Chapter 25

He shoved him all the way out into the street.
After Smith calmed down a little, they walked together briskly toward a Timmy’s on nearby Barrington Street, at Lewis White’s suggestion.
It was not uncommon for drug dealers to be seen talking to cops. It was more what they said that mattered.
They got coffee and sat at a two-person beige table up near the front window. Lewis wanted to people-watch.
It was closing in on midnight and a lot of students and young people were walking by, heading from the downtown area bars near Citadel Hill down to the Lower Deck at the waterfront.
“How are sales, Lewis?” Smith began.
The Fag sipped his French Vanilla slowly. “I choose not to answer that question on the grounds it may incriminate me.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass!” Smith raised his voice. “I’ve got an important question for you, Lewis, and I guess you better answer honestly, before I lose my temper.”
“I’m kidding. What?”
“I need to know who Pussylips is? Do you know?”
The Fag brightened when he heard the name, like a vampire under a fluorescent light of the coffee shop.
“The missing guy. Yeah, I know who that is. Pussylips, that’s Wid Missions Junior. Big fat guy.” Lewis straightened up in his seat, carefully, as though trying not to spook his handler.
“What was that name again? Did you say Wid Missions?” Smith took out his pocket notebook and a black pen.
“Wid Missions Junior. W-I-D. I think its short for William or something. He went missing- ahhhh, Saturday or Sunday with a bunch of coke. It’s a big scandal.”
Smith raised his eyebrows. “Missions? You’re absolutely sure?”
Lewis nodded. “That’s his nickname. Pussylips.”
“You say he went missing with a bunch of coke? Who’s cocaine was it, specifically? Alan Lee?”
“I think it was Dee Lee, actually, out in the Valley. That’s Alan Lee’s son.”
“How much?”
“How much coke?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Okay?”
“But…”
Smith rolled his eyes and flipped two crumpled hundred dollar bills out from his wallet onto the melamine table. “I need you to sign my form for that.”
Lewis picked the bills up off the table and examined them but then tossed them back and gestured with his head toward the coffee shop counter.
“There’s a manager who works here called Sara Stavely. S-T-A-V-E-L-Y. She’s behind the counter with the horrible streaks in her hair. The short blonde one with black streaks-“
Smith looked over at the counter. “Blonde. Yes. I see her.”
“-It’s her and her boyfriend- his name’s Frank Szeligo. S-Z-E-L-I-G-O. He drives Timmy’s delivery from Montreal, a transport-trailer. He brings coke to Halifax every week. They’re selling it here, retail and wholesale. The coke for the night is pre-packaged in a drawer by the cash register, all the way on the left where the sandwiches get made. Smoke-coke. Crack. They float a baggie of it in your coffee cup. Anyways, it could make a good bust for HPD. The media would jizz all over it. Double-double dope dealers. I just want them gone. They’re filthing up my neighbourhood. They’re independent too, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Smith wrote the names down in his notepad and the mock-headline as well: Double-double dope dealers… He liked that. He would pass it along to the media spokesman to suggest to reporters if an arrest went down.
“Good civic-minded citizen you are, Lewis… I’ll see what I can do about the double-double dope dealers… I’ll need the times the transport comes in, if you have it. And I need you to tell me more about Pussylips.”