by Louise Penny
In other words, hooking up with Theresa wouldn’t just risk my oldest friendship. It might risk my life.
But I had a tendency to not think with my head. A younger version of me would have made my move already. Theresa and I would be fucking in the back room instead of sharing a joint up front.
But I was trying to be smarter these days.
Trying.
Two unusual things happened that night at the bar.
We were doing moderate business for a Tuesday night, enough that Theresa and I were busy but we could handle it ourselves. I worked behind the bar and she spent most of her time on the floor.
When customers came to the bar and ordered the special, I’d take them into the storage room and sell them however much pot they were looking for. I was always careful. I knew everyone I did business with.
The first surprise was that Ramzan Akhmadov and his henchman Zakir came in.
Ramzen never came himself. He always sent Zakir, or someone even lower on the food chain. So when Ramzen showed up, I got a knot in my stomach and started to sweat.
“Hello, Charlie,” Ramzen said, sitting on a barstool across from me. “How’s things?”
He and Zakir both had thick accents, like a couple of Russian terrorists in a bad action movie.
“Good,” I said, wiping the bar off as if I was a character in such a movie.
Ramzen was in his fifties, with a face like a boxer who retired well past his prime, with lumpy, ruddy patches of skin and a mouth full of crooked teeth. He had a head full of silver hair and eyes that looked black in the bar’s dim lighting. Zakir was in his thirties, maybe a few years older than me, and he was handsome, with slicked-back hair and a mouth full of straight white teeth. While Ramzen looked like a dock worker trying on a nice suit, Zakir looked the part of a gangster.
I made myself put the towel down and just stand and talk with the men. Stop pretending nothing was weird.
I asked Ramzen if he wanted anything, and he declined.
“You?” I said to Zakir.
Zakir always took single-barrel bourbon, and I would normally pour without asking, but with Ramzen here, he might not want to be seen drinking on the job, so I figured I better ask.
He shook his head no and came around the bar like he always did and went into the back to the cooler. There was a case of Budweiser that was always in the same place. There were twenty-three bottles of beer inside. In the one empty space was an envelope of cash that I kept up to date for these visits.
“Did you catch the game?” Ramzen asked, making small talk.
“No,” I said. “I missed it.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, not even what sport. It was summer, so that meant either the Indians or, if they were still in the playoffs, the Cavaliers. I didn’t give a shit about professional sports, and I’m sure Ramzen didn’t either, except for the betting that went along with it.
I figured the game, whatever game it was, had something to do with why he was here. Maybe he wanted me to start taking bets like a bookie.
I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to get any more involved with him than I already was.
“Have you seen your friend Fender lately?” he said.
“I saw him today,” I said.
Honesty seemed the best policy here. I didn’t want him to find out later that I was lying.
“And how was he?” Ramzen asked.
I shrugged. “Fine.”
I was doing my best not to look over Ramzen’s shoulder at Theresa out on the floor. As far as I knew, Ramzen didn’t know that Fender’s sister worked for me. She was just another cute waitress. I had a few of them. Call me sexist, but good-looking girls help with business.
“Did Fender tell you about a new drug he has?” Ramzen asked. “I think it is called Y.”
Zakir came out from the back and sat next to Ramzen. Both of them stared at me.
“He mentioned something about it,” I said, again choosing honesty. “Some new thing from China.”
“Did you try it?”
“No,” I said. “You know me. I stick with naturals—no pills, no powder.”
Their eyebrows raised in unison, and that made me qualify my statement.
“No powder anymore,” I said.
“This is from the bones of a prehistoric animal,” Ramzen said. “What is more natural than that?”
I forced a laugh.
Zakir spoke up for the first time. “Did you see it?” he said. “The Y?”
Now I chose to lie.
“No,” I said. “He knew I wouldn’t be interested in something like that.”
Now things were starting to make sense. Fender said he had a buyer lined up. They were just haggling about price.
Ramzen was his buyer.
Fender paid his cut to Ramzen just like everyone else. But he didn’t work for Ramzen. He was never in debt, never needed Ramzen’s money (unlike me), so he was able to operate more or less without any oversight.
Still, Fender needed to be careful.
Ramzen Akhmadov wasn’t someone I would haggle with over a price. Fender had bigger balls than I did.
Ramzen and Zakir were boring into me with their stares. I could feel Theresa doing the same from across the room.
“If you find out anything you want to tell us,” Ramzen said finally, “call this number.”
He set a card on the counter. It was blank except for a handwritten number.
I frowned, hoping my expression would say, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
But I did, and they knew I did.
After they left, Theresa came over, her face full of worry.
“What was that all about?” she said.
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Call your brother and see if he’s okay.”
That’s when the second surprise of the night came: a police detective walked into the bar.
He was in street clothes, but I could tell he was a cop. For one, he had the air of scumbag smugness that cops have.
For another, he had a pistol strapped to his hip.
