Read The Ultimate Good Luck for Free Online Page A

reached before.
    “They think what?” Quinn said.
    “They think he makes the deal and lets himself be arrested,” Bernhardt said calmly. He was staring at Sonny bemused. He ran his thumb down his jawline, then leaned on it.
    “That’s crazy, isn’t it? Isn’t that fucking crazy?” Quinn looked at Sonny hopefully. “You didn’t to that, did you?”
    Sonny tried to look insulted. “No way,” he said. “I’m mules.That’s it.” He started to raise his hands off the tabletop, then set them down again.
    “That’s crazy,” Quinn said to Bernhardt.
    “It is not impossible,” Bernhardt said calmy and adjusted his glasses. Something in Sonny’s face seemed to interest him, as though all his features had become more complicated. “It’s happened before,” he said. “Though not to my client.”
    “In here?” Quinn said. “To want to get in here?”
    “One can arrange to get out,” Bernhardt said. He raised his eyebrows. The muscles of his jaw rose beneath his cheeks.
    Sonny looked at Bernhardt and Quinn quickly as if things were going wacko now. He made his ponytail swing. “No way,” he said. “I don’t own insides.”
    Quinn didn’t like the edge in Sonny’s voice. He couldn’t figure out what was causing it and he didn’t like that. “Are you fucking on me, Sonny?” he said.
    Sonny’s face got pale. “Look man,” Sonny said, “don’t bullshit me now.”
    He was pissed all at once, but under wraps. He didn’t want to go in next. “I’m not shitting
you
. Why should I shit you? I’m down here to get you fucking out of this shit hole, you douche bag, and all of a sudden you don’t sound right. You understand what I mean? You don’t sound right to me. And I don’t have a plan for that.” He wanted to hear something to make sense or he was going to pack everything in the minute Rae got off the plane.
    “Who is the man?” Bernhardt said intently, leaning forward.
    Sonny breathed deeply and closed his hands around the paper sack as if it contained all his hopes and he was having to give it up. “A spade,” he said and breathed again very deeply. “Deats. A guy named Deats.”
    “Who does he work for?” Bernhardt said.
    “L.A. people. I don’t know them. I’ve seen him before at the Lakers’ games, you know. He’s a big player.”
    “So is he a pal of yours?” Quinn said.
    “I don’t know him.” Sonny shook his head in a bewildered way. “He’s inside. I’m not inside.”
    “What did he say to you?” Bernhardt asked. He was being methodical now.
    Sonny gripped the neck of the sack and licked his lips. “That he wanted the stuff.”
    “Why does he think
you
took it?” Quinn said.
    “He said the police only took two pounds off me, and he paid for four.” Sonny looked across at Bernhardt.
    “What did you pick up?” Bernhardt said deliberately. “How many kilograms?”
    Sonny shook his head. “I just pick up packages. I don’t weigh it. Weighing’s their business. I left the money in my hotel room, took a walk on the zócalo, and when I came back there were two packages on the bed. That’s what the federates got.”
    Quinn looked at Bernhardt. “They must’ve copped it on him, right? Say that’s right.”
    Bernhardt pushed out his lower lip and studied Sonny. “If it goes, it goes high up,” he said. “For the police there is more money in doing things correctly.” He smacked his lips and looked at Sonny matter-of-factly. “Do you have it?” he said.
    Whatever Sonny had popped on had burned off in sixty seconds. His face was gaunt and his eyes looked ruined. He looked to Quinn like somebody who’d run a long way without stopping, for the first time in his life. “No,” he said almost silently and shook his head.
    “And you don’t know who anybody is?” Quinn said.
    “L.A. people,” Sonny said softly. “I know a guy in L.A. He pays me. It comes through Mexico because it’s safer than straight up. But I don’t meet anybody down here. I just