He came with me to the beach too. When I'd go for a swim, he'd follow to the water's edge and bark when I left him on shore. Up and down the sand he'd run, crying and barking. I'd have to come out and carry him into the surf with Inc.
Now that I had my own dope, I could spend time with Canadian Jacques without feeling as if I were with him for drugs alone. My private stash was not going to last long, though, especially since I'd given half to Neal. I contemplated making a run to Bangkok to supply myself for the year, but I lacked a connection, a person in Thailand to sell me dope. Thai connections were cherished and guarded, probably the
Goa Freaks favoured scam talk above other topics of conversation, and one day, while I was discussing runs with Jacques, he referred to his contact in Chiang Mai, an employee at a certain hotel. 'You can go to him, if you he said. 'Mention my name. He knows me well.'
I couldn't believe what Jacques had so casually given me. Speechless, I felt as if he'd handed me a family heirloom. People paid money for that information or grovelled for it. 'Oh . . . hey, thanks,' I said, memorizing the name and place and making Jacques a bhong. Wow—I had a Thai connection.
I felt Big Time as I imagined flying to Thailand to buy my own load. If I bought a sizeable quantity, I could party for the whole season without scrounging from friends. I could sell a portion and keep myself solvent.
I decided to include Neal in the plan in order to ease his financial troubles. Though I hated leaving Bach, I made an overnight trip to Poona to see Neal.
What a shock! I'd known in Bombay that things had gone awry for Neal, but I hadn't realized the sorry state he'd sunk to. I found him in the pigpen he'd made of his hotel room.
'This place looks like a suitcase exploded,' I said, gazing at the mess. 'Don't you let the maid in?'
'Never let too much lying around,' he explained. 'I could never collect everything I'd need to hide from her.'
No, he hadn't sold any of the dope I'd given him; in fact, what I'd given him was just about gone.
I sat on the messy bed and noticed I was the only one sitting . . . With the curtains shut, Neal and Eve shuffled through the dimness like characters from
'What are you doing in Poona, anyway?' I asked Neal.
'Um know. Not much. The usual, whatever that is.' He giggled. 'Do you go to the ashram?' None of them were wearing malas or orange clothes, I noticed.
'No. Not really.'
'Then why did you come here?'
He shrugged. 'I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and now we're just here.' Another giggle and he circled the bed. He took hold of a piece of paisley material without seeming to notice it. He cleared a space on the cluttered bureau, looked around, paused, shoved a candle into the space, and strolled to the other side of the room. 'It's not bad here,' he said. 'Kind of peaceful. We don't go out much.' He picked up a yellow lungi and dropped the paisley. He back stepped to the bed, wrapping the lungi around his arm before letting that drop too. 'Want a toot of coke?' he asked, after discovering his glass block beneath a pile of debris.
'Uh, sure,' I said, wondering how he afforded coke.
He attempted to chop some. CLACK, CLATTER, CLINK. The razor blade slid from his grasp and fell among a hodgepodge collection of Eve's little objects. Rather than bunt for it, he continued chopping with the jagged end of a broken ball point pen. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.
'Uh . . . Neal. Let's put a scam together. I want to go to Thailand and bring back enough dope to last me the year. I'm tired of buying it from other people.'
'Okay,' he said, stopping to look at me a moment. He put down the block, then shock his bangs and examined the ceiling fan. 'Whatever you want to do.' He scratched his head and sauntered off, bumping into Eve, who ambled similarly in the other direction. Now he was in the bathroom, using the piece of pen to rub at a streak in the sink.
'I think I have enough money for a pound of smack,' I continued. 'I'll split it with you when I get back.'
I watched Neal grab a syringe and aim it at the ceiling fan like a machine gun. Aha! Syringe. They were fixing coke! No wonder they were so spacey. They had to be doing a lot of it to be that weirded-out. How were they paying for it?
Neal turned to look at me for another half-second and said, 'Thanks, cutie.' Then he placed the syringe on a tilting stack of papers and came to sit beside me and resumed chopping. THUNK, THUNK.
Back in Goa, I prepared for the trip. I'd meet Neal in Bombay in two weeks. I had just enough time to take Bach to a veterinarian for shots and a check-up. In addition to fleas and ear mites, the poor thing had a stomach infestation.
'Where did you buy this animal?' asked the vet.
'Crawford Market in Bombay.'
He wrinkled his nose.
I hated to leave Bach while I made the run. I asked Laura if she'd take care of him. She agreed. Laura and Trumpet Steve hadn't been together since Bali. They took turns with their son, Anjuna. After Steve had returned from San Francisco with the boy, Laura had taken charge of him. She and Anjuna lived in a house behind Joe Banana's. My heart was heavy as I dropped off Bach on the way to the airport.
I found Bombay crowded with people returning from the monsoon. Neal wasn't at the Ritz Hotel as he was supposed to be, and I had to call him twice in Poona before he showed up. He, Eve, and Ha took a room down the hall, and it soon resembled their room in Poona dark and overwhelmed by disorder. Room-service trays accumulated one on top of another by the door.
'Why don't you put the frays in the hall?' I asked. 'A forest is growing on the roll at the bottom.'
'I will.' Neal giggled. 'I always mean to.'
One day I arrived at Neal's door at the same time as an Indian with a fat stomach and a sleazy air. We entered together, and the Indian moved the rubble from a chair and sat, one foot crossed over a knee.
Neal thanked him for coming and told him my name.
'Rachid Biryani,' the Indian said, leaning forward to shake my hand.
'Nice to meet you, darling. Want a line of cocaine? I have quality pharmaceutical. The best.'
'Um . . . sure.'
Rachid handed Neal a packet before opening another to make me the line.
Neal told him, 'Add this to my bill, okay?'
'It's getting quite big, my friend,' Rachid answered, grinning with only half his face and then winking at me. 'Pretty soon you will owe me a Mercedes.' He chuckled aloud and slapped Neal on the thigh. Aha! So that's how Neal was getting coke. On credit from this cretin.
Rachid asked me, 'How's the cocaine, darling? The best, didn't I tell you. Whenever you want cocaine or heroin, you come to me, Rachid Biryani, give you a good price.'
I turned to avoid his leer and spotted a metal mound. 'Oh, Neal!' I exclaimed. 'You said you'd put those room-service trays in the hall. Instead, you have twice as many. The kitchen is going to run out soon.'
By the end of the week, I concluded that Neal had lost his Barbies. He wasn't losing them; they were gone. One afternoon he stopped dead in the street and yelled at the top of his voice to whomever had the misfortune of being behind him at the time. He continued shouting as a crowd gathered.
'I pleaded with them to go away and leave us alone,' he told me later that day, explaining the incident. CLATTER, SQUEAL, CLACK, CLATTER, SCREECH. 'I held up my kid and begged them.'
'Begged who?' I asked.
He paused before answering with a senile, 'The C.I.A.' Theo he added, 'The D.E.A. The F.B.I. You know. All of those.'
'The C.I.A.'s been following you around Bombay?' I asked in a mocking tone.
He became serious and told me, 'For a long time now. Everywhere I go, they're there. Every time I walk down a street, they're behind me. Every time I sit in a restaurant, they're at the next table. I couldn't stand it