He came up to the bar, his eyes focused on Theresa, not me. He introduced himself as Detective Sean Williams.
“Are you Theresa Matthews?” he said.
She nodded, her eyes confused.
“And your brother is Glen Matthews?”
She nodded again, her eyes changing from confused to scared.
“I regret to inform you that your brother has been murdered.”
I closed the bar, told all the remaining customers that their tabs were on the house tonight, and then Theresa sat down with Williams at the same table where she and I shared the joint a few hours ago. She was in shock. She hadn’t cried yet. She had a dazed look on her face, a little like she was stoned but without the pretty smile that usually accompanied her highs.
Theresa asked if I could sit with them, and when I explained that Fender—i.e., Glen—was my college roommate and a longtime friend, Williams agreed.
He asked her questions about when she’d last seen Fender, if she was aware that he was a drug dealer. I knew which answers were lies and which were the truth.
When he came to me, I told him that I’d seen Fender earlier that day, that we’d each had a beer. I figured my fingerprints would be all over the place: the bottle, the bathroom faucet.
“What was the nature of your visit?” Williams asked.
“Just visiting,” I said. “We’re friends.”
“And were you aware that your friend was one of the biggest drug dealers in the city?” he said.
“We didn’t talk about that stuff,” I said.
“What kind of stuff did you talk about?” he said.
“The girls we slept with in college,” I said. “The time we stole a ceramic cow head from a fraternity party. Classes we failed. Stuff we did when we were eighteen and drunk and stupid.”
This was all true. Fender and I had very little in common these days. I sold dope, and he sold it to me—
and I gave his kid sister a job when she needed one—but that was pretty much it. Otherwise, we lived worlds apart. We talked about old times—remember that one time?—and that was usually it. Discussing his latest boutique drug purchase was out of the ordinary for us.
“Did he mention a drug called Y?” Williams asked.
“Look,” I said, “Theresa and I don’t know anything about what Fender did. We don’t know what the hell is going on. What can you tell us?”
“The investigation is ongoing,” he said bureaucratically.
“Cut the shit,” I said. “Either you tell us what happened or we won’t say another word until we get a lawyer.”
Williams took a deep breath. He turned to Theresa.
“Your brother’s throat was slashed,” he said.
She gasped, bringing her hands to her face.
“But he was tortured first.”
She started sobbing. Then she rose from the table and ran into the back room.
Williams turned his stare to me.
“His apartment was ransacked. His safe was emptied. His guitars smashed.”
For some reason, that last bit hurt me the most. Fender loved those fucking guitars.
After the cop gave me his card and left, I found Theresa sitting in the cooler, her arms wrapped around her, covered in goose bumps. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, which had started to crystallize in the cold.
“I came in here because I wanted to feel some kind of pain besides what’s inside of me,” she said, her lips quivering, her teeth beginning to chatter.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll walk you home.”
I didn’t bother to put out rat poison that night. Didn’t balance the books. Didn’t even take the tips out of the tip jar. I just grabbed my knapsack and locked the door.
On our walk, the warm summer air erased the goose bumps on Theresa’s arms.
“What’s this Y he was talking about?” Theresa asked.
“Some new drug,” I said. “Your brother said it was super-rare.”
“Do you think they killed him for it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t ask her who she meant by “they.”
She lived in a small one-bedroom. There wasn’t much to it. A thrift-store futon that she used for a bed and a couch. An old box TV. She had some movie posters on her walls from back when she used to work at a theater.
Back in her heavy drug days.
Fender had introduced her to the hard stuff when she was a teenager, then paid for rehab when she was out of control. He asked me to hire her when she was out, told me to keep her away from anything stronger than pot. Since I didn’t deal in chemicals—and because I’d been through something similar to her, back in my own dark days—he thought I was the right person for the job.
She sat down on her futon and pulled her legs up underneath her. She hugged herself like she had in the cooler even though her apartment was stuffy.
“Do you have anything stronger than pot?” she asked.
“No.”
“Let’s smoke a bowl then.”
I opened up my backpack to get the new brick that Fender had sold me.
The bag of Y was inside.
I didn’t tell Theresa the Y was there. I pretended like everything was normal. I pulled out a pinch of dope, packed her pipe, and passed it to her.
I took a couple hits, but that was just to give her the impression she wasn’t smoking alone. My mind was reeling, reliving my last conversation with Fender.
Had he acted unusual in any way? Had he seemed scared?
No, he seemed perfectly normal. Yet when I went to take a piss, he slipped the Y into my backpack. It must have been an impulse move. He wouldn’t have known I was going to pee before I left.
Still, he must have feared that someone would come looking for the stuff. I wondered if they’d tortured him for the combination to the safe, then killed him, only to find out that the safe didn’t have what they were looking for. Or did they know the combination and torture him afterward when they didn’t find what they were looking for?
They probably smashed every guitar looking for a secret hiding spot.
