Chickenshit, Jerry thought with bitter fury. He said nothing; he merely kept on washing. The bastard wasnt worth answering He paid no attention to Charles Freck, only to himself. To his own vital, demanding, terrible, urgent needs. Everything else would have to wait. There was no time, no time; these things could not be postponed. Everything else was secondary. Except the dog; he wondered about Max, the dog.
Charles Freck phoned up somebody who he hoped was holding. Can you lay about ten deaths on me?
Christ, Im entirely outIm looking to score myself. Let me know when you find some, I could use some.
Whats wrong with the supply?
Some busts, I guess.
Charles Freck hung up and then ran a fantasy number in his head as he slumped dismally back from the pay phone boothyou never used your home phone for a buy callto his parked Chevy. In his fantasy number he was driving past the Thrifty Drugstore and they had a huge window display; bottles of slow death, cans of slow death, jars and bathtubs and vats and bowls of slow death, millions of caps and tabs and hits of slow death, slow death mixed with speed and junk and barbiturates and psychedelics, everythingand a giant sign: YOUR CREDIT IS GOOD HERE. Not to mention: LOW LOW PRICES, LOWEST IN TOWN.
But in actuality the Thrifty usually had a display of nothing: combs, bottles of mineral oil, spray cans of deodorant, always crap like that. But I bet the pharmacy in the back has slow death under lock and key in an unstepped-on, pure, unadulterated, uncut form, he thought as he drove from the parking lot onto Harbor Boulevard, into the afternoon traffic. About a fifty-pound bag.
He wondered when and how they unloaded the fifty-pound bag of Substance D at the Thrifty Pharmacy every morning, from wherever it came fromGod knew, maybe from Switzerland or maybe from another planet where some wise race lived. Theyd deliver probably real early, and with armed guardsthe Man standing there with Laser rifles looking mean, the way the Man always did. Anybody rip off my slow death, he thought through the Mans head, Ill snuff them.
Probably Substance D is an ingredient in every legal medication thats worth anything, he thought. A little pinch here and there according to the secret exclusive formula at the issuing house in Germany or Switzerland that invented it. But in actuality he knew better; the authorities snuffed or sent up everybody selling or transporting or using, so in that case the Thrifty Drugstoreall the millions of Thrifty Drugstoreswould get shot or bombed out of business or anyhow fined. More likely just fined. The Thrifty had pull. Anyhow, how do you shoot a chain of big drugstores? Or put them away?
They just got ordinary stuff, he thought as he cruised along. He felt lousy because he had only three hundred tabs of slow death left in his stash. Buried in his back yard under his camellia, the hybrid one with the cool big blossoms that didnt burn brown in the spring. I only got a weeks supply, he thought. What then when Im out? Shit.
Suppose everybody in California and parts of Oregon runs out the same day, he thought. Wow.
This was the all-time-winning horror-fantasy that he ran in his head, that every doper ran. The whole western part of the United States simultaneously running out and everybody crashing on the same day, probably about 6 A.M. Sunday morning, while the straights were getting dressed up to go fucking pray.
Scene: The First Episcopal Church of Pasadena, at 8:30 A.M. on Crash Sunday.
Holy parishioners, let us call on God now at this time to request His intervention in the agonies of those who are thrashing about on their beds withdrawing.
Yeah, yeah. The congregation agreeing with the priest.
But before He intervenes with a fresh supply of
A black-and-white evidently had noticed something in Charles Frecks driving he hadnt noticed; it had taken off from its parking spot and was moving along behind him in traffic, so far without lights or siren, but
Maybe Im weaving or something, he thought. Fucking goddamn fuzzmobile saw me fucking up. I wonder what.
COP: All right, whats your name?
My name? (CANT THINK OF NAME.)
You dont know your own name? Cop signals to other cop in prowl car. This guy is really spaced.
Dont shoot me here. Charles Freck in his horror-fantasy number induced by the sight of the black-and-white pacing him. At least take me to the station house and shoot me there, out of sight.
