Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,118
asked, “How soon do we have to decide?”
“Right away, today, this afternoon,” Wright said. “There are several parts of this investigation already in motion. The South Florida gang is being rounded up as we speak. We have already arrested Kent Pruitt and he is currently being protected in our Manhattan lockup. Despite Mr. Pruitt’s arrest, we’d also like your cooperation. With more than one of the top dealers testifying against Sansone, we will cinch his conviction.”
Lucas smiled; she lied well.
“I want to talk this over with a lawyer,” Curry said. “See what he says about the deal.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Wright said. “You’ll notice that I’m not asking you any questions, because you already asked the marshals for a lawyer and so I’m not permitted to question you. And I won’t. I’m telling you things and making an offer. If you decline my offer, the four of you will be taken to the federal lockup, held for seventy-two hours, beginning with your arrest, and then allowed to speak to a lawyer. The deal, however, will have been withdrawn—and I don’t care how good your lawyer is, Mr. Curry, you will be going to life in prison. Because we have got you.”
“Jesus Christ,” the old man blurted.
“You can talk about it, and you can ask me questions,” Wright said. “Don’t take too long. This is a complicated process and we don’t have a lot of time.”
* * *
The Currys and Brunos sat and looked at each other, and then David Bruno said to his son-in-law, “Paul, take the deal. You been talking about retiring to Florida. Tell them you’ll take the deal if they’ll send you somewhere warm.”
“What about the kids?” Sophia Curry asked. “What if they go after the kids?”
David Bruno waved her off: “That’s against the rules, honey. Nobody goes after nobody’s kids. That’d be a nightmare all the way around. That’d set off fights that would never end. And they won’t come after me’n Carol, because that’s another nightmare.”
“Sansone’s not like the old guys, Dad,” Paul Curry said. “He doesn’t respect anything.”
“Sansone goes to prison, with most of his outfit, you’ll be an old, old man by the time he gets out, if he ever does,” Bruno said. “I’ll be dead. He won’t have an outfit anymore, he’ll be an old has-been. He’s what, forty-something?” He tilted his head up to Wright. “If all this comes true, you get Sansone on dope . . .”
“Not just dope,” Wright said. “We’re going after him for numerous murders in Florida. If he doesn’t get the death penalty, he’ll be gone forever.”
“There, that’s it,” Bruno said to Paul Curry. He looked around. “You sell this place—you don’t let these assholes wreck it—and you buy a place wherever they hide you, somewhere warm . . . take it easy.”
“We’d be poor,” Sophia said.
“There’s some money floating around the family,” Bruno said. “You won’t be poor.”
All of them, including Wright, Devlin, and Lucas, looked at the old man. Paul Curry’s forehead wrinkled and he said, “What? You’ve got money?”
Bruno used the end of his cane to wave at Wright and the others: “These are cops. We’ll talk about it some other time.”
Curry stared at him, then buried his face in his hands, stayed that way, then rubbed his face, looked up and said, “Deal.”
Lucas: “Where’s the dope?”
“What’s left of it is on the shelf in the kitchen closet. The money’s there, too.”
One of the search specialists said, “We got it.” They’d pulled on blue vinyl gloves and now they headed into the kitchen, trailed by Wright.
* * *
A half hour passed as the searchers uncovered and documented the heroin and the cash. Wright, still in her dress and heels, went out to the SUV and returned with a box containing a small copy machine, on which one of the searchers and Devlin began copying the currency. The currency was wrapped with rubber bands, most hundred-dollar bills with some fifties and twenties, in five-thousand-dollar stacks. Wright asked Curry, “How much do you get for a kilo? You personally?”
“I get forty, more or less. Doug sells it to me for thirty. So I get to keep ten. By the time it gets to the small guys, they’re getting a hundred and fifty a gram, so that’s . . . what? A hundred and fifty K for a kilo on the street? But it’s gone through three more people by then.”