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

By this time the cat was speaking in sentences.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t got no money, honest I don’t—”

Herbie motioned him to be silent. “We don’t want your money,” he said. “We have an offer to make.”

The guy jumped up, and I waved the gun at him. “Don’t mess with me,” I said, doing my best to sound lethal. “I’m getting nervous with this piece.” He sat down again and Herbie went over and started fooling with the telephone. It was my rap.

“Okay,” I said, “here’s the deal. We’re willing to give you two hundred and fifty, a good fucking price, for every one of those bricks Murphy laid on you.”

“Bu-but,” he said, and I looked down at the piece.

“Murphy,” I said, “the cat who was just in here. We’ll give you two-fifty for every one of his bricks. Think about it. You could be out of town before they even knew you’d gone wrong on them. And you wouldn’t have to shoot that shit any more…” waving the gun in the direction of the hydrochloride. “Get it? You’d be a rich man. Nothing but pure meth, pure coke, anything you wanted. Pure. No more street shit for you, brother.”

He looked at me, or rather squinted, with new respect. I had touched his frame of reference. The word meth, the very idea of pure meth, filled his mind and a soft glow spread over his face. An involuntary “Wow!” seeped out of him.

“Okay,” I said, “now you got the picture. And all you gotta do for that bread is produce those bricks.” The words broke his reverie.

“Lissen, fe-fe-fellas, I’d like to he-help ya, ba-but I can’t tell you what I don’t know, da-dig? I don’t have a-nothing. Da-dig? I’m a dra-drop, dra-drop, I’m a dropoff man. They give me the ra-room and I pay out the bread. I never seen a bra-brick for two years now, da-dig? The cats come in here and I pa-pay ’em what I got.” He stopped and looked at the piece. “Honest.”

“Listen, Speedy,” I said, “we haven’t got the time, da-dig?” Herbie laughed. “Now who pays for this room and who gets the stuff and who sets you up with guys like Murphy?”

“Mm Ma-Murphy?” he said, or rather tried to say.

“The punk who was just in here, the pig you paid off. Who sets you up with him?”

“Th-th-that guy’s a pa-pig?” said Speedy, incredulous.

“Herbie,” I said, “he’s gonna need a little work.” Herbie nodded. He was enjoying the whole thing tremendously.

“You got the silencer, just in case?” he said, and I smiled grimly.

“Na-No! Fellas, ha, ha, honest!” He sounded like he had hay fever. “I’ll tell yah what I know. A sp-spade dude I met on the street seh-seh-sets me up, honest. Tha-that’s all.”

“Herbie,” I said, cold as ice. “Check the mattress.” Herbie went over to the mattress as I motioned Speedy off with a wave of the piece.

“Hey,” he said, “ha-who do you think you are?”

“Unless you wanna find out, you better shut up,” I said. Herbie lifted the mattress and there, lo and behold, were our bricks. “Pull ’em out!” I said to Herbie.

“Ha-hey!” said Speedy, suddenly realizing what was going on. “You ca-can’t take those. The ma-man’s coming by tonight for th-those!”

“Well, then, we’d better be on our way,” I said. “Herbie, put the stuff in the sack and let’s leave this punk to his works.” Spoken in the best tough-guy, out-of-the-corner-of-the-mouth tones I could muster. Speedy was not impressed.

“Ha-hey! What about my br-bread?”

“Shut up, punk,” I said, but just as Herbie turned his back on him the freak lunged for the bag of bricks, and they were both down on the floor.

“Up,” I shouted. “Get up unless you wanna eat some lead,” and he stood up, leaving Herbie rolling around on the floor, laughing.

“Too much,” Herbie said. “Eat some lead. Too much.”

Speedy looked at Herbie, then back at me, and stepped forward with a lead-be-damned gleam in his eyes. “Pa-punk, heh?” he gurgled. “Punk, punk, alla ta-time punk, heh? Whozza pa-pa-unk?”

He was only about a yard away from me and I was thinking we had to get out of there fast. “Stay back,” I said. “Back!”

But he kept on coming and finally I felt myself getting excited and desperate at the same time, and a strange feeling was welling up inside of me, power, a power feeling, his fate in my hands, and all of a sudden I knew that his fate was in my hands, and I felt the rush of it, I’m going to do it I rushed, I’m going to do it, and I pulled the trigger thinking simultaneously O my God I’ve done it O my God what have I done I’ve done it—

And just then a fine stream of water arced out of the gun, hitting Speedy in the knees.

He was so freaked he didn’t understand for a minute, but then he knew what had happened and jumped at me. Herbie was on the floor again laughing, and I knew that I was going to have to put Speedy away for a while to get us out of there in one piece. Fortunately speed freaks are not noted for their muscle tone. A quick right to the temple brought him to the floor and then I dropped down on him, knee first, and caught him in the crotch. Another right and a left to the jaw and he was gone. It’d look better that way, I thought, when the man showed up. I pulled Herbie up from the floor and we ran.

We were almost to the door when the first gunshot echoed through the hallway, and the banister nearby splintered. We dropped to the ground, ducking back into the shadows.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Herbie said. He was too scared to say anything else.

I looked up toward the third floor. A cloud of pale blue smoke hung in the air. I started to move downward again, and there was another gunshot. This time I saw the flame spurt from the rifle. Speedy was up there, all right. But his shot was wide—he couldn’t hit anything in his condition.

“Come on,” I said, “he can’t hit anything.”

“The hell he can’t,” Herbie said, crouched down behind the splintered banister.

All around us, the apartment building was beginning to wake up. We heard people moving and talking in their rooms. No doors opened, though; everybody was afraid to look outside. On the other hand, they’d certainly be phoning the heat.

“Come on, Herbie!”

For a moment he stayed curled up, paralyzed, and then he sprang forward. We sprinted downstairs. There were two more shots. And then, just as we were going out the door, a final shot and Herbie shouted, “I’m hit, I’m hit!” He stumbled and fell through the front door and lay on the steps.

I was already halfway down the steps when I heard him cry out. I ran back up, knowing that Speedy would now be racing from the stairwell to the outside window. I grabbed the bag that Herbie had dropped, and helped him to his feet. He was wincing with pain.

“Got me… in the shoulder… bad…” Herbie said. I put my arm around his waist and got him down the steps and off to the car. There was one more shot as we drove off into the night.

THE NEAREST PLACE WAS SANDRA’S apartment. It took us about ten minutes to get there, ten very bad minutes, with Herbie trying to be manful about things but not succeeding very well. He kept talking about how he could feel the blood running down his back. I wanted to take him to a doctor but he said No, no doctors, No—and anyway we couldn’t go to a doctor with a carful of dope, so I drove to Sandra’s. I got him up the steps to the apartment. John wasn’t there; no one answered the buzzer. I reached up above the door, found the key, and unlocked the door.

John and Sandra wouldn’t dig Herbie’s blood all over the apartment, but that was just too bad for now. I threw the sack of dope inside, then helped Herbie down the hallway to the bedroom. He was groaning softly, and covered with sweat.