“Any time now,” I heard Mary mutter as our escorts led us through the alley towards the van waiting at the end. Of all the fucking clichés, it was a black-paneled van, the windows all tinted so heavily you couldn’t see in. Exactly the kind of van that too many people in Miami had—and exactly the kind of van that the cops would expect to see a junkie forced into.
“Keep your mouth shut,” one of the women said, and I saw Mary stagger.
“Hey, she’s not even part of this!” I said to the people who had me by the arms. “Let her go.”
“She’s with you, she comes with,” the dealer told me firmly. I looked at Mary; her big, dark eyes were a little wide, but I could tell that she was holding onto her composure, that the wheels were turning in her head. Why do I think she’d try to take on all these fuckers if she thought the cops wouldn’t come through for us? I couldn’t help smiling to myself, though I wanted to tell Mary that whatever thoughts she was entertaining of rescuing us herself were pointless. The dealers who had me had guns; I had to assume the women who’d taken Mary did, too.
They shoved us into the back of the van and I had a moment or two to think about where the hell the cops could possibly be. Were they tailing us? Were they going to follow us to this meeting I was supposed to have with Big J and do the bust there? Mary crouched across the van from me, the women who’d snatched her out of the bathroom on either side of her, and even though her demeanor was a little bit scared and submissive, one look at her downturned face told me she hadn’t given up yet. Nick was totally right about her, I thought. I’m fucking gone on this one.
“I swear to god,” I told the guys watching us in the back of the van as we pulled away from the curb, “If one of you assholes lays a hand on her, I’m going to find a fucking way to kill you as slowly as possible.” One of the dealers laughed.
“How long have you been without? I’d have thought you’d be offering us our choice of hole just for a little bump.”
“Is it true you were in rehab?” Reggie asked me.
“The band put me there; the label, too. Said I was getting too wild.”
“Stealing from the man, that’s pretty fucking wild all right.”
“I didn’t steal from him; why the hell would I do that? I’d just bought enough for the whole week.”
“Maybe you wanted more than you were entitled to. Maybe you just saw it out and couldn’t resist.” Reggie shrugged. “It’s not my job to figure out why you’d do something. The boss says to pick North up, so we pick you up.”
“It was someone else—if you bring me to J and he kills me, whoever actually did it is just going to steal from him again.”
“Not really my problem. I do what I’m told; I get paid. That’s all I care about.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course. There was not really a whole lot of honor in any person who’d become a dealer, at least not a relatively big time dealer like Reggie was. The average guy who sold the extra weed he grew when he had enough for himself was one thing, but anyone involved in coke, meth, or E was a different kind of person altogether.
“You get around to fucking her yet, or you two just meet?” Reggie’s friend gestured to Mary.
“None of your fucking business,” I said. The guy laughed.
“Oh, he got around to it, all right,” one of the women said, joining in the laughs. Mary looked up from her lap and even in the dark confines at the back of the van, her gaze hit me like a punch to the gut.
“You guys do realize that you’re fucking with a social worker, right?” Mary looked at Reggie and the other dealer in charge of the operation. “I’m admitted to testify in court. If you ever wanted a fucking character witness in your goddamned idiotic lives, you’d want someone like me.”
“Yeah? You’d testify for me?” Reggie smirked.
“Well not the way things stand right now,” Mary said tartly, and I snorted—I couldn’t help myself. “But we could make a deal.”
“No deals,” the other dealer said, shaking his head.
Reggie held up a hand. “I want to hear what the bitch has to say. Go on.”
“I know people who are involved in drug court,” Mary pointed out. “I can make recommendations for folks who should be sent to a diversion program or those who should serve actual time. If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you probably never carry enough at a time to be nabbed with possession with intent to sell.”
“You got a brain,” Reggie said.
What the hell is she trying to do? I looked at Mary, but she wouldn’t even spare me a glance.
“So as long as you’re not getting nabbed by a plainclothes, then I could get you sent into the drug court. No regular trial means no record, means you’re clean and able to sell that much longer.”
“I’ll think about it,” Reggie said, gesturing with a hand, “but it depends how much Big J wants you to come with your boy here. Money now is bigger than maybe jail later, you feel me?” Mary shrugged and glanced at me. I had no idea what she was trying to do; was she just trying to get herself out of this? Was she trying to drive a wedge? I looked into her big, dark eyes and I couldn’t fathom what that beautiful crazy bitch had in mind. I wished she would give me some kind of sign so I could play along.