Vanishing Acts (30 page)

The reporter is a tiny woman with hair the same color as the flames. “Police say a meth lab may be to blame for this morning's fatal fire, which destroyed a home in the North Phoenix area on Deer Valley Road last night. Firefighters were called in after an explosion took the life of Wilton Reynolds. At this hour. . .” There is a mighty roar behind me, and the sound of a garbage can being overturned. When I look over my shoulder, I see Concise standing over the mess. The DOs immediately rise to attention, so I turn to the control booth. “It was an accident,” I say, righting the can. I grab Concise by the arm and pull him upstairs to our cell. “What are you doing?”

He sits down. “Sinbad's my brother.”

“Sinbad?”

“That homey they were talking about on the news.”

It takes me a moment to understand that Concise is referring to the victim in the fire. “You mean the meth cook?”

“He told me he knew what he was doin',” Concise mutters.

“You said you had two sisters.”

“He's my brother,” Concise repeats, stressing the metaphor. “I grew up with him on the streets. This was gonna be our big thing.”

“You were in business making meth? Do you have any idea what that drug does to people?”

“We weren't givin' it away,” Concise snaps. “If someone was fool enough to mess himself up, that was his problem.”

I shake my head, disgusted. “If you build it, they will come.”

“If you build it,” Concise says, “you cover your rent. If you build it, you pay off the loan sharks. If you build it, you put shoes on your kid's feet and food in his belly and maybe even show up every now and then with a toy that every other goddamn kid in the school already has.” He looks up at me. “If you build it, maybe your son don't have to, when he grow up.”

It is amazing–the secrets you can keep, even when you are living in close quarters. “You didn't tell me.”

Concise gets up and braces his hands against the upper bunk. “His mama OD'd. He lives with her sister, who can't always be bothered to take care of him. I try to send money so that I know he's eatin' breakfast and gettin' school lunch tickets. I got a little bank account for him, too. Jus' in case he don't want to be part of a street gang, you know? Jus' in case he want to be an astronaut or a football player or somethin'.” He digs out a small notebook from his bunk. “I'm writin' him. A diary, like. So he know who his daddy is, by the time he learn to read.” It is always easier to judge someone than to figure out what might have pushed him to the point where he might do something illegal or morally reprehensible, because he honestly believes he'll be better off. The police will dismiss Wilton Reynolds as a drug dealer and celebrate one more criminal permanently removed from society. A middle-class father who meets Concise on the street, with his tough talk and his shaved head, will steer clear of him, never guessing that he, too, has a little boy waiting for him at home. The people who read about me in the paper, stealing my daughter during a custody visit, will assume I am the worst sort of nightmare.

I run my hands over my scalp–fuzzy, now that the hair is growing in again. “It's the phosgene gas,” I tell him.

“What?”

“That's what killed your friend. The chemical reaction necessary to make meth produces a lethal gas. If you disconnect your tubes the wrong way, you die.” Concise blinks at me. “You a meth cook, too?”

“No. But I've got advanced degrees in chemistry.” I sit down and motion for the notebook Concise is still holding. I rip a page out of the back and then rummage underneath my pillow for a pencil–sharp enough, it makes a good weapon to sleep with in your hand.

It takes me a few minutes and several corrections, but when I have the reactions down right, I hand the recipe to Concise. “Find another friend. This'll work.”

“No way. You ain't gettin' involved. This ain't who you are.” He crumples up the paper and tosses it on the floor of the cell.

Who I am, and what I am capable of doing, has always managed to surprise me. I think about the day I ran away with you; how I took you to a diner and let you order every single dessert on the menu, so that you would think the best of me before you could begin to think the worst.

I reach for the paper. “Your son,” I say. “What's his name?” The first thing you need to make meth is a lot of friends, because drugstores limit the number of cold tablets a single person can buy at once. They come in boxes of twenty-four, and you need thousands to get the right amount of pseudoephedrine. You also need rubber tubing and faucet coupling, acetone, and alcohol. Muriatic acid, cat litter, and duct tape. Iodine crystals and flasks and beakers. Red phosphorus–the stuff on the heads of matches, but in far greater supply. You'll need coffee filters and funnels and lye and cleaning gloves. You'll need a Pyrex pie plate and canning jars with lids.

