The procedure was simple: the cocaine was delivered by some Chechens to a warehouse in Roxbury from where Tom picked it up and stashed it in the fitness club. Then dealers would come to collect it in small quantities. Since 2011 he had been the object of an investigation by the narcotics division of the Boston police, which to date had failed to produce any results.
Among an impressive quantity of notes detailing Lord’s daily existence, Franck notices a list of places where he can often be found in the evening: a porn cinema on a service area beside a freeway in Roxboro, a bar on Westwood Avenue, and another bar on Sunbird Street. Franck is struck by one name: the Jaguar Club, on Hammer Street. Then he thinks of Le Carré. Of the models. Of the Special K party. He looks at his watch. It is half past midnight.
Spread over three floors, the Jaguar Club opens its doors to a heterogeneous clientele, from basic suburbanites to the most powerful pimps, from the most fashionable artists to the most talented traders. On the first floor are the dance floor, the stage, the swimming pool, and the main bar. This is where the cards are dealt. This is where all instincts meet. The upper floors are roomier and less noisy. There, intimacy is preferred to the crowd of rutting party animals downstairs. In this way, customers are able to move vertically, discussing business on the third floor, buying dope on the second, and “having a blast” on the first. This kind of arrangement has been popular for the past few years. Private clubs still exist, of course, but Boston yuppies now prefer to go slumming under the aegis of a clinging hooker and warm up in savage style around a chemical bonfire. As for the poorer ones, they look kindly on this raw, inexperienced prey that can’t tell talcum powder from coke and don’t give the cost a second thought. But what takes place is, more than a business relationship, a genuine encounter. It so happens that people talk to one another as equals, with the more fortunate swallowing their arrogance and the others their distrust. In the Jaguar, different sections of society mingle, different strata intersect, cancel one another out, and are broken down. (It’s a real pity, as one journalist pointed out, that such a thing can only happen over a dose of ketamine.)
In general, people are already stoned when they arrive, but they haven’t yet reached “the big blow-up,” as they call it. The bouncer, a scar-faced African-American colossus, is happy to search customers just for knives and guns. Sometimes he discovers clubs, swords, and even the occasional hand grenade. He turns away the most dangerous or lit-up customers, the ones who have already reached the heart of darkness. Nevertheless, he allows in most of the ones called the “night owls.” That is when the shenanigans begin.
The night owls can’t wait. They have been dreaming of this all week. Once they are past the Cerberus at the door and the cloakrooms, they rush forward, transitioning from the snow outside to the visceral humidity of the main dance floor. Carried away in their eagerness, they dash, stampede toward the center, flow together. They scream with exhilaration. Some are in tears, half-fainting, while others shriek. The week is behind them. So is work. So is the cold. The hostility of the world and the burden of conscience. Here, all is warmth, light, and decibels. They remain pressed together for as long as possible. This is the rapture of arrival, the euphoria of being isolated from the outside world, of escape. It is the initial deliverance from themselves. It can last an hour, sometimes two. Then they are cast off again – by some change of tack, some aberration by the DJ. But they have to maintain their oblivion. They flow back to the bar, or pop a few pills in the washroom. They bandage their wounds, or inflict new ones. Then they return to the attack, to the conquest of the Unknown. The moment for the “big blow-up” has come. Their arrival had been merely an appetizer, an initial contact, a first step toward collective intoxication. Just a moment of vertigo. The second round is more serious, more violent. They return from the washrooms, eyes popping, nostrils splitting. A glass! They fling themselves forward. They spring. There is a mad rush. A swamp of bodies. They leap, they let loose, everyone is yelling. The music crushes them, grinds them, sifts them. They shout themselves hoarse. They hump one another in their rapture. It’s a kind of ecstasy inspired by trifles, one that gathers us, grabs us, shatters, transports us! A magnificent kind of morass that attracts and repels. And we vanish! A magic trick! Smoke and mirrors! Annihilation! All awareness of position, of place, of role. Dissolved! Dancing! To the stars, to the lights, to the DJ’s three-day beard, to his face streaked with red tattoos. There is no more inside, or outside. All is flux, reflux, eruption. A cannon spews foam. The participants exult. They drown. They slide on the dance floor, become soapy and shifting. The crowd swells; it