Repairman Jack [04]-All the Rage (23 page)

What a catastrophic mess.

Luc sighed and closed his eyes; he pictured himself in a tiny rural cafe in Provence, sipping dark, rich coffee while the owner's cat basked nearby in a sunny window.

In three weeks I'll be out of this. Just three weeks.

But if Gleason blew the whistle… Luc's bucolic vision shifted from rural France to a jail cell right here in Manhattan.

He opened his eyes and fixed Brad, the company comptroller. "Prather will want cash, in advance. It's Saturday. How will you—?"

"I'll get it," Brad said. "Same amount as for Macintosh, I assume. I'll have it for you by this afternoon."

"One more thing we need to consider: Gleason has some sort of relationship with our new researcher."

Kent clapped his hands against the sides of his head and tugged on his red hair. "Aw, shit! How close?"

"I can't say. I do know he recommended her for the job, but beyond that…" Luc shrugged.

"Dear God," Brad said. "Can't
anything
be simple? What if they're close? We don't want to do anything to distract her from her work! You've got to find out!"

Luc rose. "I'll do my best."

"In the meantime," Kent told Brad, "get the cash together."

As Luc turned and reached for the door, Brad's voice was a low moan behind him. "How long can we keep this up?"

Brad was unraveling before their eyes.

Hang on just a little longer, Brad, Luc thought. Just a few more weeks. After that, you can dissolve into a quivering mass of Jell-O for all I care.

9

"If Abe vouches for you," Tom Terrific said, "that's good enough for me. But I'd like my consultation fee up front if you don't mind."

'Take a check?" Jack said.

Tom Terrific acknowledged the patent absurdity with a smile that revealed small yellow teeth spaced like kernels on a stunted ear of corn. His forehead went back even farther than Abe's, but he was much thinner, and the long salt-and-pepper hair growing off the rear half of his scalp was twisted into a single braid. He looked to be in his late forties, slightly hunched posture, painfully thin, wearing torn jeans and a sleeveless Mighty Ducks sweatshirt that revealed a showroom of tattoos up and down his arms. The Harley-Davidson insignia clung to his wasted left deltoid; a big red "1%" was engraved on his right. If Uncle Creepy had been a Hell's Angel, he'd have looked like Tom Terrific.

"I see you're into ink, Mr. Terrific," Jack said as he pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his back pocket. "You into bikes too?"

The massive rottweiler in the corner leaped to his feet and growled as Jack's hand moved toward Tom Terrific with the money.

"Easy, Manfred," he said without turning his head. "He's only giving Daddy some bread." To Jack: "Hey, call me Tom, Okay. The Terrific's just for kicks, y'know? And as for being a biker, yeah, I used to ride. Dropped outta Berkeley and rode with a Fresno gang for about ten years. Used to weigh in at an eighth of a ton too. But those days are gone. I now live the life of a pharmaceutical artiste."

Jack glanced around the basement apartment. Abe had led him down here to a narrow cobblestone street just south of Canal in Chinatown where Tom Terrific was probably the only non-Asian resident. His furnished apartment sat under a Thai restaurant, although
furnished
was probably a euphemism. The rug and furniture looked like the kind of stuff that people put out on the curb but nobody would haul away, not even the sanit men.

A long way from the digs of that other pharmaceutical artiste, Dr. Luc Monnet.

"What do you want to know?" Tom said as he tucked away the bill. "Looking to start your own operation?"

Jack shook his head. "Just want to know about Berzerk. Heard of it?"

"Heard of it?" Tom Terrific snorted. "Course I heard of it. Just wish I could make the damn stuff."

'Tom Terrific can't make it?" Abe said as he eased himself into a threadbare lounger. "I've always heard that if you can't make it, it can't be made."

"True up till this new stuff arrived. But lemme tell you, man, it's got me stumped." He grinned again. "But I'm not alone. Got the feds stumped too. They keep trying to class it as a CDS—"

"Seedy what?" Jack said.

"CDS—controlled dangerous substance—but they can't seem to pin down its molecular structure. Which, considering the equipment those fuckers got, must be
real
complex. But I'm not surprised. I mean, it's one fucking elegant drug from the distribution standpoint because it degrades into an inert substance after a while." He cackled. "Driving the feds and the cops nuts, man. They bust somebody with the stuff and by the time arraignment comes around, the evidence ain't a drug no more."

