It’s okay, just let us in, Noah calls out. Don’t get upset, we’re here to help.
Jesse, the guy on the bed, tenses up and asks what’s going on. I whisper for him to get dressed as quickly as possible, that it’s my boyfriend. He moves like lightning and is up, fully dressed and with his coat on in seconds. He heads for the door and I tell him to wait. Wide-eyed and jumpy, he spits, Only a second, I’m not sticking around. As quickly as I can, I grab the ashtray on the nightstand and dump the remaining drugs in a plastic bag and stick it, along with the remaining stem, inside my jacket pocket in the closet. I grab a cloth and sloppily wipe down the crumbs and residue on the nightstand and scan the room for other evidence of what’s been going on. Jesse moves toward the door as I grab my sweater and jeans from the floor.
Jesse opens the door, does not look back to say good-bye, and pushes past Noah and the man in the tan coat. I’m sitting on the bed as Noah steps into the room. Let’s go, he says, without even mentioning the guy who has just fled.
The man in the tan coat is named John, and he tells me he is a former DEA agent, that he’s pulled a string and called into the agency to find out that there is a file on me. Noah then tells me the police have shown up at One Fifth, asking to question me. That my name came up in a drug bust. Mark? I wonder. Stephen? My heart, which is already beating wildly, begins to pound hard with new dread. I’m getting arrested, I think as I eye John, who looks no different from the Penneys.
How did you find this guy? I ask Noah. I’m convinced he’s lied to Noah about who he is and that he does not mean well. Noah says a lawyer recommended him and I ask who. I don’t know the name, and the more I look at John, the more I think he’s snared Noah in a complicated sting to haul me off to jail.
We have to go, John says. We have to get you out of here.
It takes over an hour for me to get ready and it still feels like we’re rushing. I ask for privacy and load and smoke two huge hits in the bathroom. I let the stem finally cool and put it in my jacket pocket and load the remaining drugs in the stem so I won’t have to pack it later should I be able to peel away and take a hit. The high pushes away some of the immediate dread, and I wash my face and hands and run my fingers through my hair. I put on my turtleneck sweater, realize the bathroom is filled with smoke, and switch on the fan. Noah knocks on the bathroom door and I tell him to hold on. The dread returns as the smoke rises up through the vent. I sit on the toilet and take a deep hit off the stem and pray for a heart attack.
We leave the hotel without checking out and jump into a cab on Gansevoort Street. John tells me I’m lucky I haven’t been arrested yet. I look up at the driver and the obscured photo on the panel behind him. Jesus, I think, of course. I explain to Noah that nearly every cab I’ve taken over the last weeks has had a strip of cardboard or paper over the driver’s ID photo. That I suspect the drivers are undercover cops or agents of some kind. I try to explain to him about the cabdrivers and the Penneys and that this John here is one of them and the driver, too, and he doesn’t know what he’s just done to me by putting me in their hands. You don’t know, I whisper desperately to him as he pats my hand.
I finger the stem in my pocket and know it’s good for at least a few more big hits. I also think it probably holds enough to get charged with Intent to Distribute and immediately start worrying about where I can stash it if it looks like they’re taking me to a police station. Then I remember the cabdriver is undercover, and as I watch the city streak by outside the window, I start to shake with panic.
Noah puts his arm around me and says we’re going somewhere safe to talk. I ask where and he and John signal each other. They don’t seem to know what the next beat is, so I ask if we can get something to eat, and by that I mean, though I do not say it, something to drink. I need alcohol in my system to calm down.
We end up in the Seventies off Third Avenue and find a Chinese restaurant with a basement dining room that is nearly empty. I immediately excuse myself to go to the bathroom and take a hard long pull on the stem. After several moments I think I hear full-blown conversations about when to haul him in outside the door. I still keep pulling on the stem. It broils in my hand and I dab the edges with cold water to cool it down.
When I return to the table I ask the waitress for a vodka and she says they only have wine and beer, so I ask for a bottle of cold white. Noah begins to object but John turns to the waitress and says fine. It comes and I drink it down like water. I order food of some kind but when it comes I don’t touch it.
John explains that I need to check into a psych ward immediately to avoid arrest. Noah nods as he speaks and I’m not sure what to believe. John goes on to say that there is a psychiatrist whom he knows and works with who has secured a bed in the psych ward at New York — Presbyterian Hospital. With these words an image of white sheets and kind nurses and locked doors flashes behind my eyes, and for the first time since Noah and John showed up at the hotel, I feel relief. I can imagine a long sleep there and drugs to calm me down, and without thinking anymore about it, I agree to see the psychiatrist.
A few blocks away we enter a building that looks like an abandoned elementary school. We walk down wide empty halls before arriving at a door straight out of a forties detective movie — frosted glass, stenciled letters. Again, the sense that John has rigged an elaborate sting operation to arrest me rises up like bile. The wine had calmed my panic but it’s now back, and at high volume. A frizzy-haired woman in jeans and paisley top comes to the door and greets John with a wide smile. Undercover cop, I think instantly. She gives my arm a tender squeeze and asks us to follow her. He’s just finishing up with someone now, she calls over her shoulder as she guides us past a room of empty desks and toward a corner office.
I ask if there is a bathroom and she offers to show me the way before John and Noah can say anything. I walk with her back into the hall and to a door marked MEN. It’s empty, and as fast as I can, I turn on the water in the sink and jump into a stall. The stem is still crammed with drugs so as soon as I find the lighter I fire up a hit, inhale as much smoke as will fit in my lungs, hold it there for as long as I can, and blow the thick cloud out the open window by the stall. Light comes in from outside and dapples the black-and-white tile floor, and for a moment I forget all the people waiting for me. There’s a knock on the bathroom door as it opens, and it’s Noah.
Everything okay? he asks, and his face registers the smell of smoke in the room. Have you been getting high? he asks, and I say, No, let’s go. He hugs me and tells me how relieved he is that I’m alive, and I’m tempted to fall into his arms, let him sweep all this mess away, but I suspect he is only pulling me close to pat down my jacket and jeans to find the stem and lighter. I wriggle away from him and head to the hall.
The psychiatrist looks like he’s from the eighties. Striped red-and-white shirt, suspenders, big horn-rim glasses, wide-wale cords, yellow socks, and tasseled loafers. His hair is curly, and from the half smile he uses with me, I get the feeling he’s done a fair bit of drugs himself. He tells me there’s a bed ready at the hospital but that it won’t be there for long. He signals Noah and John to leave his office and we sit there for a while without speaking. You high? he asks, and I tell him yes. Good, he says, enjoy it while it lasts. He asks what I do, he talks about the books he likes, and then cuts the meeting short and says, Take it or leave it.