"Easy, Manfred," he said without turning his head. "He's only giving Daddy some bread." To Jack: "Hey, call me Tom, Okay. The Terrific's just for kicks, y'know? And as for being a biker, yeah, I used to ride. Dropped outta Berkeley and rode with a Fresno gang for about ten years. Used to weigh in at an eighth of a ton too. But those days are gone. I now live the life of a pharmaceutical artiste."
Jack glanced around the basement apartment. Abe had led him down here to a narrow cobblestone street just south of Canal in Chinatown where Tom Terrific was probably the only non-Asian resident. His furnished apartment sat under a Thai restaurant, although furnished was probably a euphemism. The rug and furniture looked like the kind of stuff that people put out on the curb but nobody would haul away, not even the sanit men.
A long way from the digs of that other pharmaceutical artiste, Dr. Luc Monnet.
"What do you want to know?" Tom said as he tucked away the bill. "Looking to start your own operation?"
Jack shook his head. "Just want to know about Berzerk. Heard of it?"
"Heard of it?" Tom Terrific snorted. "Course I heard of it. Just wish I could make the damn stuff."
'Tom Terrific can't make it?" Abe said as he eased himself into a threadbare lounger. "I've always heard that if you can't make it, it can't be made."
"True up till this new stuff arrived. But lemme tell you, man, it's got me stumped." He grinned again. "But I'm not alone. Got the feds stumped too. They keep trying to class it as a CDS—"
"Seedy what?" Jack said.
"CDS—controlled dangerous substance—but they can't seem to pin down its molecular structure. Which, considering the equipment those fuckers got, must be real complex. But I'm not surprised. I mean, it's one fucking elegant drug from the distribution standpoint because it degrades into an inert substance after a while." He cackled. "Driving the feds and the cops nuts, man. They bust somebody with the stuff and by the time arraignment comes around, the evidence ain't a drug no more."
"The preppy riot guy!" Jack said, snapping his fingers. "They had to let him go because they said someone pulled a switch with the evidence."
Tom Terrific was shaking his head. "No switch. The stuff just changed. That's what happens, man: every bit, no matter where it is, goes inert at exactly the same time. Ain't it cool? You gotta use it or lose it. The dude who dreamed this one up has got to be the fucking Einstein of molecular biologists."
Jack couldn't help recalling Nadia's glowing praise for her hero, Dr. Monnet, about how brilliant he was.
The pieces were falling into place, but Nadia was not going to like the picture.
"If I was a customer," Abe said, "I should be pretty mad if my stuff goes dead on me like that."
Tom Terrific shrugged. "If it does, it's your fault. The stuff comes with an expiration date."
"But what is it?" Jack said.
"The million-fucking-dollar question. I can tell you what it's not, and it's not speed. Lemme tell you, I know everything there is to know about amphetamines, and this stuff ain't even a distant relative. Not an opiate or a barbiturate or a clone of PCP or Ecstasy either. Stuff's something entirely different. It magnifies whatever aggressive tendencies you have."
"And what if you don't have any?" Jack said.
"Everybody's got 'em. It's the beast in all of us, man; it's just that some of us are farther from the trees than others. I call it BQ: beast quotient."
"'The stubborn beast flesh
"What?"
"Just a line from a movie I was watching the other night."
"Yeah, well, lemme tell you, a normal-size hit'll send a guy who's already violence-prone—you know, with a high BQ—right over the edge. A heavy dose can make even Casper the Friendly Ghost blow his top. Nobody's immune."
"Just what the world needs," Abe said. "More blown tops. Who would make such a thing? For what purpose?"
"I hear it got its start in paramilitary units overseas but moved into the consumer market like schnell, man. And lemme tell you, whoever's marketing this shit is another kinda whiz. They're selling it in all shapes and sizes, with names geared to specific target markets. If they're going after the gangbangers and such, they call it Berzerk—that's their most popular brand—but it's also called Terminator-X, Eliminator, Predator, Executioner, Uzi, Samurai, Killer-B, and so on."
"How big a market can that be?"
