'I can't.'
'I'll tell you what. I can probably give you your five thousand at the end of the week, but if you want, I 'll give you four thousand today instead. But then that will be it. Five thousand next week or four thousand today.'
What a choice! I would spend a thousand dollars for two days of dope. I accepted.
I bought a couple of grams from Dealer and met Perfect with the news that I was leaving Toronto. We spent one more night at the farm (ugh!), and the next morning Perfect drove me to the train. He even paid back the money he'd borrowed.
I couldn't wait to say goodbye to Canada. Even New York had to be heuer than that. Half a day later, I arrived at Grand Central Station and taxied to Momsy's. It was great to see her, and we chatted excitedly for a while.
'Oh, Momsy, I wish you could see my house in Goa. I have a safe behind a picture, a Laotian wedding canopy over my bed, and my toilet flushes. Stairs . . .'
'You didn't notice,' she said, pouting and waving her arm in a peculiar fashion.
'What?'
'My new ring! How do you like it?' She see-sawed her hand. 'Onyx and diamonds in gold.'
That evening I pondered the problem of finding a dope connection in New York. I needed one fast. What if I couldn't contact the guy who'd helped me last time? Uh-oh!
'I forgot to tell you,' came Momsy's voice through the door of the bathroom, where I sat rationing myself a sniff of dope. 'You had a phone call last night. That's why I wasn't surprised to see you. I knew you couldn't be a liar.'
'Who was it?'
'MENTAL!' I flew Out of the bathroom. 'Oh, Momsy. This is important. Mental is here! Where? Oh, please say you know where.'
'I have his phone number.'
'Oh, Momsy. You saved my life! Where's the number? Where's the number?'
I called immediately. The number was of a hotel. I asked for the name Mental had given Momsy.
'Hello? Tee hee.'
'Mental! I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice. I'm desperate here, you have no idea. I’m dying to see a fellow Goa face.' I told him I'd be on the next flight to L.A. Saved!
I kissed Momsy and told her I was sorry I couldn't stay longer. I call Aunt Sathe. I'd already written her an apology for stranding her in Bermuda. I still had no clue about Lila's disappearance, and I didn't want to hear the details of Aunt Sathe's harrowing journey. Within hours I was airborne.
Mental had given me the name of a hotel near his. As I taxied from the airport, I dreamed of a snoot of real dope. I couldn't wait. I'd inhaled my last crumb on the plane and fervently hoped Mental would be in his room when I called.
He was. I leapt on him as soon as he entered my door. 'MENTAL! I've never been so happy to see anyone in my life!' I kissed him hello. 'Got any dope? I'm dying!'
'Tee hee, of course. You paid for it. Comes from Chiang Mai.'
'You can't imagine the garbage I had in Canada,' I told him, 'and it was probably the dope I'd brought in myself—cut three times. I low discouraging. Oh, heaven! This tastes so good. Tell me about Giuliano.'
'Giuliano's out to get you for ripping him of. He . . .'
'RIPPING HIM OFF? I did not!'
'That's what he says. Tee hee, said you took his suitcase.'
'That's RIDICULOUS! I hadn't even SEEN Giuliano for weeks before I left Bangkok. How could I have taken his case? I had Mitchell's case.'
'Tee hee, then maybe Mitchell took Giuliano's case. Somebody took it.'
I gasped. 'Mitchell and Giuliano shared a hotel room. Mitchell must have taken Giuliano’s case and told me it was his. But I had no idea.'
'Tee hee. Whatever. Giuliano's upset. He's blaming you.'
'I would never rip him off!'
'Don't worry about it. Tee hee, there's not much he can do.'
Mental considered me a partner. I hadn't realized when I'd seen him the money that I was investing in a scam. To me, I was helping a friend. But I certainly needed help myself at that moment. If I'd had another few days of the way I'd been spending money, I couldn't have afforded the airfare hack to India. Here was a Goa friend treating me like a partner in his successful scam—neat-o.
He left me a generous stash, and we planned to meet the next day.
It wasn't long, however, before I realized things wouldn't be so easy. Mental wasn't called Mental for nothing.
The next day, the two of us set out to prepare our product. Since Mental had carried the dope into the country stuffed up his ass, it had compacted into cylinders as hard as rocks. Each one had been encased in several layers of condoms, and while he'd already disposed of the outer layer (thankfully), each cylinder was still sheathed in two rubbers. Mental spread newspaper on a table, and we began to unwrap our treasure.
'Don't you have something better than newspaper?' I suggested.
'Tee hee, it'll do.'
'What if the powder absorbs ink? Nobody will want inky black smack.'
'Don't worry about it. Man! This stuff is really hard.'
I poked at the oblong roll of powder Mental had freed from its rubbers. It was impossibly hard. 'This is like granite,' I said. 'I can't believe your body took our nice soft heroin and turned it into sleet balls. How long did it spend inside you anyway?'
'Tee hee, eons. I drank a bottle of diarrhoea medicine to make sure I wouldn't have to shit.'
I laughed loud. 'How much time was it that you didn't go to the bathroom?'
'A lOOOOOOOOng time. Maybe a week.'
As each load came out of its rubber package, it maintained its shape exactly—we had eight white forms, each in the exact shape of a turd. I fell sideways on the carpet laughing. 'Wasn't that uncomfortable?' I asked.
'You're telling me! I couldn't wait to crap. Tee hee, that's all I dreamed about on the flight in . . .' I bent double with laughter as Mental continued. 'As soon as I got to the hotel I ate a box of Ex-Lax. Most have spent five hours on the toilet the next day. What a relief, tee hee. Aren't you going to help me with this?'
Barely able to sit up, I looked again at our concrete-like product. 'I think it's petrified.' My next guffaw New a dost cloud from the turd ball nearest me, and I fell to the carpet in hysterics again.
Now Mental laughed too. 'It took a day to clear the stink from the bathroom,' he said. 'No wonder the maid forgot to clean the tub. Tee hee, I bet the people next door moved to another floor.'
Mirth soon left me, though. 'We have a real problem here,' I said. 'This stuff isn't crumbling like it ought to. It's remaining turd-shaped.'
'People like rocks,' said Mental. 'That means it's pure. Maybe they'll like it better this way, tee hee.'
'These aren't rocks, they're boulders. And they're shaped like shit.'
'Yeah, and we have to make it powder to cut it.' He retrieved a shoe from under the bed.
'Uh-oh. What are you going to do with that? No, no . . . Mental, wait.' I jumped as Mental slammed the heel onto a turf-ball. 'NO . . . ' The ball shattered into pieces, spraying fragments in all directions. 'No, Mental . . . The dope's flying away, and not with your dirty shoe . . .'
BAM. 'It's working, tee hee, see?' BAM.
'You're losing too much . . .'
'It's okay.' Mental folded the newspaper over the dope and whacked it again. The newspaper ripped, and our precious smack spewed off the table into the rug.
'Wait! At least let me find a plastic bag. Maybe there's a shower cap in the bathroom . . .'
Eventually I limited him to gentle taps, and an hour later we had the stash in more-or-less powder form. We spent the rest of the afternoon digging bits out of the carpet and snorting layers off the curtain and nearby furniture.
'Now we have to weigh it,' said Mental.