"The preppy riot guy!" Jack said, snapping his fingers. "They had to let him go because they said someone pulled a switch with the evidence."

Tom Terrific was shaking his head. "No switch. The stuff just changed. That's what happens, man: every bit, no matter where it is, goes inert at exactly the same time. Ain't it cool? You gotta use it or lose it. The dude who dreamed this one up has got to be the fucking Einstein of molecular biologists."

Jack couldn't help recalling Nadia's glowing praise for her hero, Dr. Monnet, about how brilliant he was.

The pieces were falling into place, but Nadia was not going to like the picture.

"If I was a customer," Abe said, "I should be pretty mad if my stuff goes dead on me like that."

Tom Terrific shrugged. "If it does, it's your fault. The stuff comes with an expiration date."

"But what
is
it?" Jack said.

"The million-fucking-dollar question. I can tell you what it's not, and it's not speed. Lemme tell you, I know everything there is to know about amphetamines, and this stuff ain't even a distant relative. Not an opiate or a barbiturate or a clone of PCP or Ecstasy either. Stuff's something entirely different. It magnifies whatever aggressive tendencies you have."

"And what if you don't have any?" Jack said.

"Everybody's got 'em. It's the beast in all of us, man; it's just that some of us are farther from the trees than others. I call it BQ: beast quotient."

"'The stubborn beast flesh

"What?"

"Just a line from a movie I was watching the other night."

"Yeah, well, lemme tell you, a normal-size hit'll send a guy who's already violence-prone—you know, with a high BQ—right over the edge. A heavy dose can make even Casper the Friendly Ghost blow his top. Nobody's immune."

"Just what the world needs," Abe said. "More blown tops. Who would make such a thing? For what purpose?"

"I hear it got its start in paramilitary units overseas but moved into the consumer market like
schnell,
man. And lemme tell you, whoever's marketing this shit is another kinda whiz. They're selling it in all shapes and sizes, with names geared to specific target markets. If they're going after the gangbangers and such, they call it Berzerk—that's their most popular brand—but it's also called Terminator-X, Eliminator, Predator, Executioner, Uzi, Samurai, Killer-B, and so on."

"How big a market can that be?"

"Not huge, but just the tip of the iceberg, it turns out. Once it caught on with the jocks and the suits—"

"Jocks and suits?" Jack said. "What the hell do they want with it?"

"Aggression, man.
Aggression!
You can be the new Air Jordan or John Elway or Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. All you need is an edge, and this stuff—in the right amount, of course, in a fine-tuned dose—gives it to you. The jocks are buying Touchdown, Goal, Slam-Dunk, Victory, Ninety-Yard-Dash, and TakeDown—different names, same shit. The stuff's replacing anabolic steroids as most abused substance in scholastic and professional sports. You heard about what happened at the Knicks game last night, right?"

Jack shook his head but saw Abe nodding.

"Can't believe you missed it, man. Leon Doakes, that new wide-body forward for the Knicks? He took the Pistons' little point guard—can't remember his name but he was driving the lane and floating past Doakes all night, making him look like a lead-footed jerk. Anyway, Doakes finally has enough so he just picks up this guard and tosses him into the stands.
Tosses
him! Guy landed in the sixth row!" Another cackling laugh. "I flipped around to all the news shows; caught the replay five times, man. It was awesome. And I'll bet you anything they were both ripped on Slam-Dunk."

"You said suits too?"

"Yeah. They get the mildest forms—I've heard of names like Success, Prosperity, CEO. Yessiree, lots of white-collar types are bringing it into the boardrooms. The stuff is spreading like wildfire. It'll be everywhere soon. The ultimate growth market. I'd love to hitch a ride on that train but it's just too tough a molecule for a small operation like mine."

"Who is making it, then?" Jack said.

Tom Terrific shrugged. "Don't know. I tried to find out, see if I could maybe get a line on its molecular structure, but I ran into a wall, man—a Serbian wall."

"Dragovic?"

"You got it. And that's when I stopped poking around. Lemme tell you, I ain't lookin' to mess with
him."

Another piece falling into place.

"No other players?" Jack said.

