Down in the Zero

'Play it out till it shouts, son.'

'All right. They asked me to have a meet. At this club. Where Cherry worked, only I didn't know her then. I went every afternoon, for about ten days. One guy was always there, this guy Rex.'

'Rex Grass, the kid said.'

'Grass, that's just the way Limeys say 'rat,' Prof,' I said, glad for once to be telling my teacher something he didn't know. 'That wasn't the name he gave me.'

'Motherfuckers talk some strange shit, don't they?'

'I guess. We had this corner table, like regulars. It was always this Rex, but one day there was a couple of Chinese guys, from Macao. Another day it was an Indian…like from India. Rex was the middleman, putting it all together.'

'The guys who sent you over, you didn't tell them anything about this?'

'There wasn't any way to tell them, even if I wanted to. They gave me the cash in the U.S., the passport, told me they'd make contact at the hotel. That was it.'

'Ice, huh?'

'That's what they said. I was just listening. I was a kid myself, right? But I was trying to do it right.'

'So…?'

'So this Cherry, she was the regular girl on that table. It wasn't the kind of joint where they'd stuff tips into her bra, but her butt was always bruised from the pinches. I never tipped her myself— I wasn't picking up the tab. I get back to my place one time and I find a slip of paper in my jacket pocket. Just her name and a phone number. I called her, and we spent some time together.'

'She was a player too?'

'I don't know…now. I sure didn't think so then. She was a bit older than me. I thought she just wanted some fun. That's all we did. She never asked me a word about business, didn't ask what I was doing over there, nothing. I asked her once, why she worked there. She said she was gonna meet a rich man, get married. It was a good place to meet a rich man, I remember her saying that.'

'Look like she scoped the dope.'

'Yeah. The last time I was in the joint, she gave me the high sign. I went to the Men's Room and she was there. Inside. I thought she wanted to get it on, but she wasn't after sex. She told me she saw this Rex the night before. Meeting a government man. I asked her how she knew. She told me I wasn't the only boyfriend she'd ever had. 'Don't come back, love,' is what she said. And I never did.'

'What happened?'

'I don't know. I went back to the hotel, packed my stuff and got out. Called a number back in the States, left word where I was. I just waited on the recruiters. When they came to the new hotel, I told them I got nervous… spotted a federale in the place where they'd put me up. They took it okay— said I was smart to be spooky— made me describe this Rex. They didn't get mad about me looking to score for myself…like they expected it. Couple of days later, I went over to Cherry's house. The landlady said she moved out. I was there maybe another week, then I shipped out.'

'Never saw her again?'

'Never.'

'So what finally happened?'

'They bounced me around. London to Geneva to Lisbon, then to Angola, then to the island. I found the plane easy enough. Then I went over. After a while I came back. Never saw any of them again. It didn't come up until those South Africans came to me with that end–user certificate scam…the phony gunrunners, remember?'

'Yes, my brother,' the Prof said, serious now. That was when Flood came into my life.

She won't be back either.

'I wouldn't know her…this Cherry. if she walked in the door. It was a long time ago.'

'Want to ride the rocket?' the Prof asked, leaning forward. 'Here's what the kid told me— get down to the sound.'

The Prof reached over, glommed another of my smokes. Took a minute to fire it up to his satisfaction, like it was a five–dollar cigar, working with a convict's sense of time, killing it the way it was trying to kill him.

'They all rotten–rich, where this kid lives. Got all the things, you know what I'm saying? They all do everything the same way— there ain't but one kinda vines to buy, one kinda way to wear them, one kinda car to drive, right? It's all groups. Some of them ride horses, some ride Mercedes. Their folks are all someplace else. With their activities,' he sneered. 'They got crews, but they got no loyalty, see? Savage little bastards. Our boy, he was a tanker— the same nitrous they slip you in a dentist's office. Other ones, they played with Jello–shots. Some tranq'ed it through. Whatever makes your head dead, Fred.'

'So what's he scared of? There's no more draft…and his kind don't go to jail.'

'You ever watch TV? Ever see those ads…your kid's fucking up big–time, maybe he needs some of our fancy psychotherapy? A few weeks in our little hospital, you get yourself a brand–new kid. No more drugs, no more booze, no more bad temper. That's this Crystal Cove joint he was talking about.'

'He's afraid they'll send him there?'

'Maybe. They sent his pals, a whole bunch of them. And they all come back. Talk about how great it was. They don't seem no better to him— they go right back to whatever lightning they was riding before they went in. But they're different.'

'How?'

'The kid don't know. Here's what he says: half a dozen kids…kids he knows, kids he ran with…they checked