“He never came here, and when I bought drinks or dinner, I paid cash, so there’s no e-trail on me. I’ve made up a list of the places where I went with him alone, or where you and him and me were. Add those to your list. Crowd he traveled with, they don’t know us well enough to send anybody here, hell, they were usually too stoned to know who they were, much less us, but vids are different. If we’re on a tape, a RAM drive or a DVD, that’s bad. If that’s gone, we’re clear.”
Tad nodded again. “Yeah, I got it. Only a few places they might have captured images of us.”
“We can’t do shit about some tourist who snapped a few frames of Zeigler while we were at Disneyland or the beach or whatever, but the feds probably won’t find them, either. I think we can ride this out, we do it right.”
“I wonder how they did figure out to go for him?”
“He fucked up. He liked to brag about doing five girls at a time while he was on the Hammer, and like you said, he passed out dope to the people around him like it was chewing gum. Doesn’t matter how they found him. What matters is, they don’t find us.”
“I hear that.” Tad had no desire to finish out his little remaining time on earth in a cell. He’d punch his own ticket before he’d let that happen.
“So we’re on vacation for the next couple months,” Bobby said. “No production, no deliveries, we are shut down. Maybe we’ll go to Maui, drive the crooked road out to Hana, kick back on the black sand beach and watch the girls awhile.”
Tad nodded absently. “Yeah.” But what he was thinking was, he had Thor’s Hammer in his pocket, the last one Bobby had made, and it still had a few more hours of shelf life left. If he didn’t take it, it was going to go to waste, and Bobby wasn’t gonna be making any more until he felt safe.
Tad might not have a couple months left in him, you never could tell.
Should he take it? He and Bobby hadn’t spent that much time with the Zee-ster out in public. Half a dozen spots in the last couple of months, no more, and most places didn’t keep vid records more than a day or two, maybe a week, before they recorded over the old stuff. He could shave it close, check out the first few places, drop the cap, and finish the last few before it came on full blast. And even after it came on, he could maintain enough to take care of the security stuff, he was pretty sure. For a couple hours, anyway.
There was some risk, sure, but what the hell, he didn’t have much to lose, did he?
There was one other possibility, something he hadn’t ever tried, but he’d held in reserve, just in case something happened to Bobby before it did him. He could let the cap croak, clean up the security cam stuff, and head out to the islands with Bobby. Then, in a week or two, he could find some reason to split with Bobby for a couple days. Tell him he was gonna go camp out by the Sacred Pools or something—Bobby hated camping—then catch a flight back to L.A.
He’d been with Bobby a long time. And while he wasn’t in Bobby’s league as a chemist, he knew a fair amount about drugs. He had managed, over the time they’d been dealing the Hammer, to be around Bobby at one point or another during every step of the creation and blending of the ingredients for the drug. Yeah, he didn’t even know what they all were, but he knew where to find the powders and how much to use of each.
He wasn’t a genius like Bobby, he couldn’t create the stuff from scratch, no way. But while not everybody could create a major symphony from nothing, like Mozart, a whole lot of people could play the sucker if they had the sheet music. Tad knew Bobby’s routine; he’d watched it, memorized it, and he could do that much. Ma and Pa out in the RV had all the stuff for Thor’s Hammer, neatly stored in little bottles. He could pay them a visit. They’d never think twice about it. He’d collected the stuff for Bobby several times.
Of course, when Bobby found out, he’d be pissed, so maybe Tad might have to eliminate Ma and Pa, torch the RV, and hope Bobby would blame it on rival dealers or the law. Then again, maybe Tad wouldn’t be around when Bobby found out. The hole he had to climb out of each time was deeper and deeper. One day, he’d hit the bottom and not be able to make it back, and that was gonna be sooner rather than later.
It was something to think about.
“You gonna sit there staring into space all day or what?”
“Huh. Oh, yeah. I’m going. I need to, uh, freshen up a bit, then I’m good.”
“Fine. Do what you need to do, but don’t get pulled over for a ticket or whatever, be careful, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.”
