Part 16 (1/2)

By then I'd decided I ought to back up a little and take it slower if we were going to get anywhere at all, so that's what I did.

1989.

DeAlton.

I'VE NEVER LIKED DRIVING this far north after Thanksgiving time. Once the hard weather settles in. It's too risky. Old man Roy Dobson's been after me to expand the territory up here about as long as I can remember-up toward the border, I mean, not over it, I don't think he ever had anything in the way of an export license-but I've never seen the sense in it. If a man can't make a living selling milking machines in central New York, he probably can't make a living at all. this far north after Thanksgiving time. Once the hard weather settles in. It's too risky. Old man Roy Dobson's been after me to expand the territory up here about as long as I can remember-up toward the border, I mean, not over it, I don't think he ever had anything in the way of an export license-but I've never seen the sense in it. If a man can't make a living selling milking machines in central New York, he probably can't make a living at all.

I said an export license. Don't you know anything? I never went to college and I've heard about an export license.

Anyway I guess we won't need one. That's the beauty of this line of work. Import, export, who gives a s.h.i.+t. And no taxes either.

I wish they'd get the plows out earlier. I thought they called this a main highway.

If you were going to keep this up on a regular basis I'd say get a different car. Nothing fancy. I don't mean that. Maybe four-wheel drive. Just something less conspicuous than that VW.

I don't care if you sc.r.a.ped the stickers off. You can still make out some of them if you look.

Anyway the trick is to get that Henri to do the hauling. If he's coming down with a carload anyway there's no sense going back empty. Anybody can see that. We want to stay out of the transportation business and let him stay in it. That's job one on this trip.

What's he drive anyway?

See, that's way too much car. A car like that just draws attention. That's why we brought your mother's. You want to maintain the right profile. Low but not too low.

d.a.m.n it, the customs agents could be his own mother and father and it wouldn't make any difference. You don't smuggle dope in a Cadillac Eldorado.

That's a good point. He'll have our stuff in there going north. That's right. But you can't control every d.a.m.n thing. I'd rather lose a s.h.i.+pment in his fancy car than get caught with one in my own.

It's under the spare tire. I put some dirty old shop towels and newspapers under the spare tire and it's under that.

Now s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. I tell your mother to keep an eye on the washer fluid but she never does. It's good for her to take a little responsibility for herself in that line, but now look where it got me. s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t. I can't see a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing. I'll pull over and you squirt on some of that de-icer and we'll see how that helps.

I think there's a gas station this side of Cicero might be open.

Donna.

HE SAID D DOBSON wanted him to make a run to Quebec, and her car had the newer tires on it plus it got better gas mileage. Dobson paid the legal twenty-five and a half cents a mile regardless, and there was no way DeAlton Poole was going to bother impressing that old fool's customers on his own dime. Not all the way to Quebec. wanted him to make a run to Quebec, and her car had the newer tires on it plus it got better gas mileage. Dobson paid the legal twenty-five and a half cents a mile regardless, and there was no way DeAlton Poole was going to bother impressing that old fool's customers on his own dime. Not all the way to Quebec.

Tom.

THERE SURE WAS A LOT of French stuff up here. Tom couldn't believe it. The road signs would have been enough, never mind the billboards and the food and the newspapers and everything else. He and DeAlton got in early, so they parked the car and had something at a little coffee shop on a side street. Tom couldn't get over the menu. He kept saying it was like they were in a foreign country and his father shook his head and said they were and Tom said well yes he knew that but still. Then they got back into the car and parked where they'd been told to park and walked around the corner the way they'd been told to walk and knocked at the locked door of a restaurant the way they'd been told to knock. Then they waited. There was a little gray snow on the sidewalk and they stamped their feet in it to stay warm. of French stuff up here. Tom couldn't believe it. The road signs would have been enough, never mind the billboards and the food and the newspapers and everything else. He and DeAlton got in early, so they parked the car and had something at a little coffee shop on a side street. Tom couldn't get over the menu. He kept saying it was like they were in a foreign country and his father shook his head and said they were and Tom said well yes he knew that but still. Then they got back into the car and parked where they'd been told to park and walked around the corner the way they'd been told to walk and knocked at the locked door of a restaurant the way they'd been told to knock. Then they waited. There was a little gray snow on the sidewalk and they stamped their feet in it to stay warm.