To survive in this fascist police state, he thought, you gotta always be able to come up with a name, your name. At all times. Thats the first sign they look for that youre wired, not being able to figure out who the hell you are.
What Ill do, he decided, is Ill pull off soon as I see a parking slot, pull off voluntarily before he flashes his light, or does anything, and then when he glides up beside me Ill say I got a loose wheel or something mechanical.
They always think thats great, he thought. When you give up like that and cant go on. Like throwing yourself on the ground the way an animal does, exposing your soft unprotected defenseless underbelly. Ill do that, he thought.
He did so, peeling off to the right and bumping the front wheels of his car against the curb. The cop car went on by.
Pulled off for nothing, he thought. Now itll be hard to back out again, traffics so heavy. He shut off his engine. Maybe Ill just sit here parked for a while, he decided, and alpha meditate or go into various different altered states of consciousness. Possibly by watching the chicks going along on foot. I wonder if they manufacture a bioscope for horny. Rather than alpha. Horny waves, first very short, then longer, larger, larger, finally right off the scale.
This is getting me nowhere, he realized. I should be out trying to locate someone holding. Ive got to get my supply or pretty soon Ill be freaking, and then I wont be able to do anything. Even sit at the curb like I am. I not only wont know who I am, I wont even know where I am, or whats happening.
What is happening? he asked himself. What day is this? If I knew what day Id know everything else; itd seep back bit by bit.
Wednesday, in downtown L.A., the Westwood section. Ahead, one of those giant shopping malls surrounded by a wall that you bounced off like a rubber ballunless you had a credit card on you and passed in through the electronic hoop. Owning no credit card for any of the malls, he could depend only on verbal report as to what the shops were like inside. A whole bunch, evidently, selling good products to the straights, especially to the straight wives. He watched the uniformed armed guards at the mall gate checking out each person. Seeing that the man or woman matched his or her credit card and that it hadnt been ripped off, sold, bought, used fraudulently. Lots of people moved on in through the gate, but he figured many were no doubt windowshopping. Not all that many people can have the bread or the urge to buy this time of day, he reflected. Its early, just past two. At night; that was when. The shops all lit up. He couldall the brothers and sisters couldsee the lights from without, like showers of sparks, like a fun park for grownup kids.
Stores this side of the mall, requiring no credit card, with no armed guards, didnt amount to much. Utility stores: a shoe and a TV shop, a bakery, small-appliance repair, a laundromat. He watched a girl who wore a short plastic jacket and stretch pants wander along from store to store; she had nice hair, but he couldnt see her face, see if she was foxy. Not a bad figure, he thought. The girl stopped for a time at a window where leather goods were displayed. She was checking out a purse with tassels; he could see her peering, worrying, scheming on the purse. Bet she goes on in and requests to see it, he thought.
The girl bopped on into the store, as he had figured.
Another girl, amid the sidewalk traffic, came along, this one in a frilly blouse, high heels, with silver hair and too much makeup. Trying to look older than she is, he thought. Probably not out of high school. After her came nothing worth mentioning, so he removed the string that held the glove compartment shut and got out a pack of cigarettes. He lit up and turned on the car radio, to a rock station. Once he had owned a tape-cartridge stereo, but finally, while loaded one day, he had neglected to bring it indoors with him when he locked up the car; naturally, when he returned the whole stereo tape system had been stolen. Thats what carelessness gets you, he had thought, and so now he had only the crummy radio. Someday theyd take that too. But he knew where he could get another for almost nothing, used. Anyhow, the car stood to be wrecked any day; its oil rings were shot and compression had dropped way down. Evidently, he had burned a valve on the freeway coming home one night with a whole bunch of good stuff; sometimes when he had really scored heavy he got paranoidnot about the cops so much as about some other heads ripping him off. Some head desperate from withdrawing and dingey as a motherfucker.