She ignored all of us—slumped-over Paula, Dave, and me watching. The trembling in her hands halted as she removed the bill, carefully placing it on the table. She knelt down and rolled the second bill into a thin tube. She placed one end of the paper tube onto the crushed pill and the other in her left nostril, then she took a deep snort. She moved the tube to the other line, and snorted in one more time.
Then she licked the dollar bill, rubbed her nostrils, and sat down on her haunches. Her eyes were watery and red-rimmed, and she looked up at her husband with devotion and appreciation.
“Oh, honey, I love you so much,” she said.
“Me, too,” Dave said. Marjorie closed her eyes and rocked back on her heels, as the chemical pleasure rippled through her brain.
Dave looked at me. “A few months ago she fell off the steps. Compound ankle fracture. Her doctor put her on a heavy-duty painkiller, and when the prescription ran out and nothing else would work …”
“Did you try—”
“I swear to God, if you’re going to tell me if I tried rehab for my wife, I’ll shoot you right here and now.”
I kept my mouth shut.
“Of course I did, you idiot,” he said. “Rehab. There are no available beds, and when one miraculously pops up, you ever try dealing with an insurance company?”
“All the time,” I said. “All the time.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”
“David,” Marjorie said. “I’m doing okay. Honest. I’m doing okay.” She went over to the fireplace, retrieved the shotgun, went back to Paula. “I’m doing much better.”
“Good girl,” he said. He turned to me and said, “Go ahead, Lewis. Show us what you’ve found.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dave smiled. “Good try. You know how this whole goddamn adventure started? Really? I did a report back in high school, one of those greatest generation pieces, interviewed my idiot uncle. He had a diary of what he did back during the Korean War, when he got called up. Most of it was about him boozing and partying and the horses. Loved showing the girls the horses. Talked about Susan and Joyce and Delilah, how he showed them the fun of horses.”
“Horse being heroin.”
“Aren’t you the smart son of a bitch. And he wrote about having to hide everything when the petty officer came by. He got busted a couple of days later. Thus endeth the naval history of my idiot uncle.”
He paused. “But not the history of what he did. Now. You. Move.”
I moved.
I opened the cellar door, started descending, Dave behind me, occasionally poking me in the back with his revolver, making me wince from the tugging of my drain tubes. “What the hell do you plan to do after you leave?” I asked.
“You ever live with an addict? You get through the next ten minutes without a crisis, without a fight, without blood spilling, then that’s a good time. All you can do is hope and pray for the best. Take it one hour, one day at time.”
On the dirt floor now, I took my time, moving slowly, but Dave was having none of it. “Move it, Lewis. What, you think the cavalry is coming to save you? Not anytime soon.”
Over to the opening in the sill. Dave said, “Flashlight?”
“Hold on.”
The flashlight was on the ground, where I had left it; I grunted, leaned over, and picked it up, the cane still heavy in my grasp. “Nice cane you got there.”
“It’s from a friend.”
“Bulky piece of shit.”
“It does its job,” I said. I handed the flashlight over to him. He flicked it on, glanced in, and gave a low whistle. “Uncle Bert, you were a drunk and a bastard, but at least you got this right.”
He worked for a few minutes, pulling out one and then two and ultimately six bright yellow boxes containing scores and scores of morphine syrettes.
“Those are decades old,” I pointed out. “How do you know if they’re even potent anymore?”
“Doesn’t matter if I know or you know or if a chemist knows. All that counts is that certain folks think that what’s here is good stuff, enough to trade for the real deal. Enough to keep Marjorie maintained for months to come. This way we don’t have to go out on the street and deal with the sketchiest bastards you’ve ever come across, don’t have to worry about getting arrested or knifed or shot.”
“That shoot-out up on my parking lot?”
“Yeah, I had a quick business meeting with those Lowell jerks that didn’t go well. I told them what was going on, what I had planned. Half of ’em wanted to stick with the plan, but the other half wanted to come down here, guns blazing, and splatter you all over these nice old wooden walls.”
Dave stood up on his toes, flashed the light once again into the tiny cavern. “There. Clear.”
“Dave.”
“Still looking to apologize, ask for forgiveness? Way, way too late.”
“Then just grab the stuff, get out.”
Dave released a big sigh, knelt down, put the flashlight on the dirt, the revolver next to it, and took a large white plastic bag out of a coat pocket. He started stuffing the soggy cardboard boxes into the bag.
“What, and just go on like nothing happened? Well, shit happened. My wife got so hopped up that she blew off the head of that old lady, and now we’re breaking and entering, and threating you and your girlfriend.”
He looked up at me, hand in the bag. “We’ve been in this so-called drug war for decades, Lewis. Lots of casualties, lots of innocents dead. That’s the way it is.”
His hands were busy with stuffing the bag with the syrettes. The flashlight was on the ground, near me. The revolver was at his side.
Now.
Dave looked on, stunned, as I took the cane Felix leant me in both hands, grabbed the ornate, heavy top and the
