“Too much piles up,” I said, “and you’re risking a fire. A spark from the Dremmel or dropping a hot striker is all it takes. You guys have nearly burned this place down a dozen times, but you still cowered like a bunch of schoolgirls. That happens, you knock something over or catch yourself on fire, whatever, everything goes up in flames.”
“You still took our scale. How are we supposed to know when we’re done?” With that, he left the room. He’d thrown the last word and left me hanging. I couldn’t afford doubts from the rest of them.
“You guys want out?” I surveyed their faces, mute and slack from the fire. “Say the word. No skin off my back. I pay you now, you walk and you stay walked. Or, you do it my way and stay for the long haul.”
For effect, I pulled out the fat roll I’d been saving for Otto. He was too eager to hit the tables, sometimes.
“We’re cool,” said the new guy. The other two nodded.
Which name went to which face, I don’t know, except Pinstripe, who was either nineteen and drug weathered, or thirty-five and hormone deficient. He had beard stubble but his teeth were small and spaced apart, like he’d never lost his first set. He had the wide eyes and button nose of an infant with the overgrown ears of an old man. His face is more vivid than the rest because he was screaming while I dumped baking soda onto his shivering naked body to stop the muriatic acid from burning him any further. His top layer of skin fell away in wet strips, the skin beneath it showing red and slippery like an oiled sunburn. Clumps of hair had melted together around one of his ears, which had swollen into a knot of blistered cartilage.
“I was going to give it to you for your trunk.” He was sobbing as he spoke, trying to snow me with some cheap excuse like some eight-year-old while spitting out a stream of expletives with “hospital” thrown in every three or four words. Two jugs of acid lay on their sides, the bedroom carpet beneath them melted into lumpy plastic. He’d been out of my sight for more than an hour since he stormed out of my earlier session. The spill made no sense. There was no sign that he’d been cooking on his own or trying to hide materials from me, which meant it was the kind of senseless accident that happened regularly with White’s hand-picked crews.
“Hospital means jail, which means prison.” I said this to the others, then to Pinstripe, “you’ll get help but you’ll get it my way. New guy, tell me you’ve got something for him.”
“What something?”
“Something for his pain.”
“Yeah, we got something.”
“Get it. Now.”
After Pinstripe chased three Valium with a quart of warm beer, he lay shivering like a prison quarantine victim, covered in white powder like he’d been treated for lice.
“Just sit there. New guy, it starts to burn again, douse him with more baking soda.” I took my keys from my pocket.
“Where you going?”
“Getting him help.” Any medic in these parts would know what muriatic acid burns meant, since it was clear Pinstripe hadn’t been cleaning pools or been near any water for some time.
“You can use our phone,” said one of them. “We got one in the kitchen.”
“Not anymore.”
The highway off-ramp was a truck-stop oasis in the middle of nowhere, with two diners, two gas stations and four motels advertising the low room rates that indicated their proximity to a prison. I stopped at one of the diners, asked for a cup of coffee and a roll of quarters then called for White from a pay phone. The number I dialed wasn’t for White, but the pager for the anonymous someone who paged him in turn. It changed monthly, as did the four-digit code to signal the callback. I waited for three minutes before the phone rang and White said, “Go.”
“I’ve got a Wicker Man,” I said.
“How bad?” White sounded amused, enjoying the prospect of pinning a misfire on me.
“Alive,” I said. “And smokeless. That’s the last of the good news. Otherwise, it’s serious and he’s screaming for a doctor.”
“You had this under control.”
“You hired the amateurs.”
“Where are you?”
“The Lighthouse.”
“I’ll be there in three hours.”
I hung up, knowing those were going to be his last words and that maybe I got the drop on him.
By the time I returned, Pinstripe had been doused with more baking soda and lay curled into a fetal ball from the cocktail of shock and Valium, his eyes closed and mouth open. The crew was hard at work, and ready to learn.