"Not huge, but just the tip of the iceberg, it turns out. Once it caught on with the jocks and the suits—"
"Jocks and suits?" Jack said. "What the hell do they want with it?"
"Aggression, man. Aggression! You can be the new Air Jordan or John Elway or Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. All you need is an edge, and this stuff—in the right amount, of course, in a fine-tuned dose—gives it to you. The jocks are buying Touchdown, Goal, Slam-Dunk, Victory, Ninety-Yard-Dash, and TakeDown—different names, same shit. The stuff's replacing anabolic steroids as most abused substance in scholastic and professional sports. You heard about what happened at the Knicks game last night, right?"
Jack shook his head but saw Abe nodding.
"Can't believe you missed it, man. Leon Doakes, that new wide-body forward for the Knicks? He took the Pistons' little point guard—can't remember his name but he was driving the lane and floating past Doakes all night, making him look like a lead-footed jerk. Anyway, Doakes finally has enough so he just picks up this guard and tosses him into the stands. Tosses him! Guy landed in the sixth row!" Another cackling laugh. "I flipped around to all the news shows; caught the replay five times, man. It was awesome. And I'll bet you anything they were both ripped on Slam-Dunk."
"You said suits too?"
"Yeah. They get the mildest forms—I've heard of names like Success, Prosperity, CEO. Yessiree, lots of white-collar types are bringing it into the boardrooms. The stuff is spreading like wildfire. It'll be everywhere soon. The ultimate growth market. I'd love to hitch a ride on that train but it's just too tough a molecule for a small operation like mine."
"Who is making it, then?" Jack said.
Tom Terrific shrugged. "Don't know. I tried to find out, see if I could maybe get a line on its molecular structure, but I ran into a wall, man—a Serbian wall."
"Dragovic?"
"You got it. And that's when I stopped poking around. Lemme tell you, I ain't lookin' to mess with him."
Another piece falling into place.
"No other players?" Jack said.
"Dragovic's organization seems to have a lock on the supply. Near as I can gather, the source is in Europe somewhere. Makes sense, since that's where the stuff first appeared."
Here was a piece that didn't fit. If Monnet and his company were behind Berzerk, it seemed logical they'd be making it here in the U.S. where they had a plant. What better cover for illegal drug manufacturing than a legal operation?
"Got any you can sell me?" Jack said.
"Berzerk? Nothing active. But I've got some in the inert state I was working on till it changed. When the preppy guy's turned, so did mine. I'll just give you some of that. No damn good to me anymore." He motioned Jack toward the back room.
"I'll stay out here," Abe said. "I want to take notes on your decor so I can maybe duplicate it in my own place."
The back room was Tom Terrific's lab. He was known to specialize in speed—ice specifically—and Jack had heard that his product got high marks from folks who were into the stuff.
When he turned on the light, a panicked horde of roaches scuttled for the corners and disappeared.
"Excuse the little guests, man. They weren't invited, but lemme tell you, they're a fact of life when you live under a restaurant."
Manfred the rottweiler had followed Jack and his master to the rear room but didn't enter. Jack immediately knew why. The place smelled like a high school chemistry lab with the drama club doing the experiments—a mixture of paint thinner and dirty cat litter. Trays of white paste sat on benches with fans blowing over them. An exhaust fan in the corner ran into a shiny new
galvanized duct that ran up through the ceiling, but the room still stank.
"Just out of curiosity," Jack said, "what do you get for an ounce of the stuff you make?"
"Ounce? Hey, I sell it by the gram, man. My stuff is pure, and my tweakers know it's a long high." He gave Jack a sidelong look. "Why do you want to know?"
"Well, you're practically a legend. You've got to be able to afford better digs than this."
"Oh, I can, man, and someday I will. But creature comforts aren't the important thing now. I'm an artist, you see, and I need to stay close to my work."
Everybody's an artist these days, Jack thought.
"And one of the things about my art is that the, um, materials I use, especially the solvents, have got telltale odors that can bring the heat down on you PDQ. So what I've done is hooked into the hood over the stove in the restaurant upstairs. My fumes mix with their cooking odors and they all come out together on the roof. Pretty cool, huh."
