Soma Blues

by Robert Sheckley

  “Look, Kate, I need to ask you about something. Remember those little green glass bottles I used to have? The ones I imported from India back about twenty years ago?”

  “Of course I remember,” Kate said. “You used them for the hash oil you were selling.”

  Hob winced. “When you and I split up, I left a lot of those empty bottles, along with some other stuff, out in the back shed.”

  “You left a lot of junk,” Kate said. “You had piles of cowhides out there, and ugly little embroidered purses from India. And feathers; you had bales of feathers.”

  “Nothing strange about that. I was selling that stuff to hippie merchants, for the weekly bazaar.”

  “You had all sorts of things. And glass beads—my God but you had glass beads. Let me see, what else was there?”

  Kate struck a pose of thinking. She was the most beautiful woman Hob had ever known, and the most exasperating. It was always like this when he needed a simple straight answer to a question, she was off in never-never land with her memories.

  “Remember Phillipe?” she asked. “You gave him all your hash pipes.”

  “Yes, I remember him. He was going to write something about different styles in smoking paraphernelia. But Kate, about the glass bottles …”

  “I’m thinking,” Kate said. She looked at him squarely. “I’m thinking how good we were together back in the old days, Hob.”

  Hob felt his heart give a sort of convulsive leap of joy, then settle back to its old business of keeping his humdrum life going. They had been good once for about two weeks, bad for about two years; that was the story of Hob and Kate in a nutshell filled with bile.

  “Yes, we were good, weren’t we?” Hob said. “Too bad Pieter Sommers came along.”

  “Pieter? You’re blaming our breakup on Pieter?”

  “I did find you in bed with him.”

  “Yes, but that was after I found out about your little affair with Soraya.”

  “Well, what difference did it make? That was the year we were trying our open marriage, remember?”

  “The open marriage was only theoretical. We never definitely agreed on it.”

  Even in a T-shirt, Hob felt hot under the collar. There were memories here he’d forgotten. He didn’t want to stir them up. The breakup had been her fault—and if it hadn’t, he didn’t want to know.

  “Theoretical?” Kate said, with a short barking laugh he suddenly remembered all too well. “I suppose Annabelle was theoretical as well?”

  “Annabelle? But, Kate, I never had anything with her!”

  “That’s not what you told me at the time!”

  “I was trying to make you jealous.”

  “Well, you didn’t succeed. And anyhow, you’ll get your chance all over again. She’s living on the island again.”

  “I don’t care where she’s living! I never had anything to do with her nor wanted to.”

  “You always could lie,” Kate said. “You and she will have a chance to go over old times now, won’t you?”

  “What are you talking about? I have no intention of seeing Annabelle!”

  “You’d better. She’s the one I gave the bottles to.”

  Hob turned to go, then stopped. “Do you know a man named Etienne Vargas?”

  “I’ve met him once or twice at the beach. Nice boy.”

  “Do you happen to know where he’s staying? I hear his father has a finca on the island.”

  “So I’ve heard. But I don’t think Etienne is staying there. He’s staying with Peter Two, I think.”

  3

  Peter Two was Ibiza’s second best-known dealer. Peter was a specialist in hashish and a fanatic about quality. He was said to have his own farm in Morocco, where he personally supervised the conversion of marijuana leaf into hashish.

  The fact that there was a Peter Two implied that there was a Peter One. The island was divided on the question of who Peter One might be, of if there were anybody of that name. It was believed that Peter Two had taken his name expecting that the police, when they got around to investigating the hashish situation on Ibiza, would look for Number One and leave Two alone. So far it had worked out. Peter Two was doing well and living handsomely.