I didn’t trust these clowns with heating solvents, so I opted for slower, room-temperature methods. We dumped the striker dust into sterilized glass jars filled with denatured alcohol, which had been prepared at another lab, and lined the jars of foggy, brown liquid on the kitchen counter. They were instructed to agitate them every five minutes for half an hour, then double filter the mixture and let the alcohol evaporate. Two extractions with two different solvents followed, yielding three ounces of pure, red phosphorus. These guys could produce four pounds each week if they did as they were told.
Before we’d finished, Pinstripe was in the front seat of White’s van, Toe Tag in the back playing with a pair of naked, plastic action figures, his face stained with fruit punch and chocolate.
“You can take care of him?” I asked. White chewed on a cuticle. “Right?”
“Stupid question for such a smart guy,” he answered.
“Remember that the next time you recruit a bunch of your son’s classmates.”
“Right. Here’s the good news. Hoyle wants an increase in production.”
“I am increasing production. That’s why I’m out here.”
“You’re out here so you can give yourself more playtime with your chemistry set.”
“Yes, and so I can toilet train this battalion of idiots you’ve got scattered between L.A. and Texas.”
“Hoyle’s looking for a quadruple increase in quota,” White kept on, as though I hadn’t said a thing and he were addressing a mass audience. “And he’s looking to you.”
“No,” I said, White’s bullshit stank more than he knew. “Hoyle’s looking to triple. You upped it.”
“I’m with you on this, Eric.” White smiled. I’d nailed him, cold. “I’m taking care of problems, trying to free you up to do what you do best.”
“The whole point of the setup I proposed was to cut me loose.”
“You want to play mad scientist. In a facility, Eric, which we paid for.”
“Which will earn itself back after thirty days, White. And yes, I want to be left alone. To work.”
“And do what?”
“I’m not sure yet. That’s why it’s called experimenting.”
White rolled his eyes. I counted to three. Raising my voice would alarm Toe Tag.
“You know anything about synthesizing new analogues of known alkaloids?” I asked. Once again, White took to grooming his nails with his teeth. “Or do you know—”
“Whatever you do in there,” White cut me off, “we own.” He buckled his seat belt.
“Tell Hoyle we’ll triple production at a third of his current cost.”
“You can promise me that? More importantly, can you promise Hoyle that?”
“The production increase is a favorable estimate. The costs are certain.” If he argued with me in this arena, he couldn’t win. He knew that. “The only variables are whatever clowns you’ve given me to work with at the other sites. After today, I’d suggest you wait by your phone.”
“Are you prepared to answer to Hoyle should the increase not occur?”
“The increase will occur. Give him that estimate, and as we’ll very likely exceed it, we’ll make him even happier. And if you’re so skeptical, why did you give me a higher number?”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am right. Do something about Pinstripe. I have work to do.”
Hoyle wanted more of what made people want More. I didn’t. Too much More and the cust
omer shoots out the ass end of a twelve-day jag a pistol-waving, fly-swatting zombie. Someone in the distribution chain landed in a trauma center getting a screwdriver pulled out of their chest and the doctor filled out a report. Hoyle didn’t care if someone got hurt; Hoyle cared when someone else asked questions. When that happened, Toe Tag put down his pudding cup and came out of his playroom.
A bone-deep craving is its own sales pitch. The club drugs couldn’t compete with that, so I took my cues from the people who sold blue jeans, wristwatches and sneakers, the experts who convince everyone they need More when they don’t. The experts had a formula, and I was good at formulas. The formula called for selling ideas before things, and the ideas were only as good as their labels. Otto had it right all along, the best batch in the world won’t go anywhere without a good name.
Otto and I spent as much time with scratchpads as lab gear. We consulted music videos, soft drink commercials and fashion magazines. We brainstormed dye mixtures, stencil logos and shapes for pill-press molds.
