King of Swords

Max went to the garage. He found Joe sharing the couch with a thick stack of papers. He'd been there a good while.

He'd gone through five large cups of McDonald's take-out coffee and two cans of Coke. He looked beat — bags under bloodshot eyes, face sagging, a downward slope to his shoulders — and there were large sweat stains under the armpits of his powder-blue shirt and damp patches on the front too.

'You sleep here?'

'As good as.' Joe yawned.

“What you got there?' Max asked.

'Revelations,' Joe said. 'I saw Jack Quinones over the weekend.'

'Yeah? How is he?' Max smiled fondly. Jack was a whole bunch of very rare things — a Fed he liked, a Fed he trusted, a Fed he could work with and a Fed with a sense of humour.

They'd frequently cooperated when he'd been stationed in Miami - another rarity, because while police departments grudgingly shared information and resources, getting more than a straight refusal from a G-Man was like getting Mount Rushmore to crack a smile. Feds looked down on ordinary cops; liked them to know they not only had more power, better resources, better training and bigger brains, but that they could walk on water too, as and when duty called. Jack was the exception. He was more interested in solving crimes and saving lives than in winning bureaucratic pissing contests.

Since the previous September, he'd been in Atlanta, trying to catch the killer who'd so far claimed the lives of twenty black children.

'He called me up for some intel on those two Aryan Brotherhood pricks we took down in '79.'

'Lund and Wydell?'

'Remember the uncle, Dennis Kreis? Jack thinks Kreis might have something to do with Atlanta — or at least know the button man. He wanted copies of our files on Kreis. So I traded up for some Fed intel on Boukman.'

'That's some intel.' Max glanced over at the block of paper cratering the couch.

'There's at least three dead trees of bullshit there — you know, the usual rumour and conjecture stuff, the guy changin' appearance, the guy being' in five places at once, the guy havin' two tongues - but someone has accurately IDed Boukman.'

'As what? A blonde three-legged midget?' Max laughed.

'No.'Joe shook his head. 'There were photographs.'

' Were photographs . . . ?'

'Yeah, they're gone,' Joe said. 'What happened was this: December the fifth last year, the Feds arrested a nineteenyear-old Haitian called Pierre-Jerome Matisse for sellin' coke to feat kids. They'd had him under surveillance for four months. He was gettin' his shit from Haiti. Best quality — high 80s, low 90s. A Pan Am pilot was bringin' it in for him, a kee at a time. The pilot was workin' for the Feds.

'Once they get him in custody Pierre calls his dad in Haiti.

Daddy is Legrand Matisse, a colonel in the Haitian army.

Daddy has been importin' coke into Miami from Haiti for the past three years. Daddy calls his lawyer, the late Coleman Crabbe of Winesap, Mclntosh, Crabbe and Milton.'

'Moyez's lawyer?' Max asked as a cold feeling passed into his stomach.

'The very same.'Joe nodded. 'Up until two years ago, the I'eds, the DEA and the Coastguard all thought most of the coke coming into Miami was gettin' in via the Colombians — go-fast boats and light aircraft. It is, but that ain't the main

route. A lot of the shit we've been gettin' here is comin' in from Haiti.

'They already had intel that Solomon Boukman was a player in the Haitian drug connection, only it wasn't until Matisse that they realized the magnitude of what the guy is actually doin'. I mean, he is the Haitian connection.

'The Feds originally thought Boukman was a link in the chain — just another small fish workin' for the Colombians, or maybe workin' with the Cubans. But Boukman ain't just collectin' from point A and deliverin' to point B. They've now established that the motherfucker buys from the Colombians direct, flies it over to Haiti and from Haiti to here. Then he sells and distributes. I mean, all he needs to do now is find some place to grow coca leaves and he'll be a one-man industry.'

'How did they know all this?'

'Colonel Matisse. He was workin' for Boukman. According to the report, half the Haitian officer corps are. Matisse was in charge of the pick-up from Colombia to Haiti and the Haiti—Miami drop-off.' Joe wiped his sweaty brow with his hand. 'Matisse cut a deal with the Feds. He'd give 'em Boukman and his entire Haitian operation in exchange for his son's freedom. Crabbe negotiated the whole thing.

'But the Feds have the same problem we do. Who exactly is Boukman? What does he look like? There's nothin' official on him — no social security number, no immigration papers, no criminal record. Nada.'

'Maybe he's an illegal who's been real lucky,' Max said.

'Maybe.'Joe nodded. 'But the Feds know Boukman's got himself some serious juice in high places. I'll come to that.'