“As I say—you won't learn anything about Sam. But feel free. I don't want you talking about the Poindexters and Mr. Ellis being missing, Mary. There's no reason to get people worried more than they are."
“I won't say anything.” Her eyes hardened. “At least for a while. But I'm telling the FBI and the sheriff's office about it."
“They already know,” he said, letting a smirk show on his face for the first time since she'd gotten on his case. “Speaking of the sheriff, you know this dope fiend you been talking to about the case, this Royce Hawthorne, I want you to tell him it's only out of deference to you that his tail isn't sittin’ back in my jail.” Mary felt a hard knot in the pit of her stomach. It was bad enough with Sam—she didn't want to cause anybody else problems.
“He's been stickin’ his nose everywhere, asking questions where he has no business, and then he has the gall to pose as the county sheriff and interrogate my personal secretary. It took me exactly one minute with his good friend and fellow junkie Mr. Hite to know who had bothered Kelly."
“He was trying to help me find out something. It was more than the police seemed willing to do. You would have never said a word to me, would you?"
“Not until there was some reason to, no. But let me ask you—now that you know what you think you know, are you any more informed? Do you know anything more about Sam's disappearance? No, little lady. You don't really know anything more. It's just upset you, is all it's done."
She wanted to spit in his ugly face. The “little lady” really brought the red back into her cheeks, but she remembered what Royce had said and forced herself to keep her mouth shut.
“Do you know what Mr. Hawthorne is, Mary? This friend you seem so willing to confide in about a police investigation and whatnot?"
“I know him very well."
“He's a dope addict. He's a cocaine dealer, did you know that?"
“No.” She shook her head. “He's a friend, is all I know."
“We're watching him very closely. He's going to make a serious mistake one day, and he'll end up in the hoosegow for a long time. I'm telling you for your own good—not to help him. He's not about to change. He's been no good as long as I been knowin’ him. You'd be well advised to cut loose of him, Mary."
“Please—” He'd thrown her off with this talk of Royce. She knew that what he was saying now was probably the truth. “Just help me find my husband,” she said, quietly. Then she turned and left. Empty and hurting in the hollowness of her stomach. She imagined that Marty Kerns would be pantomiming blowing a kiss to her parting back, and she imagined she could hear the laughter of the other officers.
Royce had brought her a wealth of information. He'd caught the cops in lies—big lies—about a major missing-persons case. She'd thrown all of it in Kerns's face, and somehow it had all bounced off of him. He'd turned it around so that she and Royce had ended up looking like idiots, and he'd come off as the responsible public servant. If the FBI had all this information—and there were four persons gone, all connected in a land deal—what were the implications?
She'd go home and ask her personal adviser, her junkie buddy.
16
“Mark, I think we're about ready,” the daddy rabbit said in his command voice. The agent named Mark hit the lights.
“Okay.” The conversations in the room subsided. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you know only too well, the so-called war on drugs was never a war at all. It was a holding action. Not even that, really. It was a series of dog-and-pony shows.” Like this one, he thought.
“The Medellin, Cali, Bogota, North Coast—” his pointer flicked across the background display “—and various other Colombian organizations have operated for years without fear of serious reprisal by law enforcement agencies. It's only in the past year we've been able to mount a real campaign against the active drug cartels.
“As we're all aware, painfully aware, the U.S. government has done what it could to make the smuggling of drugs easy. We tell these Third World countries to give us their tired, their poor, their huddled masses. Give us your dope mules, in other words.” There was a murmur of agreement in the conference room.
“From the blue-collar immigrant who loads it, to the ones who mule it in, to the street kids who act as lookout for the peddlers and pushers, our open society and open borders have made it impossible to control the flow—especially in states like Florida and Texas. And—let's give the rats credit: they've been very smart.
“We've known for years there was little point in trying to stop the traffic once it hit the street. Our only hope in staving in the Colombian cartels’ machine has been to try to hit the second-level guys. The big boys have been all but untouchable, and the little guys are too numerous to do anything about. It has always been the secondary level where the Colombians have been their most vulnerable.