  Not every finca on Ibiza was traditional. Peter Two’s farm had been remodeled to give it overhanging roofs that curved up at the ends like a Japanese house out of Kurosawa. The oriental look was further accentuated by the long Tibetan flags set on high bamboo poles that fluttered bravely in the wind that usually blew across the hilltop near San Jose where Peter lived. Inside Peter’s house the Japanese motif was further accentuated by the polished hardwood floors, the sparseness of furnishing, the complete lack of clutter, and the bamboo separators that divided room from room and could be taken down to provide larger spaces. Peter Two could afford this affectation of simplicity. The Zen sand garden Hob passed on the way from the driveway to the main building was even more artfully simple: three perfectly placed stones in twenty square yards of raked sand. Hob liked the sight of it very much. Though he couldn’t afford to build one himself. Nor did he have the time or manpower to rake the sand every day and take from it every leaf and twig that had blown into it overnight. Hob’s own finca was a clutter of objects, and so he always appreciated the luxurious simplicity of Peter’s place.

  When Hob came to call that morning, no one seemed to be about. Hob hallooed the house, as was customary when making an unexpected call, and, receiving no answer, but noticing that both Peter’s and Devi’s cars were parked in the front, he came on through to the back. There he found Devi, her masses of dark hair pinned up, wearing a mauve sari, stirring up a batch of zucchini bread for lunch.

  “Hi, Hob.”

  “I called but no one answered.”

  “I can’t hear a thing when I’m in back here. I’ve told Peter he should put in an intercom system, but Mr. Back To Nature won’t hear of it.”

  “Is the master about?”

  “The lord is in the drying shed, communing with his spirits.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

  “Go right on back. It’s time Peter and his spirits had someone new to talk to.”

  Devi was small and lovely, with black hair that showed hennaed red highlights. She was an exotic even on an island of exotics, daughter of a British dam builder on contract to the government of Rajaspur and a light-skinned princess of the Rajputs, or so she claimed. It was difficult to know the truth about anyone’s background on Ibiza, since people made up stories that suited their fantasies about themselves.

  Hob followed the stone steps that led through the bamboo grove and around the small frog pond to the drying shed in the rear of the property. Here was where the Ibicencos had stored their algorobos, and where Peter stored his marijuana, his incomparable homegrown stuff. Peter Two was a dope dealer by occupation and a connoisseur of dope as a hobby.

  He looked up now when Hob came in. He had been pruning one of his large potted marijuana plants with embroidery scissors, and he had a nice little pile of golden-green leaves on a clean silk cloth. There was another man with him, a very tall young man with a dark café au lait skin whom Hob had met sometime before at a party. He was from Brazil and was reputed to be wealthy, or at least to have a wealthy father, and had been going with Annabelle, who lived somewhere in Ibiza City.

  Hob had come by to ask if Peter was planning to start the class in Buddhist meditation that he had been sponsoring. In Ibiza, a place without telephones except in commercial businesses at that time, if you wanted to find something out, you drove to where you could ask the question in person, unless you wanted to wait until you ran across the person at some coffee shop or restaurant or on one of the beaches. This could take quite a long time, however, so if you really wanted an answer within a week or so, you drove to where the person lived.

  “I’m going to have to delay again,” Peter said. “Sunny Jim agreed to teach the course, but he’s off in Barcelona getting motorcycle parts for his shop.” />
  “Okay,” Hob said. “I’d appreciate if you’d get word to me when it does begin.”

  “Count on it,” Peter said.

  “I wanted to ask you,” Hob said. “Have you ever heard of a drug called soma?”

  “Of course I’ve heard of it,” Peter said. “It was a classical drug of ancient India. Also a god. Why?”

  “There’s some talk it’s being made currently.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Peter said. “There’s never been a formula for it. No one’s got any idea what went into it. Someone’s pulling your leg, my friend.”

  “That’s not what the Paris police think,” Hob said.

  “The French are a hysterical race,” Peter said sententiously. “France is the original home of the conspiracy theory. It all began with the Knights Templar. Etienne, you ever hear of this stuff?”

  “Never have,” Etienne said. “But if it’s going around I’d like some. What was that about the French police, Hob?”

  “Well, it’s no secret that Stanley Bower was killed in Paris this week. The French believe he was selling some drug called soma.”

