by James Sperl
It felt wrong. All of it. Valentina going off with Arlin alone, her being here with him without anyone knowing of her whereabouts—it all felt to-the-roots-of-her-bones wrong.
But she couldn't leave. Not yet. She was so close to a score she could taste it. Her body tingled with anticipation. In just a few minutes, she would be on her way. At least that's what she wanted to believe.
“Come on in,” Arlin said, as he crossed the trailer to a pleather seat and lowered himself onto it. He held up his hands apologetically, as if indicating the trailer's poor condition. “Sorry for the mess. Maid's got the week off.”
He chortled. Valentina gulped and tried to put on a smile.
“That's okay. Not much point in keeping up appearances anymore, huh?
Arlin jabbed a finger at her and cocked his head. “I like that. 'Keepin' up appearances.' Gonna have to remember that one next time Ma starts riding my ass about picking up. You know she's always on me about that? But it's like you said: Who the fuck cares now?”
He smiled then. It was a dopey, slack-jawed grin that made him look as if he had a mental disability. Valentina wasn't entirely sure he didn't. His eyes moved furtively over her body. As he gawked, Valentina conducted a visual sweep of the stranger with whom she now found herself alone.
Arlin's shabby and disgusting trailer was a personification of the man himself. Grimy and unkempt, Valentina wondered when he had last cleaned himself. Streaks of something brownish smeared his sweaty, naked torso, and his stringy hair had gone days—perhaps even weeks—without touching shampoo. Illegible, faded tattoos peppered his arms and body, and his pants were so soiled with thick patches of inexplicable grime, Valentina wagered the suffocating stench that permeated the trailer came from them.
But it was his mouth that incited true revulsion. What teeth remained were nicotine-yellowed and pockmarked with so many black spots, she couldn't fathom how they stayed in his head. Cracked, parched lips parted to reveal a white tongue, which darted in and out of his horrible mouth spasmodically like a lizard.
More than anything, she wanted this to be over.
“So,” Arlin said, as he produced a pack of cigarettes, “you trying to outrun them sleep critters too, huh?”
Valentina frowned uncertainly. “The what?”
“Them boogies.” He popped a cigarette into his mouth and followed it with a lit match, which he blew out then flicked into the trailer once he finished. “You know, the one's been taking folks? You ain't the first to try and outrun 'em.”
“I'm not trying to outrun anything. I just need...I'm down is all, and I want, I need to re-up.”
Arlin grinned at her. “Uh huh.”
Valentina couldn't look at him. Not because he disgusted her, which he did, but because he saw right through her bullshit. Of course, she was trying to put off sleep. Who the hell wasn't? It was just that some people went to greater lengths to achieve their goals than others. Some even further.
He tapped some ash. “So what've you been using so far?”
“Mostly whatever I can find,” she said, “but now I'm down to a couple of doses of Dexedrine. That's it.”
Arlin's brows lifted. “You on Dex? How's that been workin'?”
She shrugged. “I can stay awake for long stretches. Stay awake while we're camped then crash when we move. But...it hasn't been as effective lately.”
“Prescription?”
Valentina nodded. “Found it at someone's house. I think it was for ADHD or something.”
“Oh hell. Might as well just take a Tylenol for all the good that shit's doing you. You probably been runnin' on the placebo effect. Know what that is?” Valentina thought for a moment then nodded. “That's why you don't feel like it's working no more. Your body's probably all like, 'Hey, what the fuck is this shit? Gimme the good stuff!'”
Arlin cackled. “Now, I can hook you up with a whole shit ton of different happys. Got me some pure Dex and concentrated Ephedra. Or you can step it up to a different dextro if you want, try some Levo or Lisdex.”
Valentina had no idea what he was saying. Levo? Lisdex? What the hell were those? She was no professional user. All she wanted was the drug he mentioned in his mother's pharmacy tent. The one that promised to keep her awake even longer.
“You...you said you had something else. Something new. Something even better.”
Arlin leaned onto the messy table in front of him and delivered a sleazy, car-salesman smile.
