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13

7/10/10

it’s just before dawn on July 10, 2010, 5:17 a.m. I am in possession of what appears to be a factory-manufactured bottle of Afronzo-New Day Pharm DR33M3R. The bottle’s seal appears to be intact. The identifying hologram on the label is clear; the borders of the three primary elements, a small cloud, the letter z, and a stick-figure sheep, are sharp. No indication that it is a counterfeit. The bottle is numbered #ff688-6-2648-9. If authentic, the bottle was manufactured in Farmington, IL, part of batch 688, from the sixth pod in that batch, twenty-sixth case in that pod, forty-eighth bottle in that case, with a use code of 9.

The 9 indicates the batch, pod, case, and bottle were meant for distribution by the National Heath and Wellness Administration. Public hospitals, federally insured patients. The radio frequency ID interrogator I removed from the gallery shows that the active RFID chip under the label is present and functioning. The chip is broadcasting the same manufacture and batch information. If it is undamaged, it should also detail when the contents of the bottle were manufactured, when the pod was loaded and left the factory, its precise intended destination, and whether it was ever received at that destination. But I do not have the reference manual to decipher anything beyond point of origin, etc. I’ve dusted the bottle for latent fingerprints and have removed several smudged prints, two clear partial impressions of both a right index and a right ring finger, and one very clear full impression of a right middle finger. The bottle was removed from a bag in my presence, and since then has been touched only by the person who gave it to me at that time. I believe that the smudges were already present on the bottle before it was removed from the bag. I believe that both clear partials and the clear full belong to the person who gave me the bottle of what I believe will prove to be factory-manufactured DR33M3R. For the record, that person was Afronzo Jr., Parsifal K. He didn’t even blink. He took the bottle from his bag and offered it to me like it was something he does every night. Like his bag is full of Dreamer that he has to use to make drug deals because his daddy cut off his allowance. Dreamer. He used it to get what he wanted, like that is all it’s good for.

Stay focused.

Working in the bathroom, I lifted the prints and applied them to slides from my evidence kit. I placed the bottle of DR33M3R and the slides, in separate evidence bags, in the safe. Rose wanted to know what I was doing in the bathroom for so long. She wasn’t suspicious, she just knows the stress from the job gives me stomach and digestion problems. “Irregularity isn’t a joke, Park.” She gave me some tea once, but I spent the whole next day in the bathroom and never took it again. I think when I went in there after I got home she was just excited to think I might be using the toilet. “There is nothing more mysterious than a marriage.” That’s what my father told me when I called him and my mother to say I’d gotten married. Nothing in my marriage to Rose has proved him wrong. When I finally took her east two years later to meet them, he was strange with her. Not strange like he was with everyone else, not his standard detachment, something else. I don’t think he liked her, but I think he may have been impressed by her. Her directness. “Good to meet you, Ambassador Haas.” He’d shook his head. “Please don’t feel you need to use my title. Mr. Haas will suffice.” And she’d nodded back. “I think, sir, that we’ll both be more comfortable if I stick with Ambassador Haas.” And she was right. I think he’d have been more comfortable if my sister and I had called him Ambassador Haas instead of Father. He’d have preferred that from everyone but my mother. To her he was always Peachy. A reference to something that happened long before I was born. She called him Peachy everywhere except at what she referred to as “occasions.” Ambassador Haas to everyone else, Peachy to my mother. Is it any wonder he killed himself after she died?

Stay focused.

In exchange for what I believe to be FDA Schedule Z DR33M3R, I gave to Afronzo, Parsifal K., twenty-five grams of Shabu-quality Chinese crystal methamphetamine, which I then witnessed him distribute to five unidentified individuals. He was right about them in Chasm Tide. The sleepless did amazing things. They must have been heavy gamers to begin with, but their approach was almost pure chaos. There was no indication that they were working together, they immediately split up; the barbarian stormed Forge, cutting down anyone in his path, and another, on an entirely different errand, healed anyone and everyone, including those the barbarian had wounded. It was all like that, every move at cross-purposes, using up their power unnecessarily, but by the time they reassembled, they had the weapons, tools, and keys they’d come for, and through some perfect calculation of costs and benefits, the overall power of the group had increased. It wasn’t random. They see holes in the game. Rules that can be slipped between. Moves that I’ve seen Rose attempt with Cipher Blue, they executed cleanly, proving that they are possible. Rose was playing when I got home. Francine was still here. She had the baby, was sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery with the baby on a pillow in her lap. The baby looked asleep. Really asleep. She only looks that way when Francine holds her and rocks her. I wanted to pick her up, but I knew if I did she would wake up. Francine said she’d been quiet for almost two hours. She said her eyes had been closed for over forty minutes. She looked asleep. Rose was in our bedroom, in bed with her laptop on her knees, trying the Labyrinth again. I went straight to the safe to lock up the guns and my stash. She didn’t look up, just asked me how “classes” had been. I told her I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to lie and say anything about the classes that I haven’t taught in over three years, and I didn’t have time to sit next to her and bring her back to here. When I came out of the bathroom and locked the bottle and slides in the safe and she asked why I’d been in there for so long, she seemed normal. Normal for how normal is now. Not the old normal. Not the old Rose. But she’s still Rose. Still concerned that I’m not getting enough fiber. She had put the laptop aside and was stretching her back on the floor. Her muscles are knotted into golf balls up and down her spine. Francine does kinesiology as well as being a doula. That was one of the reasons she was Rose’s favorite when we were finding someone to help us with the home birth. She’s massaged Rose’s back a few times. The first time, I heard the cracking from the office and ran out because I thought someone was breaking things. She gave Rose some exercises to do. So Rose was on her back when I got out of the bathroom, knees up and pointed to one side, arms out, head facing the other way. “Did you shit?” I saw the look on her face. And I lied. “Yeah, I did.” She looked so happy for a moment. Nothing more mysterious.

Stay focused.

The art gallery. After the sleepless had launched their quest and were under way, Cager whispered in my ear. “Come make some money.” He took me to the gallery to sell to his friends. I wanted to stay and watch the sleepless in Chasm, but I’m a dealer, so I needed to go and make some money, or he might have started thinking that I might be a cop. Rose remembered that I’m a cop. She asked me again to quit and stay at home. She asked me to take her and the baby out of the city. She said she wanted to see the ocean. She closed her eyes and said we should go to Half Moon Bay and watch the sunset and drink a bottle of wine and make love on the beach.

She sighed and opened her eyes and saw me.

“How am I going to be able to look after you?” she asked.

I shook my head and told her I didn’t know, and she kind of sighed like she always does when she thinks I’m not getting something.