Drug Bust

by Anthony Lukas

I stepped onto the small porch and was about to knock when I noticed the front door was just slightly ajar. That gave me a bad feeling. Kemper was generally the careful type, wouldn't be leaving doors unlatched, not with thousands in drugs inside. 

I eased the door open and stood listening.

Nothing.

I took a step inside and froze. There was a noise from somewhere in the little bungalow, a noise I couldn't figure out. I eased further into the small entry hall and looked into the wood paneled front room. Kemper was there but he hadn't been the one making the noise. He lay on his side just before the doorway into the kitchen. Blood had stained the front of his shirt and the rug he had died on.

A noise again from the back of the house, where I knew the bedroom to be. Drawers being opened and shut, clothes hangers being scraped along a closet clothes bar. Then the sound of quiet cursing and a man appeared in the kitchen door having come from the back bedroom.

He started when he saw me, took a step back, and grabbed a knife from the front pocket of his hoodie.

Young, short, dark-skinned, a little wild-eyed, long stringy brown hair, dirty clothes, holding a very well-used backpack. He stared, pointing the very evil-looking knife at me. A customer, or maybe a competitor of Kemper. From his look, he looked more like a customer.

I could have backed out, but I had come to confront Kemper and get what I was owed.  With Kemper dead, the first was impossible, but the second . . .

I held up my hand. “It's okay. We got no problem here.”

The kid didn't say anything. He had the knife, and I was empty, felons not supposed to be carrying. I had to talk him out of the house.

“You find anything?” I said.

Still nothing. 

“He keeps it pretty well hidden,” I said and nodded toward the wall between this room and the kitchen. “To the right of that hutch.”

He screwed up his face, looking around the door frame. “The what?”

“The cabinet, with the glass doors.”

He sidled in that direction, knife and eyes on me. He glanced at the wood paneling, then back at me.

“Put your hand on that second panel, give it a light push, and it'll pop open.” He did and it did. Narrow shelves held a few bags of pills and powders. Not a lot, which meant Kemper had sold most of his stock, which in turn meant . . .

“I'm taking this,” said the kid, waving the knife for emphasis.

“No problem,” I said, “Be my guest.”

He grabbed the bags and dumped them into his backpack and hefted it. To him it was like a sack full of gold. 

He turned to me, bag in one hand, nasty knife in the other. I knew he was trying to decide, leave a witness or not.

“Look,” I said. “Kemper was a shit. He ripped me and anyone else he could. I ended doing time because of him. That 's why I came today, to settle the score. But you beat me to it. No problem to me. I'm not helping the cops catch anyone who ended him. I'll tell 'em I saw someone leaving. White guy, tall, short blond hair, blue track suit.”

The kid stared at me, not getting it.

“Someone who doesn't look anything like you. . . .?'”

Now the light dawned. “Okay,” he said, and we both circled counterclockwise around the room, he ending by the front door. With a last look, he dodged.

I went to Kemper's body and rolled it aside. I flipped the bloody rug up and looked down at the floor safe. Same one. I went into the kitchen, used a handkerchief to pull open a drawer that had a gun and other junk, the gun that Kemper had probably been trying for. I rummaged in the drawer, finding the key among all the clutter. Back to the safe. Insert the key, turn, open.

Piles of bills filled the space, the proceeds of selling all the product that had been on the hidden shelves.

I filled a bag I'd found in the kitchen and stood. The hidden door, with the kid's full handprint on it still hung open. I looked down at Kemper and felt . . . nothing.

 I crossed the room, scanned the street through the curtains, slipped through the front door and made like smoke.