Anamnesis: A Novel (8 page)

He pushed his desk chair away and stood.
Our time with him was up. We followed him to the elevator. His demeanor was
opposite of when we first arrived. He was forcedly happy and optimistic. Now it
was obvious he was upset, his brain likely cycling through all the bad shit he
wanted to ‘put behind’. I’d be pissed too if someone came out of nowhere to
dredge up something nasty. I was when Olivia came.

Brian smacked the ‘down’ button
highlighting it orange. “Whatever you two are getting into, I’d be careful.
When I walked into D.P., I was confident I’d get answers and have things my
way. Not only did they turn me around, but they made me feel like a complete
idiot who’d lose everything if I tried to put up a fight.”

A chime, and the doors slid open. Brian
left without a goodbye.

“Well, I think
that went well!” Olivia was beaming. She flicked through her smartphone at what
looked like a calendar and spoke to me in a distracted tone. “We got the name
of the pharmaceutical company and at least we have a name for the drug.
Whiteout sounds like a working name though, but it’s something. Too bad he
didn’t remember the actual name.”

“It does sound kind of blatant,” I
admitted. “Fits the product.”

By the time we hit the first floor she had
a search open on D.P. Pharmaceutical Industries. We stepped out of the elevator
and she hovered beside it, scrolling through the search results. I leaned over
to see and caught a whiff of her perfume. It was like her tea; too floral and
sweet for my taste.

“No official website. No drugs on the
market.” She thumbed quickly through results, clicking on a page here and
there. My phone was a clamshell piece of shit that made texting look high tech.

“They could’ve gone under at some point.”

“It seems like it. Let me search for that
specifically.”

I looked around the first floor, uneasy.
It might’ve been because half the lights were turned off for the evening,
making the place big and shadowy. It also could’ve been my mind turning Brian’s
last words into something more foreboding than he probably intended. Or that I
hadn’t had a smoke in over an hour.

The people making Whiteout were bad
people. The kind of people who wouldn’t want their secrets found out, or their
work put to a stop. Like any drug cartel, they’d be powerful and ready for a
fight. How much could a goody campaign manager and jacked up drug dealer do
against them?

My brain drifted even farther. This would
be the perfect place for someone to kill us. No one around. After hours. Maybe
Brian or the lady upstairs would find us when they left work for the night. Or
more likely, our bodies would be melted in acid or thrown into the Puget Sound.

“Ah! Found something.”

I jumped, jammed my elbow against the wall
behind me. Olivia furrowed her brow then rolled her eyes. “They went under a
little over seven years ago.”

“That’s about when I woke up,” I said.
“Why did they go under?”

“This article in the Seattle Times isn’t
clear. It just says, ‘Up and coming Seattle pharmaceutical company has
announced its closure after experiencing funding issues credited to the
recession and economic hardship.’ Looks like the bank seized the building.”

D.P. dissolving seven years ago did not
help us. If they created Whiteout, someone saved the recipe and was making it
under their own terms. This brought up more questions and no answers. I’d hoped
by at least knowing who originated the drug, we could go from there.

The air was too hot in the building. I was
stifled and headed for the doors, leaving Olivia flicking through her phone. I
made it five feet before she looked up and shouted for me.

“I need a smoke,” I said as I burst
through the doors.

The frigid air and open space felt much
better. I retrieved a cigarette, noting I had only two left, and lit it. The
nicotine soothed my nerves instantly. I inhaled the thing in two long pulls and
finished it before Olivia met up with me, still pulling on white leather
gloves. I dropped the ashen husk of the smoke on the ground and lit another.

“Do you have to smoke so much?”

“Do you have to be so controlling?”

She made a small
hmph
noise and put
more distance between us, then made a point of holding her hand over her nose
and mouth. “This isn’t a complete setback. I can do more research on D.P. I’m
sure I’ll find something.”

“Good.”

“I was thinking you could maybe, I don’t
know, see if you can find out anything on the streets?”

My laugh came out in a hoarse bark. I
imagined what Olivia thought the ‘streets’ were like. Set aside the humor, it
was a valid option. Donovan already knew a little. I bet he, or one of his
contacts, knew more. I was generally well liked, even outside of my own circles.
“I will. It’s the best chance we have at finding who’s dealing it now. I can
try to work my way up the ladder to see who’s supplying.”

