Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [89]
Maria was trying to disco in the shower. Roberto joined her. Meadows feared that the two of them would become stuck in the stall or, worse, that Roberto would try to hump Maria standing up and the two of them would come crashing through the glass doors and kill everyone.
“Do you live in Miami?” Meadows asked the girl named Candy.
“Forget it,” Roberto shouted from the shower. “She doesn’t speak English, amigo. She’s Colombian.”
Candy smiled and nodded. Then she scooted over and stationed herself on Meadows’s lap. There were three lines left on the mirror; Candy snorted all of them, one after the other. Then she started to sing, a high, off-key rendition of some long-lost salsa hit. Meadows’s ears stung with each note. He felt hot. Although she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, Candy sitting on his lap reminded Meadows that he’d best find an unoccupied bathroom as soon as possible. He squirmed from her featherweight embrace and made for the door.
“Thanks, man,” he called to Roberto.
“For sure,” Roberto answered. Through the dimpled glass of the shower door, Meadows could see Roberto’s fat pink buttocks. The cheery Cuban’s pants were at his ankles. Maria’s giggles and sighs echoed off the tile as Meadows slipped out into the hallway.
The next door was locked. The one after that was ajar. Meadows gave a light rap with two knuckles.
“Come on in,” boomed Rennie McRae. “Ah, Mr. Carson, sit down. Please.”
McRae reclined behind a broad mahogany desk. A narrow shaft of white light from a typing lamp cast a bright sphere on the wood surface, where McRae’s hands were at work. Meadows sat down across from him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
McRae turned back to his task, barely glancing up at his nervous visitor. “I do this privately, Mr. Carson, because many of my friends are scared by the sight of needles.” The lawyer used a small silver spoon to scrape flakes from a huge lump of cocaine. “I don’t do this because I’m ashamed of it or because I’m afraid of the cops. This is my house.”
McRae’s voice was rising excitedly. Meadows watched uneasily as he flicked a small pocket lighter and steadied the spoonful of powder in the bluest tongue of the flame. McRae’s hands began to shake feverishly, and Meadows thought he was about to drop the whole kit.
“I’ll go through the motions of offering you some.”
Meadows lifted a hand. “Thanks anyway.”
McRae grinned. “This is excellent coke.”
“Yes,” Christopher Meadows said.
“Seventy-five percent pure. Of course, by the time it reaches our friends in Little Havana, the precious little disco swingers…well, the customers don’t get quite the same quality. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“You’re a dealer?”
“No, my friend. I’m the dealer’s attorney. That’s even better. I know faces I shouldn’t know, names I should forget, dates I could never possibly recall under oath but could recite to you right now with absolute certainty. So I get a very good price on cocaine.”
Meadows flinched at the sight of the syringe.
“I’m new down here,” he said. “I guess Manny told you.”
“He didn’t have to,” McRae said. Gingerly he slipped the needle into the melted coke and drew its syrup into the syringe. “I know everybody in Miami.”
“Then you must speak Spanish.”
“Sure. Who do you know? Just Manny, right?” McRae’s laughter burst out like the low bark of a big Doberman. He knotted a burgundy necktie around his left arm, above the elbow. He gave Meadows a hard stare.
“Don’t worry now. The needle is as clean as a whistle. I got it directly from my doctor.” He chuckled again and smoothly inserted the needle into a fat vein. Meadows looked away squeamishly.
“My, my,” the lawyer sighed. The needle lay on the desk. He swabbed at his arm with a cotton ball and rolled down his sleeve. “Jesus, that’s good!”
Meadows started to stand, but McRae motioned him down. “I didn’t invite you in here for a lesson in pharmacology.” His voice was dry, and