Michael Crichton - Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues

Which they proceeded to do. Super came up with three hundred bucks in cash and laid it on Murphy. Then Murphy, having already handcuffed him, beat the shit out of him—and then took him in. Next day Super found out he had three charges against him: possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and attempting to bribe an officer. When he asked the judge how much the bribe had been, the judge told him fifty dollars.

So far it seemed like Murphy was just another rough cop, playing it a rough way. But also in Super’s apartment was a glass jar with five hundred acid flats. Super hadn’t mentioned them to Murphy, but he found when he got home that the flats were all gone. And soon after that a friend in Roxbury told him about the sudden fast market in the midst of a dry season: all sorts of good acid around, and outasight smoking dope.

Anyway people had been telling these stories for a long time, and it was getting harder to simply dismiss them as street jive. The street people were unanimously in favor of taking Murphy apart, of busting his ass good. Partly because he’d become something of a legend and something of a symbol, but mostly because he had crossed the line and was playing dirty.

A rough and tough cop he could be, and for that he would be hated and respected. But as a thief with a badge, a guy who broke the rules and regulations we all play by, as that kind of person he could never last.

At least, everyone hoped not.

I WALKED OUT INTO THE Berkeley sun and stood there, just soaking it up. The light hurt my eyes at first and I sneezed and rubbed my nose.

“Gesundheit,” said a voice behind me.

I turned and she was in my arms, crying, kissing me and crying.

“Hi,” I said. It was happening very fast, all of it.

“What did they do to you?” she said.

“Nothing. Punched me in the cubes some. That seemed to be about all they knew how to do.” I laughed. Getting punched in the chops suddenly seemed absurd.

“Oh, my poor Peter,” she crooned, stroking my head.

“Umm,” I said, thinking, It was worth it just to feel this.

“My poor, poor Peter,” she went on. “You didn’t have to do all that.”

“What’dya mean?” I laughed. “I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter.”

“No, for me,” she said.

“Oh, Christ, forget it. One bail is better than two any day.”

“My poor Peter,” she said again, and kissed me.

My rented car was over in the lot. I had the keys back; we went and got into it.

“The hearing is set for tomorrow,” she said. “Did they tell you?”

“More or less,” I said. I started the car and drove out of the lot, not exactly sure where I was going. I wanted to go to a beach somewhere. A quiet beach.

“Hi,” she said, and grinned broadly this time.

We were off.

As I drove I said, “Who paid my bail? Musty?” I would have to wire home for some bread to pay him back. That was good of him. The last time I sat in there until I almost rotted, waiting for somebody to come up with a lousy fifty dollars.

I looked over at her and she was smiling. “What’s so funny?”

She just shook her head.

We crossed the Richmond Bridge, and then went through the hills, coming finally to the summit and turning right down an old farm road. The sea was visible from the road but we had to go way down, past miles of grazing land that stood between us and the cliffs down to the water. When we finally got down to the beach, it was deserted.

“Great beach, huh?” I said, but she was already out and running down the sand. It was almost a joyful run, but not exactly. I ran after her and caught her. The sun overhead was fierce and bright.

“Hey,” I said. “Who paid my bail?”

She just smiled.

“What’d you do a thing like that for?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a good thing to do with the money.”

“Seriously,” I said. I was suddenly in a serious mood. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously.”

“It’s a great mystery,” she said and giggled, broke free and began walking down the beach. I walked after her.

“Didn’t they tell you that they don’t give it back?”

“I know,” she said.

“Well, why?”

“Don’t get frantic.” She kicked the water as it slid up the sand. It sparkled off her feet, into the air, then splattered down onto the sand.

“I’m not frantic. I just want to know.”

“You’re making such a big deal out of it.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

And she giggled and started running again, and I chased her, and it all began to seem ridiculous. She was right; I was making a big deal out of it. I finally caught her and tackled her and she laughed very loud beneath me.

“That was a very nice thing you did for me,” I said.

She kissed me, pulled me down hard. “You bet your ass,” she said.

Very stoned, sitting on the beach just back far enough from the water so the sand was dry and still warm from the setting sun, watching the water hiss up toward us. She said, “I can’t get me out of your mind.”

I knew what she meant.

WALKING DOWN WHAT SEEMED LIKE miles of endless corridors, our footsteps echoing, I said, “I’m surprised you have a key.”

She laughed.

It was close to midnight, and the building around us was silent. The walls were painted light green, a little like jail; the building reminded me of an institution. “It used to be welfare offices or something,” she said, “before it was sold and converted.”

“Cheery,” I said.

“It gets better.”

As we passed them, she showed me the lounges for the performers. They looked like airport lounges or something, sort of plush but impersonal. Very soundproofed. I suddenly began to notice how everything off the corridors was soundproofed.

Then we came into another room, marked STUDIO A. Shock: it was like a heavy living room. Persian carpets on the floor, hangings on the walls, colors and textures. “Like a very nice cathouse,” I said.

“Close,” she said. And out came another joint. She lit up as I wandered around the room. There were microphones everywhere, and a stand for guitars, and a piano in the corner. I sat down at the piano.

“Do you play?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“You play anything?”

I shook my head, and plunked out “Chopsticks.” She laughed, and then said, “Stay there,” and left the room. I walked around, breathing in the luxury, and then began to drift into the sense of working with my group, the cigarettes and the quiet talk and everybody getting together, getting their heads and fingers loosened…

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was funny. I turned around and saw the drapes pulling back to reveal a glass wall, and her behind the glass, staring in at me. The lights in the other room were overhead, harsh and funny. I could see the room was filled with recording equipment, decks and spools and dials and consoles; she was wearing earphones. A flash on the mechanical sense: there was money in all this, and manufactured products, industry just like everywhere else. The flash faded. She made a gesture for me to go toward the microphone.

I tapped it. “Is this thing working?” I heard my own voice, from speakers mounted somewhere in the room. It was working.

“We, uh, just want to play a few numbers that we know well, because we’ve never played together before.”

She knew where that line came from, and she smiled. I began to get into it.

“My name is, uh, Lucifer Harkness…”

Something happened. The voice was warbling as it came back to me. She was flicking buttons. I laughed. “What’re you doing to me?”