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People were often directed to Dreamer and SLP forums where they could get more information. Mostly identity theft scams. A few were legitimate but primarily concerned with counseling, online group therapy. Religious sites, preaching acceptance, conversion, hope, and, most of all, resistance to the temptation of suicide.
Rumors permeated almost all those sites. An insistence that Dreamer was out there, a large supply of it that other sleepless were tapping into. Captain Bartolome said it was “to be expected bullshit.” Of course the sleepless were sharing rumors about a secret supply of Dreamer; what else would you expect? It would have been far stranger if there were no rumors. He said, “Look for the money.” The money, he didn’t need to say, would lead to busts of scale.
But there should be something. Sleepless spend so much time online, there should be something about black market Dreamer. CL is a natural place for dealers to look for customers. But I couldn’t find anything.
At the party Hydo had said something about Dreamer that stuck in my head. Passing a bottle of Jack Daniels around a table, he’d said Dreamer was “on a special wavelength.” He said part of that was literal. He was stoned, but it caught my attention, and I asked Beenie for an introduction. Hydo got more stoned, explained what he meant. Talking about how the RFID tags on the cases and bottles mean there are actual traceable radio signals that tell you where the Dreamer is. “The whole history of each bottle is in the air,” is what he said. Which I already knew, but hadn’t thought of that way. Not that it really helped.
Why isn’t there an audible signal? A visible signal?
There’s always a slang at work in drug deals. On CL people talk about 420 and going skiing and taking a vacation, when what they want is pot, cocaine, or LSD, but that was the kind of stuff you could get from an LAPD training pamphlet. I’d been able to pick up most of the cues I needed for my assignment by listening carefully and parsing what I heard. It was like philosophy. You don’t glean anything useful with a surface reading of Nietzsche; you have to spend some time thinking about an idea like “God is dead” for it to be anything but a knee-jerk catchphrase.
But no trace of Dreamer slang or lingo can be picked up. Nothing that could hit the cops’ radar and start them asking around the way they would if a new tag started showing up on top of old graffiti.
Dreamer has to be out there. Bartolome said the demand was too great and “the money’s too high” for there not to be black market Dreamer. Real DR33M3R.
But if it is there, it is also somehow invisible. Not just down low, but without a trace. And that requires organization: a consciously designed distribution system for the only drug that law enforcement has any real interest in controlling.
Real Dreamer. Actual DR33M3R, in large and reliable quantities. Pills straight from the factories, stolen in the supply chain. Their absence should be known. The individual pills are traceable through the batch and production sequence codes stamped into them. Bottles and boxes, crates and pallets, all have their own RFID tags. Wherever a large amount of Dreamer may have slipped out of the system, someone must be aware of the shortage. Several people must be aware.
Afronzo-New Day DR33M3R being sold on a large scale. Several people within the production and distribution chain have to be involved in this trade in DR33M3R. Someone, somewhere, inside or outside of A-ND designed the system, recruited those involved and is reaping the bulk of the reward.
Hydo said, “On a special wavelength.” Beenie said he thought Hydo knew “the guy.”
I get that far, and it slips apart. Because Hydo is dead. Anything he knew about the “special wavelength” is gone.
Why am I writing this? It looks like paranoia.
Sleep deprivation.
I fell asleep on my way downtown. At least I think I must have. I don’t remember driving here. I remember driving from Bel Air to a bungalow in West Hollywood (754 King). The girl who answered the door was in perfect “Like a Virgin” Madonna drag. Not dressed for a party or anything, just that’s what she wears. That’s what her mom told me. She said her daughter and her daughter’s friends are all into the same stuff she thought sucked when she was their age. She said she was a punk in the eighties, hated Madonna. She said it doesn’t really matter, because her daughter thinks Madonna is just this crazy “old lady that believes in magic and adopts African babies and needs to start acting more her age cuz it’s kind of gross when she dresses up in underwear.” She said her daughter just likes the old music and loves the clothes. She asked if I had kids, and I told her yes. She said, “Wait and see, whatever you thought sucked when you were a teenager, that’ll be what’s cool.” Then she asked how old my kid is and I told her that I have a baby, and she stopped talking about it.
Her yard is all poppies. She raises them. When the blooms fall off, she slits the bulbs with a razor over and over, letting the sap ooze out and dry in layers. Then she scrapes it off and collects it. Homegrown opium. I traded her ketamine (10 milliliters, liquid) for a ball of opium roughly the size of a marble (weight indeterminate). Then I left as two boys arrived, one dressed in “Thriller” red and black leather, the other in “Purple Rain.” At least that’s what I think happened. I don’t remember getting into the car or driving here. It’s possible I dreamed the two boys.
I fell asleep behind the wheel.
I could have died. I would have left Rose and the baby alone.
I need to sleep. But I don’t know when that will be. I have to meet Beenie. I need to find out what is going on. Something is going on. The world didn’t just spin off its axis by itself. It didn’t happen all by itself. Not now. Not just in time for Rose to get pregnant. Not just in time for my baby. The world didn’t decide to end just in time for my baby to be born.
I need to sleep. But I can’t now. So I need to stay awake.
I took two 5-milligram dexamphetamine sulfate tablets. My tongue is dry and my stomach feels tight. I’m grinding my teeth. I don’t feel stupid like I did the few times I smoked pot with Rose before I joined the force. I never liked pot, but Rose liked the idea of smoking it together. I never told her how unpleasant it was for me. This feels different. I still feel tired, but not sleepy.
I shouldn’t be writing this down. Except that it would be a lie not to.
It’s midnight. Time to go inside and find Beenie.
First I’ll call Rose and tell her I love her. I’ll tell her to put the phone next to the baby’s ear so she can hear me tell her I love her. So she can hear me when I tell her that I don’t care how she dresses when she grows up. Or who she thinks is cool. Or if she goes out with boys who dress like Michael Jackson and Prince. I’ll tell her she can be and do whatever she wants when she grows up. Just that she has to grow up. She has to grow up.
I’m going to stop writing now. I don’t think I’m making much sense.
But I know I’m right. I know the world is like this for a reason. I know that someone did something to sicken the world.
And it’s not too late. It’s not too late. It’s not too late. I say that it is not too late.
9
THE MOST STRIKING THING ABOUT THE TWO YOUNG MEN ON the security recording was the tremendous amounts of stress under which they were both obviously laboring. In the first of them, this stress was clearly etched in the the jittery suddenness of his movements, in the habit of constantly raking a comb across his head, defining and redefining the side part in his assiduously composed geek haircut. Finally, and most decisively, his stress was revealed in the way he yanked his Olympic from his retro leather book satchel and sprayed the room without giving any warning that he intended to do so.