Ecstasy (26 page)

“I guess it depends on how long it’s been going on. Potentially… Jesus, I don’t know. If they’re skimming a hundred K or so
a year, it could definitely add up.”

“And you think all the money’s going to Mrs. Hamill?”

“Not necessarily all of it. I mean, I’ve gotta think that the people who run the festival have to have their hands in the
till too. Like, apparently the band that one of the heads of it is in just put out a double CD. Time in a recording studio
isn’t cheap, and from what I hear, none of them have day jobs that pay anything.”

“So you think this guy …What’s his name?”

“Trike Ford. He’s the drummer for Stumpy the Salamander.”

“You think he’s embezzling Melting Rock money to fund the band?”

“It occurred to me.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“Tried. Apparently, he’s on the road.”

“Oh.”

“Are you about to tell me I should stay away from him in case he’s a big meanie?”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Come on, we’ve been through this a—”

“Baby, if there’s really that much money at stake, I doubt the guy’s gonna be too pleased about you nosing around.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Nobody’s saying you can’t.”

“Fine. Then presumably you won’t mind me doing my job.”

“I didn’t—”

“Because this could be a pretty big scoop, you know. If Melting Rock is really cooking the books and paying off the town council
to get them to keep the police from busting drug dealers, I’m damn well going to be the one to break the story.”

“And nobody’s saying you aren’t.”

“Fine.”

“But, Alex…I really have to look into this.”

I pushed myself off his chest and sat up. “Hold on. We have a deal, remember? Anything you tell me doesn’t go to the paper,
and anything I tell you doesn’t go to the cops.” He didn’t say anything. “Remember?”

“Baby, I know. But I think maybe this is going to have to be an exception.”

“Why?”

“Because three boys are dead.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

“What are you—”

“All I’m saying is, anything connected to Melting Rock—particularly to drugs at Melting Rock—is potentially connected to the
murders. Now that I know about this, I can’t just ignore it. You’ve got to understand that.”

“But once you start nosing around about it, goddamn Gordon’ll find out and that’ll be the end of my scoop.”

“I’ll keep things low-key.”

“The man is a bloodsucking creature of the night.”

“I thought he was a friend of yours.”

“The two things,” I said, “are not mutually exclusive.”

A
s it turned out, I ran into the aforementioned vampire the very next evening. After a long day of trying to chase down more
information on the Melting Rock embezzlement story, I decided a girl was entitled to skip her workout and go straight to the
Citizen Kane. With Mad off pumping iron, I was thoroughly prepared to drink alone, but when I went to the bar to pick up my
bourbon and ginger ale, I noticed a familiar pair of squinty eyes peering through a just-as-familiar set of wire-rimmed glasses.
I carried my drink to the rear-most booth and sat down.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“You know,” Gordon replied, “you say that every damn time you see me.”

“Maybe that’s because you always look like a fish out of water up here.”

“And the day I fit in is the day I pour gasoline over my head and light a match.”

“Just make sure you send us a press release first so we can assign a photographer.”

“Har-har.”

“Seriously, what are you doing here?”

“I like sitting in the back. Less chance somebody’ll come over and bother me.”

“I meant, what are you doing in Gabriel?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Jesus, do we have to go down that road again?”

“Apparently.”

“Come on, Gordon, don’t be such a prick. It’s just a friendly question.”

“In our business there’s no such thing.”

“Yikes. I guess you can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the boy, huh?”

“I hope the hell not.”

“Come on, be a pal.”

“I have never been a pal in my whole miserable—”

“Given.”

He let out his signature strangled groan. “Can’t a guy just have a drink in peace?”

“You know, I’d assume that if a guy really wanted to drink alone, he wouldn’t go to the bar that all his friends go to.”

“Friends? What friends?”

“You are
so
infuriating sometimes.”

He smiled like it was the first thing that had made him happy all day. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be a nice guy for five
minutes. To answer your question, I’m here because a certain drug suspect has jumped bail. Or don’t you read the papers?”

“I thought you were going to be nice.”

“Right. Forgot.”

“So you’re doing something on Sturdivant. What’s the angle?”

“Who he is, what kind of case the cops’ve got on him. You know—the usual.”

“And?”

“And the rest is well and truly none of your beeswax.”

“Lovely.”

“You got anything juicy on him?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re going to tell me practically nothing about the story you’re covering, but you want me to
open my mouth and give you whatever I know.”

“Works for me.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, I don’t know anything.”

“Aw, come on. You hung out at that freak fest for three days—”

“Practically four.”

“Practically four. Didn’t you even meet the guy?”

“Yeah, I met him.”

“And?”

“And nothing. He was pretty unremarkable.”

“A pretty unremarkable guy who helped kill four people.”

“Four? Do you mean that girl in—”

“Nah, not yet. But ten bucks says she croaks within the week.”

“You sentimental fool you.”

“So fine, three people. He’s clearly still a scumbag.”

“Assuming he knew.”

“You don’t think he did?” Gordon’s eyes narrowed. “What, did your buddy Cody tell you something?”

“Jesus Christ, would you stop pumping me like I’m some damn source? No, Cody did
not
tell me anything. And as you’re fond of saying, if he did, I damn well wouldn’t tell you.”

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry.”

I glared at him. “You are not.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m not. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. Satisfied?”

“Slightly.”

“Good. Now, what do you say we have a little fun for old time’s sake?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this story’s driving me crazy.”

“You mean Sturdivant?”

“I mean the whole thing—him and the three deaths and that girl in Baltimore. It all just seems so…”

“Random?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How did you know?”

“It’s kind of been on my mind lately.”

“I mean, I can understand wanting to kill somebody you know. Like, if I thought I could get away with—”

“Yeah, yeah. You’d as soon off your editor as look at him. I’m fully aware.”