"Very," Jack said. His eyes were burning from the fumes and he wanted to get out of here. "What about the Berzerk?"
"Right over here," he said and started fumbling through a pile of glassine envelopes. "I only deal to finance my art, you know, and lemme tell you, I'm working on something that'll make Berzerk last week's news. I call it Ice-Nine. One hit will give a smooth, utterly bodacious high that'll last a week. It's my Holy Grail. When I reach it, I'll be fulfilled. That's when I'll retire, but not a minute before. Ice-Nine or bust, man."
Right on, Sir Gawain.
"Here 'tis," Tom Terrific said, holding up a small clear envelope with a layer of yellow powder in its lower corner. "It's some sort of blue in its active state—"
"Just what kind of blue is 'some sort'?" Jack said.
"You know," he said with a wavering, uncertain smile, "I can't really say. Ain't that weird. I've been working with the stuff for the past coupla weeks, seen it every day, but I can't quite remember its color. But I know it wasn't yellow. Yellow means it's gone inert." He handed the envelope to Jack. "Here. Take it."
"All of it?"
"Sure. I was gonna throw it out anyway."
"How about some of the active form, just for comparison."
Tom Terrific's ponytail whipped back and forth as he shook his head. "Don't have any. There's always a lag in supply after the old stuff goes inert. The new stuff won't show up for another day or so."
"Strange way to do business," Jack said.
"Tell me about it. Was me, I'd have the new stuff out Day One after the old stuff crashed." He shrugged. "But who knows? Maybe they've got a good reason."
Jack stuffed the envelope into his pocket and turned to go.
"Wait," Tom Terrific said, holding up another envelope, this one half-filled with fine clear crystals. "Here's my latest—Ice-Seven. Want to try a taste?"
"No, thanks," Jack said, moving toward the door.
"On the house. You'll like it. Lasts about three days. Takes tired old reality and makes it much more interesting."
Jack shook his head. "For the last year or so, Tom, reality's been just about as interesting as I can stand."
10
Gia stopped her paintbrush in midstroke and listened. Was that the doorbell? She and Vicky had come out to the sunny backyard—Vicky for her playhouse, Gia to work on her painting—and they were a long way from the front door.
She heard the chime again, clearly now. With a glance at Vicky, who was setting a Munchkin-size chair before a Munchkin-size table by her playhouse, Gia wiped her hands and stepped inside.
As she headed through the house toward the front door, she wondered who it could be. Jack had said he'd be tied up most of the day, Gia hadn't arranged a play date for Vicky, and this was not a neighborhood where people popped in for a cup of coffee.
Despite the months of living in this grand old East Side town house, Gia still didn't feel she belonged here. Vicky's aunts, Nellie and Grace, had owned it but they were gone now, officially missing persons since last summer. But Gia knew the truth—the two dear old women were dead, devoured by creatures from some Hindu hell. If not for Jack, Vicky would have suffered the same fate. And thanks to Jack, the creatures were as dead as Nellie and Grace, incinerated on the ship that had brought them, their ashes sent swirling into the currents of New York Harbor. Vicky would inherit the house when Grace and Nellie were declared legally dead. Until then, she and Gia lived here, keeping it up.
Gia padded across the thick Oriental rug that lined the foyer floor and approached the front door as the bell rang again. Probably Jack and he'd forgotten his key, but just to be sure, she put her eye to the peephole—
And froze.
Gia's heart kicked up its tempo as she recognized the two men standing on her front step—from the other day on the beach in front of Milos Dragovic's house. No way she'd forget the obnoxious one with the bad bleach job.
What were they doing here? How had they found her? Why?
Jack. Had to be Jack. Always Jack. He'd been interested in Dragovic, and the objects of Jack's interest tended not to be the happiest bunch after he finished with them. But now Jack—and she as well, it seemed—had attracted the attention of the city's most notorious mobster.
