"Which is what I wanted, I guess."
Faye slowed the car as they passed a couple of kids on bicycles.
"But?"
"But he's not what I wanted him to be," Macklin said.
Faye braked at the stop sign on Beach Street, looked carefully both ways, and drove on.
"So what is he?"
"I don't know," Macklin said.
"But he's not a shit-kicker."
"Well," Faye said, "neither are you."
Macklin patted Faye's thigh for a moment and smiled.
"No," he said.
"I'm not."
THIRTY-TWO.
Tony Marcus was a black man with a big moustache and a small Afro. He had on good clothes, Crow noticed. A dark pinstriped suit, a bright white shirt with a wide spread collar. His pink silk tie was tied in a big Windsor knot.
"Who sold you this crap?" Tony Marcus said.
Crow smiled and shook his head. They were in the back room of a restaurant called Buddy's Fox. Marcus was sitting at his desk. Crow sat across from him. The two men with Marcus were standing. One was a huge man called Junior. The other one was a fidgety, skinny kid with his hair slicked back and a large gold ring in his ear. The kid's name was Ty-Bop. He'd be the shooter, Crow thought.
"Well, whoever it was, they seen you coming."
"It's been stepped on a little," Crow said.
"The sample you gave me's been trampled on," Marcus said.
"So buy it cheap, sell it for double."
"How'd you get to me?" Marcus said.
"I asked around."
"Where'd you get the blow?"
Crow smiled again and said nothing.
"Coke dealer named Bo Chang got clipped the other night in Chinatown. Know anything about that?"
"Nope."
"Where you from?" Marcus said.
"Out of town," Crow said.
"You Mexican or something?"
"Apache," Crow said.
"Apache?"
"Yes."
"Like fucking Geronimo Apache?"
"Yes."
Marcus looked at Ty-Bop. You know who Geronimo was, Ty-Bop?"
Ty-Bop shook his head. He was restless. Never quite still, tapping his hands against his thighs, shifting his feet as if he were jiving to a music of his own.
"How about Apache?" Marcus said.
"You know about Apaches, Ty-Bop?"
"You know I don't know nothing about that shit, Mr.
Marcus."
"That's okay, Ty-Bop," Marcus said.
"You know what you need to know."
Ty-Bop nodded. Junior, taking up most of the wall he was leaning on, said nothing.
"What you call cheap?" Marcus said.
"Hundred for the lot."
"Hundred large?" Marcus said.
"Yes."
"Dream on, Geronimo."
"What you call cheap?" Crow said.
"Twenty."
"Apiece?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Twenty grand for the lot?" Crow sounded amazed.
"For cris sake Marcus said.
"What I'm buying is about three keys of mannite."
"It's not that bad," Crow said.
"You want to talk to my chemist?" Marcus said.
"It's shit. Means I got to market it to white college kids."
"Lot of them in Boston," Crow said.
"Why I'm offering you twenty."
"You got it here?" Crow said.
"Yes."
"Count it out," Crow said.
"I'll be right back."
Crow went out through the restaurant to where his car was parked on the street. He opened the trunk of his car, picked up the Nike bag, closed the trunk, and went back in through the restaurant. He put the bag on the desk. Marcus looked in it, sampled a little from each kilo, and shook his head in distaste.
"Yeah, same shit," he said.
He pushed a stack of hundreds across the desk. Crow picked it up and counted it. There were 200 of them.
"Okay," Crow said.
He stuffed the bills into his two side pockets.
"You took kind of a chance, didn't you?" Marcus said.
"Come in here alone, selling me stuff. How'd you know we wouldn't just take it away from you?"
"Your reputation," Crow said.
"You'd have to kill me to do it, and I figured it wasn't worth it to you for three kilos of baby laxative."
"I guess you figured right," Marcus said.
Crow looked at Ty-Bop, jittering near the door somewhere in his own world.
"And maybe I didn't think you could do it," Crow said.
Marcus grinned.
"Don't let Ty-Bop fool you," Marcus said.
"He's pretty good."
"I guess we don't need to find out now," Crow said.
"Bo Chang was a tough little fucker," Marcus said.
Crow shrugged and went out of the office.
THIRTY-THREE.