Detective

to worry about profit margin. Anything I made was pure gravy. So I gave this guy a pound to sell.”
    “Did you know who he was selling it to?”
    “I knew the guy’s name and address, I made him give me that. But I never met the guy himself. I didn’t want to. He was some Hispanic guy from the lower East side, and he was obviously into some very heavy shit. I knew who he was, just to protect myself, but I didn’t want him to know who I was.”
    “So what happened?”
    “The guy came back, gave me the amount I’d asked for, and said he could move some more.”
    “Which he did?”
    “Sure. We moved a total of seven pounds in five weeks.”
    “I thought you only had five pounds.”
    “Yeah, but in between I made another Miami run.”
    “I see.”
    “Yeah. So I made enough profit to pay off the debt and get out from under.”
    “What’d you tell your friends at the casino?”
    “About where the money came from?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I told ’em I made a killing at Atlantic City.”
    “They buy it?”
    “They seemed to. See, I was very careful. I really did go to Atlantic City. I even asked my friend from work to go with me, knowing he couldn’t come. So I think I pulled it off.”
    “What about the other guy?”
    “The casino owner? Uh, what the hell did we call him?”
    “It doesn’t matter. I just gave you the bullshit names because you didn’t seem to be able to tell your story without ’em. You seem to be having no problem now.”
    He thought about it. “Yeah, I guess so. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, the casino owner. Well, there didn’t seem to be any problem with him either. In fact, he told me the other guy who’d been giving me the suitcases wanted to know when I was making another trip.”
    “So what went wrong?”
    “I don’t know. That is, I don’t know for sure, but somewhere, somehow, the trails of the guy who was giving me the suitcases and the guy who was buying our pounds must have crossed.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because when the guy who was selling for me went to deliver the last pound, the guy who was buying from him was dead.”
    “What!”
    “Yeah. And it wasn’t pretty, either. He’d been shot in the head, execution style. And his cock had been cut off and shoved in his mouth.”
    “When did this happen?”
    “Two days ago.”
    “What are the police doing about it?”
    “Nothing. They don’t know about it.”
    “Why not?”
    “My man wasn’t about to go to the police, you know. I mean he was scared. Not just about the drug rap, about the murder. I mean, if you’re dealing with a drug trafficker, and he gets bumped off, who’s the first suspect.”
    “So what did he do?”
    “He got rid of the body.”
    “How?”
    “Dumped it in the East River.”
    “Tied to some concrete?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You guys watch a lot of late movies?”
    “What?”
    “You making this up?”
    “So help me.”
    The phone rang. I picked it up. It was one of the secretaries for the lawyer I work for. She said he had a new case in Brooklyn he wanted me to go sign up. I wrote down the info, told her I’d handle it, and hung up.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
    “That’s it.”
    “What’s it?”
    “That’s the story.”
    “No it isn’t. How does this involve you? The killing, I mean.”
    “I told you. Somehow their paths must have crossed. The guy who got killed and the guy I ripped the shit off from. They found out the guy was selling their own shit, so they killed him.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense. How would they know it was their own stuff?”
    “Only one way. They must have traced its source back to me.”
    A light went on. “So that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “Of course.”
    “And that’s why you think they want to kill you.”
    “Of course.”
    “Is this just paranoia on your part—forgive the word. Are you just deducing this from what happened, or has there been an actual attempt on your life?”
    “No. Nothing like that. See, I haven’t been near the casino, I mean, since the murder. So I haven’t seen any of the guys. But I have been to work. So, if they’re checking on me, they know I haven’t been around since the murder, but they know I’m not sick because I’ve been going to work. And then this morning I got the phone call.”
    “What phone call?”
    “Well, you gotta understand. I have a private office. My secretary works outside. Then there’s the main switchboard for the company. This call