I saw a beaming smile peeping out from
beneath her hand. It reminded me of something I noticed before. Olivia seemed
to smile a lot. Not always in a good way, but reflexively. Her attitude was too
upbeat to be realistic for someone who’d been drugged and abused multiple
times. It made me realize there could be more layers to her than expensive cars
and flowery teas.

“We need to head back. I have a meeting
with a client tonight. After that I’ll see what I can find out about D.P.”

“This late? Must be important.”

Olivia nodded. “The mayor running for a
seat in the Senate? It’s my biggest project yet. I’m in charge of his entire
announcement gala. It’s more work than I’ve ever had.”

Second cigarette finished, we went to her
car and headed back to Seattle. I didn’t harass her once on the way back,
though she provided good opportunities for a fight when she made comments on
how her car now smelled like cigarettes and perhaps I should consider quitting.

This time she drove me all the way to Belltown
instead of a shady drop off in a parking garage. She pulled into the loading
zone out front.

“Ethan, please consider looking at missing
persons reports for yourself. If my research on D.P. and your efforts on the
streets don’t pay off, we’re going to have to turn to ourselves for more.”
There was no smile this time. “It’s your decision of course, but if it comes
down to it I will do it for you. Whether you want me to or not.”

Fuck me. The next layer of Olivia
revealed. “I’ll do it.”

After I drank myself into oblivion and was
just numb enough to keep going.

“Goodnight, Ethan.”

Inside my apartment, after I collapsed in
my easy chair, I checked my phone. There was a voicemail from Donovan.

“Hey, E.” It was quiet in the background.
I wondered where he was. “Haven’t seen you in a while. No one’s seen you around
much actually. Hope you’re selling my inventory and not getting loaded off it.
You know what I’ll do. Got that bench ready for you.”

It amazed me how Donovan could keep a
light, joking tone while he threatened my life. And it wasn’t an idle threat.

Seven years ago, I woke up and was missing
four years of my life. It was as though someone put me in hyper sleep in a
sci-fi flick and forgot about me. When I came to I was on a bench at Alki
Beach. Confusion took over and I went ballistic. Where the fuck had I been?
What was I doing there? I knew my name, had fragmented memories of my life
before, but big chunks were gone.

More than chunks. That word doesn’t
describe the feeling of having
years
missing from your life. There were
flashes of memories, no more than a still frame, from the missing years. I
couldn’t put them in order. I didn’t know what they meant. There were images from
my childhood and teenage years, none of them meaningful.

What I did know was that I was in pain,
agony like I’d never experienced before. My body was alien to me, almost as
though I’d just teleported back in and forgot how to use it. My brain couldn’t
reconcile what was happening. I was sweating and my heart raced as I stumbled
around the beach.

Donovan was a dealer then. Still small
time. His uncle and father gave him a chance to work his way up like everyone
else did. He’d been working the beach when he spotted me. He thought I was
coming off a bender or something and gave me a few Xanax out of pity and a swig
of vodka from his flask. Back then he was nicer.

Ethan, meet
benzodiazepines
.
Meet booze. Meet your new friends that will help you exist.

That soothed me and lessened my panic. We
got to talking. Donovan figured I was experiencing withdrawal, but I told him I
didn’t remember being addicted to anything. When he found out I had nowhere to
go, he let me tag along with him. Sometimes I slept over at his place as long
as I wasn’t intrusive. He gave me work here and there.

Donovan had a way of making you think he
was your friend. You’d be totally convinced he had your back until you did
something wrong and suffered the consequences. Donovan was no one’s friend. He
made it easy to overlook that with his humor and seemingly light attitude.

I wasn’t serious or committed to dealing
at first. I did some panhandling. There was an art to making the perfect
cardboard sign. In some places you looked right at the people walking by. In
others, you stared at the ground. I learned a lot about people during those
times. I dealt a bit on the side with Donovan as my supplier. I needed just
enough money to keep my bloodstream toxic enough to get me through the day.

