Narc – Part 7 – Meanwhile, back at the bar.

“He’s agreed to work with me,” Tom said.

We were in our isolated office and discussing how things were going. Bill had gotten us a couple of couches that we put in the back room. Add to that a cast-off rug and a coffee table. In that back room and the generally run-down shape of the building, we had what passed for college dorm chic.

At least we had a coffee table now to put our coffee on.

“We’re talking about Eric at the club?” Bill asked.

Two months ago, we’d started working the club. Sources had fingered Eric, a DJ at the club, as a source that sold most any illegal drug. The problem was he used the female dancers at the club as a front. The girls went out and asked the people in the bar what they wanted. If you wanted, say, grass, they took the money and then passed it to someone else. That someone else, usually another dancer, took it to Eric. Eric gave her the drugs, who then passed it to the dancer who took the order. Eric designed this setup to help protect himself from us. If you didn’t know what you were watching, chances were you would miss it. But to the trained eye, it became obvious.

They used a technique called a “brush pass.” This was a play right out of the Little Spy training manual. You brushed against someone. When you did, you slipped something into their pocket. It was a trick best done outside and with lots of people about. Walking down the street, you’d bump into people. That was to help throw anyone watching off. When you passed who you were supposed to hand it off to, you bumped into them. When you did, you dropped whatever it was into their pocket. That would help disguise when you did the pass.

The girl we worked with the most was Debbie, and she was a master at this. The first time we encountered her in the club, she sold me a dime bag of weed. She took my money and passed it to another dancer named Janice. Janice took it to Eric, who in turn gave her the order. Another brush pass, and Debbie came back after having worked the crowd a little. She leaned over, her hand brushed the front of my shirt, and the bag of dope was in my pocket.

David, a member of the narcotics team, had been watching. She did the pass so well, he never saw it happen.

While we had enough to tie the girls and him into pushing narcotics, what we wanted was Eric’s supplier. It was something we had to be careful about trying to get done. It was about building trust and making the small buys. When the world didn’t cave in on them, they felt a little safer with us. It had taken that long for us to become accepted. That allowed Tom to find out it was another biker.

Since he was a biker, it made sense for him to be the one who met the supplier.

“Yes,” Tom said.

Smitty, one of the Junction City PD detectives, was sitting with us. He was in jeans and a jacket and had driven his pickup truck onto the base for the meeting. He looked like some warehouse worker in the area.

“What did he tell you?” Smitty asked.

“That another DJ is working Friday night. If I meet him about ten at the club, his guy will be there, and we’ll talk.”

Eric didn’t have a clue who Tom was. All he knew was that he was a biker-looking soldier and he wanted to go into business on base. He’s sold dope to this soldier. The girls trusted him, and no one has arrested anyone yet.

That meant Tom had to be okay.

The news seemed to surprise and excite Smitty. If we found out who his supplier was, then maybe, just maybe, we could put a real dent in things.

“What are you thinking of asking for?”

Tom seemed a little less certain about that. “I was hoping for a grand.”

There it was. The Kryptonite of any drug dealer. Like the fictional rock that can fell Superman, the green ink of dollar bills can bring down pushers.

But the very mention of it made Smitty frown. “I don’t have that kind of money in my budget.”

Tom acted as if he expected that. “What can you do?”

“A couple of hundred.”

There was the problem. To work the chain and get us into the pipeline, we needed money. Money was the lubricant that made the dope world run. If we didn’t have it, then the machine didn’t work for us.

“Maybe if we pool our money together,” I suggested.

Bill nodded, but the look on his face said he wasn’t happy with the thought. It made sense, but there was an issue with it.

“I need to talk to Lt. Wilson about that,” he said.

The way we were set up gave us the resources to go after the pushers on the frontline. Working the chain meant money we doled out to us. Pooling our funds to make this happen would take a special understanding from Lt. Wilson. She handled the money after all.

“Would you?” Tom asked.

Bill jotted it down on his clipboard to make it happen.

“When can you set it up?” Smitty asked.

“Friday night is his night off,” Tom said. “Is that too soon?”

We were two days away from that.

“I’ll see what I can pull together for cash,” Smitty said. He didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence that he would get much.

“What would you be asking for?” I asked.

“Start small,” Tom suggested. “Five hundred bucks in weed.”

That was a lot of grass. If he bought straight from the supplier, he’d get more than buying through Eric. Like a retail store, the price went up as you got closer to the front of the supply chain.

“Let’s see if we can get the money together first,” Bill said.

“I agree,” Smitty added.

Everyone wanted to end the drug trade. But start talking about money to do so, and everyone threw up their hands.

“This is a one-time thing,” Tom said. “We’ll never get this chance again.”

“OK,” Smitty said. “Let me talk to my people. You talk to yours.”

“If they say yes, we’ll start setting things up in the morning.”

*

Friday night found us back in the bar. It hadn’t changed at all. The same crowd of soldiers and working men sat at the booths or stood against the wall. Everyone had a beer. Some were smoking, and the stage lights rayed down splashes of color on the floor. In the pools of light, Debbie and Janice swirled and undulated in the light.

