"So they decided to murder DEA agents. One, anyway, so there would be a chance for Congress to whoop and holler and then do nothing and the agents themselves would see they had no backup after the second killing and quit. Not quit their jobs. Just quit doing them. And why shouldn't they? Why be targets for people who didn't care anymore about them than to say they did?"
"So what stopped it?" Adam wanted to know.
Jack's face was hard. "It wasn't stopped."
Adam stared at him. "You're kidding."
"Read the papers much, kid?"
Jack snorted, smiled. "Don't blame you. Anyway, they've killed five DEA men since 1983."
"And they tried to kill you?" prompted Davette.
"Kidnapped me first." Jack drained his glass and signaled the waitress for another round. "Which was stupid. Felix tried to warn me. He got word to me two days before but I had John Wayne fever or something and wouldn't get out like I should."
"How," asked Cat slowly, "did Felix know?"
"They were his gang. Those partners he was so worried about, trying to prove they could make it in the raw-brown-heroin business."
Third Interlude: Audition
They trussed me up good. Four of 'em. They took me right out of my motel room in the early morning during my shower.
Stupid, stupid, stupid on my part. Just stupid!
But not bad on theirs. They were fast and rough and scared and they had me down and wrapped up tight and then they pounded on me to show they meant it and then we left. At least they gave me my trousers.
Two hours later we're out in some abandoned mobile home way out in the sticks and I'm tied to a chair at the legs and armrests and shoved up against this rickety old kitchen table like they're going to feed me and then they sit down and shoot some more speed into their arms.
It was plenty scary. All four were Americans, all four young. All four wired to the gills. The dope didn't even seem to affect them, so God knows how long they'd been awake and psyching up to do this. Two or three days at least. Maybe a week.
I was dead meat.
There was a fifth guy there. Hispanic, but I knew damn well he wasn't a Mexican. He was cold sober and cold-eyed and dressed the way he thought American gangsters were supposed to dress. He chewed a toothpick and played with the gold on his wrists and fingers and around his neck. He was the one they were trying to impress. They kept offering him speed. He shook his head and smiled. Then he looked at me with a sly sneer of personal triumph. He suggested they keep the gag in my mouth. They did.
The moment came. They all exchanged nervous looks and then looked at the Hispanic and be looked at them as if to say, "Well?"
The leader looked a bit like Cat, thin and blond, and he licked his lips and nodded to the others and they all stood up. The leader reached for his gun. Two of the others did the same.
Felix appeared without warning in the doorway behind them.
"Knock, knock," he said quietly.
They jumped like they'd been zapped by a laser beam. They spun around, cocking their pistols, or trying to get them out with jerking slippery hands - And I thought they were going to shoot him. Or at least shoot at him. But they didn't. They recognized him at the last split second, and didn't shoot. The air was filled with the sound of their roaring breath.
Felix, feigning concern, took a step back and raised his hands. He smiled. "Don't shoot, Yankee!"
There was about a three-beat pause while everyone's heart was restarted. Felix, still smiling, lowered his hands and strolled casually into the room. He stopped in front of my table and lit a cigarette. He regarded the blond.
"Cliff, you look like shit," He looked around at the rest of them. "The rest of you look worse." He paused when be came to the Hispanic. His smile remained but his eyes looked hard. "I see the company rep is here."
Then he did a scary thing. He took one of the chairs abandoned by the others, the one next to me, and plopped down in it. He looked at me, said, "Hi, Jack," and tapped his cigarette in the ashtray.
Cliff's eyes went wide. He stared, took a step toward us without thinking. "You know this guy?"
Felix remained calm. "Sure. Got drunk with him a month