“I have to worry, Tad, for the both of us.”
Tad headed for the bathroom and another hit of the Mexican white. As he walked, he fingered the capsule in his watch pocket to make sure it was still there. As long as he took care of business, what could it hurt to take it? It would be a crime to just waste it.
And even if he did take it, a few weeks from now he could still come back to L.A. And if he skipped the final step when he mixed the stuff, left out adding the self-destruct catalyst, the resulting caps maybe wouldn’t be quite as potent, but they wouldn’t go bad, either. He could take one every day until it killed him, and that wouldn’t be the worst way to go out, now would it?
He smiled at himself in the bathroom mirror.
It was like looking at a grinning skull.
Drayne was pissed off at himself. He knew better than to associate with people he dealt to, he knew better. He’d talked to a lot of dope dealers over the years, had wrangled access to a lot of FBI files via his father, without the old man knowing, of course, and he’d learned a whole lot about the biz before he had ever sold his first pill.
The upside of things were big bucks and big thrills. Dopers who were smart made fortunes, and they got to make the assorted varieties of cops look stupid while they did it. Big money, big rushes, the thrill of victory, and all that green to feed the machine.
There was a downside, of course. Stupid dopers could get killed by a rival dealer. Or ripped off and maybe killed by a customer. Or busted and sent to the graybar hotel for twenty years on a heavy federal rap. Or busted by the local yokels. Lot of minefield in the illegal trade, and you couldn’t complain to the cops if somebody pointed a gun at you and stole your dope or your money.
The thing was, if you were a dealer, and if you did it long enough, and if you didn’t move around a bunch while you were doing it, you were sooner or later going to get caught. Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of dealers who stayed in the biz for more than a few years in one place eventually got nailed. Sometimes it was a distributor who gave ‘em up, sometimes it was an ex-wife or girlfriend, sometimes the cops found’em on their own.
Once you got a lot of cash in your hands, it sometimes made you stupid. You bought expensive, flashy toys, you got to thinking because you were rich you were invincible, and just like Zeigler, all your money didn’t mean squat when the bullets started to fly. You couldn’t take it with you.
So Drayne had always kept a low profile. No yachts, no car that couldn’t be leased by half of L.A. No bodyguards with muscles and bulges under their jackets to make people wonder who you were who needed bodyguards. Absolutely minimal risks in sales, delivery, taking on new customers. Never more stuff in the house than necessary. Nobody knew what he did except for three people: Tad and the old couple who drove the RV. Tad would never give him up, and Ma and Pa Yeehaw were lifetime criminals who would go down with guns blasting before they let themselves be taken. If not, he’d have them bailed out and gone before the feds knew what they had.
Not perfect, no ironclad guarantees, but he had been very careful. Until he got sucked into the glitz of Zeigler’s movie-star circles. Even then, Drayne had stood in the back on the Zee-ster’s coattails, and what the hell, it had been fun, watching every door open in front of them, women falling all over themselves to get close to them, and the reflected feeling of celebrity.
It had never occurred to him that Zeigler would be the target of a raid. Feds just didn’t kick in famous million
aires’ doors; it just wasn’t done.
Well, it was now. And while they were probably okay, going to ground and turning invisible until all the heat died down was the way to play it. No reason to push things. He was ahead of the game. The feds were plodders, but they were like the tortoise: While the hare was taking a nap, they might creep up on him and bite him on the ass. Drayne wasn’t going to give them that chance, no sir, thank you very fucking much.
A month or two in Hawaii in the fall? You could do a lot worse. And worse was not the way to go.
Soon as Tad got things taken care of, they were gonna hop on one of those big honkin’ jumbo jets and zip on out to the islands. By the time they got back, all this other stuff would be old news.
Old news.
17
Washington, D.C.
Toni was going stir-crazy, she had cabin fever big time, and she had to get out of the house before she went totally bonkers. Yes, the doctor had told her to stay home and confine herself to light activity. Because, the doctor had said, if there were any more problems with cramping or bleeding, and she wanted this baby, she was going to wind up spending the rest of the pregnancy in bed, so best she not cause things to get to that state by being overactive.
