Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“What deal? We didn’t make any deal.”

“Yeah we did. Feeding the ducks. There are all kinds of ways to make a deal, Alice. Sometimes it’s on paper, sometimes it’s in words, and sometimes it’s just understood. We had an understanding, and you know it.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Okay. How crazy am I? I have the books and I have you. I cool out here for a while, then go back to the States. I call the buyer, he gets on the next plane, and I get twenty thousand pounds. Crazy? Okay.”

He poked the wood around a little more, as he’d seen in the movies. He could feel Allie thinking behind him.

“Now let’s ask how crazy you are,” he said. “I’ll give you… give you… half the money… ten thousand pounds. All you have to do is get off the stuff, come to the States with me, and still be clean when I make the sale.”

Her hands were starting to shake. Soon her whole body would start in.

“Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that for me?”

She wasn’t grateful, she was suspicious. That was okay with Neal; suspicion was easier to deal with.

“I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What a surprise. Listen, you didn’t think I was going to trust Colin to hide me out and keep me safe, did you? Why would Colin take half when he could get it all? He’d stab me in the back- literally-the second I turned it on him. I was always planning to screw him, just like he was always planning to screw me.

“I didn’t plan on… liking… you. I didn’t want to leave you behind to be on the street for Colin until he used you up and booted you out. So I took you. We can say it was against your will if that’ll make you feel better, but we both know the truth.”

“Maybe you think-”

“Shut up and listen. So now that I’ve got you, what do I do with you? We have some time to spend together up here, and I don’t want to have to tie you up and all that shit, I don’t want to have to worry about you running off to the cops screaming that you’ve been kidnapped, and I especially don’t want you deciding that heroin and hooking are your true lifestyle and getting to a phone and taking your chances with old Colin.”

“Yeah, so…”

“Yeah, so I’m making you my partner. I want you to have a rooting interest in my survival. There are going to be a lot of angry people looking for me over the next few months, and I don’t want you standing there, pointing and saying ‘He went that-away.’”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Let’s just say I’m giving you a little motivation.”

She tried to come up with her best spoiled-brat smile, the same one he’d seen her use with Colin. “Motivate me with some smack.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need to trust you, and I won’t trust a junkie. Junkies will do anything. You get the money if and when you’re off the stuff.”

She was starting to shake but she was also listening. It took an effort. “So you think you can buy me.”

“Sure. Ten thousand pounds. Current exchange rate… about sixteen thousand dollars. You could be a very comfortable runaway for a long time on sixteen large, if you don’t have a habit to support. It’s called a fresh start, and they don’t come around too often. Not this easily, anyway. I’d take it if I were you.”

Her eyes were starting to tear up. Pretty soon, her knees would start to rattle and her ears would hum, and it would be no good talking to her. The, smack would do all the talking, and she would listen. It was starting already.

“What if I don’t take your ‘deal’? What if I say no?”

“You won’t. I’m only doing what you told me you wanted. Keep you off the smack and off the street.”

She put her hands over her ears and shook her head. Thinking was hard-her junkie body was telling her brain to get out of the way. “I can’t get off the junk, Neal. I can’t. I thought I wanted to, but I can’t!”

“I’ll help you.”

“What do you mean, help me?”

He turned away from the fire to look at her. “I mean help you. Couple of hours, things are going to get bad for you. You’re going to get pretty sick. I’ll help you get through it.”

She looked scared. It surprised him. He’d never seen her look scared before. She said, “Who are you, Marcus Welby?”

“I know a little bit about this stuff.”

“You were a junkie?”

“No, I wasn’t a junkie. I just know about it.”

Yeah, okay, Diane. More secrets, more holding back. More not trusting. Fuck you. Why is every woman in my life coming to visit just now?

Allie started to pace around the room. She ran her hands over the stone walls. “You bastard. You prick. You got me into this! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” Good goddamn question.

“I don’t want to quit!” she continued. Her pacing picked up. Neal saw she was starting to panic. “I can, I just don’t want to! I like it, all right? Who the fuck are you to do this to me?” Another good goddamn question.

Neal stirred his coffee. Allie sat on the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hung her head on her hands. She started to rock, slowly at first, then faster and harder, back and forth. Neal barely heard her crying, and when he looked over, he had to look hard to see the tears wetting her face. The pain in his chest felt like his heart breaking.

He fought it. It was like his body was wrapped in barbed wire and he couldn’t move. It was like being ten years old and watching his mother fight it and lose, and walk out of the apartment and come back stoned. It was the rage he felt, and the hatred and the contempt, and the heartbreak, and it wrapped him up so tightly, he wanted to scream. He remembered stroking his mother’s head with a wet cloth, and holding her hand and telling her it was all right, she could do it. But she couldn’t. Not for him, not for her, and he hated her for it. For leaving him. For loving it more than him. For what she did to get it. He heard Allie’s quiet, choking sobs, and saw her hugging herself, holding on to herself, and he couldn’t move. Damn it, why couldn’t he move? Grief and anger kept him pressed into the chair, and he couldn’t breathe, and he wanted to scream, to yell, to shout out his fury, and he couldn’t. Instead, he got up, and went over to her, and sat down beside her, and held her while she rocked. She grabbed his wrist and he rocked her then, back and forth, saying “I know, I know.”

He left her a little while later to build a fire in the oven to heat water for tea. He couldn’t find any sugar, but there was a large jar of honey in the cupboard. He spooned a large dollop into the tea, and held the cup while she sipped at it. Then he rocked her some more.

Colin was in trouble.

He knew it as soon as he wheeled his bike down the old home street and saw two Chinese hanging around the corner. They were Dickie Huan’s boys, and no mistake, and Colin flashed on the meat cleaver doing its bit on his fingers, and he turned the bike around. The two lazy effin’ bastards hadn’t seen him, and he headed toward East London and the old neighborhood, hoping Crisp would have the sense to do the same thing.

He didn’t, of course. His first instinct was to find Colin, so he trudged dutifully back to the flat. Some good hash and a pint had helped to soothe his pains, and as he turned the corner to home, he was even thinking that the new facial arrangement might make him more interesting-looking.

“He won’t be here,” Vanessa said, pouting. Her head hurt, her man looked as if he’d been at a football game, and she figured that Cola had fucked everything up, anyway.

“We’ll wait.”

They didn’t notice the leather-clad Chinese kids on the corner. Chinese usually just fought Chinese and stayed in their own neighborhoods, so Crisp had no problem with them. He just wanted to quaff a couple more pints, toss some dollers, and go to bed. It just wasn’t his night. They were good, these Chinese kids. They gave the two kweilo, the shitty-looking boy and his strange girlfriend, enough of a head start and then followed them into the building and up the stairs, timing it so they arrived at the door just as Crisp was opening it.