The Yellowstone Event (Book 3): A Nation Gone Crazy

by Maloney, Darrell

  She’d ask for, and would get, eighty.

  Chapter 41

  She slipped the ten tiny packets into her bra, where they’d keep her left breast company for the next several hours. Then she patted the outside of the bra to make sure they were well distributed and didn’t leave a tell-tale lump which would alert the cops she was hiding something.

  She picked up the kid’s activity book and leafed through it until she found a page covered with tiny cartoon characters.

  Silly dogs and cats and weird creatures that looked like unicorns.

  Or something.

  Kids these days had the strangest taste in cartoon characters.

  She cut out the characters, careful not to be too neat about it.

  Manufacturers who soaked such things in LSD were never too neat.

  They were usually in a hurry or high.

  Or both.

  These wouldn’t be soaked in LSD, of course.

  But her marks wouldn’t know that until she was long gone.

  They’d wait until they were at the concert to blow their minds.

  They’d place the worthless pieces of paper on their tongues and prepare themselves to get a wild hallucinogenic high.

  And they’d slowly realize they’d been had.

  They’d spit the paper onto the ground and curse the woman who played them.

  But it would be too late to do anything about it.

  Some would be so angry they’d go looking for her after the concert.

  Perhaps to demand their money back, perhaps to beat the hell out of her.

  But she’d be long gone by then.

  Hopefully, if she had a good night, on her way south to Orlando.

  And if the night wasn’t so good, holed up in the tiny motel room for a couple of days with Jacob.

  And hopefully Bob.

  She cut the brightly colored tissue paper into little squares, then carefully folded the cartoon creatures into the paper, as though she were wrapping tiny packages.

  She slipped ten of the tiny packages into the right side of her bra. Now her right breast wouldn’t feel lonely and left out.

  She’d been wearing padded bras for several years now, but not for the reasons most women do.

  She’d been told many times she had nice breasts, and she knew it to be true. She certainly didn’t need the extra padding to make them appear any larger than they already were.

  And she didn’t want the extra padding to keep men from staring when it was particularly cold outside, for she didn’t mind the ogling. It gave her the feeling she was attractive and desired.

  No, she preferred padded bras simply because they made it easier to hide things beneath them.

  And that made it much easier to perform her hustle.

  If she were really dirty: carrying real dope around, she’d stash it in a different place.

  A place which could only be searched by a female cop, and only under direct supervision of the female cop’s sergeant.

  And female cops were few and far between on the mean streets of Toledo. Most of the ones who were available tended to shy away from cavity searches, finding something to do to get them out of the detail whenever possible.

  But that was unnecessary.

  And that was okay with Marilyn, for carrying the little bags of pseudo-dope there would be decidedly uncomfortable.

  In her bra there was little chance it would be discovered, unless an undercover saw her remove some for a customer.

  If that happened they’d field test it and determine it wasn’t a controlled substance, and have a decision to make.

  Yes, they could bust her, for it was illegal to sell fake drugs on the streets of Toledo.

  The penalties weren’t as severe, and many cops and prosecutors saw nothing wrong with fooling and hassling dopers with fake dope.

  So as often as not, those dealing in fake dope were chewed out and given a break: “Get off the streets. If I see you again tonight you’re going to jail.”

  Hustling fake drugs had its risks.

  If she didn’t move quickly and the mark discovered he got “got” he might go after her and beat the hell out of her.

  And of course, there were always thugs, usually gang-bangers, who were on the lookout for such “dealers” and would rob them in a heartbeat.

  But as long as she kept moving and was good about spotting the narcotics officers in the crowd, the odds were in her favor.

  Chances were by the end of the night she’d stay out of jail and clear a couple of grand.

  Not bad for the three dollars and forty five cents she spent at the Super Dollar Store.

  Her bra full, she prepared twenty additional packets of rock salt, twenty addition hits of “LSD” and stuffed it all into a zip-lock bag.

  The bag would go beneath the driver’s seat of her car.

  Hopefully she’d clear both sides of her bra within forty five minutes and would quickly make her way to her car, where she’d move to the other side of the coliseum, refill her D-cups and work a different crowd of fresh faces.

  Moving frequently, in this game, was essential to not being discovered.

  For while most of her “customers” would wait until they were inside the venue to try out their dope, a few of the more curious might sample it outside the coliseum, before the concert started.

  And she wanted to be clear of the area before they did so.

  Chapter 42

  Suddin Deth couldn’t spell worth a damn but their music was pretty good.

  Good enough, anyway, to attract concert goers from hundreds of miles away.

  Concert goers who frequently used illicit substances, for it made good music sound even better.

  The smart ones brought their dope with them, for it’s never a good idea to try to score drugs in a strange town where you don’t know anybody.

  Still, there are always a certain percentage of concert goers who for whatever reason couldn’t visit their regular connection before the promise of great music and the company of good friends called them away.