  “I hope they’re wrong,” Peter said.

  “Why?” Hob asked.

  “Something new and flashy like that could play hell with my business.”

  Etienne said, “I’m going to see if Devi will make me a glass of tea. Catch you guys later.”

  He left, ambling up the sunlit courtyard. Peter busied himself rolling a joint from the marijuana he had just clipped. He did it in the West Indian style, using five papers and coming up with something that looked like a cigar. Neither he nor Hob talked while he was rolling, for rolling a joint was almost a religious rite with Peter, who was one of the best-known dope dealers on the island but didn’t like to talk about it.

  The joint completed, Peter gave it to Hob to begin. Hob lit the end carefully with a wooden match, took four or five tokes, coughed appreciately and passed the joint to Peter. Peter toked. They both settled down in the big wicker chairs Peter had provided in the drying shed. For a while they didn’t talk. The first smoke of the day was a sacred moment.

  Finally, Peter said, “How’s the agency going?”

  “Pretty well,” Hob said.

  After that they smoked, and there was no need for further conversation. Half an hour later Hob was on his way back to his finca, pleasantly stoned, with one of Peter’s one-ounce Temple Balls, made of the finest Pakistani hashish and wrapped in the bright blue cellophane that was Peter’s trademark. It was a present worth having. Peter had done so well in the dope trade in the last year that he hardly bothered selling his Temple Balls, reserving them as gifts for special friends.

  4

  Investigating someone in Ibiza can be as simple or as complicated as you care to make it. If the investigatee lived in the village of Santa Eulalia, the first thing to do was to go to El Kiosko, the big open-air café in the center of town. El Kiosko occupied the upper portion of a large rectangle of tiled ground that led down to the sea. The café was on the upper portion, near the statue of Abel Matutes.

  It didn’t take Hob long to get a line on Stanley Bower. The guy was a member of the permanent British house guest set, always broke—“just a little stony, old boy”—but always wearing good clothes, which were to the professional house guest as hex wrenches were to the auto mechanic. Good shoes were important, too. Stanley Bower would always be remembered for his collection of Bally’s. And he had a gold Audemars Piguet watch—probably a Hong Kong copy, but you can’t go opening up the back of a man’s watch to prove it.

  Hob was making his investigation at a good time. It was late afternoon, just before the stores opened again after the siesta. A cross-section of expatriates from the area were at the café, with their straw baskets crouched at their feet like hungry dogs, waiting to be filled with the evenings’ provisions.

  Tomas the Dane was at a center table, tall and blond with his usual small dark blue captain’s hat. “Stanley? Sure, I saw him last week. Went off to Paris, so I hear. He owe you money?”

  “Not exactly. I need his assistance in my investigations.” That brought a big laugh from Tomas and his friends. At that time nobody took Hob’s detective agency seriously. That was to come later, after the old Italian guy with the price on his head came to the island.

  “You might want to check with his old lady,” Tomas said.

  “Who’s that?” Hob asked.

  “Annabelle. The one from London, not the French Annabelle. You know her, don’t you, Hob?”

  “Sure I do. But I didn’t know she was Stanley’s old lady. How is she?”

  “Still shooting up, so I hear,” Tomas said. “Still pretty as a picture and twisted as a braid.”

  “Where’s she living these days?”

  “Damned if I know. Not in Santa Eulalia. But Big Bertha would know. You know where Big Bertha lives?”

  “I imagine she’s still in the D’Alt Villa,” Hob said. “Listen, Tomas, Harry ought to be down here later for a beer. Tell him I’ll have to take a rain check on our dinner tonight. Tell him I’ll try to see him sometime tonight at Sandy’s.”

