The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) Read Online Free

about the hippies; haven’t they any rights? What about the American exiles living abroad, not really protected by local law, and with nobody they can turn to if something goes wrong?”
    “What’s wrong with the cops?” Harry asked. “They can’t go to them?”
    “Nothing’s wrong with the cops,” I said, “but you know as well as I do, some guy comes to your stationhouse in Jersey City speaking broken English, how much attention is he going to get? He’s not even a voter, for chrissakes.”
    “I guess you got a point there,” Harry said.
    “This thing can work,” I told him.
    “All right, let’s suppose it can work,” Harry said. “I’m the one who knows all about detectives and criminals and cops. What do I need you for? Why don’t I set up by myself?”
    “Simple, Harry,” I said. “If you did that, you’d be lonely. What does the money matter to you? You’re retired; you just want something to keep your hand in. Let me be your associate. Your manager. Your boss. Try it, you’ll like it.”
    “You know, Hob,” Harry said, “you’re like those hippie kids my son was always hanging out with when he lived here.”
    “What’s your son doing now? Still with the longhairs?”
    “No. Scott’s running a massage parlor in Weehawken.”
    “At least he’s not a hippie,” I said.
    Harry shook his head impatiently. He had talked enough about his son.
    “Well,” he said, “it’s crazy, but I’ll think about it.”
    That’s how I got my man in Ibiza. It was almost as good as being there myself. Almost, but not quite.
     
     

 
    IΒIZA
    5
     
     
    Ibiza is like you attached Coney Island to Big Sur and put the whole thing under Mexican rule.
    Ibiza and its adjacent island of Formentera lie south of Majorca and Minorca, roughly on a line drawn between Valencia and Marseilles.
    The island has a reputation as an international spot for jetsetters. It was one of the world centers of the counterculture back in the sixties and seventies. Many people went to Ibiza to live that dream. A lot of them, and their children, are there still. I had been one of those people.
    There are a lot of reasons for Ibiza’s peculiar charm: the dense interpenetration of different layers of society; the constant arrival and departure of the uncountable thousands who make the island a part-time home. There’s prosperity, due in part to Ibiza being one of the favored places to take your ill-gotten gains and live a pleasant life. For a certain type of person, having a good income and living in Ibiza would be two definitions of paradise.
    The people come and go. They flow in and out, get into the busses and U-drive-it cars and taxis and fan out over the island. Some have chauffeured cars waiting for them. The ships come in every day from Barcelona and Palma with more tourists, and their cars, Jags and Porsches, that get a lot of wear on their suspensions on the rocky Ibiza roads.
    The island is about thirty-five miles long by eight or so wide. Its year-round Spanish population is under fifty thousand. During the summer, over a million people pour in and out.
    Ibiza is also one of the important transshipment points on the international heroin and cocaine networks. Not to even bother mentioning marijuana and hashish; let’s stick with the big ones. Ibiza is a convenient spot to off-load goods by sea from laboratories in the south of France, Corsica, Italy, and get them aboard other carriers going to northern Europe or North America.
    Some of the finest houses in town are owned by dope dealers. They’re the elite of the Old City, the crowded, twisting, little, cobblestoned streets of the Peña that runs down to the waterfront. On the ten or so blocks of waterfront there are perhaps a hundred or more bars, restaurants and boutiques crowded together.
    Ibiza has a big fashion business. There’s a lot of money here. There’s a lot of rivalry here if you’re into crime. Crime is probably the only interesting occupation on the