  A certain percentage of people who’d arrive in Toledo looking to score.

  They’d be out of their element and nervous, trying their best to find and purchase their drug of choice without running into any undercover cops and getting thrown into jail.

  They always had the same look about them. Their eyes flitted here and there and everywhere. No matter how calm, cool and collected they tried to look, they were like a kid sent to the principal’s office.

  They were nervous as hell and paranoid too.

  Marilyn could spot them a mile away.

  Something else they were was careless.

  Marilyn no longer used but knew the game well.

  She’d work her way through the crowd and come up behind them. Brush up against the one who looked the most nervous, then ask him, “You guys looking to score?”

  “Looking to score,” in street parlance, could mean several different things depending on the location and situation.

  A hooker talking to a lonely-looking man on a lonely street would have one meaning.

  A ticket scalper hanging around a concert venue hawking hard-to-get tickets at exorbitant rates would interpret “scoring” in a totally different way.

  But Marilyn didn’t look the part of a hooker. She was still fairly young, yes. She was still attractive, yes. But she was harried and tired after driving through several states in recent days. Her hair was unkempt and she wore no makeup or other clues to indicate she might be a “working girl.”

  In fact, because she was close to exhaustion, she more fit the vulgar street slang term, “used up,” which normally applies to an older prostitute way past her prime.

  In Ohio, scalping tickets was legal. Ticket scalpers, therefore, took great pains to advertise their wares.

  They wore stupid hats with flashing LED lights or wore Superman costumes as though they’d be the hero who provided moneyed concert goers choice seats.

  And they
held their tickets high in the air so prospective buyers could see them from hundreds of yards away.

  Marilyn no more fit that bill than she fit the bill of a prostitute.

  So as she furtively worked her way through the crowd asking concert goers if they were “looking to score” they generally knew what she was talking about.

  She’d been in the game long enough to spot her marks.

  They were the ones looking around, as though they’d lost someone in their group.

  But they weren’t specific in their search. They didn’t key in on women of a certain hair color or men with black jackets.

  They seemed to look more for activities or actions. Men who looked around a lot. Men who spoke from the sides of their mouths or seemed to whisper.

  Men with their hands in their pockets.

  One thing Marilyn had working against her was her gender. For even in the new millennium most drug dealers were still men.

  It seemed sex discrimination was still alive and well in the shady world of narcotics dealing.

  But that was okay.

  All it meant was that she couldn’t rely on prospective customers spotting and coming to her.

  She had to spot and go to them instead.

  In addition to looking for people searching the crowd, she also looked for other clues.

  For example, any baseball cap for a school or team other than the Toledo Mud Hens, Toledo Walleyes or UT Rockets.

  And she looked for people in groups.

  She knew from past experience that, number one, few people do drugs alone.

  And number two, when a group of people goes to a heavy metal concert and they don’t have drugs, everyone in their midst wants to be the hero who scores some.

  Heroes typically get lucky at the end of the night.

  Non-heroes get lonely.

  She spotted a group of five. One was wearing a “UI” ball cap which she believed to be from the University of Indiana. Or maybe Iowa. It sure wasn’t a local school.

  Two of the men were desperately searching the crowd, almost in a panic.

  The gates would be opened in about forty five minutes and their chances of getting drugs inside the coliseum would be greatly diminished.

  Marilyn sidled nonchalantly up to her first mark and asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “You guys looking to score?”

  He stood about eight inches above her and crouched down to match her height.

  “What you got, babe? You got any weed?”

  “Nope. No weed. I got ice. Eighty a gram. And I got LSD. Sixty a hit.”

  Chapter 43

  The man was surprised.

  LSD was the drug of choice for his grandfather in the sixties. It almost completely disappeared from the drug scene for many years, but had been making a comeback of late.

  And dopers are always ready and willing to try something else to get a new high.

  “You got LSD? Cool. I ain’t never did LSD.”

  “Oh, man, you gotta try it. You won’t just hear the music, you become the music. You’ll be floating above the crowd like a frickin’ balloon.”

  “Okay, cool. Hold on.”

  He turned to his friend.

  “Rick, Rick! Gimme some money.”

  Rick smiled. He didn’t have to ask what the money was for.

  He handed his buddy a wad of folded twenties.

  The man discretely counted out three hundred eighty bucks and handed it to her.

  “Let me have five hits and a gram.”

  Marilyn looked around then repositioned her body so only the two men could see her.

  She crammed the folded bills into the pocket of her blue jeans and pulled down the left side of her bra, careful to give the pair a good view of her breast.

  She fished out five of the tiny tissue paper packages and handed them to the man with the money.

  Only after he took them did she tuck her breast away again and expose the other one while she pulled out a baggie of fake methamphetamines.