“I knew you was a girl knew what she wanted. Fuck all that other stuff.” He moved his chair closer to Valentina and lowered his voice. “Got me this supplier. Motherfucker's the shit. Been hooking me up for awhile now, and his product is fucking King Kong. His new stuff? It's a hybrid. Pulls all the best parts from the most potent shit into one place. Super fucking high with long wake hours and a mellow-as-shit come down on the back end. Tried it myself. It's the bo-bo-bomb!”
Valentina shifted nervously. “Do you have any? Here, I mean?”
Arlin lifted his brows and wiggled his shoulders, playfully mocking. “Do I have any here?” He laughed, the phlegm-soaked outburst at her expense. “Hell yeah, I got some here. The Rage is my biggest seller.”
Valentina canted her head. “I'm sorry. The...the Rage?”
“It's called Road Rage, but everyone just calls it Rage for short, 'cause that's what it does. It rages, girl!”
He laughed again and took a deep drag.
“Road Rage? I don't know...”
“Don't let the name scare you off. Dude that cooked it up named it that 'cause everyone's pissed off at how they got to live now. It's a hardcore name, makes it sound like the stuff's a shitkicker—which it is—but only in the best way. Hell, you could probably take a half dose and it'd still sail you off better than anything else out there. It's fucking revolutionary, is what it is.”
Valentina chewed her lip. Road Rage? Despite Arlin's explanation, the name didn't do anything to bolster her confidence in it. She already felt woefully uneasy just being in his trash heap of a trailer, let alone trying to broker a deal there. Every drug transaction she had ever made in the past had been through friends or known acquaintances, and they were usually for weed (before it was legal) or the occasional dose of ecstasy. But Road Rage? That sounded like next-level shit. Shit with which she was grossly unfamiliar.
Still.
Sayings regarding beggars and choosers sprang to mind.
“Okay,” she said. “Um...I'll take some.”
“Superb!” Arlin stamped out his cigarette. “I just happen to have one full bottle left, but no worries. Got my supplier coming in soon, so it's all good and all yours, if you want it.”
Valentina bristled at the word 'bottle.' “Is it a liquid?” she said. “Do you have to shoot it, because I'm not interes—”
“Nah, it ain't no fuckin' liquid,” Arlin interrupted. “It's a happy pill. I just keep 'em in bottles, vials, jars, whatever, instead of baggies. It'd seem disrespectful to do that.”
Valentina wiped her damp palms on the hem of her skirt. “Okay.”
Arlin beamed. “All right. Now then, let's get down to the nitty gritty of the titty. Rage ain't cheap. You got something to trade?”
“I, uh,” she began but stopped to clear her throat. “I've got some gas. I can give you five gallons.”
Arlin's mouth fell open, and his head dropped in comic disbelief.
“Five gallons?” He hovered there for a moment as if trying to decide if Valentina was serious, which she most assuredly was. After some seconds, he exploded with laughter, startling her. “Five gallons?” he repeated through guffaws. “Darlin', Rage is easily a hundred gallon deal. But I don't need a hundred gallons of gas.” His eyes dipped to her cleavage then to her knees, prompting her to cross her legs. “What else you got?”
Valentina's face felt warm. “I don't have anything else.”
Arlin leaned onto a knee. “You sure about that?”
Her heart raced. Every molecule in her body y
elled at her to sprint from this place. But she didn't.
“Too bad,” he said, leaning back. “Guess we ain't got no deal. Good luck down the road. I hear there's another post just shy of Philly, but the city markets got shit, if they ain't already been cleaned out. But who knows? You might get lucky. So...?” He stood and leered at Valentina.
Her mind was in a duel of opposing forces. The urge to flee was powerful. She felt imaginary ropes tug at her limbs, yanking her in the direction of the door, but the call for self-preservation couldn't best the anticipatory craving that coursed through her blood. She needed something. Now. A solution to get it was in her grasp, but she couldn't bring herself to execute what needed to happen. She knew what Arlin wanted. His not-so-subtle ogles and wandering eyes left little to the imagination. The thought disgusted her. The idea of touching him clenched her stomach and made her mentally and physically recoil.