stampedes, it riots. There is no more group, nor sky, nor ground, nor self. This is the appropriately named moment of “ecstasy.” It is for this that they indulge in such outings. It is on this shining, fleeting moment that they have set their compass. Everything is done, everything is directed toward this moment that the revelers call “blessed.” They cling to it for as long as possible. For hours. For the entire night. The heart struggles in its effort… it beats at two, three, four times its normal rate. The DJ, too, is doing his best… the dealers… the barmaids. The magic works, and it lasts… lasts… But, inevitably, the crowd parts. A crack opens. The night owls are uprooted, ejected from the crowd. Brutally cast out, one by one. Thud! on the hard asphalt. Then the final round begins – the longest, the most painful. The most intimate. The collective movement falters, lurches, halts. The tension drops. Awareness returns – and with it the cold and angst. The solid framework of the outside world and the aggressive contours of self-awareness. Faces grow pale. They barely dare look at one another, or look down at the floor, become stable again. Not a word is spoken, not a cry is uttered. Everything becomes unyielding and heavy. Reoccupied bodies go tense. They protest. This is what the night owls call “coming down.” They sometimes say, describing this condition, that they are having “the agonies.” They had escaped from themselves… Now they are back. They had wished to be outside time, but now they are temporal beings again. Faces are buried in hands. They crack. The entire body almost gives way. Some are still tittering: nerves. Others weep, and wish to die. Others ride it out, rebel: “There’s some left? Give it here! Give it here! Hey! Hand it over! A little more? Hey! Just a little?” No, it’s morning.
Every morning a secretary informs Lance Le Carré of the Jaguar Club’s take from the evening before. He smiles, lights a cigarette, and reflects that he doesn’t have to worry, for he can invest his hopes in this half-gilded, half-drudging youth: much better than speculating on the stock market. They’ll be back the next day. They’ll be back every evening. They’ll always be eager for a trip, for a break. Le Carré takes a long pull on his cigarette. Anyway, who can forecast the market? Who can say with any certainty where it will be tomorrow, or two days from now? Who can boast of being insulated from a downturn? Le Carré looks at the figures again, and smiles. The Jaguar Club is his harvester, his combine. And the corn is aware of nothing. Of course, some of them actually think they’re rebels, a bit Trotskyite. They wave the flag of the Occupy movement, of progressive notions. They see themselves as direct descendants of the great revolutionaries. If needs be, they utter – the next day – extraordinary discourses about overcoming capitalism, oppression, obstacles; they discuss community movements, cooperatives; they provide an opportunity to experience a whiff of resistance. And it’s all thoroughly documented! Impeccably studded with quotations! But mostly they’re so burnt out they haven’t a clue about anything beyond their line of coke.
There is less dancing on the upper floors. There, the cards are dealt differently. People aren’t looking for the same thing. The second floor is a checkerboard of small rooms where people come together in groups. They sit at tables, they drink, they snort, they discuss. The ambiance is more favorable to humorous exchanges. Greater sticklers for social differences, more conscious of their own worth, people consume differently, pursue different objectives. It is less a matter of forgetting the self and more o
f affirming it, less about self-effacement and more about making an impression. Especially appreciated by well-heeled young people (as much for the cost as for the mindset they presume), these rooms provide an opportunity to show themselves off to the best advantage. Fashionable artists, drug wholesalers, and student fraternities have made this their place of choice. The third floor is home to businessmen and industrialists. Come there to relax, they take the opportunity to sign a contract or conclude an agreement. They laugh too, but less unrestrainedly. Their use of drugs is less obvious; they drink discreetly and guard against any behavior that might harm their image. In business there are appropriate times to get drunk (on signing a contract with a Chinese millionaire, for instance), while it would be a gaffe to do so in the company of a member of the gun lobby or a Mormon steelmaker. Here, others are probed, sized up, evaluated. After spending several hours, or sometimes several evenings together, you decide you can confide in your interlocutor, indulge in another bottle, or invite him to share a line of coke in the washroom. Here, people are not trying to disappear – nor indeed to appear. They admire one another, they savor one another. They have nothing to prove, nothing to forget. They are already someone, and are satisfied with their lives.
