them.
“The next corpse they wheel out along these sacred corridors, Chambrun, will, in all probability, be me.”
“I shall do everything in my power to prevent it,” Chambrun said. “The Beaumont can’t afford it”
“Neither can I,” Digger said. He waved vaguely toward his coffee cup. “I am involved in a war,” he said, “which starts in the country responsible for that elegant brew. There a farmer grows a field of poppies. He collects the seeds, which, in effect, are pure opium. Let us trace twenty-two pounds of that pure opium economically. You need to understand the economics of death, gentlemen—Murray Cardew’s death, probably mine, and God knows how many others. Our Turkish farmer sells his twenty-two pounds of opium for five hundred dollars. It’s a simple matter to turn opium into morphine, but converting the base into heroin is a delicate chemical operation and requires a secret laboratory and a skilled chemist. The laboratory costs money to maintain and protect, the chemist must be paid a good deal more than the going rate for chemists. He’s running risks. By the time he has processed our farmer’s produce into a kilo of heroin, which is just over two pounds, it is worth five thousand dollars. Let us say that laboratory is in France. The kilo of heroin is sent to Italy where the largest distributors of narcotics to the world markets make their headquarters. These businessmen—” and Digger’s voice went harsh—“because international crime of this sort is the biggest unseen business in the world—these businessmen send that kilo of heroin to New York, the prime market, by ships from Naples or Genoa or Palermo or send it by plane from Rome’s Fiumicino airport. At dockside in New York, our kilo of heroin is now worth sixteen thousand dollars. There it is passed along to a series of dealers and ‘pushers,’ cut a number of times until it makes approximately seventy thousand ‘fixes,’ valued at about five dollars apiece. Simple mathematics now show us that the twenty-two pounds of opium for which our Turkish farmer got five hundred dollars is now worth three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Sound like big business?”
Neither Chambrun or I spoke.
“The U.S. Bureau of Narcotics estimates that there are over forty-five thousand addicts in this country,” Digger went on. “Twenty dollars a day is about the minimum these addicts must spend to keep from going screaming crazy. Many of them spend much more. About five hundred million dollars a year, much of it stolen, is paid to the illicit narcotics trader. It is big business. So big, friends, that there wouldn’t be a second’s hesitation about the life of a tired old man like Murry Cardew if he was any kind of threat to it. Nor any hesitation about the life of a very untired gent named Sullivan, or the life of a hotel manager named Chambrun, or that of a young man who doesn’t believe what the old lady said.”
Digger reached for his coffee cup. “I sketch this financial picture for you so that you’ll understand the stakes. To the men who run this business anyone who gets in the way by threatening the main machinery for distributing death and disaster to thousands of people must, without any question, be eliminated. Not by legal means because there is no law. In Murray’s case, his head bashed in; in mine, a knife in the back straight through to the heart; in yours, Chambrun, an accidental fall off the roof of your penthouse; in Mark’s, a taxi running out of control on Madison Avenue.” He drained the cup of coffee and put it down in its saucer. “If I were in your shoes, Chambrun, I’d turn Michael Digby Sullivan over to the police as a sneak thief and be done with it. Because if you start to play ball with me, someone may pin the donkey’s tail on you in a vital spot. And get one other thing through your heads, gentlemen. The villains I’m after don’t hang out in cafés on the Marseilles water front or on New
“The next corpse they wheel out along these sacred corridors, Chambrun, will, in all probability, be me.”
“I shall do everything in my power to prevent it,” Chambrun said. “The Beaumont can’t afford it”
“Neither can I,” Digger said. He waved vaguely toward his coffee cup. “I am involved in a war,” he said, “which starts in the country responsible for that elegant brew. There a farmer grows a field of poppies. He collects the seeds, which, in effect, are pure opium. Let us trace twenty-two pounds of that pure opium economically. You need to understand the economics of death, gentlemen—Murray Cardew’s death, probably mine, and God knows how many others. Our Turkish farmer sells his twenty-two pounds of opium for five hundred dollars. It’s a simple matter to turn opium into morphine, but converting the base into heroin is a delicate chemical operation and requires a secret laboratory and a skilled chemist. The laboratory costs money to maintain and protect, the chemist must be paid a good deal more than the going rate for chemists. He’s running risks. By the time he has processed our farmer’s produce into a kilo of heroin, which is just over two pounds, it is worth five thousand dollars. Let us say that laboratory is in France. The kilo of heroin is sent to Italy where the largest distributors of narcotics to the world markets make their headquarters. These businessmen—” and Digger’s voice went harsh—“because international crime of this sort is the biggest unseen business in the world—these businessmen send that kilo of heroin to New York, the prime market, by ships from Naples or Genoa or Palermo or send it by plane from Rome’s Fiumicino airport. At dockside in New York, our kilo of heroin is now worth sixteen thousand dollars. There it is passed along to a series of dealers and ‘pushers,’ cut a number of times until it makes approximately seventy thousand ‘fixes,’ valued at about five dollars apiece. Simple mathematics now show us that the twenty-two pounds of opium for which our Turkish farmer got five hundred dollars is now worth three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Sound like big business?”
Neither Chambrun or I spoke.
“The U.S. Bureau of Narcotics estimates that there are over forty-five thousand addicts in this country,” Digger went on. “Twenty dollars a day is about the minimum these addicts must spend to keep from going screaming crazy. Many of them spend much more. About five hundred million dollars a year, much of it stolen, is paid to the illicit narcotics trader. It is big business. So big, friends, that there wouldn’t be a second’s hesitation about the life of a tired old man like Murry Cardew if he was any kind of threat to it. Nor any hesitation about the life of a very untired gent named Sullivan, or the life of a hotel manager named Chambrun, or that of a young man who doesn’t believe what the old lady said.”
Digger reached for his coffee cup. “I sketch this financial picture for you so that you’ll understand the stakes. To the men who run this business anyone who gets in the way by threatening the main machinery for distributing death and disaster to thousands of people must, without any question, be eliminated. Not by legal means because there is no law. In Murray’s case, his head bashed in; in mine, a knife in the back straight through to the heart; in yours, Chambrun, an accidental fall off the roof of your penthouse; in Mark’s, a taxi running out of control on Madison Avenue.” He drained the cup of coffee and put it down in its saucer. “If I were in your shoes, Chambrun, I’d turn Michael Digby Sullivan over to the police as a sneak thief and be done with it. Because if you start to play ball with me, someone may pin the donkey’s tail on you in a vital spot. And get one other thing through your heads, gentlemen. The villains I’m after don’t hang out in cafés on the Marseilles water front or on New
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