American Gangster by Max Allan Collins Page A

at one of his bodyguards, and said in Chinese, “I don’t believe a word of this.” Then he said to Frank, “After this first purchase, if you’re not killed by Marseilles importers—or the Italians in the States—then what?”
    Frank flipped a hand. “Then there’ll be more—and on a regular basis . . . though I’d rather not have to drag my ass all the way up
here
every time.”
    The general thought about that. Then, after a glance at the various papers (including the cash), he said, “Of course not.”
    Frank did not smile, outwardly; but inwardly he was grinning.
    The tough old general was ready to do business.
    Two days later, at an army landing zone in Vietnam with monsoon rains pounding down, Frank climbed out of a UH-1 helicopter having traded his bandolier for the necklace of a press card. Nate, in uniform, climbed out of the Huey, too.
    Nate alone was led by black enlisted men to an LZ tent where a black colonel was waiting. Frank cooled his heels under some dripping camouflage, hanging out with some other brothers in uniform. He could not hear the conversation that Nate and the colonel were having, but he knew what was going down.
    The colonel said to Nate, “Jesus—that’s a lot of powder. Where’s it now?”
    â€œBangkok,” Nate said. He shrugged. “I can bring it here. Or anywhere in between. Your call.”
    The colonel shook his head. “A hundred damn kilos. . . . I never seen that much dope in one place, have you?”
    Nate grinned. “I just did. You ever see one of them Amana refrigerator-freezers?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œBigger than that.”
    â€œ. . . Let me talk to your partner.”
    Nate nodded out to Frank, who joined them in the tent and did some negotiating. Then they watched the colonel exiting the tent, rain still coming down likeGod machine-gunning, to cross the torrent on duck-boards to another tent, where a white officer, a two-star general, waited.
    This negotiation was brief: fifty grand in advance, covering the pilots and the guys on the other end, as well.
    But Frank told Nate, “No.”
    Nate goggled at him. “
No?
Frank, we—”
    â€œGive them one hundred.”
    â€œWhat? Give ’em
more
than we negotiated?”
    Frank nodded. “A hundred. That’s all I’ve got left, anyway. So if that dope doesn’t arrive, for whatever reason, I won’t need it, the extra. We’ll buy a little good will.”
    â€œIf you say so, cousin.”
    Then, suddenly, Frank embraced Nate and whispered in his ear, “Cousin or no cousin—don’t let me down.”
    The words weren’t overtly a threat, but as he handed the fat envelope of cash to Nate, Frank knew that Nate knew.
    Knew that Frank would kill him, if things didn’t go to plan.
    Nate said, “Don’t sweat this a second. I’m all over it. And I’ll let you know when the shit’s in the air. . . . Anybody ever tell you you’re a kind of genius?”
    â€œNo. I been called a fool before.”
    Nate grinned. “Well, you’re that, too. But aren’t we all?”

6. Dick Down
    Richie Roberts had never meant to hurt his wife. He had loved Laurie, and he still did love her, he supposed, in a mother-of-his-child kind of way. He’d never had an affair on her; he wouldn’t do that to her, he wasn’t some disloyal prick.
    But he would knock off a piece here and there, strictly one-night-stand stuff, and yet the times she’d found out, Laurie reacted like he’d been seeing somebody behind her back.
    He’d never bothered trying to explain it to her. That his job was high stress, max pressure, life or fucking death, and the only things that took the edge off, that took him out of his crowded head and into someplace free of thought, were the roll of a joint or a roll in the hay.
    And that didn’t count