  It was important she keep them distracted so they didn’t have a chance to look too closely at what they were purchasing.

  While their eyes were locked like lasers on her boobs she instructed them on how to use the LSD.

  “Don’t chew on them or swallow them. Just place the tab on your tongue and wait for it to take effect. After you get good and high spit it out so you don’t inhale it.”

  The pair nodded their heads.

  Once she got herself back together again, Marilyn was off like a flash.

  She disappeared into the sea of people and moved about fifty yards from them, then started fishing the crowd again.

  Marilyn had gone to many concerts in her younger years. And she’d been working marks for four or five.

  She knew both sides of the game.

  Ice, or speed, wasn’t like marijuana.

  At most concerts these days, marijuana was smoked openly. Sometimes the local cops hassled the users and confiscated it.

  But more often than not they just ignored it.

  Societal norms were changing. It was now legal in many parts of the country and was a cash cow for the states which had legalized it.

  The writing was on the wall. Eventually every state would legalize it.

  Morality, it seems, always takes a back seat when big money is involved.

  Speed and LSD are different animals.

  Marilyn knew the preferred method of using meth was to smoke it, typically in a glass pipe. Some hard core users shot it up, but shooting it up in a concert setting was very difficult. There was simply no place to prepare it without attracting a lot of attention.

  Because possessing a gram of the stuff was a felony, users wouldn’t smoke it either. The tell-tale white smoke would attract an awful lot of attention.

  They were more likely to eat it.

  Eating it would give the user a lesser high but was less likely to land them in jail.

  They’d wait until they were inside the venue to eat the stuff.

  And they’d wait until they were inside to try the LSD as well.

  They wouldn’t risk getting so high they’d get dragged out by security before they even saw their favorite band.

  And all that worked to Marilyn’s advantage.

  Because by the time the warm-up band finished and Suddin Deth started their first set Marilyn would be long gone.

  One in the group, who was experienced in eating ice, would notice this batch didn’t have the characteristic nasty chemical taste.

  No, this batch would instead taste extremely salty.

  They’d realize they’d been ripped off.

  They’d curse a blue streak and vow revenge on the bitch with the big boobs.

  They’d swear to torture her and make her die a slow and painful death.

  They would, of course, do nothing.

  There was nothing they could do, legally or otherwise.

  They’d never find her again.

  And they couldn’t exactly go to the cops.

  They’d suspect the LSD was junk too, but they’d try it anyway.

  It cost them too much money not to.

  After a few more minutes they’d be even more pissed off.

  So pissed off they’d spend most of the rest of the concert looking around the crowd, trying to find the evil woman who’d done them wrong.

  Their evening would be ruined.

  How could one enjoy all the fine music Suddin Deth had to offer if they weren’t high as a kite?

  As for Marilyn, she had a great night.

  She was able to sell everything she had in both cups in the first go-round. Then she went back to her car to “re-up” and got rid of most of the second load as well.

  When she got back to the motel and pulled out the loot she counted out $2600.

  Not bad for an investment of a couple of dollars.

  She didn’t feel bad for her marks. They all got a good look at her breasts.

  They didn’t know it at the time, b
ut that was to be the only thrill they’d score on this particular night.

  Marilyn had enough cash to get her to Orlando and to live on for a couple of weeks.

  And she still hadn’t hit Bob up for one of his “loans.”

  Chapter 44

  Crystal and David were barely out of their teens and so much in love they couldn’t stand it.

  They’d known each other since grade school, and had decided years before they were meant for each other.

  They were an adventurous pair, believing that life was way too short to leave anything undone.

  The refrigerator in the small apartment they shared was covered with photos they’d printed off the internet. Photos of faraway lands and landmarks.

  Exotic places they wanted to visit in their lifetimes.

  Also adorning a prominent place in the center of the Frigidaire was a long list of items printed on a yellow legal pad.

  So many items the sheet had been divided into three columns.

  And each column stretched almost to the bottom of the sheet of paper.

  Many young people talk of a “bucket list” in the abstract.

  They never actually create a list.

  But Crystal and David did.

  A “bucket list” is simply a list of the things one wants to do or see in his or her lifetime.

  Most people who entertain such notions tend to place grandiose things upon them. Like climbing Mount Everest or skydiving into the Grand Canyon.

  Crystal and David had those two things on their list, and so much more.

  One was to visit Yellowstone National Park and to swim in the hot springs there.

  Actually, most of the springs were much too hot to swim in. But there were a couple of exceptions.

  As a young girl, Crystal’s family went on vacation to Yellowstone and stopped for a dip in a place called Firehole River.

  It was a place where the hot springs emptied into a natural river and the mixture was something akin to a hot tub.

  Crystal remembered it well and always wanted to go back.

  It was the number three position in the first column on the yellow paper, right after “Meet and kiss Brad Pitt” and “Stand in John Wayne’s footprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.”