Chapter 21

We were about fifteen minutes into the two hour drive home when I said to Simon, "Now we need to talk seriously."

"Is this pimp to hooker, friend to friend, or cop to perp?" he asked.

"There is no pimp to hooker, but it is friend to friend right now. If I have to dig this out myself, then it will be cop to perp," I said.

"Okay then ask," he demanded.

"What was in the bags?" I asked.

"Let me ask you something first, what is the Sheriff's position on white liquor?" Simon asked.

"You know officially there is a zero tolerance on all criminal activities. The truth is we only investigate complaints. Those usually are from someone who walks up on a still and cares enough to report it, or a pissed off partner. So you are making white liquor?" I asked.

"Not hardly, I was supplying a little product for some friends. That's all I was doing," he said.

"No it wasn't Simon. At that first stop you said, 'I just covered my cost plus some. You bought that shit and resold it. That makes you a trafficker. Now let me tell you this. I don't for a minute believe that was white liquor. The volume was too low for that size envelope." I was waiting for him to come clean. "So what was in the bag?"

"What is the policy about pot," Simon asked.

"Pretty much the same as white liquor. We leave that shit to somebody else. So you are dealing pot?" I asked. It was getting a little worse, but that really wasn't much weight he had delivered. It was felony weight I was sure but still not wholesaler weight.

"This is strictly between us, not to be used to investigate or to bust anyone?' he asked.

"You have my word, but you have to understand, if someone else complains we will investigate and I will not warn you, nor will I save you. If you roll on me for knowing and try to take me down, you will disappear before you go to jail. If you do make it to prison for a carton of Marlboro cigarettes, I can get you so fucked up," I explained to him.

"I understand and you have nothing to do with this ever," he explained to me. If they catch you in the car, when I have product, then you never knew anything and can't testify against me, so there is no advantage to either of us to roll on the other."

"Right, so what are you distributing. If it is hard shit all deals are off," I said.

He shook his head in agreement. "James and I repopped a pickup last month. We realized, when he came out all pissed, that we had gone to school with the guy. He gave us this song and dance about how bad he needed his truck.

'Just catch up your payments, ' James told him. 'The finance company don't want your truck.'

'James, I'm gonna be up front with you man. I cook some evil shit back in the woods, but I got all messed up with the guys who sold me some ingredients and they took all my cash. I got some product left over from the run, but I got no way to move it. If you could see your way clear, we could maybe help each other out.'

'What you mean?' James asked him.

'I could give you the product I got left and you could make the payments for me. Just tell the finance company I gave you the cash.' the mooch said. 'This shit is worth a hell of a lot more than I owe on the truck.'

'It don't work exactly like that, but I could catch the payments up for you and leave the truck, but it would have to be worth my while since I will be losing the repo fee in addition to fronting the payments, So what you got and how much is it really worth.'

"You ever heard of Green Dragon?" the mooch asked.

I told him that I had. So he explained that what he made was better than that shit by a mile. What he made was for a high class pot club of some kind in California. What he did wasn't legal but he didn't get looked at too hard as long as he didn't get caught while cooking, he figured he would be good. He made the shit for the club and kept what was extra. He just didn't know how to get rid of it without getting caught and that scared him.

I talked James into taking five gallons to catch up the grand of back payments." Simon explained. "We took the stuff around to a few private club owners we know and it was sold out in a day. We just gave an ounce away and sold the rest of the gallon in the milk jug. Just so you know we have no desire to sell any more more than a few gallons now and then. We have no desire to be in the drug business it is way the fuck to dangerous.

We just take orders on the phone and when our mooch finishes his run he calls to direct us to a drop site were we pick up the Dragon and leave the money."

"So how does he make the stuff? This is just curiosity taking now," I said.

"He grinds up all the stalks from the plants. He buys the left over trimmings from a grower or two he went to school with. Then he adds that to his corn mash and lets it ferment. When it's finished fermenting he cooks it down to liquor. But man that stuff is different. It creates a hypnotic mellow high not much like being drunk really."

"No sense me telling you that you will get caught if you do this shit long enough," I said.

"Probably, but we only sell it in large volume to people we know. I figure that will help us postpone the inevitable. We are really just the pizza delivery boy. We take the orders from people we know who do not deal drugs, and when we get a call from the mooch, we pick up what he has on hand. We make the deliveries about once a month."