neither closer nor farther from the hotel, but in tandem. He mapped out a bike route that would take him past a dozen of these shops on the way back to the hotel. At every stop, groups of people were sampling and discussing the philosophical merits of each strain: the taste going down, the feeling in the lungs, the properties of the high. There was nothing furtive or paranoid about it like there’d be in the States.
“Whoa! Sorry man, I didn’t know.” He practically genuflected. “There’s only one of those badges.”
He pedaled from cafe to cafe. Nothing resembling Goodpas-ture’s weed was among the selections offered by the Siberie Coffee Shop. Nor was it at Lucky Mothers, the Sisterhood Coffee Shop, nor at Boven Kamer, which sported a psychedelic painting of the cosmos on its ceiling and a huge Afghanistani hookah. It was not at de Dampkring nor at cozy Picasso’s nor at spacious Free City, whose walls were a collage of found objects-boxing gloves, a sled, a birdcage.
The shortened northern winter light began to wane. Stein was cold and weary and dispirited. He had somehow thought that by placing himself into the equation, some inner magnetism would have led him to stumble on success. It had always been that way. In all of his past capers he had just put himself into the flow of events with the faith that good things would happen to good people, and they nearly always did.
Then, anyway.
Now continued to be another story.
He made one last stop before pedaling the final leg back to the hotel. The vestibule of the Open Doors Coffeehouse rubbed Stein the wrong way. The art was too self-consciously artsy. A trophy case displaying previously won Cannabis Cups from the mid-nineties was too prominently situated. It would have been like going to Raquel Welch’s house and seeing awards for best tits displayed on her mantle. Stein ordered a hot chocolate and made a superficial examination of the buds on display. They were overwrought overgrown, overproduced overpriced and overpackaged. Tourist stuff.
The waitress who brought him his cocoa asked if he’d like to try one of their house specialties. She was a tall, slender nineteen year-old Susan Sarandon type wearing a silk blouse and no bra. Her English was slightly accented, incredibly sexy. “We have many interesting varieties,” she said. “You won’t be disappointed.”
He didn’t know why he needed to lecture her, it just came out. “Actually you don’t have any interesting varieties here. They’re all bred for show. Your Indica has fat leaves but less cannabinoids. Your Early Girl was harvested a week early. Quick lick, no stick. You’re skimping on phosphorus and nitrogen in your hydroponics, going for height at the expense of depth.” He took a sip of his drink. “And your hot chocolate is from a mix.”
He reached into his pocket for money to pay the check. His fingers were still thick from the cold and the bill slipped through them. He bent to pick it up from behind his bar stool. When he came back to upright he was flanked by two men who had been standing nearby and overheard his diatribe. One of them said to the waitress, “We’ll take care of this,” and glided up to Stein, smooth as shaving gel. He sported a ‘50s style buzz cut and wore a ’70s Nehru jacket. “You sound quite knowledgeable,” he said.
Stein already regretted the whole ridiculous demonstration. “I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the other one said. He wore a Yosemite Sam sweatshirt that had been ironed. His hair was carefully messed. He introduced himself as Dan Wylie. His partner with the buzzcut and Nehru jacket was Ray Phibbs. Where had Stein heard those names? Wylie and Phibbs? His mind felt sluggish. Phibbs was distracted momentarily by a statuesque black African girl walking a long diagonal across the room with her equally tall, icy blue-eyed Danish model girlfriend. “There goes twelve feet of wasted leg,” he sighed.
Yosemite Sam tugged on the sleeve of his partner’s Nehru jacket. “I think we know what he’s looking for, don’t you?” Without much subtlety he tried to guide his partner’s gaze away from the blips of every attractive woman who crossed his radar screen to the badge around Stein’s neck, which for his own amusement Stein had decided to flaunt instead of hide. Then it hit him. Yosemite Sam. Wylie and Phibbs. Winston’s old lady at the community center had told him they were selling overseas superweed. All his circuitry came to Red Alert.
“What makes you think I’m looking for anything?” Stein vamped.
