Chronic fear

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Alexis had only been to Darrell Silver’s lab once, when the hedonistic young chemist showed her his plan for refining Halcyon. He’d offered her a beer, which she declined, and he proceeded to pop one himself as he escorted her into the hidden recess where he’d installed his state-of-the-art equipment. Now, as she entered the former gas station, the greasy and musty aroma evoked memories of Sebastian Briggs’s Monkey House.

“Darrell?” she called as she entered. The front door had been unlocked and she figured he would be waiting in the residential portion of the structure. She tried the light switch and the room stayed as dark as the falling dusk beyond it.

Alexis fished her keychain from her pocket and flicked on the attached penlight. She navigated the leather couch, the bowed shelves that were packed with vinyl records, and the strange alabaster sculpture that suggested a marine mammal. A gaping rectangle of darkness, oozing cool, metallic air, heralded the garage she remembered from her long-ago visit.

“Darrell?” she called again.

“Down here,” he called from somewhere below.

A dim wedge of reddish light beckoned her. She knelt to see the narrow metal ladder that led down to Silver’s workspace. The equipment was gone, but the stainless-steel fixtures remained, a few lighted candles on top of them. Silver sat in a swivel chair, holding a cigarette and smiling up at her. The candle flames bobbed as he waved.

“Been a while, huh?” he said.

“You’re out of prison.”

“I had a good lawyer.”

“I shouldn’t be here. If they see us together…”

Silver shrugged. He was wearing a button-up white shirt, a change from the rock band T-shirts he always wore. “You can leave any time. No biggie.”

“You said you had something for me.”

He snorted. “Yeah, some ‘groceries.’ Don’t be so uptight. Come on down.”

Alexis squinted into the darkness around her, wondering if anyone was hiding in it. She resisted the urge to flick the penlight around the garage. She’d have to trust Mark to watch her back, just like always.

Alexis went backward down the ladder, wondering if Silver was looking up her skirt. She turned off the penlight when she reached the concrete floor of the small chamber. The candles cast mesmerizing chimeras of yellow and black along the concrete walls.

“The place has changed,” she said.

“The feds seized everything, Doc,” he said. “You know how those fuckers are.”

She rubbed her arms, feeling a little claustrophobic in the cramped lab. Despite a thorough cleaning and a paint job, the maintenance well still held the ghosts of all the vehicles that had been serviced from its depths. “So you finished the second batch?”

“No need to talk in code,” he said. “We’re among friends.”

“Where’s the Halcyon? I need it.”

“Ah.” Silver gave his goofy grin. “I didn’t figure that stuff could be addictive. That puts a whole different spin on things. But I didn’t tell you about the offshoot. You’ll love this: tenocyclidine with extra fluorides.”

“Fluorides.”

“You know. Every chemical compound has a flip side, scramble the molecular structure, kinda like an echo. I played around with it and came up with a shit-kicking version.”

“You extrapolated it?”

“Like a superduperfied version of angel dust.” Silver spoke rapidly, excited about sharing his subject with someone who spoke the same language. “An analogue of PCP that blocks your glutamate receptors. PCP was a bitching pain blocker back in the good old days, but the side effects…whoa.”

“Hallucinations, paranoia, schizophrenic delusions, rage. I know all about it.”

“Heh. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been getting wet yourself.”

“Getting wet?”

“Yeah. They used to dribble the liquid on a cigarette. But you can snort it or carry it like a rock crystal. Versatile.”

Alexis was uneasy, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “It’s a dangerous dissociative drug.”

He gave a casual wave of dismissal. “This new version would blow that shit out of the water. You’re noodling around with neurotransmitters and they all run through the amygdala, right? I’m surprised you didn’t see it yourself.”

Alexis was, too. Briggs must have made the same extrapolation, linking the glutamate inhibitors with the role of serotonin and dopamine. She’d been so fixated on existing compounds that she hadn’t made the leap into drugs that couldn’t exist.