Toni’s mother had, of course, agreed entirely with the doctor’s assessment. Sure, she hadn’t slacked off any when her babies were growing, Mama said, but that was different. She was healthy as a horse, and besides, all that fighting stuff Toni did was probably upsetting the baby anyhow.
Toni didn’t really have any place she wanted or needed to go, and she would window-shop in the mall if nothing else, as long as she didn’t have to sit here alone in the place while Alex was off at work for one more day.
She missed work more than she’d expected, and it wasn’t the same doing little piddly consulting things on the net. There was no interaction with real people, no matter how good the virtual scenarios were. Yes, the state-of-the-art ScentWare ultrasonic olfactory generators gave some pretty authentic smells. The latest-generation haptic program from SensAble Technologies allowed you to feel pressure and touch, and of course, everybody’s visuals were getting better every day, but the differences between the best VR stimware and reality were like light-years compared to millimeters; there was a long, long way to go.
On a whim, Toni called Joanna Winthrop.
“Hey, Toni! How’s the pregnancy going?”
“Awful. I feel like a bloated cow.”
Joanna laughed. “I hear that, and I sympathize completely. No matter how many times Julio told me I was beautiful, I knew I could stand next to the hippos at the zoo and nobody could tell us apart.”
“Alex doesn’t understand. I know I’m whining, I can’t stop myself, and as soon as I start, he runs and hides in the garage. That old car he’s working on is going to be the most overbuilt classic in all creation. I think he’s leaving early and coming home late from work just to stay out of my way.”
“Bet on it.”
Toni sighed. “So how is your baby?”
“The demon child from Hell?”
“What?”
Joanna laughed. “He’s great. That’s just what we call him when we can’t figure out why he’s crying.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Not really. But every once in a while, none of the usual things work. He’s not hungry, he’s not wet, he doesn’t need to burp, he doesn’t seem tired, he’s too little to be cutting teeth. So far, the little battery-powered swing mostly does the trick, and if that fails, we put him in the car seat and take him for a ride in the car, and that pretty much calms him down. Or Julio takes him for a long walk. By the third or fourth mile, Julio says, he’s usually okay.”
“Jesus,” Toni said. “What have I done?”
Joanna laughed again, louder. “I’m kidding, sweetie. He’s a terrific kid, worth every penny. How are you doing, really?”
Toni explained about her scrimshaw, and about how she was feeling cooped up.
“Why don’t you come on over and visit us? The baby is asleep, he’ll be out for another couple hours, and I’d love to see you again. I’ve missed the crew at work.”
“Me, too,” Toni said. “You’re sure it’s okay?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m a new mama and you’re gonna be in a few months. If we can’t help each other, who will?”
Toni felt as if her load had been lightened immeasurably.
“Thanks, Joanna. I’m on my way.”
Bobby’s “work” phone jangled as he was looking for his suitcase in the garage. He frowned. Only a few people had the number, which was supposedly a direct line to his “office.”
He went to the kitchen and touched the com’s caller ID button.
Nothing; whoever was calling was blocked. Probably a wrong number. He tapped the speaker button.
“Polymers, Drayne,” he said.
“Hello, Robert.”
Jesus Christ! “Dad?”
“How are you?” his father said. He sounded old.
“Me? I’m fine. How, uh, are you? Everything okay?”
“I am well.”
“How’s the dog?”
“He’s fine.”
There was a long pause.
“What, uh, what’s up, Dad?”
“I have some bad news, I’m afraid. You remember your aunt Edwina’s son, Carlton?”
Aunt Edwina’s son. He couldn’t have just said, “Your cousin”?
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, he was in a boating accident yesterday. He passed away in the hospital this morning.”
“Creepy’s dead?” Jesus.
“I asked you not to call him that, Robert.”
Drayne shook his head. His father would remember that. Still worried about the name, even though the man was dead.