Truckers were traditional. They wanted Black Beauties, Red Devils and Yellow Jackets. We added our own Johnnies and Ronnies, named after porn stars renowned for their stamina. We made Diesels, Choppers, Block Sixes, Straight Eights and Road Dogs whose mechanical names spoke of the job they did to the motorhead taking them.
What suburban white kids espoused as rebellion was, in truth, disposable income personified. We mass branded their counterculture symbols and sold them back in pill form. Abductors were popular, as were Strobes, Probes and Roswells. Trends changed by the week and we were scant minutes behind. Whether it’s desert dispatch and chicken wire enforcement or a beige cubicle and a 401(k), it’s the same game. Manufacturing, R&D, distribution, sales and marketing. I had the pins in the map before I ever met White.
People had to be dependable. If someone said they were going to be at a certain place at a certain time, they need to be there. How late they were was directly proportional to how much time they needed to rendezvous in a public restroom or the back of a utility van and get wired with a tapeworm and briefed by the bug machines. If someone brought a friend, that someone was cut off, permanently.
White said tell me what you need and who uses it and we’ll take care of you. White arrives at Oz in the heat of noon. I’ve sweat through my T-shirt and Otto was gone to Las Vegas again but that was fine with me because we’d made some improvements in the lab that I wanted kept quiet. We’d brought a floor safe out in a rented truck, and spent the morning hammering through the space in the foundation to drop it in. It wasn’t for cash being transferred, it was for our own.
I saw White’s van outside and could have sworn I heard more than one set of footsteps, but nobody said anything and I waited for the knock that never came. I stepped outside, wiping sweat from my forehead and White was waiting patiently, looking through a stack of documents.
“We’ve arranged for the documents for front companies,” White says, “as well as putting the title to the house under an alias. My associate has taken care of the paperwork for us.”
I hadn’t noticed him, at first.
“No disrespect, Manhattan, but you need to tell me if you’ll be bringing anyone else. I mean, somebody I haven’t met.”
He was standing out in front of the house, and he was about my age, a little younger, a little older, it was hard to say. Red hair and blue eyes, dressed in a dark gray oil jacket over a gray T-shirt of almost the same shade. Just over his jacket pocket, where a grease monkey might tuck his pen and tire gauge, was an oval of stitching where the embroidered name tag had been removed. He was wearing tan work pants and dark brown work boots, and with the combination of colors, dark grey and tan, sitting in the sharp daytime shadows of the dilapidated desert house, he’s invisible. I didn’t even see him out of the corner of my eye and he was completely still and expressionless. Except for his red hair, there was nothing distinct about him at all. It took me a moment to realize what was off about him, and it was the fact that, as natural-looking as his blue-collar wardrobe might have been, it was only slightly worn. Otherwise, his clothes were immaculately cleaned and pressed and he had only put them on moments ago after giving his boots a final spit polish. I only noticed this because I was such a clean freak myself, so I could see it in someone else, but the effect was one of total anonymity.
“I’m Eric,” I extended my hand, but the red haired guy didn’t respond. It was like making eye contact with a stuffed hunting trophy. “You got a name?”
“You heard him,” he said, “my name’s Associate.”
He held a cigarette to his mouth though I could have sworn his hand was empty and I didn’t see him reach for his pocket.
“You can’t smoke here,” I said.
“It’s not lit.”
“Listen,” I was doing my best to stay collected, “I’ve got a lot of combustible materials in there. I can’t have anyone smoking within five hundred feet of the lab.”
The Associate stooped to pick up a stone and said, “We’re five hundred and twenty eight feet from your front door.” He tossed the rock and said, “That’s five hundred feet.”
He had what I needed, though. My name was on nothing and any eyes tracing activity to and from the lab would die in the paperwork labyrinth White’s Associate had created.
