portentous drinking wine vinegar and eating lemons to confound the tenor sax, a hip Arab in blue glasses suspect to be Enemy Sender. The world network of junkies, on a cord of rancid jissom... tying up in furnished rooms... shivering in the sick morning... (Old Pete men suck the Black Smoke in a Chink laundry back room. Melancholy Baby dies from an overdose of Time or cold turkey withdrawal of breath --in Arabia --Paris --Mexico City --New York --New 104
Orleans --) The living and the dead... in sickness or on the nod... hooked or kicked or hooked again... come in on the junk beam and The Connection is eating Chop Suey on Dolores Street... dunking pound cake in Bickfords . . chased up Exchange Place by a baying pack of people. Malarials of the world bundle in shivering protoplasm. Fear seals the turd message with a cuneiform account. Giggling rioters copulate to the screams of a burning Nigra. Lonely librarians unite in soul kiss halitosis. That grippy feeling, brother? Sore throat and disquieting as the hot afternoon wind? Welcome to the International Syphilis Lodge --'Methodith-Epithcopal God damn ith' (phrase used to test speech impairment typical of paresis) or the first silent touch of chancre makes you a member in good standing. The vibrating soundless hum of deep forest and orgone accumulators, the sudden silence of cities when the junky cops and even the Commuter buzzes clogged lines of cholesterol for contact. Signal flares of orgasm burst over the world. A tea head leaps up screaming 'I got the fear!' and runs into Mexican night bringing down backbrains of the world. The Executioner shits in terror at sight of the condemned man. The Torturer screams in the ear of his implacable victim. Knife fighters embrace in adrenalin. Cancer is at the door with a Singing Telegram.... 105
HAUSER AND O'BRIEN
When they walked in on me that morning at 8 o'clock, I knew it was my last chance, my only chance. But they didn't know. How could they? Just a routine pick-up. But not quite routine. Hauser had been eating breakfast when the Lieutenant called: 'I want you and your partner to pick up a man named Lee, William Lee, on your way downtown. He's in the Hotel Lamprey. 103 just off B way.'
'Yeah I know where it is. I remember him too.'
'Good. Room 606. Just pick him up. Don't take time to shake the place down. Except bring in all books, letters, manuscripts.
'Ketch. But what's the angle.... Books... '
'Just do it.' The Lieutenant hung up.
Hauser and O'Brien. They had been on the City Narcotic Squad for 20 years. Old timers like me. I been on the junk for 16 years. They weren't bad as laws go. At least O'Brien wasn't. O'Brien was the con man, and Hauser the tough guy. A vaudeville team. Hauser had a way of hitting you before he said anything just to break the ice. Then O'Brien gives you an Old Gold --just like a cop to smoke Old Golds somehow... and starts putting down a cop con that was really bottled in bond. Not a bad guy, and I didn't want to do it. But it was my only chance. I was just tying up for my morning shot when they walked in with a pass key. It was a special kind you can use even when the door is locked from the inside with a key in the lock. On the table in front of me was a packet of junk, spike, syringe --I got the habit of using a regular syringe in Mexico and never went back to using a dropper --alcohol, cotton and a glass of water.
'Well well,' says O'Brien.... 'Long time no see eh?'
'Put on your coat, Lee,' says Hauser. He had his gun out. He always has it out when he makes a pinch for the psychological effect and to forestall a rush for toilet, sink or window.
'Can I take a bang first, boys?' I asked.... 'There's plenty here for evidence....' I was wondering how I could get to my suitcase if they said no. The case wasn't locked, but Hauser had the gun in his hand.
'He wants a shot,' said Hauser.
'Now you know we can't do that, Bill,' said O'Brien in his sweet con voice, dragging out the name with an oily, insinuating familiarity, brutal and obscene.
He meant, of course, 'What can you do for
'I might could set up Marty Steel for you,' I said. I knew they wanted Marty bad. He'd been pushing for five years, and they couldn't hang one on him. Marty was an oldtimer, and very careful about who he served. He had to know a man and know him well before he would pick up his money. No one can say they ever did time because of me. My rep is perfect, but still Marty wouldn't serve me because he didn't know me long enough. That's how skeptical Marty was.
'Marty?' said O'Brien. 'Can you score from him?'
'Sure I can.'
They were suspicious. A man can't be a cop all his life without developing a special set of intuitions.
'O.K.,' said Hauser finally. 'But you'd better deliver, Lee.'
'I'll deliver all right. Believe me I appreciate this.' I tied up for a shot, my hands trembling with eagerness, an archetype dope fiend. 106