To my credit, there was one decent thing I
did for myself. When I wasn’t working, to fill my time I went to the library
and read. To leave my own world for hours at a time was heaven. I checked out
self-help books en masse. Meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, dream
analysis. Everything. I drank them up. It was an addiction. Eventually I
started that fucking blog. Since shouting into the internet gave little back, I
soon gave up.

Donovan climbed the ranks and brought me
along. That micromanaging bastard got a thrill out of it. Eventually he owned
me. He was my only source of income. I didn’t know who I was, was afraid to go
to the police now that I was a criminal. They had my prints from shootings and
I was a known associate of Donovan’s family.

I had my books and my apartment, but it
all came back to getting more money from Donovan to keep it up. Normally a
person in my position had to be ready to bounce at any moment. I hated that
feeling. I liked my apartment, as shitty as it was. Donovan knew that.

Since the day he found me, whenever I
tried to go clean and break out, he reminded me they could always take me back.

What that meant now was, we’ll kill you.
We’ll kill you and leave you on that bench at Alki.

I checked the time on my phone. Plenty of
time for a trip to the liquor store.

After waking up at 10:00am I was confident
anyone who thought themselves a morning person was mentally disturbed. I
gripped blankets tighter around my body, halfway up my face, and tried to
figure out what woke me up. It hadn’t been another nightmare. That, I would’ve
remembered.

Outside, the city grumbled as it, too,
went about its morning routine. The echoing screech of garbage trucks in
alleyways penetrated the thin apartment walls and did nothing to help my
headache. From my bed I saw Seattle’s typical overcast grayish white sky
peeking from behind skyscrapers. Not raining. It didn’t rain here as much as
people everywhere else thought. The light made the concrete and metal city look
even more industrial. Charmless. I definitely liked it better at night.

I closed my eyes and tried to will myself back
to sleep. I was warm and comfortable. I had nowhere to be. Just a few more
hours of sleep then…

Bzzbzzbzz. Bzzbzzbzz.

I sat up just in time to see my vibrating
phone clatter and fall off the kitchen counter. Cursing the phone, I tossed the
covers aside and made six large strides to retrieve it before dashing back to
my bed. I tripped over a poorly stacked pile of books on hypnosis and cursed
louder as I stumbled and hit my toe on the easy chair. Only when I was safely back
in bed did I look at the missed call.

Two from Donovan. The first one must’ve
been what woke me up.

I had a vague memory of curling up in bed
and reading a book on bodily awareness. I did a body scan on myself, putting
mental awareness on each body part. I couldn’t get past my right chest where
the acid burns were. I panicked and started drinking. Apparently I passed out
early.

I hit the call button. Donovan picked up
on the first ring. “Surprised you don’t sound too shitfaced this early.”

“I’m full of surprises. What do you want?”

“You never came to resupply.
And
I
have something you might be interested in.”

I yawned and flung an arm over my eyes to
stop what little light my apartment offered from bombarding me further. “I’ll
come over today. Where are you?”

“Sands. Trisha is dancing today. You know
I hate it when guys get handsy with her.”

Donovan’s love for his numerous stripper
or junkie girlfriends was a mystery to me. In the years I’d known him, he
always gravitated to women who were used up. Emotionally and mentally spent. I
don’t think he wanted to fix them, because whenever one wanted to get out of
the scene he’d make sure they couldn’t. He liked having them in a position of
little power, but didn’t like it when other men liked it too. Trisha hadn’t
started out that way, but I think Donovan liked the challenge of ruining a good
person. Now Trisha fit his type perfectly.

I hated going to the strip club. It was
nestled in an old industrial area in north Seattle that required two buses to
get to from Belltown. The place smelled salty and damp. I found the girls a sad
reminder of the world we lived in, even the ones who Donovan told me loved
being strippers. Going there also made me notice the callous barrier I built up
between Trisha and me. Maybe the sex earlier that week would change things. I
hoped it wouldn’t because Donovan would kill me if he suspected anything.

“You’ll be there all day?”

“She gets off at eight, then I’ll get her
off right after. Right baby?” I heard a squeal and giggle. Donovan’s muffled
grunt.

“I’ll be there in a few hours. What else
do you have for me?”

“That shit you were asking about a few
days ago? We got some. Not much, but enough to maybe get us in on it. You’re
one of my best dealers. Maybe not lately, but usually. If you want in…”

I imagined Donovan doing his trademark
shrug and side smile on the other line. Even though my insides shook and my
mouth was dry, I said, “Sure. I can take a few.”