All these fine folk, gathered into permeable groups, line Lance Le Carré’s pockets. Sitting behind his desk, the mobster wears a satisfied expression as he reflects on the Jaguar Club’s turbulent nights, in which some shine brightly while others are extinguished. But for him it’s always win–win. He loads the dice. He ensures the loyalty of his collaborators. He gobbles them up with their acquiescence! “I play for myself, but they never catch on.”
Franck parks the 300C in the club’s lot. He finishes his cigarette and gets out. A guy comes toward him, a bearded, tattooed African-American, unsteady on his feet. He takes a few more steps, notices Franck, and, without the latter uttering a word or doing anything, begins to swear at him. Then he collapses and begins to throw up, kneeling on the asphalt. Franck steps carefully around him.
“Asshole!” the individual exclaims, turning toward him.
“Good evening,” answers the detective, spinning around and going over to him. “Have we met?”
The man is about to answer, but his body is shaken by a spasm and he begins to vomit again. Then his arms give way, and he falls flat on his belly. Franck goes closer and kicks him in the ribs. Then he grabs him by the collar, lifts him up, and punches him twice before propping him up against the rear fender of a pickup truck. He searches his pockets, finding – in addition to a bundle of receipts, paper clips, and aluminum foil – a small cardboard envelope. Franck opens it and takes out a mother-of-pearl mirror on which he lays the cocaine. The stranger groans, slumped against the wheel of the pickup; he is stained with blood and vomit, and barely conscious. Franck, who has put the mirror down on the hood of the truck, begins to snort. Partway through the line he grunts, and stops. He takes the mirror and smashes it on the ground. Then he takes the pusher by the throat, his gloved fingers gripping him violently.
“You have the gall to sell that crap?” he asks.
The man attempts to say something, but can’t. Franck continues, mollified, almost curious, “Do you know I could kill you? Just think about it! First of all, you almost mess up my shoes, then you insult me… And then, to cap it all, you try to poison me!”
The pusher’s eyes are beginning to turn upward in their sockets as Franck shoves him against the pickup and lets him sink to the ground. As he tries to recover his breath, Franck goes on, “It would be too much trouble to have to dispose of your body. Get that?”
The guy doesn’t react. Then, slowly, he nods.
“Can you speak?”
He nods again.
“Then tell me if a guy called Tom Lord is inside.”
No answer.
“Do you want another dose of the same medicine?”
“No… I…”
“Where’s Bill Hiscock?”
The man chokes. “Inside.”
“Where inside?”
“In a private room… Second floor.”
“Thanks a lot.”
The nightclub is an inferno, thick with smoke, crisscrossed with green laser beams. A cheap post-industrial torrent – maybe a remix of Wumpscut Sauce Dubstep, thinks Franck – is making the walls vibrate, and a horde of partly stoned night owls seems to be swaying rather than dancing. It smells of sweat and alcohol – and of the frantic obliteration of thought, of self-importance, and of the renunciation of an organic order in favor of a new, mechanistic one. To his right Franck spots a girl of about fifteen sitting on the ground with her head in her hands, her entire body shaken by spasms. Franck remembers his own teenage years. He never went out. He would spend the whole day in his bedroom, surrounded by impoverished factory workers who drank with the same application that they brought to their work, or to procreation. For them, self-destruction was a serious, calculated, precise act. It wasn’t debauchery. As for himself, too sickly to pursue a normal school career, he remained stretched out on his bed, drinking tea, and reading when he was strong enough – and, very often, dreaming. The memory of his teen years, together with the sight of this girl, makes him slightly dizzy. Maybe it’s boredom, maybe her need to prove something to herself – unless it’s just that she wants to “have fun.” And why not? After all, it’s not her decision, she isn’t a rebel. She’s simply following the advice of her parents, of friends, of journalists, even of the President: “Just have fun!” So why not her? Why everyone but her? Some people enjoy letting themselves be burned to a crisp on a beach crammed with idiots; others like to prepare vegetarian dishes or carve blocks of ice into animal shapes. She is no more ridiculous and no more to be blamed than they.