“I’ve generally found that everyone is looking for something.” Despite the Yosemite Sam shirt, Wylie seemed to be the brains of the duo. He nodded to the waitress, who had stationed herself the perfectly discreet distance away. “Alysha, please take a silver box down for this gentleman.” Stein was escorted to their office. They seemed to be going for a look somewhere between a New Orleans whorehouse and a college frat house, though it may have been the unintentional product of their two personalities. There were plush, silk divans and ergonomic office chairs, 1880s oil lamp replicas and a wide screen TV.
“Nice,” said Stein.
“We like to treat special people in a special way.”
There was a soft knock on the door and Alysha was admitted. She looked less sure of herself here in the power chamber. She placed a small silver box in Wylie’s hand, then withdrew. Once the door had closed behind her, Wylie opened the box and proffered its contents. Stein half expected an engagement ring. But nestled in a bed of plush velvet was a beautifully manicured, identical twin sister of the bud that Goodpasture had given him.
“We call it the ‘Holy Grail’,” Yosemite Sam smiled.
Stein felt his heartbeat rev with the thought that he might be sitting between Nicholette’s killers. His mental projectionist threw up a reel of the two of them astride Nicholette’s bound, naked body, forcing her head under the faucet. He remembered the mental exercise his old pal Shmooie the Buddhist had taught him to modulate his pulse and he brought himself under its control. He mustn’t leap to conclusions. He must go from one stepping-stone to the next. What did he actually know?
They had a bud of Goodpasture’s weed. No-they had a bud that looked like Goodpasture’s weed. And even if it was an authentic Goodpasture orchid, and even if they were the two lawyer types Winston’s Old Lady had described, it did not mean that they were the pair who had stolen it. They could easily be the unsuspecting victims of the original thieves. Or the second or third or fourth parties down the line of distribution. But none of that was probable. Not given the time frame of events.
“Holy Grail,” Stein repeated without missing a beat. “Good name.”
“The vessel of truth,” Phibbs advertised. “In cannabis veritas.”
Stein lobbed them a softball to see if they were for real. “Tell me about its genealogy.”
“We’ve told the story so many times,” said, Yosemite Sam, with an air of world-weariness.
“It’s all in the brochure,” said Crewcut.
It took Stein four seconds to eliminate the possible-though-unlikely chance that Wylie and Phibbs had independently evolved, designed, cultivated, and hybridized a strain of cannabis identical to Goodpasture’s. Growers were like fishermen. They loved to tell their stories. These guys had their thumbs in a lot of places, but topsoil wasn’t one of them.
“Did you have any trouble getting it out from L.A.?” Stein casually asked.
“Why would you think it came from L.A.?” Yosemite Sam said.
Stein smiled enigmatically.
“What’s with all the questions?” steamed Phibbs. “Just smoke the shit and you’ll know everything you need to know.”
Wylie apologized for his partner. “He’s still annoyed at the two lesbians.”
Stein hinted that there might be some profitable enterprise in the near future. “Provided there was sufficient quality and quantity to justify the venture.”
“I doubt that would be an impediment,” Wylie assured him.
Stein stood to leave and carefully closed the silver box. “I trust you won’t object to my sharing this with my associates.”
“You mean you want to take it?” Phibbs blurted.
“We’d be delighted,” said Wylie, who had seen the badge and knew what it meant.
Early northern winter dusk had descended upon the city as Stein pedaled back to the Krasnapolsky. He left the bicycle with the doorman and stumbled gratefully into the warmth of the lobby, beating his sides with his arms like a distressed penguin. He took the elevator to his room and locked the door behind him. He had to be sure about this.
He took Goodpasture’s birthday bud out of its nest in his rucksack and placed it on the smooth, polished surface of the ebony coffee table. He then unclasped the silver box he had taken from Crewcut and Yosemite Sam and placed their bud alongside. Their color was identical, their shape and configuration as well. Their leaf structure and the veining of their resins reinforced the superficial evidence. He carefully clipped away from theirs the same