Carlton Post had been called Creepy as long as Drayne could remember. He was three years younger than Drayne, and whenever his folks had come to visit—Edwina was his old man’s younger sister by five years or so—they’d brought their four kids along. Creepy was the only boy, and Drayne had usually been stuck watching him. Drayne didn’t know who had nicknamed him in the first place; the oldest girl cousin, Creepy’s sister, Irene, had passed the name along to Drayne once when she and Drayne had been teaching each other how to play doctor. The name came from the way he stared at people. He’d been a shrimpy little black-haired boy who looked at you crooked without blinking for what sometimes seemed like ten minutes.
“What happened?” Drayne said. He hadn’t known Creepy that well, but hearing about his death left him feeling oddly distressed.
“He was waterskiing on Lake Mead. Apparently he fell and was run over by another boat. Knocked unconscious, then cut by the boat’s engine propeller. He lost a lot of blood before he was fished out, and there was extensive head trauma.”
His father related the information as if talking about the weather, no excitement, no grief, deadpan and almost in a monotone. Fell. Run over. Cut. Always the cool federal agent.
“Oh, man. That’s awful. How’s Aunt Edwina holding up?”
“She is, of course, greatly distressed.”
Creepy was dead. It was hard to imagine. The kid had grown up, gone to school at UNLV, married a girl he’d met there, gotten a degree in history, then stayed to teach high school somewhere outside Salt Lake City. Orem? Something like that? Him and—what was her name?—oh, yeah, Brenda, probably the only two non-Mormons for as far as the eye could see. They’d gotten a divorce after a couple years, and Creepy stayed there. It had been five, six Christmases since Drayne had seen his cousin. He’d actually turned out okay, a nice guy.
“The funeral will be day after tomorrow at Edwina’s church in Newport Beach. I’ll be driving up for it.”
Edwina and her husband, Patrick, were Presbyterians. God’s frozen people.
His father was coming to L.A. Well, shit. So much for jetting off to Hawaii. Drayne said, “You, uh, need a place to stay?”
“No, I’ll stay at Edwina’s or get a hotel room nearby. She’ll need family support. The funeral will be at ten o’clock. Can you get off work to attend?”
That was the kind of man his father was. If he’d still been working for the FBI when his nephew had been killed, he would have worried about shit like that. Sure, he’d have taken a personal day and gone, but he would have fretted over missing work. Duty was his reason to get up in the morning.
Drayne said, “Sure, no problem, I can take off.”
“I’m going to be at Patrick and Edwina’s at nine and then drive over to the church. You can meet me either place. You remember how to get to her house?”
It had been a long time since he’d been there. “She still at that place overlooking the highway?”
“Yes.”
“I can find it.”
“Good. I’ll see you then. Good-bye, Robert.”
Drayne tapped the speaker button and shut the com off. That was his old man. Just the bare facts—who, where, what, when—and he was done. No emotion in his voice that his sister’s only son, his nephew, was dead; it was just a flat recitation: “Your cousin is dead. We’re going to bury him. We’ll see you there. Good-bye.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Drayne sighed. Well, okay, this was gonna put a small crimp in his plans, but Creepy had been his cousin. He was family. You couldn’t just not go, not if you ever had to bump into the rest of the family again. Traffic would be a bitch that time of day, he’d have to get up and get rolling on the PCH early, by seven, at least. Maybe six-thirty. You didn’t want to be caught in a traffic jam on the way to a funeral.
Shit. First it was Zeigler, then Creepy. Bad things came in threes. He hoped the next one wouldn’t be Tad.
Or himself...
December 1991
Stonewall Jackson High School Cafeteria, Cool Springs, Georgia
Jay Gridley stood in the cafeteria line. The woman behind the counter slopped a big ice cream scooper full of mashed potatoes onto his compartmentalized baby blue Melmac plate, turned the scoop over and pressed it against the creamed spuds to make a concave indentation, dipped the scoop into a pan of greasy brown liquid, and said, “Chon‘tgravyth’thet?”