After Oz came Gotham. After Gotham came Valhalla. The network grew, as did the system for coding, concealing and signaling. Each crew knew their own set of codes, but I had to know them all. The bigger the network grew, the more we produced and the more I was left alone to work, but more room for error was introduced. If anyone in the network cut a corner or missed a step, the rogue molecules had a slim chance of either curing cancer or ending the world, but would most likely yield chemical waste that I’d end up paying for.
fifteen
THE TRUCK STOP COFFEE TASTED LIKE ACETONE BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT MY fingers smelled like when the lab work was finished. Two highway patrolmen took the opposite booth and I set my steaming cup down before my hands burst into quiet blue flame. I gave the waitress my order and went to scrub my hands again, then dialed my machine from the pay phone. The female android voice said, You have. Twenty. Six. New messages.
Twenty-six calls from a supplier who had my home number by mistake. Twenty-six calls from White. From Otto, the EPA or the DOJ. Twenty-six fires, subpoenas or arrest warrants. The solvents on my fingers mingled with the odor of cheap soap and the rotting sock stench of phosphorus.
You home yet? Okay, just seeing if you were. I’m working the promenade tonight, then I’ve got a street fair tomorrow. Call me as soon as you get back. Bye.
You scared me, Desiree.
Hey sweetie, you there? Hello? Pick up if you’re there. Okay, I’m off to work. If you get this, just let yourself in and I’ll be home by 11:00. I really want to see you.
Hey, where are you? Give me a call. Bye.
Eric. Call me. Just let me know when you’re coming home.
Hey, I’m sorry I snapped. I know you’re busy. I didn’t mean to get so angry. I had a bad night, but I’m hoping the street fair will be better. I was hoping you’d be back so you could come with me. If you’re not back now, then you probably won’t be home until tonight. Late, right?
Hey you, I’m home. And you’re not. Just call when you get this. No matter how late. Don’t worry about waking me up, I just want to hear your voice.
I disconnected and dialed your number. Your machine picked up.
“Desiree, please stop calling. I’ll be back tonight. I’m done working and I’m on the road. I stopped for lunch, but I’m heading out again and I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Bye.”
I asked the waitress to bag my order. The fear had blown through me like an electrical surge and shorted out my appetite. Maintaining composure while sipping coffee next to a pair of cops, with four ounces of refined red phosphorus inside my trunk, seemed like slow torture.
“Young man?”
My hand was on the diner doo
r when the patrolman stopped me.
“Officer?”
“That your car out there?”
My tags were good. The car was cherry, every light working and every window and mirror without a crack. I stank of the shitwater lab.
“The Ford.” The cop dumped gravy onto a pile of potatoes.
“The ’64, yeah, it’s mine.”
“You restore it yourself?”
Be cool. This guy might stop you, one day.
“Most of the engine work,” I said.
“All original?”
“Salvage and stock.” I glanced at my wrist, the one hint I knew to throw out before I said something stupid. I wasn’t wearing a watch.
“The dashboard looked brand new.”
“A guy in El Segundo did the work.”
“I guess I don’t need to say drive carefully. Have a good one.”
“Thanks. Same to you.”
The drive home could have been two hours or ten. It’s a blur. The adrenaline rush faded somewhere around Twenty-Nine Palms as the stars were appearing overhead. I stopped for gas, changed my clothes in the restroom, ran a wet comb through my hair and washed my hands twice more.
You painted your bedroom purple, like the stained edges of morning glory petals, the darkest edge of the twilight sky, and I thought I was back outside with your window frame hanging midair.
“You’re late. What do you think?”
The marks had been good to you. You’d painted the mirror’s frame gold and covered an entire wall in velvet draperies. Your fortune-teller persona enveloped everything.
“I think it looks like a vampire whorehouse.”
“I knew you’d like it. You’d better be hungry.”
“I’m famished. I just don’t feel like eating out.”
“Good, because I’m cooking. Keep your coat on.”
I’d been driving all day and had barely dropped my bag before we were out your door, again. You hadn’t acknowledged your assault on my answering machine.