But to leave meant going home empty-handed. It meant detoxing and sickness with restless days fighting off insanity, but most of all, it meant the inevitability of crippling sleep. That she could not have.
“So,” Arlin said again, “we done here or what?”
Valentina dabbed an eye before the tear that pooled there had a chance to track her cheek.
“Sit down,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Take...take your pants off.”
Arlin grinned contentedly and did what Valentina told him. He said nothing, as he unbuttoned his stinking jeans and pulled them, along with his begrimed, hole-ridden underwear, to his knees. He kept quiet while Valentina stood and worked off the panties beneath her skirt with trembling hands. He took her in his scabbed and calloused fingers when she mounted him, unaware that she had sent her mind adrift and had disconnected herself from the world, where she would remain for the next seventeen minutes.
* * *
Clarissa had just finished weighing her selections—ten pounds, one-half ounce, Corrine having gifted her the half-ounce overage—when she spied Andrew and Rachel. They pushed the cart filled with containers of fuel through the mucky ground directly up to the counter.
“Perfect timing,” Clarissa said. “Look at all this.” She held up one of the sacks filled with plums, apples, and oranges.
Andrew lowered the cart. “Looks great. Now put a quarter of it back.”
Clarissa screwed her face into a look of incomprehension.
“What? Why? Twenty gallons, ten pounds. That's what we said.”
“Yeah, initially,” Rachel chimed in. “Then we met Jon. He found a pharmacy, and they've got antibiotics, but it's going to cost ten gallons.”
Clarissa looked at Andrew for confirmation. “Jon found antibiotics?”
“So he says. But with his ten and our twenty, the scale has tipped a bit out of my comfort zone. I'd prefer we hold on to some, even if it is only a five-gallon difference.” He looked at Corrine and her husband, who both rearranged produce. “I hope that's okay with you folks. I don't like to renege on a deal, but I'm afraid in this case my hand is forced.”
The husband, who stood from combining half-empty containers of tomatoes into full ones, waved it off. “It's not a problem. You're just looking out for your people. Can't fault that.”
“That's very understanding of you. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
Clarissa frowned. “So what do I put back? I want to keep it all.”
“Just put back one of each thing,” Rachel suggested. “That'll leave us a little of everything, even if it is less than we'd hoped.”
Clarissa glanced at Corrine as if expecting her to shrug her shoulders and tell Clarissa to keep what she already had. They had become friendly over the last half hour; Clarissa hoped that friendliness translated to goodwill. But reality prevailed when Corrine, who in fact did shrug, said to her, “Sorry.”
“Me too,” Clarissa replied. She dug into her bags and systematically loaded up the empty scale one item at a time until the needle crawled to two-and-a-half pounds.
“Could I ask you folks something?” Andrew said to the young couple. “You ever hear of Rosenstein Biotechnologies?”
Clarissa turned around so fast she dropped a cucumber.
“Rosen what?” the husband said with a grimace.
“Rosenstein Biotechnologies. It's supposedly an R&D facility, but of what I have no clue.”
The husband looked at his wife, who shook her head.
“No, never heard of it. Sorry. Is it supposed to be around here?”
Andrew chuckled a little. “Truth is, we don't exactly know where it is. We caught a radio broadcast some months back, and Rosenstein was mentioned as someplace that might provide some answers to what's been going on. Been looking for it ever since, though many of us are beginning to doubt its existence.”
Clarissa felt Corrine's eyes on her. She knew she couldn't adequately explain why she didn't divulge this information to her earlier, just as she knew Corrine had quietly branded her a liar. The designation, though not entirely accurate, did not sit well.
“No,” Corrine said, looking from Clarissa to Andrew, “we've never heard of any Rosenstein place, but...” She glanced at her husband. “...there was a man. Said he worked in the tech industry. Like, high up. He used to come to our country markets all the time before the Sound.”