“Cool. That’s it, peace.”

I snapped the phone shut and set it on my
milk crate nightstand. This could be good. Donovan might know names or the
hierarchy of who was supplying it. The more we knew, the better.

T
wo hours, thirty
ounces of coffee, six cigarettes, and a shot of bourbon later, I stepped off
the bus a block away from the strip club. This part of Seattle was depressing.
All the buildings looked bad, with worn paint and overgrown lawns. It might’ve
been nice once, but not in my lifetime.

The houses that lined the streets were
generally in equal disrepair. That was another reason why I didn’t like coming
down here. Downtown, you didn’t see anything close to a traditional home. There
were skyscrapers, malls, apartment complexes. There was a sore throbbing in my
chest when I thought about my parents. An inexplicable longing. Houses
triggered that feeling, so I avoided them. I kept my head down and made quick
work of the block between me and the club.

Sands Showgirls was a squat, army green
building that had no windows and ample parking all around. It opened a half
hour earlier but there were no customers in the lot yet. I went to the
entrance. The bouncer knew me. I sold him weed once or twice, whenever I
happened to have some.

The club was all soft pink and purple lights
bathing the metal dancing platforms. Anywhere a patron would sit was kept darker.
Private. Behind the bar a single bartender was taking inventory of their
liquor. On stage was Trisha, dancing in a white sequined outfit that glowed
under the lights. Her white glittery cowboy hat acted like a disco ball,
reflecting light onto the walls as she moved.

Donovan leaned against the platform, his
elbows jutting outward as he rested his head on his hands and watched her. All
the ladies thought he was a handsome man. Even I could admit that. He looked
like an extra who walked off the set of a Russian mob movie. Black slicked
hair, icy eyes, a chiseled face with a bit of a hawkish nose.

He didn’t notice me until I sat down right
next to him. “E, fuck! I didn’t know it was possible for you to walk during
daylight.”

I made myself grin. Donovan liked to keep
things casual. When things got serious, he shut down. I needed him open and
willing to talk.

Trisha was suddenly on her knees, crawling
over to him. She knew all eyes had to be for him, so I was a ghost. I let them
have their moment before speaking.

“Found a new bean at Pike Place. So much
caffeine I can stay up for a whole night.”

“Ah, yeah. You always liked coffee.” He
sat back in his chair, knees splayed wide. “I think it tastes like shit. You
want something to drink?”

“Of course.”

“Jim! Two!”

Ever patient, I waited until our drinks
came and we’d knocked back the first round. Another patron showed up. I watched
him take a seat in the far corner of the club. He was exactly what you’d
expect; middle-aged, kind of chubby. I bet he had a wedding ring and a very
good story about why he was there.

When Trisha’s second dance finally ended
and she went to take a break, Donovan broke from his trance. “Sorry to hear
about the kid. Heard about it from the grapevine, you know?”

Surprised he mentioned it, all I could
manage was a shrug. Then, “Thanks.”

“So, how you been? Besides that? What’s
your inventory like?”

“Sold everything,” I said. “Been feeling
under the weather so haven’t had a chance to stop by and resupply.”

“You doing smack again?” Donovan clucked
his tongue. “You know how you get on it.”

“I’m not. Just tired.”

“Okay. Well, I got the usual for you. And
something extra.”

His tone became conspiratorial. “This
stuff is called Whiteout, and it is seriously fucked up.”

There was that slang again. It was called
Whiteout when Brian was on it. The name stuck. “What does it do?”

“What we’re telling people, is that you
give it to someone—or yourself—about ten minutes before you need it to start
working. Once it does, they won’t remember a damn thing you do to them.
Nothing. But they won’t be unconscious or loopy or anything. It’s just like
their brain stops remembering. Lasts eight to ten hours.”

Nothing new there. I thought for a moment,
then asked, “Anything else you tell them? Tips since it’s new?”

Donovan appeared to think hard. I noticed
the sweat on his temples and the flickering of his eyes. He was drunk. Must’ve
been when I first got here, too. That was good for me. Happy, drunk Donovan had
loose lips.

