no coke to be had, at least not in those kinds of packages. The last couple of weeks has been as bad as I ever seen it. Wouldn’t you say so?”
Manny nodded. “Some guys been in the business four years can’t get any more than a couple ounces. It is fucking amazing.”
“But why?” Meadows asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I got a theory,” Manny said authoritatively. “It’s the heat and the publicity. Too much goddamn violence down here. The governor and the DEA have been screaming about it at press conferences, all these crazy killings…I just think the wholesalers are laying low.”
Moe groaned. “There’s got to be a hundred warehouses full of paste down Colombia way.”
Meadows’s mind raced. “Then how do I get some?”
“You don’t,” Manny said coldly. “When things loosen up—and they will—the regulars will get first crack at the merchandise. The demand will be so great that the price will go up—”
“Naturally,” Moe said laconically.
”—and there won’t be much left for anyone else.”
“I can pay for it. With cash,” Meadows declared.
Manny tossed his head back and laughed without a trace of a smile. “Christ man, I can show you eighteen-year-old kids in Gucci Cadillacs who can pay for it in cash. That’s nothing down here.”
He pulled the van to the side of the dirt road and cut the engine abruptly. Meadows waited for the men to get out, but they did not move. From a few miles away drifted the diesel whine of a big semi on the Tamiami Trail. Around the van the night hummed with insects; ravenous clouds of Everglades mosquitoes bounced off the tinted windshield. Hundreds more poured through Moe’s open window. He slapped frantically at his pale, thin arms, and Manny cackled.
“I don’t suppose anybody brought bug spray?” Meadows asked feebly.
“Let’s get out now,” Manny said. He climbed down from the van and stretched his arms. Then he jogged in place for a few moments. “Much better,” he announced.
“Manny, I can’t take these goddamn mosquitoes,” Moe cried.
“They like white meat, huh?”
“Don’t we have anything to keep ’em away?”
“Just gasoline,” Manny answered. “Works nicely, chico, if you don’t mind rubbing off a couple layers of skin.”
Meadows paced the road, waving his arms about his head. Better to be a moving target, he thought miserably. The buzz of hungry bugs filled his ears, and he could feel the little bastards snare in his hair. His shirt, a short-sleeved cotton tennis number, was soaked with sweat; the humidity must have been eighty-five percent.
“What now?” he asked Manny.
/>
“Be patient.” Manny squinted at his wristwatch, then up at the sky. The trace of a gray cloud line lay low over the western horizon, but overhead it was clear, the sky sprayed with brilliant stars. Meadows marveled at the unbroken flatness of the swamp, a burr of sawgrass for miles and miles. Far to the north was a small clump of trees, probably a cypress hammock. All around the men was a cacophony of frogs, insects and God only knew what else; to Meadows, the noise was getting louder and more menacing every minute.
“I think I heard something,” Moe said. He hurried to the van and retrieved a small flashlight. Cautiously Meadows followed him about fifteen yards down the dirt road. Neither braved a step into the spongy sawgrass. Moe aimed the light, and the beam fixed on an opossum, lumbering awkwardly through the tangled grass. Its eyes shone a wine-bottle green in the light. It carried its prehensile tail in a curl off the ground. The fur was sparse, a mixture of snow and gray. It reminded Meadows of his grandfather’s hair, the way it looked in the hospital when the old man was dying.
“You ever eat possum?” Moe asked.
Meadows shook his head.
“Niggers do all the time. When I was a kid, we used to shoot ’em with a twenty-two and sell ’em in blacktown for a dollar apiece. They use possums in stew.”
“Never tried it.”
“Me neither,” Moe said.
The opossum seemed stuck in the bushes. It turned its head, mouth slack, and glared at the intruders. Meadows started back toward the van. “Hey, Carson!” Meadows turned to see Moe aiming a pistol at the animal.
“Are you nuts?”
“I bet I can knock its tail off.”
Meadows didn’t move. “Come on, Moe.”
“I don’t aim to kill it.”
Meadows glanced down the road, searching for Manny.
“That tail looks like an eighteen-inch finger, don’t it? I know some ladies who’d favor that, don’t you?”
Meadows could only assume Moe was drunk or stoned, or both. Maybe even crazy. He spotted Manny’s fireplug shadow near the van and whistled. Manny didn’t hear him over the tree frogs.
“Hey, Manny!” Meadows called. “Look what Moe found!”
The gun went off. Meadows wheeled and backed away simultaneously. He saw the big orange spark when Moe fired again and smelled the rich wave of powder. Manny’s urgent footsteps were not far behind.
“What are you doing?” he screeched breathlessly at his partner.
Moe shrugged. “I think I killed it by accident.” He lowered the pistol with his right hand and raised the flashlight with his left. The opossum lay in a heap, tongue out, mouth foamy in death.
“You asshole,” Manny hissed.
“Jeez, Manny, nobody can hear a thing way out here.”
“If I see that gun again, one of us is leaving here alone tonight.”
Moe was about to reply when he cocked his head and motioned with his gun hand. Manny heard the plane at the same moment. They sprinted toward the van. Meadows followed, still shaky, a few yards behind.
Manny vaulted into the driver’s seat and flicked on the headlights. The sound of the aircraft drew nearer, but Meadows could see nothing overhead. The plane seemed to be circling.
“Two thousand feet,” Moe whispered. He still gripped the pistol in one hand.
“There!” Manny said, pointing north. Meadows spotted the airplane’s silhouette. All its lights were off.
“He sees us,” Moe said assuringly.
“Where is he going to land?” Meadows asked.
“He’s not.”
Manny killed the headlights. The airplane wheeled lower and lower, dipping like a gull. Meadows guessed it to be a small Beechcraft or a twin-engine Cessna.
