‘What are you doing?’ I say.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she guides my shoulders, and turns me to face her. She pulls my head down, kisses me. I taste her, and the warm water, and her perfume, washing from her skin. ‘You see?’ she says, when she breaks off the kiss. ‘We are meant to be together. This is what he intended.’
‘Who intended? Jesus?’
‘No, silly,’ she whispers. She takes the stub of my half-pinky, presses it against her own, closes her hand around both, and squeezes. ‘You see? We’re his. He owns us both.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘He wanted this. That’s why he led us here, together. That’s why he let me go. It’s no accident. This is what he wanted.’
I want to tell her that she’s crazy, but then she presses up against me, and slides me inside her, and so I shut up for about five minutes, which is all the time I need.
CHAPTER 42
The drugs come next.
I suppose I should be surprised, that a girl who found Jesus in a church basement, who tattooed Cyrillic on her breast that He died for her sins, who protested too much that her life had changed after she found Him – I suppose I should be surprised when she brings out a glass pipe and a butane lighter from the shelf in her closet, and when she leads me to her bedroom, and when she starts the music playing on her computer, and says, ‘Can we do it, just once?’
There is no just once for people like me and Amanda. There is never a last time that you use. There are only pauses, and lulls, and intermissions. That is why restarting is always easy: because using is as much a part of life as quitting. To the addict, these are not opposite poles of existence – quitting versus using, good versus bad – but rather different outward expressions of the same single inner truth. Using, quitting. High, straight. It’s all the same – just an open field upon which we dance and play.
Amanda lights a row of honeycomb beeswax candles on the bureau near her bed, and turns off the overhead lamp. The room is dark except for the soft golden circles of candlelight.
For the first time, I realize that she’s beautiful, and that I love her. Her age has always been a mystery to me, since the first day I saw her. It depended on the lighting, her clothing, her make-up, the angle at which she was viewed. Sometimes she looked weary, her eyes ancient; and other times she was sexy, and knowing, and cunning – a worn girl who’d seen it all, who couldn’t be surprised, and who would try anything once.
Tonight, in the candlelight, flushed from sex just finished, anticipating a rush about to begin, she is timeless, glowing, her face alive with anticipation, her body taut, thrumming like a bowstring.
She unwraps a tiny wad of toilet paper, revealing flakes of yellow crystal that look like salt, and she taps them into the pipe. She holds the pipe gingerly, expertly, along its fluted glass neck. She flicks the butane lighter and holds the flame underneath for almost a minute. Inside the glass bulb, a crackling sound, and white smoke swirls. She hands the pipe to me. When I take it, the glass burns my fingertips, but I don’t flinch. I put the mouthpiece to my lips, and breathe.
I cough, a chemical cough, and mutter: ‘Oh fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck yes.’
There are no words for this. It’s bliss. It’s what you feel when you’re a child, in your mother’s arms, and I think it’s probably what you feel the moment you die, when you decide it’s OK to rest at last. It’s peace, the feeling that it’s all right, that the world can go on just fine without you.
How long has it been since I’ve felt this way? Years?
The weight lifts. The concerns about career and marriage, about Libby’s safety, even about the Russian mob and Ghol Gedrosian – they flit away like glassy-winged insects into moonlight, barely visible for a moment, twinkling reflections, and then gone.
The pleasure surges, liquid, through me. It’s an orgasm that never stops.
Amanda takes the pipe from my hands and brings it to her own mouth. I watch her eyes, the way her pupils grow into black buttons, like a doll’s, and she slumps over sideways, still holding the hot glass in her fingers, not noticing the pain.
‘Oh Jesus,’ she says, and I’m not sure if she’s moaning or invoking.
She leans over and kisses me. Her tongue and mouth taste chemical and hot, day-old menthol.
The one thing about crystal meth – the most important thing – is that you want to fuck. It’s the only thing you can do well while on the drug, and the only thing you desire.
