Sunday August 30th, 3:03 P.M. Washington Heights
Broadway and West 184th Street
Kelli walked into the dingy little bar, adjusting her eyes to the sudden darkness. The place smelled of piss and stale beer. It wasn’t her habit to meet a snitch in a place like this, and if her AA sponsor saw her, she would catch hell.
She stood in the doorway a few moments more, giving her eyes time to pierce the darkness. She spotted her informant, Hector Gonzales, sitting at the other end of the bar.
Hector was a big man, and stood a good six foot three. Kelli had busted him a few years back, when she was still on patrol. He was holding up a local bodega. She was in the store at the time of the robbery, and saw that he was using a toy gun.
When she identified herself, he dropped the plastic gun and ran out the door. She caught up with him at the end of the block and nearly took his head off with a garbage can lid. At that time he was addicted to crack and methamphetamine and wasn’t nearly as big as he was now.
He turned his life around after that day, and with her help, got clean. She approached and sat on the stool next to him. He looked over at her and smiled a big toothy smile. “So, Detective, what you need?”
She glanced at the bartender and he walked to the other end of the bar. “What do you know about Carlos Rodriguez and the DDP?”
Hector took a sip of his beer and set the glass down. “I know they’re a bunch of bad motherfuckers. Why you want to know about Carlos?”
“You don’t need to know why, just tell me if you’ve heard any talk on the street,” she said, pulling out a fifty and setting it on the bar.
Hector looked down at the bill and back at Kelli. “I ain’t heard much, but word is, Carlos is moving up. Got himself hooked up with some big guy out of Colombia. Heard the guys uncle was a friend of Yayo.”
Kelli felt her stomach twist in a knot at the sound of the name. “So Yayo’s involved. You got this Colombian’s name?”
Hector shook his head and took another sip of beer. “Ain’t heard nobody say his name, but some say his uncle is Pablo Escobar Gaviria.”
“And just who the hell is Pablo Escobar Gaviria?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Shit, I don’t know. Some big Colombian drug boss I guess.”
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