Corrine's husband snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Yeah, that guy. What was his name? Showed up every Saturday like clockwork.”
“That's him.”
Clarissa and Rachel moved up beside Andrew. All three gaped at Corrine and her husband with barely contained optimism.
“Do you know what this man did?” Andrew asked.
Corrine shook her head immediately. “No. Only that he hated having to work weekends on these secret projects, which he did all the time, or so he claimed. Never said what they were, though.”
Andrew took a step forward. “Is that what he told you? That they were 'secret' projects?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Corrine's husband. “All the time. Only he called them...” He turned to Corrine. “How did he word it?”
“Super hella hush-hush,” she replied with a giggle.
“That's it!” the husband said.
Andrew grinned. “Super hella hush-hush? He said that?”
Corrine nodded. “Yep. That I remember because it was so weird. Who says stuff like that?”
Clarissa set down the bags of food. “It doesn't sound like he was too concerned with keeping secrets if he was talking so openly about what he was doing.”
Julia trotted over and hugged her mother. Corrine pulled her close.
“He hated what he did,” she said. “Complained about it all the time and talked about how he wanted to quit. Said what he was doing wasn't how he wanted to spend his life or something like that.”
“Did he?” Rachel asked.
“Don't know. About three months before the Sound he just stopped coming. Haven't seen him since.”
What hope Clarissa had pumped up deflated in an instant. A high-ranking scientist who talked openly about his high-ranking—and super hella hush-hush—job, who subsequently disappeared? She'd seen the movies. No one tells confidential secrets and lives to talk about it. The guy was deader than dead. Just like the lead she thought they had discovered.
Andrew dropped his head, dispirited. He looked up at the couple but kept his chin down. “You wouldn't happen to know where this man lives, would you?”
“Or what his name was?” Clarissa added, doubtful the couple had an answer to either question.
“Kaplinsky,” Corrine's husband said without hesitation. Andrew, Clarissa, and Rachel straightened. “That I know for sure because he liked to be called 'Kap,' but I don't know if that was 'Kap' with a K or 'Cap' with a C.”
Andrew exchanged glances with Clarissa and Rachel. Clarissa swore she saw the hint of a smile.
“Kaplinsky?” Andrew repeated. “You're sure?”
Corrine nodded. “Positive.”
“As for an add
ress,” her husband began, “I don't have the first clue. But on more than one occasion, I'd seen him head in the direction of Beauxville. Not sure if he lived there, but he traveled that way a lot.”
“Beauxville.” Andrew nodded. “Thank you very much. You've been incredibly helpful.”
Corrine stepped forward. She issued a condemning look to Clarissa before she focused on Andrew.
“What does Mr. Kaplinsky have to do with all of this? Does he know something about what's happening? About what's happened?”
Andrew had already started to turn to leave when Corrine's questions stayed him in place. His response would be no different than the one Clarissa had already provided. They knew nothing. That wasn't a lie. She hadn't been deceitful with Corrine. Even so, Clarissa hoped his version of the answer painted her in a different light. She couldn't put her finger on why that was important to her, especially when she considered the hard fact of the matter, which was that she would never see Corrine or her family again. But it was.
“Truthfully,” Andrew said, “I don't know if this Kaplinsky knows the first thing about what's going on. The odds are that he's as clueless as the rest of us. But if there's a chance—as infinitesimally small as it may be—that he can point us in the right direction to someone who does know? Well, that's something worth finding out. And I intend to.”
* * *
Jon inspected the medicine Natty handed him.
“What?” she said through a self-amused grin, as she chewed her cigar. “Don't trust me? It's all there. Every last dose.”
Jon counted the pills and verified the claim. He crunched closed the paper bag that contained them.
“It's not about trust. It's about me losing an arm because someone miscounted.”
Natty raised her arms as if presenting herself and the men who guarded her. “Well, fortunately for you, we're all Harvard grads here, so you've got nothing to fear.”
“Uh huh.”