Theresa lay out on the futon and put her feet in my lap. I rubbed them. She had delicate feet, perfectly smooth, her nails painted an ugly purple color.
She groaned, “God, that feels good.”
“I need to get going,” I told her.
“No,” she said. “Stay. I’m afraid of what I might do if I’m alone.”
I was afraid of what I might do if I stayed. But I told her I would.
She sat up onto her knees and put one hand on my shoulder.
“This dope isn’t strong enough,” she said. “I need something else.”
I stared at her, knowing what she was going to ask for.
“Make love to me, Charlie. I know you want to. The only thing stopping you was my brother.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” I said.
She put her hand to my crotch, where my cock was hardening like quick-drying concrete.
“It feels right to me,” she said.
We never bothered to fold the futon out. We spent the night curled together, cramped on the couch cushion. No sheets or blankets. Just our skin, clammy in the humid air. We talked for a long time. I knew she needed to be distracted, so I filled the silence with talk about my life and how I didn’t know how I’d ended up where I was.
I should have been thankful, I guessed, that I kicked the coke that once brought me so close to ruin. But the cost was a partnership with the Chechen mob—a lifetime contract unless I could think of a way out.
“Why didn’t you ask my brother for the money?” Theresa asked.
“Pride,” I said. “Fender and I were friends back when we were nobodies. He was a somebody and I was back on track to becoming a bigger nobody than ever. Besides, Fender touched more drugs in one day than most people do in a lifetime, but he’s never really been hooked on anything. The willpower that son of a bitch had. I was embarrassed to admit I needed help.”
“I know the feeling,” she said. “But I always hated him for introducing me to the stuff. What kind of brother does that?”
She was right: Fender was no saint. He was a narcissistic drug dealer.
But he was my friend.
When Theresa drifted off to sleep, I lay awake, staring at the water spots on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the city coming in through the open window. Voices. Music. Sirens.
I felt antsy, unable to lie still. Finally I untangled myself from her and started to dress. Streetlights through the window illuminated her milk-white skin, her pink nipples, her lovely face, which looked incredibly young while she slept.
“Sorry, Fender,” I whispered aloud.
Theresa’s eyes opened a crack and she muttered in a dreamy voice, “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a few things I need to do today,” I said. “Go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said, but she was already closing her eyes and drifting away.
“Theresa,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t answer your door. Not until I call you.”
“Okay,” she said, but she seemed asleep already.
When I left, I locked the door handle but had no way of locking the deadbolt unless I woke her up to do it. I thought about it, and decided to let her sleep.
My apartment lived somewhere in the world between Fender’s and Theresa’s: not as shitty as hers, not nearly as nice as his. It was a modest two-bedroom with a nice TV and decent furniture.
I opened my backpack and put both bags of drugs on my wooden coffee table.
I stared at the Y.
Did Ramzen kill Fender?
Probably.
That meant the smart thing to do—smart for me but also smart for Theresa—was to hand the stuff over to him. That was the easiest way to stay safe, and to keep Theresa safe.
But Fender was m
y oldest friend, which pretty much made him my best friend. We didn’t have much in common anymore, but I liked him more than most people.
And I was in love with his sister.
I admitted that to myself at that moment, with the dull dawn light coming in through the window making the powder in the Y bag look even more gray and ashen.
I told you before I often did stupid things, impulsive things. You could say sleeping with Theresa hours after her brother was killed might be one of them.
But there was an even dumber thing I felt like doing.
I wanted to try the Y.
I kept telling myself that I would be able to think better if I knew what I was dealing with. Was this some great revolutionary new drug? Or just ordinary coke with a made-up story to go with it?
I wasn’t sure how knowing the answer would help me, but I felt like it would.
Or maybe I was just rationalizing. I wanted to try the Y, and so I convinced myself it was a good idea.
I got a drinking straw from the kitchen, cut off an inch section of it, and went back to the living room. When I opened the bag, there was a peculiar smell. Like a dusty book sitting on a shelf for a couple decades, with another underlying scent barely hidden—a rotten smell, like roadkill.
I stuck the straw into the bag, put the other end to my nose, and snorted a good, hard pull.
The effect was instantaneous.
It felt like I’d inhaled fire, and the flames spread through my skull and down into my limbs. I thought I was going to die, and then the pain turned into a soothing warmth. I sank back into the couch like I was falling into an ocean of pillows. I just kept sinking and sinking, my fingers and toes numb, the rest of my body nonexistent. I closed my eyes and began to dream.
I wasn’t human. My heart was pounding, my breathing coming out in raspy, ragged bursts. I had big powerful legs and tiny little arms, and a long tail that balanced the weight of an enormous skull. I had a massive snout and teeth the size of kitchen knives. It felt natural to have this body, to have this balance.
I was running through a jungle of exotic plants. My sense of smell was stronger than any human’s, and I inhaled rich, wild scents that I’d never experienced before.