Darrell Silver, the scruffy, boyish savant who didn’t even know the rules, much less play by them, was able to see without his vision being clouded by knowledge. That was a particular kind of genius Alexis would never possess.

But she sure as hell was going to possess Seethe.

“Did you produce any of it?” she asked, disguising her envy.

“I had some precursors lying around but they got seized. Give me a little time and I don’t see any problem. Spinning off the fluorides might be a little tricky, though.”

“We can go over the chemistry later,” she said. “You’ve made a very valuable discovery.”

Silver ignored her obvious impatience. “So I hear. No need to go baking up sheets of acid at two bucks a hit wholesale when I can auction Seethe to the highest bidder.”

Goddamn. Somebody got to him. He knows what he has.

There wasn’t time for negotiation. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Darrell. These guys are willing to kill.”

Darrell gave a stoner laugh. “I used to hustle nickel bags in Needle Park. I know all about killing for a fix.”

“I’ll pay you double. But I need the Halcyon.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Silver fished around in his pants pocket as if looking for change. He came out with a tiny slip of rolled-up paper.

Alexis thought for a moment it might contain the revised chemical formula, but Silver jammed the paper into his mouth and leaned the tip toward a candle. He inhaled as the sweet, cloying odor of marijuana filled the maintenance well.

“I know you’re in with them,” Alexis told him. She didn’t want to tip her hand, but she also didn’t want to waste more time. Mark was running on fumes, and if she didn’t get him some Halcyon soon, he might drift into a rage and kill them all.

“There are a lot of ‘thems’ running around, man,” Silver said, taking another hit and holding it in his lungs a moment before blowing it toward Alexis with a flourish. She waved the smoke away, her eyes stinging.

“Well, you know you can’t trust them, and you know I need you,” she said. “I wasn’t the one who turned you in.”

“Here’s the deal,” he said. The marijuana must have been “superduperfied,” too, because it had already relaxed him and he talked more languidly. “I got to have some cash. Lots of it. I’m heading for Canada. My lawyer thinks I can beat this rap, but I don’t want to be locked in the loony bin for years while the wheels of justice are grinding.”

“They didn’t bust you for the drugs,” Alexis said. “They busted you for Halcyon.”

“That shit’s not even on the books. I could patent it and sell it legit, but I don’t want to hang around, if you know what I mean.”

“This is bigger than you know.”

“Tell me about it, Dr. Morgan. I’ve met some very interesting people lately. And I’m not talking about the nuts in the psycho ward. I’m talking about the nuts at the top of the tree.”

Alexis wondered if Mark had entered the building and was listening from above. He’d dropped her off a block from the lab and promised he’d be watching. Of course, he was watching because he didn’t trust her, not because he wanted to protect her.

She lowered her voice. “I can get you twenty thousand.”

Silver giggled and took another hit of weed. “Doc, if I am going to be in exile, I want to live like one of these deposed dictators. I’m not going north to hunt caribou and sleep in an igloo.”

She jangled her car keys. “My car, too.”

“That’s better. But somebody else made me an offer today. Six figures.”

“CRO,” she blurted out.

“Hey, I’m a dealer,” he said, crushing out the joint on the tabletop. “No names. Sudden amnesia. I deliver and forget it.”

“Do you have the new Halcyon here?”

He lifted his palms in supplication. “They picked the place clean. They didn’t even leave a crumb for the mice. Not to mention the roaches.”

“I can meet you here in an hour with the money.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Morgan. I know you gave me an A in neurochemistry, but I don’t owe you any favors. I need to go with the high bidder here.”

Alexis felt her own surge of anger and wondered if it was anything like what her husband experienced when the Seethe took control.

No. I’m in charge of my emotions. If the Monkey House trials proved anything, it’s that I can survive.

Even if no one else does.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.” She raised her voice. “Mark!”

Silver let his eyelids droop and shook his head sadly. “Man, everybody’s watched too many Coen Brothers movies.”

