“I beg your pardon?” Suddenly, Hewlett felt the slightest bit queasy. Feeling like he felt the time he was scuba diving in Australia and noticed a large shark come towards him, he now felt no less wary. Reconnoitering him, the shark circled several times then left as suddenly as he had appeared. So unnerved was he by the encounter that he did no further scuba diving on the trip. When friends he used to dive with would plan a trip, he went with them with some reluctance. There are only so many times a shark comes up to you with no more than just curiosity. Like that shark, Rosario made him feel like he was being sized up by a predator. The statement was like a shot across the bow of a ship: either Rosario worked for the government or he worked for some criminal organization. But if it was government, they would probably be setting him up for a sting, but he had the feeling Rosario was not DEA.
“I said, you run a very tight operation here. Very tight. I’m impressed. So are the people whom I represent.” Rosario’s confidence was unsettling.
“We do our best we can for our clients.”
“I was not talking about investments.”
“Then what are we talking about, Mr. Rosario? I’m afraid you lost me.”
“I think that you run one of the small, but tidiest cocaine supplying entities here in southern Florida.”
“I think you’ve made a mistake here. I am just a stockbroker.”
“Oh, Mr. Hewlett, there’s no need for the false modesty.”
“As I said, I think you’ve made a mistake here, Mr. Rosario. I’ve had modest success at the investment business, and I think my clients have a certain respect for me in that capacity. Colleagues in financial circles will vouch for me.”
“We’re not talking stocks, Mr. Hewlett.”
“That’s what we do here, Mr. Rosario. Mr. Townsend, Mr. Stolley, Mr. Jewell, Mr. Casey, Mr. Jamison, Mr. Downing, Mr. Moriarty and I — we are all stockbrokers. Now if there’s something in the investment field I, or one of my colleagues, can do for you, please let me know. If not, then I think you should leave.”
“Now that, Mr. Hewlett, would be a mistake. You haven’t even heard me out just yet.”
“I think I’ve heard enough. Please leave.”
“I can leave, but the people I answer to will just send someone here of more unpleasant disposition. I can guarantee that they won’t take tomorrow as an answer. Someone less friendly. Someone less likely to take you at your word. Tell me, how would you explain the presence of let’s just say of having one of my associates in your waiting room.” He made associates sound ominous and unforgiving.
“Well to repeat myself, what is it you want?”
“Just how much are you charging for a gram, Mr. Hewlett?”
“A gram?” Leaning back in the leather chair, Hewlett found himself rubbing his mouth with the palm of his right hand. He needed a cigarette, even though he gave up the habit over many years ago. “I’m afraid you really must go.”
“Mr. Hewlett, be reasonable.” From his briefcase, he removed a manila folder that he handed to Hewlett. Hewlett leaned forward. In the photos, taken with a telephoto lens, Jake Townsend was handing baggies full of white powder to various men whom Hewlett knew to be dealers. In the photos, Townsend could be seen taking greenback dollars of unknown denomination from the dealers. “You see Mr. Hewlett, my organization has eyes everywhere.” Goddamn Jake. He told him time and time again not to be dropping off product in the street because of prying eyes. But he never listened.
“You heard me, a gram?” Rosario said again, a little more forcefully.
“I’m a stockbroker, Mr. Rosario.”
“You’re a stockbroker who sells cocaine on the side, Mr. Hewlett.”
“Look, occasionally the opportunity arises to sell a little cocaine. We sell only to a very select group of people. Does that make you feel better?”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Hewlett. You can continue to pretend that you’re a broker who ‘dabbles,’ but if you persist in this charade, I’ll just come back with my associates.”
“I just told you that we occasionally get some cocaine for friends or clients. We’re not big time suppliers by any means.”
“How much a gram?”
“It depends on the market conditions. Purity. Supply and demand. ”
“My personal associates just spent time in Starke for various capital offenses. Mr. Newell was there for manslaughter. Seems there was a small matter over a poker hand. His opponent refused to settle the matter amicably. Mr. Newell allegedly beat him over the head with a gun until the man was senseless. He later died in a Miami hospital. Funny, I can’t recall which one. Of course, Mr. Newell denied the charges. He claims he just had charitable feelings for the man, despite their dispute over the money. In my limited recollection it seems to me, it was over just fifty dollars. But fifty dollars is fifty dollars. As far as I know, Mr. Newell never did recover his money. Mr. Newell was no less busy in Starke. While he was there, he was alleged to have dispatched a particularly unpopular inmate with a shiv. Of course, they couldn’t convict him on that charge. There were no witnesses. And if Mr. Newell is not enough to get your attention, there’s Mr. Spader.
“Mr. Spader was convicted of murdering his neighbor in Tallahassee for playing his music too loud. Though Mr. Spader loves music, especially the classics or opera, he is no fan of the Beatles. According to the court proceedings, Mr. Spader used a knife to kill the now deceased teenager by stabbing him thirty-three times in the chest, abdomen and neck. Seems the victim was playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,’ an album that Spader particularly detests. He knocked on his neighbors’ door to ask them to turn off their stereo. When the boy refused, he stabbed him. He did so much damage internally, they couldn’t even harvest his organs. When the police came to arrest him, he was watching reruns of Archie Bunker. His lawyer got him off by pleading to Murder Two. Now, Mr. Hewlett, you really don’t want me bringing this sort of...let’s just say, ‘business associates’ around to your premises, do you?”
“One hundred dollars, more or less. Look, we just want a small part of the sandbox to play in. We’re not stepping on your toes. We can go away. I don’t run in the fast crowd like my cousin does.”
But Rosario didn’t seem to be listening to him.
“Does the name Bob Black ring a bell? It should. It was Bob Black’s body that washed up on the beach last week. Maybe you read about it in the Herald.”
Hewlett shook his head. “I seldom get past the Financial Page.”
“Maybe you saw it on the local news channel.”
“I seldom watch the news, except for...”
“Except for the financial news,” Rosario finished for him. “Mr. Newell and Mr. Spader had a hard time loading him in the trunk of a van. Seems he weighed over two hundred fifty pounds. He was the one who washed up on the beach with his hands tied behind his back and his feet bound. Duct tape covered his mouth. It was Mr. Newell who put two .22 slugs behind his left ear.” As Rosario recited the execution style slaying of Black, Hewlett remembered seeing pictures of them hauling the body out of the water on late night news on KMTV. “The double tap 22’s behind the ear is the trademark of the organization I work for. You see a larger bullet would go straight out the other side of the skull. A .22, though, enters the skull and ricochets back and forth inside the skull like a billiard ball in the cushions of the table because it doesn’t possess the firepower that another handgun might have. It doesn’t have the power to go through the skull. Each time