  Hob drove his rented car to Ibiza City, but parked on the outskirts near the motorcycle shop and walked into town to the cab rank on the Alameda. It just wasn’t worth trying to drive that last part, there was no parking up in the D’Alt Villa anyhow. The big black-and-white Mercedes taxi took him down La Calle de las Farmacias, then made the right turn that led through the Roman wall to the D’Alt Villa. This was the highest part of the city, and the oldest. The road wound up narrow, precipitous streets without sidewalks, up past the museum, then made another turn into the highest part of the city. Here the taxi stopped. Hob paid and got out and proceeded on foot through passageways scarcely wide enough for two men to pass abreast.

  Big Bertha lived on a nameless alley in the D’Alt Villa, just a stone’s throw below the highest point of the Old City. Ibiza was filled with foreigners snobbish about where they lived, and certain that their location was superior to all others. The smaller the island, the more choosy the foreigners were about where they lived on it. In Ibiza every part of the island had its adherents, with the possible exception of the garbage dump, a noiseome smouldering Dantean sort of place on the old road through Jesus.

  The D’Alt Villa had its old gracious apartments situated in fine old buildings. There were a few trees up there, and good air. The only difficulty was getting there. The climb was steep, there were no buses, and not even taxis could negotiate the final part. Big Bertha solved the problem by never leaving her apartment except to go to a nearby restaurant or to a new showing at the Sims Gallery just down the street, or to any party anywhere on the island. Even that much was an effort. Big Bertha weighed just under three hundred pounds. She was a jolly American woman, some said related to the Du Ponts of Delaware. She had lived in Ibiza forever, under the republic, the Franco government, and the republic again. She had known Elliot Paul. She was social, loved people, adored music. And she was wealthy. The income from the Du Ponts, or, more likely, some less famous but equally solvent industrial family, allowed her to live in style and entertain with distinction. She gave a party almost every month, befriended artists of all sorts and every degree of talent and pretension, made small loans to some, let others use the small finca she owned out on the island in the parish of San Juan. It was said that she knew everybody on the island. That was not possible. During a tourist season, a million people might pass in and out of Son San Juan airport. But she knew a lot of people, and the ones she didn’t know she could find out about if she cared to.

  She greeted Hob in her flowering muumuu and led him into the apartment. It was large and airy, filled with a complication of couches, cane-backed chairs, Ibicenco chests, breakfronts, tables, and a couple of large cracked-and-mended pointed-bottomed Roman amphorae in iron stands. She led him to her breezy terrace. The light was golden on the dark earth-red tiles. Below, the city of Ibiza fell away in a series
of swaybacked cubistic white squares and rectangles, all the way to the harbor with its several cruise ships and countless cafés.

  “So,” she said after a few minutes of desultory chat, “what brings you to my aerie?”

  “I’m looking for Annabelle,” Hob said. “I was hoping you could tell me where she lives these days.”

  “I could probably find out,” Bertha said. “Give me a couple of days, I’ll ask some people. What else is happening with you? Are you here on a case, or just hanging out like the rest of us?”

  “I’m looking into Stanley Bower’s murder. You heard of that?”

  Bertha nodded. “Laurent telephoned from Paris. He read about it in the Herald Trib. He was utterly prostrated.”

  “I heard that Annabelle was seeing a lot of Stanley.”

  “She went to some parties with him, but you know Stanley wasn’t interested in girls.”

  “So I heard. But they were friends anyway.”

  “No crime in that, is there?”

  Hob decided to try a different tack. “Bertha, how’d you like to work for me?”

  “Me, work as a private investigator?”

  “An assistant to a private investigator. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  Big Bertha smiled and shook her head in amazement but she didn’t say no. She got up, went to the sideboard and fixed two gin and sodas. Hob knew she didn’t need the money. She was doing all right with her bar, her restaurant. She even had a few investments, owned some property. But Bertha was a busybody, she was nosy, she liked to find out things, she loved to gossip. This could give her a reason that made it okay for her to gossip.

  She returned with the drinks, handed one to Hob. “What’ll I have to do?”

  “Just what you’re doing now. Seeing people. Giving parties. Going to art gallery openings. Eating in good restaurants. I can’t pay for that, of course. But it’s what you do anyhow. And then you talk to me.”