“Mark!” Alexis shouted again, the name slapping off the concrete walls.

Mark’s face appeared in the opening above the ladder. “Found a friend,” he said.

He gave a grunt of effort and then Wallace Forsyth’s wizened face emerged from the gloom.

“Hello, Alexis,” Forsyth said. “I see we’re both still engaged in the pursuit of happiness. But I think Mr. Silver there is happier than any of us.”

“Dude, did you get busted?” Silver said to the older man.

Forsyth tried to smile but his face curdled as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. “I’m too old to play hide-and-seek.”

Mark stuck his hand into the lighted space so that Silver could see the gun pointed at him. “Give Alexis what she wants.”

Silver giggled. “Hey, Dr. Morgan, you have a well-trained husband there. A regular monkey on a leash.”

“He’s quite capable of murder,” she said. Her coldness must have made an impression on the stoner, because his mouth fell open and he blinked rapidly.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “That’s the real bitch of the drug business these days. Used to be just people helping each other feel good, with a little spending money swapping hands. Now it’s all guns and gangs and fucking conspiracy theories.”

“Great,” Mark said. “A hippie with a conscience. I thought you said this guy had a brilliant scientific mind. I think he’s sampled a little too much of his product.”

“Please, Darrell,” Alexis said. “Your life is in danger.”

Silver glanced at Mark’s gun.

“Not just from him,” Alexis added. “But from the people who put you in the hospital, the people who got you out of the hospital, and the people who don’t trust either of those people. None of us are safe.”

“Shit, Doc, you’re higher than I am.”

“Give me the Halcyon.”

Silver looked up at the two men crouched on the garage floor above. Forsyth nodded at him and said, “Give them what they want.”

Silver slid off the table and knelt over a tiny steel drain in the center of the maintenance well. The concrete was sloped so that liquids would flow to the lowest point and presumably be carried to the building’s sewer pipes. Gallons of burnt motor oil, radiator fluid, and dirty water had probably swirled down the drain over the years.

Silver ran his fingers into the metal grid and twisted it. The drain fell open with a clunk. “Drug dogs couldn’t smell it down here,” Silver said. “Plus, they’re not trained for this shit, whatever it is. They only do illegal drugs.”

Silver ran his hand into the drain, digging and pushing until he was elbow-deep in the opening. After a moment, he pulled his arm back and held up an orange plastic vial.

“Every four hours or else,” Alexis said.

“What’s that?” Silver said, still kneeling on the floor.

Alexis took the vial and climbed the ladder. Mark moved Forsyth aside so she could join them on the garage floor.

“Hey, what about my money?” Silver shouted, his voice echoing up from the well.

“We’ll mail you a check,” Mark said.

“Seriously, what am I supposed to do?”

“I’d stick with Plan A and ride the Caribou Express,” Alexis said. “After the heat dies down, I’ll be in touch.”

She left him as he fired up another joint, muttering to himself that nobody knew how to mellow out anymore. “Go easy on that Halcyon,” he said. “It’s my best work.”

Outside, Mark said to Forsyth, “We’ve got a road trip planned, and since we can’t leave you here, and I’m not ready to kill you yet, I suppose you’ll have to come along.”

“I understand,” Forsyth said. “It’s not like I had plans. Besides being vice president of the United States, that is.”

“Give me your cell phone.”

Forsyth fished inside his jacket and gave his BlackBerry to Mark. They walked up the street, keeping well off the pavement to avoid the passing headlights. Alexis hurried after them, wondering how she’d convince Mark to take one of the tablets.

The car was parked on a gravel service road outside an electrical substation. When they reached it, Mark waved Forsyth into the backseat. Then he flung the BlackBerry into the briars surrounding the substation fence.

“We can’t have your pizza delivery boy using GPS to track us,” Mark said as he slid into the seat beside Forsyth.

Alexis started the engine, turned on the headlights, and pulled onto the highway, heading west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.