dope.
It was not this customary wariness that made Rolando and Barbara Pomal stroll arm-in-arm in the cool noon Paris sun. They were not suffering from the rampant paranoia that touched the lives of everyone who touched narcotics.
Both knew what they stood to lose if they were being followed by police, rival dealers, informants. This morning they had handed an aluminum suitcase containing two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Jules Berry, a top lieutenant for Jacquard in Marseilles. This was the second of three cash payments due the Corsican Jacquard for Mas Betancourt’s five hundred kilos of white heroin.
The aluminum suitcase, similar to those now used by Arabian oil-rich sheikhs to carry jewels and money, had four key locks and two combination locks. Without keys or combinations, the suitcase could be opened only with a blowtorch. The priest and the Cuban woman had turned the suitcase over to Berry and the two men with him just before nine this morning, in front of a deserted Champs Élysées sidewalk café that was just opening for breakfast.
The sightseeing that followed, though a precaution, was enjoyable. Rolando, an ordained Catholic priest who had left the church four years ago, knew Paris well, spoke fluent French, was an excellent guide. At thirty-one, he was tall and stoop-shouldered. He had a long, sad, houndlike face and wore all black, hat and overcoat included, except for the tiny patch of white at his throat on his Roman collar. Reading from a guidebook written in French, Rolando spoke softly to his companion, in Spanish, of the city’s glorious history.
Barbara Pomal inhaled the air, grateful for this respite in their European mission. She was thirty-five, tall, with shiny black hair pulled back, parted, and tied in a bun on her neck. She dressed well, preferring expensive pantsuits and blue diamonds. She was not pretty; her nose was too long, jutting out over a receding chin.
But because she was intelligent, strong, and self-controlled, men found her attractive. She was one of Mas Betancourt’s three trusted lieutenants, handling negotiations for the dope he bought, seeing that certain moneys reached banks and people in Europe, South America, Mexico, anywhere Mas Betancourt made a buy.
She was tough, an excellent businesswoman experienced in all phases of top-level narcotics dealing. She had one child, a sixteen-year-old son still living in Havana with the husband who had sent Barbara out of Cuba when the boy was a year old, telling her he and the boy would meet her in Miami.
The husband never reached Miami; he changed his mind and decided to remain in Cuba with the boy. In fifteen years, Barbara Pomal had seen only photographs of her son.
Rolando was Mas Betancourt’s nephew, in charge of arranging for huge amounts of cut and mixes that Mas sometimes sold to the distributors who bought dope from him. Rolando also traveled to South America and Mexico, arranging payments for whatever cocaine and brown heroin Mas Betancourt bought. It was the priest’s job to handle money going to South America and Mexico, reporting to Barbara Pomal when the transactions were finalized.
Rolando, the only child of Mas Betancourt’s now-dead sister, had been a brilliant scholar, educated in Cuba and in America. He had joined the priesthood with the thought of isolating himself from the world and devoting himself to scholarship and mystic studies. But the world had changed since medieval scholars like Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine could cloister themselves in monasteries, spending hours sipping wine made by brother monks and reading hand-lettered manuscripts.
Then, too, Rolando’s intelligence came with a sense of irony that made him critical of God and church, that made him want to challenge both. If the changing church refused to allow Rolando to be entirely a scholar and student, then he would return to life, but on his own terms. If life was changing so rapidly, Rolando wanted to
It was not this customary wariness that made Rolando and Barbara Pomal stroll arm-in-arm in the cool noon Paris sun. They were not suffering from the rampant paranoia that touched the lives of everyone who touched narcotics.
Both knew what they stood to lose if they were being followed by police, rival dealers, informants. This morning they had handed an aluminum suitcase containing two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Jules Berry, a top lieutenant for Jacquard in Marseilles. This was the second of three cash payments due the Corsican Jacquard for Mas Betancourt’s five hundred kilos of white heroin.
The aluminum suitcase, similar to those now used by Arabian oil-rich sheikhs to carry jewels and money, had four key locks and two combination locks. Without keys or combinations, the suitcase could be opened only with a blowtorch. The priest and the Cuban woman had turned the suitcase over to Berry and the two men with him just before nine this morning, in front of a deserted Champs Élysées sidewalk café that was just opening for breakfast.
The sightseeing that followed, though a precaution, was enjoyable. Rolando, an ordained Catholic priest who had left the church four years ago, knew Paris well, spoke fluent French, was an excellent guide. At thirty-one, he was tall and stoop-shouldered. He had a long, sad, houndlike face and wore all black, hat and overcoat included, except for the tiny patch of white at his throat on his Roman collar. Reading from a guidebook written in French, Rolando spoke softly to his companion, in Spanish, of the city’s glorious history.
Barbara Pomal inhaled the air, grateful for this respite in their European mission. She was thirty-five, tall, with shiny black hair pulled back, parted, and tied in a bun on her neck. She dressed well, preferring expensive pantsuits and blue diamonds. She was not pretty; her nose was too long, jutting out over a receding chin.
But because she was intelligent, strong, and self-controlled, men found her attractive. She was one of Mas Betancourt’s three trusted lieutenants, handling negotiations for the dope he bought, seeing that certain moneys reached banks and people in Europe, South America, Mexico, anywhere Mas Betancourt made a buy.
She was tough, an excellent businesswoman experienced in all phases of top-level narcotics dealing. She had one child, a sixteen-year-old son still living in Havana with the husband who had sent Barbara out of Cuba when the boy was a year old, telling her he and the boy would meet her in Miami.
The husband never reached Miami; he changed his mind and decided to remain in Cuba with the boy. In fifteen years, Barbara Pomal had seen only photographs of her son.
Rolando was Mas Betancourt’s nephew, in charge of arranging for huge amounts of cut and mixes that Mas sometimes sold to the distributors who bought dope from him. Rolando also traveled to South America and Mexico, arranging payments for whatever cocaine and brown heroin Mas Betancourt bought. It was the priest’s job to handle money going to South America and Mexico, reporting to Barbara Pomal when the transactions were finalized.
Rolando, the only child of Mas Betancourt’s now-dead sister, had been a brilliant scholar, educated in Cuba and in America. He had joined the priesthood with the thought of isolating himself from the world and devoting himself to scholarship and mystic studies. But the world had changed since medieval scholars like Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine could cloister themselves in monasteries, spending hours sipping wine made by brother monks and reading hand-lettered manuscripts.
Then, too, Rolando’s intelligence came with a sense of irony that made him critical of God and church, that made him want to challenge both. If the changing church refused to allow Rolando to be entirely a scholar and student, then he would return to life, but on his own terms. If life was changing so rapidly, Rolando wanted to
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