I remember the first time I tried meth. I was alone in a hotel, on a business trip away from Libby. I lit up, and breathed in, and then I couldn’t stop having orgasms. It was like a switch had been tripped, and stuck in the on position. I opened my notebook computer, and I pulled up a pornography site, and I played a movie, and I jerked off in about a minute. Then I hit the refresh button on my computer, and watched the same movie again, and came again; and then I did it a third time, and a fourth.
That’s meth. That’s what it does. It’s one giant orgasm crashing over you, again and again, and you can’t stop coming. You want to know why people do crank, even though it destroys them? Next time you come, imagine making it feel ten times as good. Now, imagine making it last for three hours. Now you know.
Lying with Amanda in her apartment, on her bed, the idea of time, of relentless forward motion, disappears. It is replaced by ebbs and flows of pleasure. When I become aware again, maybe minutes later, maybe hours, Amanda is sitting beside me on the mattress. She is naked, and her hair is wet from sweat. She is using the long metal clasp of her barrette to scrape the inside of her pipe, to brush the residue baked onto the glass into a tiny pile of powder. She lights the pipe again. This time, all courtesy is gone, and she puts the pipe to her own mouth first, and inhales greedily. I see her orgasm. Her body shudders, again and again, without end, and she says, ‘Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus.’
When it subsides, I take the pipe from her, and I suck. And then I’m gone, too, and I don’t know what happens next, until I wake up hours later, naked, in her bed, in her arms.
CHAPTER 43
In the morning, when the sunlight wakes me, she is gone from the bed, and I find her in the tiny galley kitchen, frying bacon in a pan.
‘I called work,’ she says cheerily, ‘and told them I’d be in late. Do you think my boss will mind?’
‘Not if you share your bacon with him.’
I walk to her. I’m naked. She’s wearing a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. She looks tired, with dark circles under her eyes. I probably don’t look much better. My mouth tastes like garbage; my head burns like a roadside flare.
‘What will you do?’ she asks. When she sees my blank expression, she says, ‘About your wife.’
It comes back to me: the rainstorm, the listening devices and cameras in my office and house, the Russians across the street, Libby’s scream, the black sedan racing away, with Libby inside.
‘I need to go to the police.’
‘Yes,’ she says, stiffly.
‘You don’t agree?’
She shrugs. ‘Maybe you should,’ she says, in a way that suggests that maybe I shouldn’t.
I squeeze into the galley kitchen beside her. I’m not sure about our level of intimacy. Last night we fucked ten times and did crystal meth, but this morning I don’t know if I’m allowed to touch her shoulder.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, brushing the back of her neck with my fingers. I am relieved that she doesn’t flinch. She presses close to me and pushes her breasts against my chest.
‘I just want you to be careful. You don’t know him the way I do.’
‘I thought you said that no one knows him.’
‘Of course, you’re right. But still. I’ve heard stories. Terrible stories.’ She turns away.
I think about pressing the point, asking what she does know about him, but isn’t telling me. But I don’t. I ask, ‘Can I use your phone?’
She goes to the living room and finds her purse. She takes her c
ellphone and brings it to me.
From my wallet I retrieve Agent Mitchell’s business card, still damp and waterlogged, but legible. I dial, and I am surprised that he answers directly.
‘It’s Jim Thane,’ I say.
‘Mr Thane,’ he says, sounding relieved. ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m staying at a friend’s house,’ I say. And then: ‘I need your help, Agent Mitchell. Something happened.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s my wife. Gedrosian took her.’
‘Gedrosian?’ He sounds incredulous. ‘He… took her?’
‘His men. Not him… ’ I say, as if this makes my words sound less improbable. ‘They live in the house across the street. He’s been spying on me – watching me – ever since I came to Florida.’
There’s a noise on the other end of the line – a sudden breath. Is he laughing?
‘Mr Thane, let me get this straight. Ghol Gedrosian lives across the street from you. All this time that I’ve been searching for him, trudging across thirteen states, and forty-six counties, with a task force of a dozen men – all this time, you boys have been next-door neighbours, borrowing sugar from each other.’
