Rapture.
Euphoria.
In laboratory tests, rats ignored electric shocks to at their cocaine doses, chose cocaine over food, se it over sex, allowed it to dictate the very course their lives. By the end of a month, nine out of ten them were dead.
Willis watched the young men sucking up death.
The crack house was in actuality three separate ;nts on the second, third and fourth floors of building. The floor and ceiling of the third-floor :nt had been broken through and ladders set to allow access to the second floor below and the floor above. There were entrance doors on floor, of course, but anyone wanting to come in and smoke away the time had to come in on the third floor, where he paid his money for his vial and his pipe. The three-level arrangement also served a more practical purpose. In the event of a raid, the second and fourth floors could be emptied in a flash while the cops milled about on the entrance floor of the dope sandwich.
He found Popeye Ortega on the fourth floor.
He was sitting at a table in the far corner of the second bedroom, looking through a rain-lashed window, at least a dozen empty vials of crack spread on the table top before him. Willis did not know how long he'd been here. He looked as if he had not changed his clothes or shaved in days, and he Smelled of the stench of his own urine. He kept staring through the window at the rain outside, as if viewing somewhere in the streaked greyness and images mere mortals could not see.
"Ortega?" Willis said.
"Scotty got dee chip, man," he said.
He was, in truth, as ugly as Marilyn had des him, as ugly as his picture and/or his the Buenos Aires documents and the I.S.
But there was something missing here.
Willis stepped out of the room, opened in the hallway, and allowed the cool, clean fresh rain to sweep into the apartment. He wait until Ortega came down from his high, he would question him. But he already certain that the man sitting in there, staring window and stinking of his own piss, could the same man who was threatening What was missing in this man was the Marilyn had described. The huge ugly man in had long ago lost all sense of direction, drive. Crack had stolen his life force. He was effect, already dead.
Willis took a cigarette from the package in pocket, lighted it, and stood by the window on it, looking out at the rain, wondering how would be before Ortega surfaced. He could voices from downstairs welling up in the hole had been cut in the ceiling. The good-loking man greeting a customer. Willis figured that he was here, and just so it shouldn't be a total he might as well ruffle a few feathers. He went ladder again to the third floor. He walked past the young men sitting at the table. They had been by a fourth man, who was at that very moment up. This has to be China in the 1800s, Willis thought. This has to be a nation of drug addicts. This has to be the disgrace of the planet. This has to be an America that makes you ashamed.
The good-looking black man was sitting at a table in the kitchen.
Willis walked in with his gun in one hand and his shield in the other.
"What's this?" the black man said. "What do you think it is?" Willis asked.
"Hey, come on, man.”
"Meaning what?”
"Meaning you know.”
"No, I don't know. Tell me.”
"Come on, man.”
Meaning, of course, that the fix was in. As simple as that. Hey, come on, man, this has been taken care of, huh? Go talk to your people, man, they tell you let it slide, huh, man? With the numbers involved in the drug trade, there would always be somebody letting it slide, somebody looking the other way.
"What's your name?" Willis asked.
"Come on, man.”
"What's your fucking name?”
"Warren Jackson.”
"Mind if I use your phone, Warren?”
"You steppin' in deep shit, man.”
"Wait'll you see what you're steppin' in," said, and yanked the phone from the wall dialed the precinct number. Charlie-car showed five minutes. The driver looked surprised. So man tiding shotgun. Both of them knew Willi..
"Gee, Hal," one of them said, "when did thi spring up?”
"Surprises every day of the week," Willis Warren Jackson was scowling at both Charlie-car cops. Willis figured they were both the deal. Partners.
Helping Young America its fucking brains out.
"More detectives on the way " he conversationally.
"Good," the shotgun cop said.
"You know Detective Meyer? He's on the "Oh, sure," the driver said.
"Meyer Meyer. bald guy, right?”
"Right. He's got young kids.”
Both cops looked at him.
"He has a thing about crack," Willis said, pleasantly.
So far Warren Jackson wasn't saying He was possibly waiting for somebody to tell to fuck off. But nobody was doing it. Not yet. young crack addicts sitting around the table something was going on, but they were so far out! it, so high up on the third moon of the planet the galaxy Romitar that they figured maybe guys in blue uniforms were the palace standing there with the big black eunuch and the short curly-haired jester, all of them guarding the Emperor Pleth's harem, this was a good movie.
"Where's your sergeant?" Warren said at last.
This was Charlie Sector, the Patrol Sergeant's name was Mickey Harrigan, a big redheaded red-faced hairbag who'd been on the force since Hector was a pup. It was entirely possible that Harrigan was in on it, too.
Maybe every cop in the sector was in on it, including the CPEP cops on the beat.
"Call your fuckin' sergeant," Warren said, "tell him. we got a misunderstandin' here.”
The Charlie-car cops looked at each other. They were trying to figure what the protocol was here.
They knew their Patrol Sergeant outranked Willis, but if it came to a matter for Internal Affairs, rank didn't mean a goddamn thing. Unless Willis himself was in on the deal. In which case... "Sure, call him,” Willis said.
They figured he wasn't in on the deal.
"Go ahead," Willis said.
The shotgun cop's name was Larry Fitzhenry. He raised Harrigan on the walkie-talkie and asked him could he please, Sarge, stop by this apartment here on Ainsley and Fifth, apartment 37, Sarge, where there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here? Harrigan said he'd be right over. His voice sounded noncommital. Over the years, Willis had learned that you should never trust anyone Mickey unless his last name was Mouse.
Meyer got there before Harrigan did.
He did not like what he saw. Willis took him and told him he thought the proprietor was blow the whistle. He figured some uniforms about to hit the fan, at least one of them dec with a gold shield. Meyer looked even annoyed. The Charlie-car cops looked nervous. Warren Jackson was getting angrier over the untrustworthiness of the department.
When Harrigan showed up, he said, this ? What is this ?" Warren Jackson told him to get his men in this wasn't what three grand a week was buy.
Harrigan told the detectives he didn't know the fuck Jackson was talking about.
Meyer said, "You're full of shit, Mickey.”
Willis went upstairs to talk to Ortega.
Shad Russell refused to discuss it on the When they met later that night, at a on The Stem, he told her why.
"It occurs to me that perhaps you're setting up," he said.
This was already nine o'clock. The rush had peaked, but neighborhood people were ;gling in and taking seats at tables near the where they could watch the springtime rain the sidewalk outside. There were still things this city that were nice.
"You still think I'm a cop, huh?" she said.
"Or working for the cops, yes," he said.
"Setting you up for what?”
"First for dealing guns and next for dealing dope.”
"Don't be ridiculous," she said.
"Maybe I am being ridiculous," he said, and shrugged. "But maybe I'm not.”
"I thought you called Houston.'“