“Yeah, actually. They said you gotta drug
your mark again near the end, put them to sleep. It makes it easier for them to
come off it. Otherwise you at least have to make sure they’re somewhere familiar
when they wake up or they’ll freak out. I thought they were bullshitting. That
seems kind of stupid. But last night, Trisha wanted to try it.” Donovan frowned
and slammed back the rest of his drink. “She said, if it actually worked then
she could take it before a shift and wouldn’t have to remember any of it. I
guess she…well, whatever.”

I finished my drink and told Donovan I was
getting another. I needed a moment away from him to think. This felt too real.
Whiteout—fuck, I didn’t even have a name for it before—had been an intangible
concept in my life until now. I figured something like it existed, but now it
truly was here in front of me.

And for the first time, I thought about
another use for Whiteout. People like Trisha who worked jobs they hated, wished
they could just put themselves on autopilot, would pay big bucks for it. You
were still you, still did the work, but another part of yourself wouldn’t have
to deal with the memories of it. Or even a stay at home parent who needed a
mental break. Someone who worked in hospice. I could think of dozens of honest people
who’d want it.

But I also thought of the dozens of
terrible uses for it. Rape. Torture. Kidnapping, abuse of any kind.
Experimentation. There was no mind or body altering substance that wouldn’t be
used in the wrong way. Whatever good Whiteout offered could never outweigh the
bad.

I threw back a vodka and asked for two
more, one to take back to Donovan. A new girl was on stage. Admittedly, she
wasn’t as good or pretty as Trisha. Donovan’s gaze hovered on the girl’s giant
chest.

“This Whiteout stuff sounds intense.” I
thought carefully about the questions that I’d ask for any other drug first.
“How much are we selling it for?”

“I was right before when I said they were
getting a feel for it. Now that people have a taste, we’re supposed to push it
for as high as we can. Starting at $200 a pop. You ask me, we could sell it for
$500 no problem to the right people.”

“Fuck. How much is your cut?”

“30%.”

I was still reeling. “Not bad. Where’s
this stuff coming from?”

Now Donovan’s mood shifted. He picked up
his shot glass, and finding it empty, set it on the table with enough force to
slide it across the surface and almost off the edge. “Don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you can’t say?”

“What difference does it make? I’m in. If
we can sell enough of this shit for the best price, we’ll be in on it forever.
Whiteout is going to attract a better clientele for me. No more roofies and
weed. I want to go big time. I’m better than this.” He sat straighter and tried
to get the bartender’s attention. He waved his hand and showed two fingers.
“I’m going to prove it, E.”

I knew that tone. I’m sure he planned to
use those same words on someone else. Donovan was a few rungs down the ladder from
his dad and uncle who called the shots. No one thought little Donnie was good
enough to handle big projects or hard stuff. Just pills, maybe some smack here
and there. I imagined he got a connection to sell Whiteout from a
friend-of-a-friend without the permission of his family.

Who would be willing to sell to him
knowing they weren’t talking to the boss? Someone who didn’t know how things
worked. Someone who thought we were all the same. I wanted to whip out a
notebook like Olivia and start writing down all the clues.

“I know you’ll prove it. You’re a smart
guy,” I said.

Donovan smiled. “Thanks. I trust you,
Ethan. All the Whiteout I got, I split with you. Only you and me are dealing
it. Keeping it tight, okay? My dad and uncle don’t know shit about this to tell
you the truth.”

That was a small bit of relief. The less
Whiteout on the streets, the better.

By the time the bartender brought Donovan
two more vodkas, Trisha was back on stage and I’d lost the guy to drunkenness
and a hard-on. It took another ten minutes to get him to give me my next
supply, which included four half blue, half white, unmarked capsules. Whiteout.
I didn’t have to check to know if I compared them to the pill I found with
Skid, they’d be the same. Donovan barely acknowledged me when I said goodbye
and that I’d let him know how the sales went.

The moment I stepped outside the brisk air
made my lungs seize up, the low winter sun blinding me. I went to fish out a
cigarette and remembered I was out. After I tried unsuccessfully to bum one off
the bouncer, I walked down the street to the AM/PM to buy as many boxes as I
had cash for. That turned out to be four. Just enough to get me through the
rest of today and tomorrow night.