The Giveaway by Tod Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Does Nick Balsalmo work for the police department?” I asked.
    “Uh, no,” he said again. He was beginning to get the path of this line of questioning.
    “Does he work in hazardous waste disposal?”
    “No.”
    “No,” I said. “No, I’m going to guess Nick Balsalmo is a drug dealer. Would that be an accurate description?”
    “More like a courier. He doesn’t sell on the streets. I couldn’t trust a guy who sold drugs to kids or something.”
    “Of course not,” I said. “Who could?”
    The sarcasm was lost on Bruce.
    “Right, right, my feeling exactly. But he works with bigger businesses, I guess you could say.”
    “A middleman,” Sam offered.
    “Exactly, exactly,” Bruce said. “A middleman.”
    “So it might stand to reason that Mr. Balsalmo would be in the business of selling your stolen drugs to people who suddenly found themselves, say, low on product? Would that sound plausible?” I said.
    “Uh, yes,” Bruce said. And there it was. Dawning.
    “When did you speak with him last?”
    “Three, four days ago. He called to thank me. Said he was having good luck moving the stuff, wanted to know if I wanted, you know, a cut. I said no, of course.”
    “Of course,” Sam said.
    “Of course,” I said. I gave him a big smile and then said, “You might want to give him a call. See if he’s still alive.”
    The color left Bruce’s face then. He’d known this was serious before, certainly, but for some reason he hadn’t seen all of the consequences of his actions. I tossed him my cell phone and he dialed Nick’s number on speaker. After a few rings, an automated voice announced that the voice mail was full.
    “What kind of drug dealer doesn’t check his messages?” I said.
    “Maybe he’s out of town?” Bruce said.
    “That’s why people have voice mail, Bruce, so they can get their calls anywhere. Especially drug dealers. Do you know where he lives?”
    “He lives with a Cuban girl out in Little Havana. I went over there for dinner once. Nice place.” There was a matter-of-factness to Bruce that sometimes felt very odd: He was essentially a very simple guy. For a person who did twelve years, he didn’t seem to be all that jaded, or damaged, which meant that for some reason he hadn’t had a terrible experience in jail. Or not as terrible as others.
    “What did you owe Nick for, exactly?”
    Bruce got a pensive look on his face and started rubbing at his wrist again. When he finally spoke, it was just above a whisper. “He did my finger.”
    “Could you speak up, Bruce?” Sam said. “I can’t quite hear you. Ten percent hearing loss in my right ear from the Falklands.”
    Bruce didn’t know quite what to make of Sam, so for a moment he glared at him in a rather benign way, as if to say, You could say please . It didn’t last. “He did my finger, okay? Spent two months in the hole for it. When he got out, there was this meshugass with my mother’s illness, and so I couldn’t pay him what I owed him initially, but he was cool, really. The dinner and all that. Ever had Cuban pork chops? Authentic Cuban pork chops?”
    “Once,” I said.
    “Where?”
    “In Santiago de Cuba,” I said.
    “But I thought that . . .” He stopped for a minute, thought about where he was going, opted to change lanes. “Anyway, he was perfectly sweet about everything, but it was clear he wanted what was his.”
    “Let me get this right,” Sam said. “Guy takes off your finger and you have to pay him ? That’s inflation for you. Mikey, you hear that?”
    “I hear that,” I said.
    “It doesn’t make sense on the outside, I know,” Bruce said. “But it’s a different set of rules in prison.”
    “How much did you owe him?” I asked.
    “Fifty grand,” he said.
    “How much do you think he could get for the drugs you gave him?”
    “Enough that he felt comfortable offering me a cut,” Bruce said.
    “Real gentleman,” Sam said.
    The problem here was that even if Bruce wanted