Two nights later, Sherlock Holmes entered the back area of the second floor of Club 99 trailing Jerry “Little Fish” Genero. Holmes was dressed in a colorful Rayon knit shirt and disco-style bell bottom slacks high up on his trim waist. His shirt was open several buttons and a gold chain sparkled on his tanned chest. The nude form of a golden woman hung from the chain. Her nipples were sparkling zircons.
“You let me do the talking, Terry,” Genero said.
“Sure thing, Little Fish,” Holmes said as Terry Ritchie, affecting a Cockney accent by way of a transplant living in New Jersey for several years.
The two came to a closed double door, a good-sized individual standing guard before it. He wore a Pierre Cardin suit sans tie, collar up, shoulder pads like the prow of a boat. His neck was thick and corded and led to a thicket of chest hair.
“Gotta search you,” he said. “Protocol,” he added, as if he were building his vocabulary one new word a day.
They submitted. As the guard’s large hands expertly probed Holmes’s wiry frame, the door opened and out stepped three women of varying ethnicities in shimmering garments that clung to their model-perfect bodies. Two of them, a blonde and a raven-haired one, carried their high heels in their hands and they laughed like wayward school girls returning from a ditch party. The third had flakes of coke residue under her nostrils. They eyed the two newcomers and departed along the red velvet lined hallway.
Little Fish snickered. “That ’Rican chick with the great ass was sending you all kinds of signals.” He shook his head admiringly.
“Yeah,” said “Terry,” feigning nonchalance. “But I got my mind on business.”
“I hear you.”
“Okay,” the bodyguard said and opened one of the doors behind him. The two stepped through into the private room, somber via indirect lighting. Inside were large plush chairs, each with a side table upon which were leftover cartons of Chinese take-out, champagne, and the telling remains of white powder dusting a razor blade on a hand mirror. A pair of lacy woman’s underwear lay on the floor beside the foot of one of the seated men. He had a pleasant face, like a junior college professor with a full schedule and a new sports car. Akin to the other two in the room, he regarded the visitors with a contained reserve.
“We got plenty of chicken lo mein left,” said a standing man, working a fingernail between his side teeth. “Shit’s good.” He wore a baby blue suit over a darker blue shirt with a flared collar.
“We got something better than that,” Little Fish said.
“You the Limey,” declared the other seated man. He had a beard and scratched at his crotch.
“That’s me, china plate.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a slang thing from where he comes,” Little Fish interjected.
The one in the baby blue suit came forward from where he’d been before a Patrick Nagel print on the wall. “Now that introductions have been made, like the man said.”
“This better not be about some bullshit,” the beard said as he produced an ostentatious Sig Sauer and placed it lovingly on the end table near his hand. His fingers were like stuffed sausage links, and the little finger and the one next to it bore rings. “That goes for you too, Little Fish. You being the one that vouched for this dude.”
“It’s primo,” Little Fish said, keeping the edge out of his voice.
Holmes held up his hands like a conjurer showing his audience they were empty in preparation for the closing trick. He slowly lowered his right hand and passed it before the large buckle on his belt. In relief on it a couple was engaged in the act of 69 lovemaking. Now the false front of the buckle was in his hand and in the hollow of it was a compact amount of white powder wrapped in plastic. He handed the heroin to the man in baby blue. This one, the leader of the crew, examined it for a moment and handed it over to the pleasant-faced man.
He in turn slit open the packet and put some power on the end of his blade. From beside his chair he picked up a small metal case. Setting it on an end table he opened the case to reveal a small testing kit. Holding a glass test-tube-like container aloft, he tapped the powder into it and added dollops of reagents from two eye-dropper bottles. He closed the tube, shook it, then held it up to look at its purple color. Whistling his satisfaction, he passed the tube to the standing man.
“Well, hell, gentlemen, you weren’t pulling our legs.”
Little Fish said, “No we wasn’t.”
“Fifteen keys, eighty percent pure,” Holmes said, knowing the boss in blue had already calculated the millions they’d make once the product was “stepped on”—diluted for street sales.
Particulars were worked out on price and delivery. Holmes and Little Fish left.
“Tomorrow we’re in clover,” Little Fish said as they entered back into the bustling dance floor area. The DJ was spinning an Alicia Bridges tune, “I Love the Night Life.”
Holmes grinned broadly. “Swimming in tons, son.”