“But the idea of whipping up that poisoned acid and just putting it out there to get taken by any poor bastard that comes
along… that’s pretty evil, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” I took a hefty slug of my drink.

“But what if it wasn’t random?” he said. “That’s pretty evil too.”

“Sure, but, come on… that’s nuts.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Gordon, I met them. They were three perfectly harmless, slightly idiotic teenage boys. Who’d want to kill them? And, more
to the point, who could possibly want to go to such crazy lengths to do it?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

I swallowed some more of my drink, which was damn tasty. “Oh, hell,” I said, “why does anybody kill anybody? Money, jealousy,
revenge, lust—”

“Because they got shafted with being somebody’s goddamn upstate correspondent…”

“I’m not sure that last one’s in the Bible.”

“Okay, seriously,” he said. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that somebody did kill those three guys on purpose. Why
do you think they’d do it?”

“How would I know?”

“You spent a hell of a lot more time with them than I did, which is none.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Hey, come on, where’s that girl I know? The one who just
lives
for wild speculation?”

His tone was smarmy but effective. “Oh, hell, all right. Let’s think about it from the beginning. So…you’ve got these three
guys. They’re all friends. They hang out at school and they go to Melting Rock together every year. Maybe…I don’t know. Maybe
somebody just hates their guts or something.”

“Oh, yeah,
that’s
pretty damn convincing. How about we start over?”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “Okay, fine. So there’s these three… No, there’s four—” I cut myself off, then spent some quality
time staring into space.

“What?”

“I…Nothing.”

“You just thought of something.”

I drained my glass and stood up. “I gotta go.”

“Hey, come on, sit down. Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’m a moron.”

“What are you—”

“God, I don’t know why I’ve been so obtuse lately. I guess all this stuff has been kind of dribbling in and I’ve been covering
it in bits and pieces. I haven’t really had a chance to think about the big picture.”

“Which is?”

I finished putting on my sweater and shrugged into my backpack. “Never you mind.”

“Hey, come on….”

“Look, I may have been an idiot for the past couple of weeks, but I’m not so dense I can’t see my damn nose in front of my
face.”

“Huh?”

“Give it up, Gordon. I know you too well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I leaned down to peck him on the cheek. “What that’s supposed to mean,” I said, “is that as far as I’m concerned, there’s
no way you dropped in here by accident.”

I
WENT STRAIGHT
from the Citizen to Mad’s apartment and found the occupant recently emerged from his postgym shower.

“Yo, Bernier. What’s up?”

“I was just over at the …What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

I sniffed the air. “It’s like… flowers or something. Lavender.” I took a step closer. “It’s
you.
”

He tightened the towel around his waist. “It is
not.
”

I leaned in and sniffed him. “It is
so.
Lavender and…rosemary.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Have you been shopping at Centered Scents or something?”

“What?”

“The aromatherapy store on the Green.”

“No.
Hell
no. I…It was a gift, okay?” He went into the bathroom and emerged with a tin whose hand-lettered label said
RELAX
-
METALC
. “It makes my skin feel good, all right?”

“Jeepers, Mad, who gave you that crap?”

“Nobody.”

“Come on, who?”

“A chick.”

“What chick?”

“Just a chick, okay?”

“You are such a—Oh, my God. Tell me you didn’t get that from Lauren Potter.” He didn’t answer, which was proof enough for
me. “Christ, I should’ve known. That hippie junk is right up her alley.”

“You wanna tell me what you came over here for?”

“Jesus, Mad, do I have to remind you that the girl is only seventeen? You’re practically old enough to be her—”

“She’s eighteen. Just turned.”

“Please tell me you weren’t her birthday present.”

“Are you gonna say what you came over here for or aren’t you?”

I sighed and flopped down on the lumpy couch. “You got any snacks? I’m starving.”

“Fat-free chips and salsa.”

“The yucky hot kind that burns my tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

He went into the bedroom to put on some shorts and a T-shirt while I sussed out the food—not hard because Mad’s kitchen contains
fewer provisions than a U.N. relief kit. We rendezvoused back on the couch, where he drank red wine out of an old jar and
I sipped one of his diet Sprites—Mad being the only guy I know who’s secure enough in his masculinity to admit to drinking
diet soda.

“So,” he said, “you ever gonna tell me why you came over here?”

“I was thinking.”

“Dangerous habit. About what?”

“Okay…I went over to the Citizen to, you know, wet the old whistle after work, and there was Gordon—”

“Band? What the hell was he doing there?”

“My question exactly. And I’m pretty sure the answer is that he was hoping I’d show up so he could pump me for information
about the Melting Rock story.”

“What information?”

“Damned if I know. But Gordon obviously figured that since I was stuck in that hellhole for three days and I’ve been covering
the thing so much ever since, I must know
something.
”

“Weaselly little bastard.”

“Yeah, but at least he’s consistent. Anyway, it kind of hit me that, well, maybe he’s right. Maybe I
do
know something—or maybe I
should
know it, anyway….”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not quite sure. But while I was sitting there talking to Gordon, one thing did hit me over the head.”

“Which is?”

“Four.” I held up the appropriate number of fingers.

“Four what?”

“Okay, listen.… This whole time, everybody’s been marveling at the fact that besides the three kids who died, only one other
person has gotten sick from that stuff—the girl from Baltimore. Everybody’s been wondering where the rest of the drugs are,
when the other shoe’s going to drop. Right?”

“Right. So?”

“So maybe there
is
no more. Maybe all there ever was was those four doses. Four doses, four guys.”

“Four? But only—”

“First Tom Giamotti dies. Then Shaun Kirtz, then Billy Halpern. Maybe it’s because they’re buddies and so they just happened
to share the same batch of bad drugs. Or maybe it’s because they were targeted in the first place.”