Part 23 (1/2)
”Mannona-come...”
”Onnamann...”
Blessed Ona, we give thee thanks!
A scream froze in Blackjack's throat when something slimy, humid, and hideous reached out of the dark and very gently touched his shoulder.
Twenty.
Something hot seemed to insinuate itself along Phil's nerves to his brain, where it then lodged and seemed to hum. At once, he felt edgy, disjointed, but at the same time tranquilized. He knew there was no way to fake it, not around these guys. They were pros. He'd taken most of the drag in his mouth, holding it, then snorting it out through his sinuses, and had actually inhaled only a trace.
But only a trace had been enough.
G.o.dd.a.m.n, he thought, flabbergasted. What a buzz...
Sullivan took the joint back. ”Hey, bub, don't be a bogart.” Then he laughed and began to smoke it himself.
Thank G.o.d, Phil thought. The stuff packed a heavy wallop; he knew that if he had to smoke any more of it, he wouldn't be able to stand up, much less drive a car. Got to shake this off, he told himself. He started the Malibu. ”Decent flake,” he said. ”Big buzz. So where are we going?”
”North up the Route,” Eagle said.
Once he got going, he began to feel better. He let the fresh air from the open window rush into his face. His brow p.r.i.c.kled, dark splinters seemed to twitch at the farthest peripheries of his vision, and every so often he was touched by a chill that was somehow hot.
Sullivan finished the flake joint as though he were eating the dense smoke. ”Okay, bub, now I know you're for real. One of our partners beat town a couple weeks ago, so we need a new driver full-time. You're it.”
”Sounds good,” Phil said.
”What we do is pick up the finished product from our supplier, then drop it off at our points. The money's good, and the cops aren't on to us.”
Oh, yeah? Phil thought. I can't wait to send you up to the slam for five...bub. ”What's your circuit?”
”Just north county,” Eagle said from the back of the Malibu. ”Millersville, Lockwood, Waynesville, thereabouts. Rednecks buy this s.h.i.+t hand over fist. Our product's better and cheaper than the regular supplier. We're gonna cut him out.”
”Who's the regular supplier?” Phil asked, but he thought he had a pretty good idea already who they were talking about.
”Never you mind about that,” Sullivan griped. ”You're just the wheel-man, so get on the wheels.”
”Right,” Phil said.
Eagle directed him through several turns up roads he never knew existed. Most were dirt roads, rutted and potholed, often so narrow that overgrown brush swiped the car on either side. Eventually they came to a clearing, and Phil was instructed to stop.
”f.u.c.kin'-A,” Sullivan complained. ”The b.a.s.t.a.r.d ain't here. Are we early?”
”We're five late,” Eagle said.
”Then where the f.u.c.k is Blackjack?”
Phil just sat there and kept his mouth shut. He knew he'd learn more about the network in time. But Sullivan and Eagle seemed overly distressed, pressing themselves into long silences, jerking their gazes constantly about the car.
They sat there a half-hour, and no one showed up.
These guys are freaking out because their point man's running late? Phil thought. It didn't make much sense. Why are these guys s.h.i.+tting their pants?
Eagle nervously swept his hair out of his eyes, leaning forward from the back. ”How many times has Blackjack been this late?”
”Never,” Sullivan hotly answered.
”So the guy's late,” Phil offered. ”What's the big deal?”
”Tell him the big deal,” Sullivan said, waving a hand.
Eagle's face in the rearview looked pale. ”Lately a lot of our point men and distros have been disappearing.”
”Jake Rhodes, Kevin Orndorf, and now Blackjack,” Sullivan grimly recited. ”And there have been others, and I mean a f.u.c.kin' s.h.i.+tload of others.”
”Maybe the cops are on to us,” Eagle suggested, ”and we're just too stupid to see it.”
”You guys are moving local dust,” Phil jumped in. ”The county and state could s.h.i.+t care less about it-dust is small time to them. They're all out after scag and c.o.ke. And the local cops? Guys like Mullins? No way. Those town clowns can't even write parking tickets; they're too busy taking bingo graft and pad money. It ain't cops, fellas.”
”The f.u.c.k's going on then?” Sullivan shouted.
”Wake up and smell the coffee. You just got done telling me you're trying to undercut the major dust supplier in the area, and all of a sudden your people are disappearing. What's that tell you?”
”Somebody's putting the whack on us,” Eagle said. ”And we're sitting here like three ducks in a bathtub.”
What a couple of dupes, Phil thought, chuckling all the way back. No wonder the idiots had done time; they were just plain stupid. f.u.c.kers couldn't sell shovels to ditch diggers. He'd dropped them off at their trucks back at Krazy Sallee's, and agreed to meet them tomorrow night. Mullins is going to love this. Gotta hand it to the guy, though. He called the whole thing right from the start.
The ”other” dust supplier had to be Natter, and it had to be Natter who was putting contracts out on these new movers. So far everything fit.
Now I just got to plan my own next move, Phil realized, and it better be a good one.
It was past two when he'd dropped Eagle and Sullivan off. He drove around an hour just to make some leeway, then parked the Malibu behind the strip mall where they had the cleaners who did his s.h.i.+rts. Then he made a halfmile walk to the station.
”How was the rednecking tonight?” Susan asked from behind her radio console.
”Not bad,” Phil told her. ”Maybe I really am a redneck at heart; I'm fitting in just like the real McCoy.”
”I was getting a little worried,” she said. Her bright blue eyes glittered up at him. Her blond hair s.h.i.+ned. ”I didn't hear from you over your portable all night.”
Worried about little old me? Phil thought. Well, that was a good sign. ”It's hard to whip out the police portable when you're driving on a pickup run with two PCP peddlers,” he proudly replied.
”You're kidding. Who?”
”Eagle Peters and that guy Sullivan, the one who filed the missing persons a while back.” Phil smiled. ”They're both dust peddlers, and I'm their new driver.”