Winter Counts(28)
“What do you mean, decentralized?” I asked.
“They sell to the customers themselves—cut out the middleman. They set up dozens of small cells with drivers and a phone operator. Customer calls the mobile phone and gives his location, operator calls a driver who meets the customer in the parking lot of a burger joint. Buyer hands over his cash and gets a dope balloon. Just like ordering a pizza. In the old days, you had to go to the drug dealers, now they come to you. What’s more, they run specials, like every tenth balloon free, and they hand out samples like crazy, trying to create new customers.”
I remembered what Nathan had told me about getting the heroin for free. I’d doubted him, because I couldn’t believe someone would give away drugs.
Dennis drank the rest of his water and crumpled the plastic cup. “They’re like the Domino’s Pizza of dope. And they’re careful. They drive regular cars, nothing fancy, and switch drivers a lot. So you got a perfect storm: pill addicts looking for a fix, super-potent heroin, new distribution scheme. Now all the cartels are getting in on the action. They’re starting to compete with each other and looking for new markets. You can guess what their next target is.”
“But why reservations?” said Marie. “It’s not like we have a large population. Seems like they’d go somewhere with more people.”
“Rest of the market is saturated, at least out west. And it makes sense to expand to the reservations—lack of police presence. What are there, like fifty tribal police out where you guys are?”
“Not even that many,” I said.
“Problem is, the cartel doesn’t have people on the reservations,” he said. “They’ll stand out if they try to sell there themselves. So they’re starting to recruit local Native Americans for their cells—using gangs here in Denver who have connections out there.”
“Rick Crow,” I said.
“I can’t say anything about that. What I will say is, if we catch the reservation guys, the salespeople, we might get ’em to roll on the bosses. At least slow them down. These skells are like rats—they find a way to get in and shit all over everything.”
I went inside and got some water while I thought about what Dennis had said.
“All right, that’s the background,” Dennis said when I returned. “Let me ask again: You’re sure the transaction with your nephew went down on school grounds?”
“Yeah, he said they gave him the stuff by the football field,” I said. “Why does that matter?”
“Federal law states that selling narcotics within one thousand feet of a school brings a massive punishment. These guys are too smart to do that here. But if we caught ’em selling at the school on your reservation, might be able to force them to testify in exchange for a plea.”
I saw where this was going and didn’t like it.
“I’ll need to talk to your nephew,” he said. “We’ll get him to set up a buy, put a wire on him. He’ll get more stuff from these guys. At his school.”
DENNIS TRIED TO SELL me on the plan. He said that being a confidential informant—or CI, as he put it—was safe, that they never send CIs into dangerous situations, and that they’re observed and protected during the buy. He said the wire was very small, not as large as it looks on TV, and they could even use a cell phone if necessary. Then he tried to tell me that using Nathan was the best way to get at these guys, since he already knew the dealers. They’d trust him for another sale before they figured out to sell the drugs away from the school.
He said it was crucial to shut down these heroin pushers, that we’d be saving the lives of innocent people. He made it sound like the future of the rez, if not the nation itself, depended on my decision to wire Nathan up. Another positive, he said, was that getting rid of the drugs on the rez would prevent him from being tempted to use again.
“So what do you think?” Dennis said. “I can have my people out there by next week. We can talk to—Nathan, right?—get him set up, have this thing wrapped up pronto. It’s a win-win. We stop these guys from selling heroin on your turf. And no more kids using this shit, including your nephew.”
I pondered the offer. Contemplated it. For maybe a millisecond or two.
Fuck that.
“I can’t see letting him do this,” I said to Dennis. “Don’t want him involved.”
There was no way I’d let Nathan buy more drugs. I’d almost lost him once, and he needed to stay as far away from these assholes as possible. Not to mention that he’d be labeled a rat if word ever got out. Nobody liked a snitch, but Indians especially hated the feds, who’d never shown much interest in arresting criminals on the rez. Easier just to keep him out of the whole thing and handle it myself.
“Take my card,” Dennis said. “Think it over. Talk with your boy. You know, I didn’t mention that we can sometimes pay CIs. Cash money. But I’ll need to hear from you fairly soon. That’s how this works. If you want to do the right thing.”
The right thing. I’d lost sight of that a long time ago.
12
We left the Mexican restaurant, a litter of empty soda bottles on our table. By now, it was getting dark, and the lights of the bars and restaurants flickered as we drove west on Colfax Avenue back to the motel. I saw a drunken man stumbling down the sidewalk wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed EMPTY SEATS IN CHURCH, MORE ROOM IN HEAVEN FOR ME!