Pale Kings and Princes

We went through the door and were in the warehouse proper. There were roller conveyors and long flat tables and wide aisles through which forklift trucks moved. Crates of vegetables were piled on the tables and workers repacked them and sent them on down the rollers to the next station as orders were packed. Most of the workers were Hispanic.

The wooden stairs went up at right angles, along the far wall of the building. At the top of the stairs an office with frosted-glass windows perched like a tree house halfway up the wall. When I reached the door, it opened and I stepped inside. Hawk stopped outside. Esteva was at his desk. Cesar was standing against the wall to his left. Hands hanging at his side. His small hat sitting squarely on top of his head. I glanced behind the door that had just opened. The guy in the Celtics jacket was behind me.

“Tell your friend to come in,” he said.

“How about you walk over near the desk,” I said, “where we can see you. Then he’ll come in.”

Celtics Jacket looked at Esteva. Esteva made a barely perceptible nod of his chin. Celtics Jacket shrugged. He left the door open and walked over to stand against the wall to Esteva’s right.

Hawk stepped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. He looked at Cesar. Cesar looked back, with no expression. I looked at Esteva. He looked back. No one was looking at Celtics Jacket. He’d had his turn. The silence lasted for a long time, for a silence.

“Esteva’s the one in the middle,” I said to Hawk. “Guy with the funny hat is named Cesar. Guy with the Celtics jacket, I don’t know his name.”

“How come he wearing his jacket indoors,” Hawk said.

“Probably doesn’t own a shirt,” I said.

“What do we call him,” Celtics Jacket said. “He got a name or we just call him Schwartze?”

“They call me Mr. Tibbs,” Hawk said. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Cesar.

“Tibbs, huh? Sounds like a fucking schwartze name...”

“Shut up, Felice,” Esteva said without looking at him. “He’s kidding you.”

We were all quiet again, looking.

Esteva lit one of his Gilbert Roland cigars. He inhaled, let out a cloud of smoke and gazed at me through it. Dramatic.

“You come to do any business?” Esteva said.

“Maybe,” I said. “What kind of business you got in mind?”

“I figure you got something you want to sell me.”

Beside me Hawk was as motionless as Cesar. They seemed oblivious to the rest of us, lost in contemplation.

“What do you think that is?” I said.

Esteva puffed on his cigar.

“How I know you don’t have a wire?” he said.

“Let Felice pat us down, one at a time,” I said.

Esteva turned his head toward Cesar.

“Not Cesar,” I said. “Felice.”

“Sure,” Esteva said. He nodded at Felice.

Felice patted me down carefully. “He carrying, Mr. Esteva,” Felice said.

“Un huh,” Esteva said.

Felice moved slowly to Hawk and patted him down. Even during the frisk, Hawk’s eyes never left Cesar.

“Tibbs carrying too, Mr. Esteva.”

“Any wire?”

“No.”

“Good,” Esteva said. “No problem.”

Felice stepped back to his place by the wall.

Esteva said, “No need to bullshit anymore. You got two hundred keys of cocaine belongs to me.”

“I had to turn in a hundred to the cops to explain what I was doing with the kid.”

“Sure, and you figure to bust me too. Hundred good as three to bust me,” Esteva said. “If I go to jail you sell it to somebody else.”

“You understand,” I said.

“I understand business,” Esteva said. “Two hundred keys, a lot of coke. A lot of money. It’s why you still alive.” He pronounced you as if it were spelled with a j.

“Because I know where it is,” I said.

Esteva smiled and nodded.

“I thought of that too,” I said. “And I thought about how once I sell it back to you, there’s no reason for me to stay alive.”

“Lotta money in this business,” Esteva said. “But it’s risky” — he inhaled some cigar smoke — “risky business. Why there’s so much money.”

“So are you buying?”

Esteva shrugged. I waited. Esteva waited. I waited some more.

“How much you asking?” Esteva said.

“Thirty-two thousand a kilo,” I said.

Esteva shook his head. “That’s list around here,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“I already paid for the junk once,” Esteva said. “Can’t make a living paying list price twice.”

I said, “Un huh.”

Esteva didn’t say anything. Neither did I. Below and behind us the sounds of produce distribution went on. The clatter of the rollers on the conveyor runs, the thump of crates being tossed around.

“Ten,” Esteva said.

“In Boston I can get over forty,” I said.

“Ten, and you stay alive,” Esteva said.

We were quiet again. Beside me Hawk was whistling to himself. Almost inaudibly. He did it between his teeth, with his lips barely parted. “Georgia on My Mind.”

“Think about it,” Esteva said. “No rush, a few days.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, and turned and started out the door. Hawk pointed his forefinger at Cesar with his thumb cocked. He grinned and dropped the thumb. “Bang,” he said.