Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [130]
“The stuff’s no problem. But we’re not set up to do recruiting here. That takes time—”
“Look, I told you I had a proposition. I know a perfect place you can rent, and I can use my connections to get you enough publicity so every merc in the area will be knocking down your doors. You stay open one week, no more. If you don’t have the twenty men by then I’ll pay you so much a head, take the string, and pick up the guns later. Deal?”
“How much a head? And who fronts for the office?”
“A grand a head,” I told him, “plus a five-grand bonus if you find me any of three guys I’m looking for. Specialists.”
“And the office?”
“You pay for everything and I’ll handle the publicity. But I’ll throw two grand up front for the first two guys, and if you don’t get me the full twenty I’ll do the original deal on the guns, hold my string, and call you when I’ve got all the men together.”
“That’s twelve thousand all together—ten for the guns, like we agreed, and another two for the men—”
“That’s two thousand up front. I’m trusting you, right? For two grand—for two men. I haven’t seen any guns, right? I’m supposed to get a Bill of Lading, F.O.B., like we said. When I get that . . .”
“Agreed,” said James, reaching out his hand for me to shake while Gunther did his best to repress a grin at my stupidity.
The rest of the transaction didn’t take long. I gave them the address of the office building where they could set up, asked them what name they used for their outfit, and promised to have all the printing done by the next day. Before I handed over the two grand we had a nice professional discussion about the specific men I wanted them to recruit for my big operation.
“I need an explosives expert, a night sniper, and a martial arts man,” I told them. “I want real professionals too, not some guys who took a course someplace. We pay the going rate, two grand up front per man sign-up bonus, payable on arrival overseas to any bank they want, or just cash in their hands. Okay?”
“You said you had specific individuals?”
“Yeah, but no square names, just handles, right? The explosives guy calls himself Mr. Kraus. A tall, German-looking dude, wears steel-rimmed glasses, brush-cut, very clean-looking. He’s worked Africa before—he knows the story. If he hears about you, he’ll sign right up. The sniper, all I know about him is the name Blackie. Ex-Marine, did two hitches in ’Nam. I heard he had some trouble with ATF so he may be hard to find, but I think he’d like a vacation for a while. And the karate guy calls himself the Cobra.”
I threw in Wilson’s complete description, but not his right name. I wasn’t worried about paying the five Gs bonus on any of the other guys—they didn’t exist. And if they turned up the Cobra, he’d be worth the two grand I was fronting them.
When I handed over the money, James wanted to shake hands again. Gunther didn’t move, keeping his eye on Max all the time, looking at his back. That’s as close as he’d come.
“I’ll meet you at the new office tomorrow afternoon, say around two, okay? I may have some more info for you by then, and I’ll have all the printing done for sure. We run this thing for one week, maybe two at the most. Then we close the deal with whatever you have by then, okay?”
“Right,” said James. Gunther still wasn’t talking. Under other circumstances I would have been happy to leave them on the pier to find their own way home, but I loaded them back in the Buick and we drove them back to their personal pay phone. Gunther kept on staring at Max like he was going to twist his head off his spinal column. I watched Max’s hands on the steering wheel—they looked like old, cracked leather stuffed full of steel pebbles. They were very still.
On the way back to the warehouse Max made a fist of his right hand, squeezing it tighter and tighter as I watched. Then he looked at the top of his closed fist like something slimy was oozing out, scraped it away with his other hand, and made a throwing-away gesture. Yes. I told him, that was the idea—put enough pressure on the Cobra and he’d ooze out