‘No,’ I say.
‘And he came over and – what was it? – kidnapped your wife?’
‘No,’ I say, again. ‘No. That’s not what I’m saying. He wasn’t the one that kidnapped my wife. Not personally. His men did it.’
‘I see. He asked his men to kidnap your wife,’ he says.
‘Yes. And I can show you.’
‘Can you?’ he says. ‘All right, then.’
‘Meet me at my house.’
‘I’ll be there in an hour.’
I wolf down three slices of bacon. Amanda gives me a granola oatmeal bar, which I shove into my mouth, hoping it will tamp down the pounding in my head. It doesn’t. It’s like the bad old days, all over again. Now I remember: that feeling you have, after you use, how you start thinking about crank every second – how you need it, just to make yourself feel normal. It’s not like heroin, or Percocet, where you have a leisurely week or two to decide whether you’re fully committed to the addict lifestyle, where you can quit after a few benders, achy but still sober.
No, meth is different. It’s in your face, demanding. It’s like a jealous girlfriend, a crazed lover. It requires your full, undivided attention. It wants commitment. Now.
‘Jim,’ Amanda says. She had disappeared from the kitchen, and now has returned, cradling something in her hands, gently, like a fragile baby bird. ‘Take this.’
I look down. It’s a pistol. It’s black and angular, with the profile of a wasp.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘It’s a gun, stupid. You use it to shoot people.’
‘I don’t use guns to shoot people.’
‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Look.’
She holds it out in front of us, muzzle pointing away. ‘This is the safety,’ she explains, touching a black lever on the side of the grip. ‘Push it down with your thumb before you shoot.’
‘I won’t be doing any shooting.’
‘There’s a round in the chamber,’ she says, ignoring me. ‘All you need to do is flip the safety and pull the trigger. You understand?’
‘Amanda—’
‘Safety off, then shoot,’ she says.
‘Amanda—’
‘Take it.’ She pushes it into my hands. I take it. I’m surprised by how heavy it is.
‘Where did you get a gun?’
‘From a friend,’ she says. ‘For protection.’
‘In case he comes for you.’
‘Not “in case”. When.’
I put the gun into my pocket. It fits snugly, and feels heavy on my thigh. ‘I won’t be long,’ I say. ‘Just stay here. Wait for me.’
I kiss her primly on the cheek, the way you kiss an aunt. When I pull away, she reaches out, puts her hand behind my head, and reels me back in. She kisses me, open-mouthed, holding me tight and hard. It’s a desperate, crazed kiss – the kiss of a woman who’ll never see you again. Not exactly reassuring.
‘You’re freaking me out a little,’ I admit, when I extract myself from her.
‘Take this too,’ she says, and hands me her cell. ‘If there’s any trouble, call me.’
‘I’m just going to talk to the police, Amanda. The police. They’re the good guys.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know.’
CHAPTER 44
I take Amanda’s cabriolet and drive it to my house. I park at the foot of my driveway.
The last time I was here, torrential rain poured from the dark sky, my wife was shoved into a car, and I barely escaped from Russian thugs by diving head-first from a first-floor window. This morning, the yard is bright and sunny, the house immaculate. It looks like any other happy suburban house – ready for children and lawn croquet and freshly-baked cookies on the kitchen windowsill.
Agent Mitchell hasn’t arrived. Which means there’s still time to make the phone call I have delayed making for as long as I possibly could.
I dial the number from memory. When Gordon Kramer answers, I say, ‘Gordon, it’s Jimmy.’
‘What’s wrong?’ he snarls, by way of greeting. ‘A phone call from Jimmy Thane at eight in the morning. That means you need to make bail. How much?’
‘No bail,’ I say.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No.’
‘High?’
‘No, Gordon.’ Which is technically true. Technically. As in: not high at this particular moment.
