Write me a Letter

office and starts carrying on with some punk out there. Fats goes out to see what the fuck’s goin’ down.”
    ”How come you went to a shark like Fats in the first place, Will, if that’s not too personal a question?”
    ”Stupidity,” he said, ”if that’s not too personal an answer. Guy named Benjy, supposed to know all the angles, he worked at the garage where I did, he had it all worked out. He welded a second gas tank inside the real one of this beat-up Chevy he had, took him two whole nights after work, beautiful job. He’s got a solid connection in Tijuana all lined up, he’s done business with him before, this guy is gold, his merchandise is first-class. We all kicked in what we could come up with, I should’a got back twelve grand for my five plus the grand vig, not bad for doing sweet F.A. for a few days.”
    ”No shit, Geronimo,” said the twerp.
    ”So that’s how come I was into Fats,” Will said.
    ”Bet you a buck,” I said, ”the first place the federales looked was the gas tank.”
    ”Tell me about it, pal,” he said disgustedly.
    ”Bet you guys,” I said to the kids, ”a buck Benjy isn’t where you think he is right now.”
    ”He’s gotta be in a Mexican jail, doesn’t he, George?” Sara said, sucking the slice of lemon from her tea.
    ”It would appear so,” he said cautiously.
    ”Tell you what,” I said magnanimously. ”If I lose, I pay off in U.S. , if you lose, in Canadian.” At that time the U.S. dollar was worth roughly a fourth more than a Canadian one.
    ”Deal,” said Sara. ”OK, Mr. IQ, where do you think he
    is?
    ”Elementary, my dear Miss Dunce,” I said. ”Somewhere in the good old U.S. of A.”
    ”Pay the man,” Will said. ”He’s back workin’ at the garage doin’ lube jobs. That mother even told us he had a buy in San Diego lined up.”
    ”Bet you he won’t be for long,” I said.
    ”Forget it,” Sara said, counting me out four Canadian quarters.
    The pretty waitress came by and said something in French to Willing Boy. He said something back to her in French. From the glare she got from Curly, you’d have thought she’d asked him to elope with her. She went away with a backward look over her shoulder at him. Not even my gray-haired mother ever looked at me like that.
    ”What led you to that brilliant deduction, Holmes?” Willing Boy asked.
    ”He just guessed,” Sara said.
    I smiled at the child. Ah, youth—so impetuous, so quick to come to totally false conclusions.
    ”If you know the angles, like Benjy was supposed to,” I said, ”what you do not do is anything remotely as stupid as making a big score in Tijuana , or any other border town, for that matter. Nor do you run the border in a beat-up old wreck, it is a mite obvious. And if you are dumb enough to run the border in a beat-up wreck, don’t stash your dope in anything as trite as a false gas tank, a false brassiere— pardon me, Sara—would be better even, how old hat can you get? It’s like a spy using a hollow heel. But the real, fundamental stupidity lies in making a big score next to the border in the first place. All the connection has to do is tip off the fuzz and he collects a reward from them, and also gets to stay in business. This is the main problem making a large buy anywhere.
    ”So. No one’s that stupid anymore. If you know the angles, it’s you who wants to wind up rich. What you do is find some hungry-looking federale, and I’m reliably informed that, although an endangered species these days, one or two still exist.”
    ”Get on with it, why can’t you,” the twerp muttered, noisily finishing up the last of her tea.
    ”To cut a long story short, as I was about to, anyway,” I continued, ”Benjy has to protect his back in case one of his investors like Will, here, gets suspicious and stakes out the border and not with a snowman, either, which is what he needs the federale for, among other things. Either the federale, forewarned, or a pal of his at the border, likewise, stops Benjy on his way through.”
    ”Benjy was smarter than that, even,” Will said. ” He suggested we have someone at the border just in case, so we did.”
    ”Who sees Benjy get stopped, then sees the fuzz poking sticks into the gas tank, then sees Benjy taken away in handcuffs and his wheels driven off, presumably to a police garage to be taken apart in small pieces. A noche or two later when the tumult and the oles have died down, our friendly federale escorts Benjy