Savages

141

The problem with intelligence is not what, it’s which. It’s too much info, not not enough. You have to somehow find what’s significant. So now that they have piles of shit on the Baja Cartel, stored on five thumb-drives—they have to sift through it to find what they need.

The speed helps.

Yeah, used to be a coffee-and-cigarette deal, the all-night research thing, the two intrepid investigative reporters looking for Deep Throat, the buddy cops going after that one clue before the lieutenant shuts them down because he’s getting heat from the mayor’s office.

Fuck that.

They don’t smoke (cigarettes) and Ben already has the shits without making it worse by jacking a bunch of Italian Roast and anyway, he’d just buy that fair trade crap that tastes like dirt so they go the pharmacological route.

Chemical toothpicks for the eyes.

Pop. Pop.

Sitting in front of a computer on speed is like putting the car in park while you stomp the gas pedal through the floor.

Idling at a buck ten.

She can’t take much more, Captain.

Yeah, well, she could, Jim, if she had Ben to hook her up with an indica-sativa blend that puts your nerves in park while leaving your brain in high gear.

Dawn finds them—

Check that—

Dawn doesn’t “find” shit—dawn’s not looking. (The only redeeming quality of the universe, Chon believes, is its indifference.)

When the sun comes up they’re still there, poring over the mass of material.

Ben, natch, wants context.

“There is no content without context,” he says. Something he picked up at Berkeley.

Chon’s hoping that Ben doesn’t want to “deconstruct” the Baja Cartel. Chon wants to deconstruct the cartel, but in a very different, non-Derrida way. Context, content—he didn’t want to go down this road, but as long as they are, he just wants to go in and blast people.

He’s a little cranky without any sleep. But Chon knows from experience that it’s a Big Mistake, trying to sleep after a speed binge.

You can’t rope that pony, you gotta let it run until it drops on its own. (Warning: trying to sleep on speed may trigger a psychotic episode. Consult your physician immediately. Like, warning: if erection persists for more than four hours, consult a physician immediately and hope you have one fucking horny physician.)

Ben’s not deconstructing the cartel, he’s deconstructing the information. It looks like Dennis has gotten most of his intel from a single source—CI 1459, who isn’t identified anywhere in the file.

So Dennis isn’t giving that shit up to anybody, not even his own people. Not uncommon—an asset is just that, an asset, and bureaucrats don’t give their coins away.

We’ll get it when we need it, Ben thinks.

“Okay, so what’s your fucking context?” Chon asks.