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

I knew where the lost-bag rooms were, and I decided to try United first. I sprinted down a long corridor, turned a corner, and found the office. There was nobody there. TWA’s depot was just a little farther on down, so I decided to check it out, then return to United if nothing was happening there. But the seemingly endless construction that was always going on at Logan had transformed TWA’s lost-bag office into a coffee shop, so I stopped a porter and asked him where it had gone.

“I just flew in on TWA and they’ve lost one of my bags,” I said. “Where do I find it?”

“TWA’s baggage over there,” he shrugged, pointing around a corner. I ran over, and stopped in front of a door which said MISCELLANEOUS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The door was open but partially blocked by a low table, and inside there were racks and racks of bags, bags of all kinds, bags everywhere.

And standing knee-deep in this ocean of bags was Sukie. On each side of her was a man in a raincoat. One of them was putting on the cuffs and before I could turn away and get out of there I saw the tight, familiar, ugly neck, heard the rough, humorless voice. And knew that Murphy had busted another freak.

I WAS BACK OUT IN the Lotus and on my way back to Cambridge before I really thought about what I was doing. And even when I did start thinking, it was only about one thing: John, and the shit I was going to knock out of him. I hadn’t been able to understand, on the way to Logan, why he’d sent Sukie back; but now I didn’t care. He was alone when I found him in the room, and he didn’t even look up when I came in. He was tearing the place apart. The radio was on, giving the weather report. John was pulling out dresser drawers, removing the bricks that were taped to the back.

I just stared at him.

“Well,” he said, “let’s get it on.”

“Get what on, half-ass?”

John stopped and looked at me. “You’re alone, right? So the chick’s busted, right? So let’s get it on and get this place cleaned up, so we can get out of here.”

I froze. “You bastard. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t sent—”

“This wouldn’t have happened, Peter, if your chick hadn’t already given the pigs her name, her Berkeley address, and our Cambridge telephone number before she thought to call me up and ask what she should do about her ‘lost bag.’ So I told her to go back. What the hell, why not? It didn’t make any difference at that point.”

“She gave them our phone number?”

“Yeah,” John said. “That’s a smart little pussy you’ve got. She really set us up—you with your record—your recent record—and me holding.”

“She didn’t know…”

“And you didn’t tell her, did you? That’s why she didn’t know. You didn’t tell her the first goddamn thing about it.”

“I didn’t know she’d have to check a bag—”

“The fuck you didn’t. You sent her a check for ten thousand. That’s forty bricks. You just overlooked it, you were in such a ball-crushing rush—”

“Now listen, brother, you talk like that, you’re gonna have to pay some dues. I sent her the check, yeah, but I didn’t know—”

“Help me clean this place out,” John said in a voice that was final. He was throwing the bricks onto the center of the floor.

I still couldn’t get very excited about John’s problems. “Listen, man, you don’t seem to be digging what’s happened to the chick. She’s in jail, for Chrissake, and—”

“And we won’t be any good to her,” John said, taking out the jars and bottles from the medicine cabinet, “if we’re in there with her. Now come on.”

We cleaned the place out. All together, we found sixteen bricks of good smoking dope, a hundred caps of synthetic mescaline, five hundred and fifty caps of psilocybin, thirteen peyote buttons in cellophane, four ounces of hash, and some Thorazine. John got one of his friends to drive it out in a couple of suitcases to John’s uncle’s house in Lexington.

When that was done we both had a big belt of his Scotch. The room was disordered; John kicked some clothes off the couch and sat down. “If Murphy busted her, you’d better do what I’m doing,” he said. “Take off for a day or two, at least stay away from this room. It’s not going to be too cool for a while.”

I didn’t give a shit how cool it was, I had other things on my mind. “Look,” I said, “we’ve got to get her out of jail as fast as we can. She won’t know what to say, and she’ll fuck herself over in a matter of hours without some advice. If we can’t get her out and talk to her before the arraignment on Monday, she won’t know enough to plead guilty. And if that happens, the case’ll go up through the courts, dig?”

“Yeah,” said John. He was digging it. He was digging the fact that if that went down, we’d never be able to buy her off, no matter what lawyer we eventually got for her. And she’d take the full rap for the bust, probably even do some time. I waited for John to say something, to figure something out. There was a very long pause, and then he just said, “Yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

John looked pained, really pained, for the first time since I’d walked in the door. “Peter,” he said. “The pigs have overvalued the bust, as usual. They’ve announced that they picked up fifteen-thousand-dollars’ worth of dope. So that means it’ll cost us at least three thousand to get her off. Plus her bail, which as you have noticed is essential. Now. I don’t know if her bail’s been set yet, but you can bet your ass it’ll be at least ten thousand. So that’s another grand we need right there—”

“So?”

“So this is Saturday,” John said.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“The market’s closed.”

“Now wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me you’re broke? You?”

“I’m saying I won’t have a nickel until Monday.” John paused, then added, “After ten o’clock.”

I couldn’t believe he’d said that. I couldn’t believe any of the things that had gone down that afternoon, but that was the end. Finally I said, “Far out.” Nothing more.

John nodded. “It is far out. It’s a drag, too, but it’s what’s happening. I’ll do everything I can. But I can’t do anything till Monday.”

“Far out,” I said again. Then, almost as an afterthought, “You son of a bitch.”

“Peter,” John said slowly, “it’s all I can do. It’s all I can do.” He got up and put on his jacket. On the way out he paused and said, “If you want me for anything, I’ll be at Sandra’s.”

Then the door closed, and I was alone.

THE FIRST THING I DID was pour myself three fingers of John’s J & B, put on some blues, and sit down to try to get my head together. Which was easier said than done. I was flashing on all the things that had gone down, on all the ridiculous little twists and turns the trip had taken in the course of a few hours. Sukie busted. Murphy on our backs again. John broke—that was what really blew my mind, that John could be broke. It was too much. Finally I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere, that I had to get ripping or I’d just drown. But I just sat there, immobilized.

The worst thing in the world is not to be moving when you’ve got to move, when you’ve got to do something. Like hitching. I used to hitch a lot, whenever I was desperate to get moving. Once when I was bumming around Vermont I ran into this fag, an old guy who was really hurting for somebody to come-on to. He picked me up, wanted to know where I was going, and I just said, Wherever you are. Which was all he needed to get it on. Before I knew it we were off the road and at his house, and he said I should go on in and make myself comfortable, he had a few phone calls to make.