‘Do I need to buy a plane ticket and come get you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No. It’s not that. It’s something else.’
‘I’m listening.’
’It’s… police stuff.’
‘Police stuff ?’ he repeats. He doesn’t like the sound of that. It’s as if I said, ballerina stuff. ‘What does that mean, “police stuff ”?’
‘Gordon, I’m about to tell you something. I just need you to listen. Promise to hear me out. Promise you’ll let me explain everything.’
‘All right.’
‘You promise that you’ll listen? You’ll let me finish?’
‘I promise.’
‘All right.’ I take a deep breath. ‘The company that hired me… it’s really a front for a Russian mobster. It’s run by a meth dealer—’
‘Goddamn it, Jimmy!’ Gordon yells. ‘You son of a bitch! You’re using!’
‘You promised you’d let me finish.’
‘I lied, motherfucker. Just like you lied when you told me you’d stay clean.’
‘I am clean,’ I say. ‘Will you just listen? Please, Gordon. Let me finish.’
‘Finish.’
‘The Russian is named Ghol Gedrosian. Have you heard of him?’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Ghol Gedrosian,’ I repeat.
‘No. Never.’
‘He’s stealing cash from the company. He’s paying me to look the other way. He’s blackmailing Libby. He’s making her keep tabs on me. He put bugs in our house.’
‘He put what?’
‘Bugs, Gordon. Listening devices. Cameras. They’ve been watching me. They’re spying. They’re—’
‘Jimmy,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘Jimmy, I have to be honest with you. This conversation – it’s not exactly reassuring. This is not what I call a reassuring conversation.’
‘He took Libby, Gordon.’
‘Took Libby?’
‘Kidnapped.’
‘Aw, fuck you, Jimmy,’ he says, but very quietly. He sounds sad. Disappointed. ‘You’re high.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘What I’m telling you is real. I’m about to meet with the FBI. There’s an agent here, who’s looking for Gedrosian. He’s in the Special Crimes Unit, out of Tampa. You can look him up. He knows all about Ghol Gedrosian. He’ll vouch for me. His name is Tom Mitchell.’
I look across the street. ‘Here he is now,�
� I say. In fact, I would have lied to Gordon, and merely pretended that Tom Mitchell had arrived, so that I could end this conversation; but Agent Mitchell’s Chevy Impala really does pull up on the other side of the road. He is alone in the car. When he sees me, he waves through his window. ‘I have to go, Gordon. Just do me a favour.’
‘What, Jimmy?’
‘Find out everything you can about this Ghol Gedrosian. I need to know who I’m up against.’
‘Jimmy… ’
‘Please, Gordon. Just this once… trust me.’
There’s a knock on my car window. Agent Mitchell stands outside my door.
‘Yeah, all right,’ Gordon says, and sighs. He doesn’t sound very trusting. ‘Jimmy, why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well for you?’
‘Because it never does, Gordon.’
‘No,’ he agrees. ‘It never does.’
‘Call me at this number,’ I say. ‘My other cellphone was… Well, I had to get rid of it.’
He laughs. He thinks that my other cellphone was sold. Or exchanged. For yellow crystals in a plastic baggie.
‘Yeah, all right, Jimmy,’ he says. ‘Whatever.’ He hangs up.
‘Jesus, Mr Thane,’ the FBI man says, when I step out of the car. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Do I?’ I touch my face. ‘I guess what they say is true. Bingeing on crystal meth isn’t good for your complexion.’
‘I’m glad you still have that sense of humour,’ he says. ‘I thought you might have lost it.’
He offers his hand, and we shake. He continues, ‘Now then, tell me about your wife.’
‘They took her.’
‘Who did?’
I point to the house across the street, where the Russians set up their All-Jimmy-Thane-Twenty-Four-Hour-A-Day TV channel. The driveway is empty, the curtains drawn. There is no light in the windows. ‘They’ve been spying on me. They put cameras in my house. They’ve been watching me and Libby ever since we moved to Florida.’
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