Yet Franck still feels uneasy. He looks up. He is dazzled by the strobe lights. Now he realizes what is wrong, what the cause of his distress is. Lyllian must be here, he thinks. He sees the young flutist’s smile again, his nervous, diffident gestures, his features. His voice. His drawl. His laugh. And the naivety of his assertion that it is always wrong to kill. Another image materializes, palpable and intolerable: Lyllian snickering along with the models, with a dozen other models who also “just want to have a blast.” Who knows if he too isn’t sitting on the ground with his head in his hands? In the throes of a spasm? Foaming at the lips? A two hundred and fifty-pound man bumps into Franck, almost spilling his pink vodka over him. A couple of young, sweating transvestites have thrown themselves on the ground and are miming copulation. He feels oppressed, crushed, dejected. Earlier that day, during the Le Carrés’ luncheon party, he thought he had discovered someone out of the ordinary. Someone above the basic level. Someone superior to the wretched marshland of ordinary mortals. Someone exceptional, capable of arresting the course of everyday life, of influencing it, of determining his own path through existence. And what a path it was! From the cotton fields to the Boston Philharmonic. What a waste! reflects Franck. Ending up in this place! You can never recover from an evening like this. It’s the utter destruction of his dignity. Of his virginity. Give in once and you’ll always give in. There is still an icy grip on his heart. He would like to extract Lyllian from this hell. Yes, it’s a hell! A cold, stupid, petty hell! Vulgar! Mechanical! He wants to grab him by the shoulders, take him with him, away from this place. Say to him, “Stay there, and don’t budge.” It’s not that he wants to make the flutist his possession. He just wants him not to belong to the models, the pushers, the DJ, the night owls – or to anyone else. They’re filth! Franck thinks. Sacrificing every evening on the altar of stupidity and ugliness, wasting themselves in chatter, in trivial escapades, in adulterated dope and desolate sodomy, along with hundreds of other halfwits of the same ilk. A universal dumbing-down, a world of fools who will end by going clean, doing away with themselves, or falling into line. And to think of Lyllian spending his evenings in their company, getting high with them, exposing – and prostituting – himself. These superficial creatures who wil
l eventually settle down, buy the McCarthys’ house, the same barbecue, the same doormat. My God! Debasing himself for nothing. Sacrificing virtue without the benefit of vice! Maybe some idiots can emerge unharmed from the foam bath of the Jaguar Club, extract themselves from the horde, go outside, be spewed onto the sidewalk, spend a few days with the shakes, and then go back to what they call “normal life.” But, thinks Franck, some scar always remains, some defilement. It’s imperceptible to most, but people like me – is there anyone like me? – can decipher the pettiness, the vulgarity, the banality that’s left. They’ll be like sheep spared temporarily from the slaughterhouse, but still with tags in their ears. They think they’re alive, but already they’re just hunks of meat.
Franck stumbles to the washrooms. The black guy’s powder is burning his throat. Plaster, dammit, plaster and talc. Lyllian’s image merges with the dealer’s. Sadness gives way to anger. He kicks open the door of a cubicle, evicts the occupant, and bolts the door. Mechanically, he cuts two lines on the lid. I’ll strangle them, I’ll find them and do them in, he thinks. Franck kneels on the floor, avoiding a pool of urine. Assailed by the smell, by the music, he snorts quickly and stands up. Then he leans back against the cubicle door, closes his eyes, breathing as slowly and normally as he can. After a few seconds he begins to calm down, to regain his composure. His anger fades. His sadness dissipates. The cocaine is reconnecting his thoughts. For God’s sake, why did I come out? Is all that any business of mine? We don’t even know one another, Lyllian and I! We’ve had lunch together, but what of it? He stood out against a dreary crowd… How could he not have shone? It means nothing. Gradually, Lyllian’s image becomes blurred, more distant. It was just a little fatigue, a moment of weakness, of distraction. And anyway, I didn’t come here to look for him, he tells himself.
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine Page 8