Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [131]
Back at the warehouse I got into the Plymouth and Max and I went off to do our separate work. While I drove over to one of my cold pay phones to keep the pressure on, Max would be meeting with the Blood Shadows and giving them their instructions and equipment.
I got to the phone, set up the machinery to meet with Pablo’s people, caught the second call, and made delivery of the posters. Pablo agreed to handle the distribution. I gave him as many details as I reasonably could about Goldor’s death without mentioning Flood, explaining that it was unavoidable. I told him I’d thought about leaving some sort of UGL calling card in Goldor’s house but decided it was better not to—he said that I’d done right. I knew that—I’d never really thought about doing anything but getting the hell out of there, but I didn’t want him to think I’d been ungrateful for the information and the trust it implied.
I left Pablo and found another phone. From there a previously reliable informant told a certain DEA agent that a man precisely answering the Cobra’s description was going to be moving some major narcotics through either Kennedy or LaGuardia Airport in the next week or two: They’d listen—the last tip from this informant had netted them fifteen kilos of high-grade cocaine on the way in from Peru.
I checked my watch—just enough time to hit Times Square, make the last phone call of the night, and watch the Blood Shadows at work. I found a booth near Ninth Avenue and Forty-second Street, just around the corner from the national headquarters of SAVE (Sisterhood Against Vice and Enslavement).
I told the young lady answering the phone that a very bad thing would happen to each and every member of that organization if they didn’t shut their mouths about all this kiddie-porn nonsense. The young woman gave the phone to their executive director, and I ended up threatening her with hideous mutilation if she didn’t get off my motherfucking case. When she calmly asked, “Who is calling, please?” I told her, “The Cobra, you fuckin’ cunt,” and slammed down the phone.
Still holding down the hook, I unscrewed the mouthpiece and removed the encoder disc the Mole had made for me. It didn’t so much disguise my voice as make it impossible to voice-print. I had a few of the discs, but there was no harm in using the same one for the SAVE people as I used for the DEA—no reason why a drug informant couldn’t be a child molester too.
I was walking toward my car just as two of the war-wagons rolled past me and slammed to a halt. All the doors opened at the same time, discharging a cold-eyed cargo. The young Chinese marched down the wide street in military formation, looking straight ahead. They walked in silence—nobody barred their way. Their leader saw a porno shop on his left, pivoted on his heel, and entered. His men followed at his back. I knew what would be happening inside—the leader would engage the man at the desk in some polite conversation (like, “You don’t move, please,” punctuated with a 9-mm automatic leveled at the clerk’s face), and the rest of the army would fan out through the shop. They would find an appropriate space on a wall, slap on the stencil we’d made up, take out a can of the spray paint and do their work. When they pulled off the stencil, the wall would say COBRA BE WARNED! THE MONGOOSE IS COMING! Then they would walk out—nobody would call the cops, and if someone did a petty vandalism arrest with a guarantee that no complaining witness would ever come to court wouldn’t bother these boys. I could just see Blumberg defending this one on the ground that the Blood Shadows were engaged in some citywide anti-porn campaign.
It would take the army less than an hour to cover the whole area, then they would vanish. I’d given Max three hundred for the job to cover expenses in case the kids asked—but I didn’t think they would.
I had a couple more things to do before I rested for the night. First, another stop at the printer’s to make up the stationery and business cards for James and Gunther, who’d decided to call themselves