David leaned close to me. “Think he’ll show?” he asked.

I shrugged. In corporate America, a meeting was a meeting. You showed up if you wanted to make money. But in dope America, who knew? You’d think the opportunity to make money would cause someone to show up as well.

But these guys might play by different rules.

One of those rules was that expanding operations onto the fort might mean that it was a big red line to cross. On this side of that border, all you had to worry about was dealing with the state of Kansas. Cross that line, and it became a federal offense since Ft. Riley was a federal installation.

Maybe, they didn’t want that kind of problem.

Debbie came dancing towards us. She smiled that fake smile she had. As always, she looked like a cool drink of water to a thirsty man. But for whatever reason, the water seemed a little muddier tonight.

“Hey, Danny. Hey, David.” I tipped my beer towards her as a form of greeting. Over the last several weeks, we’d bought all manner of drugs from the girl. We’d even scored opioids traced back to the Army Pharmacy on post.

Or so we thought.

I studied the almost naked girl. There was something different about her tonight. I looked up into her face. Her eyes looked watery, and her face looked tired.

The girl looked sick.

“Debbie, are you okay?” I asked.

“Coming down with the flu, I think,” she answered.

David slipped a few bucks into her G-string. “Go buy yourself some cough medicine, honey.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for asking.” She swayed a little in her dance. “You guys need anything?” She was asking if we needed any drugs.

Eric had come in with a girl that I recognized as a dancer named Monica from another club. They sat down at the booth Tom had claimed.

I made a breaking motion with my hands. “Have to wait till next payday.” Looking back, I’d missed a great chance to tie someone else into this little enterprise. But Lt. Wilson had acted like we’d come in with a gun and robbed her of the money Tom needed.

Tom ordered a couple of beers for them, and a waitress delivered them soon enough.

“I’ll check in with you next time,” she said, and went dancing away.

Once she was out of earshot, David leaned over. “I wonder when he’ll show?”

I looked at the girl. “Think Monica might be the source?”

He shrugged.

Thirty minutes later, I had to order another beer. We tried to nurse the beers we bought. The money we purchased it with wasn’t our money. It belonged to the Army, and we couldn’t spend it all on partying. Several times, I’d purchased a beer and finished it at closing time.

Not tonight. Waiting for things to go down was stressful.

Tom had purchased several rounds for them for our one. And the guy still hadn’t shown. Monica didn’t seem to be a part of the talk. She sat drinking her beer and being eye candy for Eric. A couple of times, Eric got up and used the phone, but we couldn’t tell what number he dialed.

About an hour later, the bartender approached the table and talked to them for a few minutes. Eric stood up and let the girl out, smiling as she left with the bartender to the back.

“What’s that all about?” Dave asked.

Eric sat down opposite Tom again. Tom ordered another round of beer.

I looked at my watch. It was past midnight. The meet was two hours overdue.

Monica came out onto the floor wearing almost nothing and started dancing around. As she came closer, I made eye contact.

“Monica,” I said. “What happened to Debbie?”

She leaned close, “She went home. Not feeling good. I’m filling in.”

“Hope she gets better.” I was my turn to slip a one into her G-string.

“Me too,” she said as she danced away.

One a.m. came and went.

“This is stupid,” Dave whispered.

“I’m going to find Bill,” I answered.

I got up and left the bar. A block away near the park was the white van we used for surveillance. It was dark, but the vent was up. The vent concealed a periscope that we used to watch things and take photographs out of. A curtain separated the front from the back.

The windows were fogged up a little. As far as the world knew, it was a van, and most likely some guy and gal were in the back. I looked around as I approached. No one was in sight, and I rapped on the window. Bill poked his head out from behind the curtain and rolled down the window.

“How we doing, Rich?”

“The guy looks to be a no-show,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Tom and Eric have been sitting together, drinking beer since about 10 o’clock.”

“We saw Eric go in with a girl.”

“Monica from the Playboy Club (not the Playboy Club of Hugh Hefner’s fame. It was a place that dared to use the name).”

“Is she still there?”

“Yeah. Debbie got sick and she’s filling in for her.”

Bill pulled his head back inside the curtains, and I could hear him speaking with Smitty in hushed tones. A moment later, he was back.

“Let’s call it a night. See you back at the office.”

“Roger that.”

I went back to the bar, making sure I held up my stamped hand for the guy to see. A moment later, I was sitting down opposite Dave again.

“Well?”

“Let’s go home,” I replied. We finished our beers and then got up and left. Dave and I were in his Ram pickup tonight, and we drove back to the office. Bill pulled in a moment later after dropping Smitty off. Finally, Tom came in.

We were all waiting for him.

“What happened?” Bill asked. We all wanted to ask the question, but that needed to be Bill’s question.

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. Eric called him a couple of times. He said the guy was on his way, but he never showed.”

Bill frowned. All this was much ado about nothing.

“Well, you can’t win them all,” he said. “Can we try again next week?”

“I’ll set it up,” Tom said.

“Good. Let’s go home,” Bill said.