“Here, in Jacobsville?” she gasped.
“Right here,” he said.
“Then tell the sheriff and let him send some men out to arrest the owners!”
“They won’t find cocaine if they do,” he said carelessly. “In fact, I’d bet my boots that they’ll phone in a tip about themselves just to draw the law out there to check around. And while they’re checking, all the honey in the jars will be real honey, and even a drug-sniffing dog won’t find a trace of cocaine. Having searched the place once and found nothing, local law enforcement will logically hesitate before they go back out there a second time. At least, not without some concrete evidence of malfeasance. It’s easy to get sued for harassment, and believe me, Lopez would howl at the idea of taking our sheriff to court over it.”
“You sound very cynical,” she told him.
“I know how these people operate. In my checkered past, I’ve dealt with drug dealers, gunrunners, diamond smugglers, hit men…”
Her eyes were growing wider by the second. “You outlaw, you.”
“Count on it,” he told her. “I did what the job called for. Wars make strange bedfellows. Got to have guns and ammunition, you know, not to mention explosives, communications equipment, medicines. You can’t walk into the nearest superstore and buy those.”
“You can buy guns,” she began.
“Registered guns,” he emphasized. “They’re required by law to do a background check before they sell a gun, and there’s a waiting period. If you know where to go, you can get everything from Uzis to C-4, and no waiting.”
“I had no idea,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“It’s almost impossible to shut these drug cartels down. They are run on a corporate structure. In a sense, they’re multinational corporations. They have a hierarchy, complete with divisional managers and regional distribution networks. When you understand the way they work, you also understand why it’s such an uphill battle. You can’t arrest every gang member in the country. That’s what it would take to stop it. And even then,” he added, “there would still be dealers. You know why? Because where there’s demand, there’s supply. As long as there are people willing to pay for illegal drugs, there will be people who sell them.”
“That’s very demoralizing,” she pointed out.
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