Grind the pills into powder in a blender. Put this into a canning jar. Fill with alcohol, cover, and shake until it settles. Filter this through more alcohol, several times. Pour the liquid into pie plates and microwave until the liquid evaporates. Crush the powder as fine as you can, rinse with acetone, and set the residue into another plate. Break it apart and let it dry.

In the meantime, set up your glassware.

I have been in jail for twenty-five days when I am given a nickname by the blacks: The Chemist. I learn a new vocabulary: Glass is meth that's been washed in acetone and has very few impurities, therefore costing more. A teener is a sixteenth of an ounce. An eight ball is an eighth of an ounce. A quarter–of a gram, that is–is the usual injected dose and goes for $25 on the streets. A dime bag is ten dollars'

worth. Tweaking is being high on meth. To be spun is to be tweaking for too long. Sketching is the state between these two.

I try not to think about the actual drug transactions, about the strangers I am harming. But there is a part of me that knows they are the price I'm paying for my safety in this jail, and the protection of the blacks. There is a part of me that whispers, I told you so. You ruined one life, what made you think you wouldn't ruin a hundred more?

An army of spies on the outside become the arms and legs of the operation. They buy the supplies, make the meth, and set up bank accounts for Concise and me. I didn't want any profits, but Concise was adamant–if I was taking the risk, I was taking the rewards, too–and so I conceded. I imagine using the funds to keep kids like Concise's son off the streets–a senior center, maybe, but for the younger, more desperate set.

It brings me right back to the question I've been circling since I got here: Once you make a mistake, can any amount of compensation erase it?

Concise locates diabetics in different pods who can steal syringes from the outpatient clinic where they go for their insulin shots. Most users prefer to shoot up, which is why the needles are in high demand, but meth can also be smoked, snorted, or mixed with coffee or juice.

He has a full list of customers before the first batch is even ready. On the day that jury selection begins for my trial, I am given a suit and blue shirt. I don't recognize it, and find myself stroking the fabric and wondering if you picked it out on my behalf. I am so overwhelmed by the thought of putting on something, anything, other than stripes that I don't realize at first how upset Concise is.

“Chicken Neck Mike ain't gonna be in place for the drop-off,” he says. He hands me a letter from an inmate in a different pod. Since prisoners aren't allowed to communicate with one another, it's been kited: Someone on the outside has received the note from Mike, and mailed it back to Concise. According to the note, Mike is supposed to smuggle in the first shipment of meth today when he goes to the courthouse for sentencing, but his attorney rescheduled the date, and therefore Chicken Neck Mike will miss the transfer.

“Well,” I say after a moment. “I'm going to be there.” Inmates are shackled together for the transfer to the courthouse. We carry our alter egos under our arms–jeans and muscle tees, button-down shirts, a suit. At the courthouse the chains are unlocked, and we are allowed to change. Eric has forgotten to bring me socks; so I slide my bare feet into my loafers. We are led en masse to the courtroom and seated in the jury box together; one by one we will be called to a table beside our attorneys. Eric isn't here yet, and I'm grateful: I would not want him to see what I am about to do. There is no difference, of course, between providing the recipe that launches thousands of grams of methamphetamine or being the physical link that transports it back to the jail–you are implicated by your actions either way–but in some comer of my mind, being an active participant in smuggling drugs is more shameful. Concise has told me that Blue Loc's girlfriend will pass me what I need to bring back. “You jus' sit there,” Concise said to me, “and let the stuff come to you.” For nearly a half hour, I wait in the jury box; watching lawyers filter into the courtroom and talk to one another, or read through their motions. The judge is nowhere in sight. I admire the soaring ceiling, the span between walls–architecture that I've forgotten.