They heard some sounds from inside, the slamming of a door and maybe some footsteps, unless it was from the building next door or upstairs. The noises faded to nothing again. DeAlton looked at his watch and asked Tom if he was sure they were here on the right day and Tom said yes. DeAlton said he didn't like to be kept waiting, giving Tom a look that made him feel as if the whole thing was his fault. As if Tom had willfully gone into business with somebody whose idea of a good time was making DeAlton Poole freeze his a.s.s on a street corner in a foreign country with a Baggie of marijuana in his coat pocket. Like this particular indignity had been planned from the start.

Tom stuffed his hands into his pockets and lifted his shoulders up around his ears. ”I can hold on to that bag if you want me to,” he said.

”I'm not handing it over in the middle of the sidewalk. Not even to my own flesh and blood.” He s.h.i.+vered. ”Although by rights you're the one should be in charge of it. I've got to quit putting everybody else first. It's like I said about your mother. Until you're in charge of your own washer fluid, you don't think about it. You never have to grow up.”

”Live and learn,” said Tom. And with the creaking of a latch and the turning of a key, the door slid open. It wasn't Henri behind it. It was an antique individual in rumpled chef's whites, not much more than four feet tall, with a towering and very grimy toque pushed down to his eyebrows. He had bright little eyes like marbles in gray dough and pretty much the same little scar of a mustache that Henri wore. He needed a shave. ”You have come to meet with Henri,” he said, stating the obvious.

”Right you are, Chef Boyardee,” said DeAlton. ”Now lead on. I don't know what you're used to, but we're not the kind of men that like to wait.”

The place smelled like paradise and purgatory. Paradise from the swinging doors to the kitchen, and purgatory from the cigarette smoke that lingered everywhere. The little man shut the door and locked it and led them back through a series of barely lit dining rooms, where bits of gla.s.s and polished hardwood gleamed like secrets. ”Boiardi was an Italian,” he said, throwing the words over his shoulder with a palpable contempt. ”He sacrificed everything for commerce.” Evwysing Evwysing. ”I, on the other hand, am French French.”

”Right,” said DeAlton. ”I know some guys who fought in the big war, and they told me how you French boys feel about compromise.”

The old man stopped short and DeAlton very nearly stumbled into him. For an instant he was pretty sure that the little Frenchman was going to spin around on his heel and nail him in the gut with a sucker punch. It would have been just the sort of duplicitousness that he should have been expecting. But instead the little man swept open the hidden door to a private dining room and pointed within, his little gray faced twisted into a scowl. This was it, the end of the line.

”Thanks, pal,” said DeAlton. ”Let me know when you've cooked up something I can buy in the Acme.”

”Don't hold your breath.” The little man sneered beneath his mustache, and marched off toward the kitchen.

Henri let the smoke trickle slowly through his lips and he didn't speak until it was all gone. Then the words rode out on a long string of delicate little coughs. ”So what are you saying to me? Is this my compet.i.tion?”

”You wish.”

Henri looked puzzled.

”You wish it was your compet.i.tion. You wish you had something to compete with it.” DeAlton's tone had an oiliness that only slightly masked something volcanic underneath. ”Now look here. I just promised to buy twice our usual from you in the future, so trust me when I say I know the difference between the stuff you're selling and this stuff.”

”I see.” Henri turned the joint in his fingers, studying it from all angles. He lifted up his shoulders and drew down the corners of his mouth. ”So. If this is not my compet.i.tion, then why do you bring it to me?”

”Because you're in the distribution business, same as we are. Only we've started doing a little production of our own.” DeAlton nodded to indicate the joint in Henri's hand and the Baggie on the polished walnut tabletop.

”Ahh. Long ago Nick told me that he grew a little. I had no idea.”

”This doesn't have to do with Nick. Nick doesn't know the first thing about growing marijuana. I'm the one who knows about growing marijuana.”

Henri pursed his lips.

”And thanks to me, we've got a ton more of this than we can get rid of all by our lonesome.”

”A ton?”

”Figure of speech.”

”I see. You have a ton that is not a ton, and you want me to dispose of it on your behalf.”

DeAlton showed as many of his teeth as he could. ”I wouldn't put it that way. How I'd put it is I'm giving you the opportunity of a lifetime.”

”Ahh,” said Henri. He looked wearily from DeAlton to the joint and then back again, as if no power on earth could impel him to accept this burden. The joint had gone out, so he lit it again and drew on it. ”Life,” he said as the smoke trickled out, ”is full of opportunities. A businessman must be careful as to which he accepts.”

”Accepts?” As if he didn't understand the word.