Gia jumped as the bell chimed again. She looked back down the hall, hoping Vicky wouldn't hear it and come charging in expecting to find Jack. The best thing was probably to stay quiet and hope they'd conclude no one was home. Since the town houses here all sat cheek by jowl along the sidewalk, there was no way for them to go around to the rear. Maybe they'd just give up and go away.
She heard them talking on the other side of the door. It didn't sound like English.
Finally they walked back to the black Lincoln sedan at the curb. Gia breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled away, but they didn't go far. They parked at the end of the cul-de-sac and lit cigarettes.
They're watching for us. Damn them!
Gia felt a quiet anger begin to simmer beneath her uneasiness. She and Vicky were trapped in their own home. And they had Jack to thank for that.
She picked up the phone and dialed his beeper. He got us into this; he can damn well get us out.
11
"Whatsa matta?" Sal Vituolo said, giggling as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "You don't think that's funny?"
Sal had just run the tape of last night's raid on the little TV-VCR set in his office.
"I think it's perfect," Jack said.
Ten minutes ago he would have had some good yucks watching Dragovic's goons running and ducking as the tires chased them. That would have been before he'd spoken to Gia and learned that two of those goons were parked outside her door at this very moment.
He knew how they'd found her: had to be that hidden security camera by Dragovic's front gate.
My fault. Should have spotted it sooner. Must have recorded a picture of the car, and they traced her from the plate.
Damn! Never should have taken them along.
The good news was that Dragovic couldn't know that Gia had any connection to last night's rubber rain. He was just flailing about.
Trouble was, the man might get lucky.
Jack's first thought had been to tell Gia to call the cops and complain about two suspicious-looking guys lurking outside. That would chase them, but not far. They'd move, but they would not go away.
So he'd have to handle this but be careful as to how. His first reflex had been to take them out, permanently, leave the police to clean up the mess. Since they both work for Dragovic, everyone would write it off as a mob hit.
Everyone except Dragovic. He'd know why those two were there, and removing them would be like erecting a big neon sign over Gia's door saying, I'm involved.
No, this called for a more subtle approach. But what…?
Sal's voice jarred him back to Staten Island. "I don't know how many times I've watched it already, but I crack up every time." He popped the cassette out of the set and held it up. "How many copies do I make and where do we send them? Eyewit
ness News?
"No copies yet."
"Ay," Sal said, pointing to the new dual-deck VCR Jack had instructed him to buy. "Ain't that why I bought this? To make copies?"
"Right," Jack said. "But we need more. You've got to be on that dune to film the sequel at tomorrow night's party."
"I'll be there, but how about something better'n tires this time? How about glass? Yeah! I gotta shitload of broken glass around here."
He forced his voice to stay calm. "Tires are just phase one. Phase two is where he gets nailed."
"Nails?" He heard an unmistakable note of glee in Sal's voice. "You're gonna use nails? Now you're talkin'!"
Jeez. "No."
"Then what's phase two?"
"All in good time, my man. All in good time. Meanwhile, not to worry. I've got it all figured out."
"But we done tires. I don't want to do tires again. Tires ain't enough."
Jack chewed the inside of his cheek and resisted the urge to whirl and get in Sal's face and tell him if he didn't like what was going down he could take over and finish it himself.
That's the worry about Gia and Vicky, he realized.
It was getting to him.
He rose and stepped to one of the windows. Through the grime on both sides of the pane he could vaguely make out the mountains of old cars and scrap metal stretching behind the office.
"Gotta be something better than tires again," Sal whined.
"OK, Sal," Jack said, giving in. "Let's take a walk through your yard. If we find something better, we'll use it. If not—tires again."
And maybe I'll come up with a solution for Dragovic's goons.
As an ebullient Sal led him out into the sunny afternoon, Jack noticed a couple of men piling scrap metal onto the hydraulic lift on the rear of a battered old delivery truck, the same one Jack had used to deliver the tires to the Ashe brothers on Friday.
He watched the old truck's lift return to ground level after another load of scrap had been pushed into its interior. Its rear edge was beveled… like a knife…