A young woman hurries down the center aisle and corrals a deputy. She is wearing a pinstriped suit that clings to the curves of her waist and hips, and sensible black heels. Her cornrowed hair has been twisted into a neat knot, and her skin is the color of maple syrup. “Yes, I'm a paralegal for Eric Talcott,” I hear her say, and she points right at me. “He needs his client to review a motion for today's appearance. If I could just. . .” She smiles into his eyes. A moment later, she comes toward me. “Mr. Talcott wanted you to take a look at this,” she says, and she leans over the divider of the jury box with a manila folder. There is absolutely nothing written on the papers in the file. She points to them and whispers, “Nod.” I do, and a tiny knotted balloon slides out of the crease of the folder to drop softly between my feet.

She snaps her folder shut and makes her way out of the courtroom. I try to imagine her with Blue Loc when he is not Blue Loc, but just some guy living with a girl downtown. Then I bend down and tuck the balloon into my fist. Slip it into the waistband of my pants.

Eric arrives a few minutes later and asks the deputy's permission to approach me, too. By now, I'm sweating so hard there are stains beneath my arms. I feel like I'm on the verge of passing out. “You okay?” he asks.

“Great. Fine.”

He gives me a funny look. “What the hell was that deputy talking about? Some paralegal wanted to see you?”

“It was a mistake. She was looking for a different guy named Hopkins.” Eric shrugs. “Whatever. Look, what's going to happen today–”

“Eric,” I interrupt. “Is there any chance you can get me out to use the bathroom?” He glances at me, then at the deputy. “Let me see.” Apparently, I am enough of a physical wreck to merit a special break, because a different deputy is summoned to escort me to the restroom. He stands outside the stall and whistles while I drop my pants. From behind my ear I take the dollop of ointment Concise gave me that morning for this purpose–a “keep on person” medication for skin lesions. Grimacing, I wipe the salve over the little white balloon, until it is lubricated enough to be pushed into my rectum.

Ten minutes later, I take my seat at the defense table beside Eric. I keep my eyes on the parade of potential jurors who walk through the courtroom doors. I scrutinize the woman with acne, the man who keeps checking his watch, the freckled girl who looks just as frightened to be here as I am. They take the jury surveys that Eric hands out. Some of them glance at me with narrowed eyes, others purposely keep their expressions blank. I wish I could speak to them. I would tell them that they couldn't possibly judge me any more harshly than I've judged myself. I would tell them that when you look at a person, you never know what they're hiding. Wear gloves. Run water through your Alyn condenser. Very quickly add your red phosphorus, using a coat hanger to unclog it if you have to. It's the exothermic reaction you're looking for, and it will be immediate. Quickly plug the top that leads to your vinyl tubing, and tape the connection.

When yellow fumes rise from the mixture, shake the condenser. If the pressure gets too high, put the flask into an ice bath until it slows down. Eventually, the mixture will swell up, like a mousse, and then recede.

At some point the cat litter in the milk jug at the other end of your setup will turn hot and purple. Disconnect the rubber tubing from the Alyn condenser. Cut the vinyl tubing off as close to the milk jug as you can. Cover immediately with duct tape. Be careful. Do not untape. Inside is the phosgene gas that killed your friend. Twitch is a twenty-two-year-old who looks fifty. He hangs out in the corners of the rec yard, peeling scabs that fester between his fingers and toes and sniffing at the blood that wells up and still reeks of the meth that runs through his system. When he smiles at you, which isn't often, you can see the black holes where he's lost teeth, and the plush white carpet of his tongue.

Most of the time he is spun out–too high on meth to sleep–and subject to hallucinations. He's not a violent addict, but a paranoid one, and recently he's become certain that the DOs are bodysnatchers. He plucks at my shirt as I walk by him. “How much longer,” he whispers. He is talking about our supply. That initial balloon I smuggled in from the court was given to the Mau Mau upstairs in close custody–the black prison gang members. Having given his tithe, Concise has opened the proverbial door for business.