“Don’t take your eyes off it,” Manny commanded. Meadows followed the aircraft more by sound than by sight. He and Moe stood still by the van. Soon the plane was so low that the frogs and insects became silent. Meadows could see that the aircraft bore dark blue or green stripes and could barely discern the letter N on the tail.
“Banzai!” exclaimed Manny, pointing triumphantly as a bundle tumbled from a small door on the plane. Then came another and, very quickly, one more. Suddenly the pitch of the engine rose, and the airplane climbed rapidly, heading south.
“Moe, did you see where they landed?”
“Think so.”
Manny took Meadows by the arm. “Chris, you come with me. Moe knows what to do now. I’ll whistle if we need any help. And put that fucking piece away.”
“Okay,” Moe said. He slipped the gun back in his pants.
Manny crashed headlong through the sawgrass. Meadows followed tentatively, one eye on the ground and one eye on the bobbing white speck of Manny’s flashlight. “Hurry! Move it,” Manny yelled back at him.
They reached a small clearing. Meadows stood in cola-colored water over his ankles. His hands bled from stinging, invisible gashes; the sawgrass was murder. Manny handed him another flashlight.
“Point this at the ground and nowhere else. If you hear anything besides me, cut it off,” he said. “We’re looking for three bales. As soon as you find one, haul it back to the truck as fast as you can. If you hear Moe hit the horn, drop whatever you’ve got and run like hell.”
Meadows was grateful for the darkness; Manny could not see the fear twisting his face. The sweat clinging to his chest and back suddenly felt cold.
They sloshed through the marsh for fifteen minutes. Meadows took each soggy step as if on fragile ice; he was sure that he would step on a water moccasin or kick a sleeping alligator. He stayed as close to Manny as he could, without actually following. Once he felt something brush lightly against his left leg and yelped. Whatever it was swam unseen in the water; the flashlight revealed nothing. Meadows thrashed furiously to scare it away.
“Over here,” he heard Manny say.
Two bales lay within ten yards of each other. Manny hoisted one by its twine binding and handed it to Meadows. It weighed more than fifty pounds.
“How much is this worth?” he asked Manny.
“Not much,” Manny grunted. “Maybe five, maybe ten grand. Just depends on where and on who.”
Meadows was puzzled. “Then how can your boss afford to pay me five thousand dollars?”
“Because he’s not interested in the grass.” Manny stepped gingerly over a fallen cypress fence post. “We’re carrying about a half million dollars’ worth of cocaine. You can’t see it because it’s stashed in cans in the middle of these bales, where the cops would never think to look.”
Meadows quickened his pace.
“If we get busted,” Manny continued, “we get what? Maybe eighteen months for possession. Possession of what? Grass. The bales go right into the county incinerator, and no one gets burned for any heavy time. My boss is a smart man.”
“Hold up a minute,” Meadows said. “Let me catch my breath.” In front of him, Manny stopped and set the bale down. The only sound was Meadows’s breathing.
“I thought you said there was no cocaine around,” he said finally.
“No, I said it was scarce. And I said you probably couldn’t buy as much as you wanted.”
“I want to buy some of this,” Meadows blurted.
Manny didn’t answer immediately. Meadows thought he could see him smiling. “This is not for sale.”
“Why not?” Meadows demanded. His heart raced. He was so damn close.
“Because someone is waiting for it. It’s been bought and paid for, you asshole. Don’t tell me it works any different in Atlanta. This isn’t a fucking flea market, Carson.”
“I know, but—”
“You know what happens if a shipment turns up short,” Manny said, lifting the bale again.
As they trudged toward the road, Meadows carefully appraised his options. It didn’t take long. Running off with any of the cocaine would be fatally stupid; he would be shot as surely and casually as the opossum. Even if he got away, he had no car and no boat and, most important, no pla
ce to put the dope.
A second option was disarming his two partners and stealing both the shipment and the van. That would be brilliant, he thought grimly. What’s a couple of more killers chasing you when you’ve already got some lunatic Cubans on your trail?
The third option was to shut up, comply with Manny’s orders and hope for a there’s-more-where-that-came-from handshake when it was over. That, Meadows concluded, was the wisest course.
“We’ll put these in the van; then I’ll go back and find the other one,” Manny said.
Then he stopped in his tracks. Twenty yards away the van’s horn sounded twice. Then they heard Moe crash into the swamp.
“Shit,” Manny croaked. He dropped the bale, spun and raced back into the marsh, lifting his legs high to clear the water and grass. Meadows imitated in near panic. They stumbled for fifty yards before Manny stopped and dropped to one knee, wheezing like an old man. Meadows crouched beside him, and he saw the nine-millimeter automatic in Manny’s right hand.
“¡Cristo!” Manny muttered. His voice was tense, his eyes moist and fierce. Meadows was close enough now to see the fear.
The Everglades were silent.
The architect’s heart jackhammered against his ribs. He cursed himself for leaving Terry’s pistol in his room.
Manny raised himself to a semicrouch and peered through the night toward the gravel road. He fanned the mosquitoes out of his eyes.
Meadows heard the sound of an automobile, the rocks crunching under rubber as it slowly approached. Manny ducked. The car stopped, and its engine cut off. A door slammed, then another.
Meadows heard several voices at once. He looked over at Manny apprehensively. The stocky young smuggler raised the handgun, tapped it against his cheek and smiled a rictus grin.
FOR HOURS THEY huddled together silently until Manny fell asleep in a fetal curl on a bed of matted sawgrass. Meadows crouched, knees in the warm muck, afraid to move. He strained to listen, but there were no sounds from the dirt road where the strange cars had stopped.
Hunters, Meadows prayed. But what could they be after out here? Rabbits, opossums, raccoons. Not much else. And hunters would be making noise; they would be shooting at something—rats, beer cans, maybe even Moe.