"Dragovic's organization seems to have a lock on the supply. Near as I can gather, the source is in Europe somewhere. Makes sense, since that's where the stuff first appeared."

Here was a piece that didn't fit. If Monnet and his company were behind Berzerk, it seemed logical they'd be making it here in the U.S. where they had a plant. What better cover for illegal drug manufacturing than a legal operation?

"Got any you can sell me?" Jack said.

"Berzerk? Nothing active. But I've got some in the inert state I was working on till it changed. When the preppy guy's turned, so did mine. I'll just give you some of that. No damn good to me anymore." He motioned Jack toward the back room.

"I'll stay out here," Abe said. "I want to take notes on your decor so I can maybe duplicate it in my own place."

The back room was Tom Terrific's lab. He was known to specialize in speed—ice specifically—and Jack had heard that his product got high marks from folks who were into the stuff.

When he turned on the light, a panicked horde of roaches scuttled for the corners and disappeared.

"Excuse the little guests, man. They weren't invited, but lemme tell you, they're a fact of life when you live under a restaurant."

Manfred the rottweiler had followed Jack and his master to the rear room but didn't enter. Jack immediately knew why. The place smelled like a high school chemistry lab with the drama club doing the experiments—a mixture of paint thinner and dirty cat litter. Trays of white paste sat on benches with fans blowing over them. An exhaust fan in the corner ran into a shiny new galvanized duct that ran up through the ceiling, but the room still stank.

"Just out of curiosity," Jack said, "what do you get for an ounce of the stuff you make?"

"Ounce? Hey, I sell it by the
gram,
man. My stuff is
pure,
and my tweakers know it's a long high." He gave Jack a sidelong look. "Why do you want to know?"

"Well, you're practically a legend. You've got to be able to afford better digs than this."

"Oh, I can, man, and someday I will. But creature comforts aren't the important thing now. I'm an artist, you see, and I need to stay close to my work."

Everybody's
an artist these days, Jack thought.

"And one of the things about my art is that the, um, materials I use, especially the solvents, have got telltale odors that can bring the heat down on you PDQ. So what I've done is hooked into the hood over the stove in the restaurant upstairs. My fumes mix with their cooking odors and they all come out together on the roof. Pretty cool, huh."

"Very," Jack said. His eyes were burning from the fumes and he wanted to get out of here. "What about the Berzerk?"

"Right over here," he said and started fumbling through a pile of glassine envelopes. "I only deal to finance my art, you know, and lemme tell you, I'm working on something that'll make Berzerk last week's news. I call it Ice-Nine. One hit will give a smooth, utterly bodacious high that'll last a week. It's my Holy Grail. When I reach it, I'll be fulfilled. That's when I'll retire, but not a minute before. Ice-Nine or bust, man."

Right on, Sir Gawain.

"Here 'tis," Tom Terrific said, holding up a small clear envelope with a layer of yellow powder in its lower corner. "It's some sort of blue in its active state—"

"Just what kind of blue is 'some sort'?" Jack said.

"You know," he said with a wavering, uncertain smile, "I can't really say. Ain't that weird. I've been working with the stuff for the past coupla weeks, seen it every day, but I can't quite remember its color. But I know it wasn't yellow. Yellow means it's gone inert." He handed the envelope to Jack. "Here. Take it."

"All of it?"

"Sure. I was gonna throw it out anyway."

"How about some of the active form, just for comparison."

Tom Terrific's ponytail whipped back and forth as he shook his head. "Don't have any. There's always a lag in supply after the old stuff goes inert. The new stuff won't show up for another day or so."

"Strange way to do business," Jack said.

"Tell me about it. Was me, I'd have the new stuff out Day One after the old stuff crashed." He shrugged. "But who knows? Maybe they've got a good reason."

Jack stuffed the envelope into his pocket and turned to go.

"Wait," Tom Terrific said, holding up another envelope, this one half-filled with fine clear crystals. "Here's my latest—Ice-Seven. Want to try a taste?"

"No, thanks," Jack said, moving toward the door.

"On the house. You'll like it. Lasts about three days. Takes tired old reality and makes it
much
more interesting."

Jack shook his head. "For the last year or so, Tom, reality's been just about as interesting as I can stand."