Detective

be highly suspect. And simply the idea of having my name on a package of those contents was more than I could deal with.
    That left me with two alternatives: throw it away, or take it with me on the plane. You can’t throw it away, it’s evidence, I told myself. Bullshit, myself cried. You just don’t want to part with it. I had to admit that that was true. Somehow the idea of throwing something worth twenty or thirty grand, whatever it might be, in the garbage, went sorely against the grain. So the only thing to do was take it with me on the plane. What an unattractive proposition! Consider the fact that Tony Arroyo, Pluto, Floridian #2, and the rest of the boys, heavy hitters indeed, had found taking it on the plane so risky an operation that they were willing to pay huge chunks of money to poor schmucks like Martin Albrect to drive it up instead. Granted, they weren’t really giving him anything—they were fleecing him at the roulette table and making him drive to pay it off, but the underlying principle was the same. And, of course, they were doing it as a regular thing. I’d only have to do it once. And they were moving much larger quantities. Still, the quantity I had would be large enough for the drug enforcement boys. I could envision the phone call I would have to make: “Yeah, honey, I’m in jail. What’s the charge? Drug trafficking. No. Not possession. Not sale. Trafficking. Transporting large enough quantities of regulated substances to be considered a major cog in the drug traffic machine of America. Bail? Do we happen to have $100,000 in the account?”
    It was not a pretty prospect, and it tipped the scale. I was not going to take it on the plane. Which meant I had to throw it away.
    Or did it?
    Vaguely I recalled a principle from my old math days. I’m sure the wording is all wrong, but it went something like this: if you find yourself working on a problem where every conclusion that you reach is unacceptable and wrong, reexamine your hypothesis.
    My hypothesis was that I had only two alternatives: throw the kilo away or take it on the plane.

13.
    T HE G UY IN THE E LECTRONICS store raised an eyebrow. “You again.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “The bad penny.”
    “Let me guess. The transmitter fell off and you want your money back?”
    “Not at all,” I told him. “In fact, I’m so impressed with it I decided to give you some more of my business.”
    He shrugged. “If I worked on commission I’d be thrilled. Whaddya want?”
    “The magnets that hold that thing on. They’re terrific. I wonder if you have them without the transmitter, perhaps attached to some small bag or other.”
    He didn’t, but what he did have, and what I eventually bought, were suction cups, the kind with the lever on the top that clamps down to lock them in place, the kind you see cat burglars use in the movies. I bought four of them, and a small canvas backpack with buckles and straps.
    I took the stuff back to the hotel room and put it together. When the levers were closed on the suction cups, it formed a perfect loop for the straps to go through. I shortened the straps as far as they would go, so the thing wouldn’t hang down any more than it had to, and the end result wasn’t bad. I figured it would do.
    I took the kilo of coke out of my briefcase, and put it in the backpack. It wasn’t a bad fit. I buckled it shut and tested the flap. It was O.K. If the buckles stayed put, there was no way it was going to fall out.
    I put the whole shmear in my briefcase, went out, hailed a cab, and had it take me to the Essex Hotel. This time I didn’t bother to register for a room I didn’t need. I just walked through the lobby and took the elevator down to the garage.
    I had a moment of panic when I didn’t see Red’s car, but then I spotted it behind a Lincoln Continental that had come in since the last time I’d been there. I went to the back of Red’s car and bent down. The transmitter was still in place, though why it should have moved when the car hadn’t is beyond me. I gave it a tug anyway just to be sure. It didn’t budge.
    I glanced around to make sure no one was coming, then popped open the briefcase and took out the four suction cups and the canvas bag. One at a time I snapped the cups in place on the underside of the car next to the transmitter. I threaded the straps from the bag through the levers as I snapped them closed. The whole operation seemed an eternity but took about 30 seconds. I