Drug of Choice Page 6

“All right,” Dr. Blood said. “Go ahead with it.”

  “Thank you sir,” the man said, and left.

  “Well now, Roger, where were we? Oh yes, talking about secrecy. It’s a problem, Roger. I’ll be frank. Our confidential work imposes restrictions on all of us. But we manage, and I’m sure you won’t find it much of a burden.” He looked at his watch. “Now, I’m afraid I must go. I have an, ah, appointment in half an hour. Do you have any other questions?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll expect to hear of your decision within the next few days.”

  “All right.”

  “Good luck, Roger.”

  Clark left, with a final glimpse of the stocky, red-faced man and his enormous polished desk. Harvey Blood smiled benignly.

  Roger Clark smiled back.

  8. THE PLACE TO GO

  AERO TRAVEL, LOCATED ON the unfashionable (eastern) end of Sunset Strip, was operated by Ron Harmon. Clark had known him since college days; they had both been in the same fraternity. Since then, Clark had booked all his vacations through Aero and Harmon had arranged for discounts wherever possible. They were old friends.

  Clark arrived at the office late in the day, just as Harmon was preparing to shut down. Clark went in, looking past the posters of Switzerland and Hawaii, and inquired about his reservations for Mexico.

  “For what?” Harmon said. He seemed rather distant and preoccupied.

  “Mexico. You remember.”

  “Mexico?” He searched among his files.

  “Ron, are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I feel fine.” Harmon continued to search. His fingers moved slowly, sluggishly through the stacks of papers in his desk drawer.

  “You aren’t acting fine.”

  “What? Oh. Listen, I just got back.”

  “Back?”

  “Listen,” Harmon said, ignoring the files and closing the drawer. “Listen, Roger, you don’t want to go to Mexico.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Hell no. Listen, I just got back.”

  “Back from what?”

  Harmon sighed. “That’s a good question. It’s really back from where, but it doesn’t matter. Back from what is just as good.”

  Clark said nothing.

  “Listen, Roger, I’m your buddy, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And I’m a travel agent, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So listen: will you take my advice?”

  Clark hesitated. “That depends.”

  “Don’t go to Mexico, Roger.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t go.” Harmon stared at him, his eyes distant. “Don’t go.”

  “But Ron, I thought it was all set up, the plane reservations, the hotels…”

  “It is. But don’t go.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that the girls in Mexico City were—”

  “Forget that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “What lesson?”

  “Listen,” Ron Harmon said. “I just got back from the greatest place in the world. It’s a new resort, it’s just fabulous, and in a year or so it will be the most famous vacation spot in the world, bar none. As a tourist attraction, it’s unsurpassed. It’s better than the Alhambra in Spain, better than the pyramids in Egypt, better than the Taj Mahal in India, better than anything.”

  Clark said, “What is it?”

  “It’s great,” Harmon said. “Absolutely great. Nothing can touch it for rest, relaxation, excitement adventure—”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s a resort,” Harmon said. “A brand new resort of a type previously unknown. We’re in the middle of an age, you know. The resort age. Travel is greater than ever before in history, and resorts are booming as never before. The Aga Khan is developing Sardinia. The Costa Brava is booming. South America is just beginning; the Caribbean is expanding fantastically. But all of these places offer basically the same thing—sun, a new environment, a little action….”

  “So?”

  “So once in a great while, a new thing comes along. Something different. Really different. And that has just happened.”

  “What has?”

  “A new resort which is really new and different. Really exciting, really special. I’ve just been to this resort: they invited all the travel agents out there for a week, to see what it was like. I must tell you: it’s the place to go.”

  “It is?”

  “No question,” Ron Harmon said. “No question about it. You’ll have a fantastic time. I did.”

  “Where is this resort? What’s it like?”

  “It’s on an island” Harmon said, “called San Cristobal.”

  Clark said nothing. He was feeling very peculiar, as if he had eaten something raw, and it was now disagreeing with his stomach.

  “San Cristobal?”

  “It’s in the Caribbean,” Ron said. “A brand new island—not really, of course—but brand new in the sense of development. It’s been built up quietly by a group of Americans, to make it into the finest resort in the world. And they’ve succeeded.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “This island,” Ron Harmon said, “is about five square miles. It’s mostly bare coral and scrubby trees, and vegetation. But it’s been bought up, and modernized, and now….” He sighed. His eyes were staring off into space.

  “And now?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “It’s marvelous. I’ve never had a better time. I was there for a week; I could have stayed a century. I could have stayed for the rest of my life. It was beautiful.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “Listen, this is a place where they pay attention to detail. Everything is perfect, down to the smallest detail. The little things, like shower curtains and water faucets and silverware and headboards on the beds. Every minor detail is flawless. You’ll just adore it.”

  Clark paused. “Why will I adore it?”

  “Because it’s perfect. Because you can do anything and everything there. Name it, and there are the most modern, up to date—”

  “Such as?”

  “Anything,” Ron Harmon said, “just anything. Listen, this resort is great. It’s a whole new departure in travel and entertainment. You’ll love it.”

  “Why?”

  Harmon frowned. “Name something?”

  “Coprophagia.”

  “Done!” Harmon said. “The finest, most complete facilities—”

  “But coprophagia is eating fec—”

  “Doesn’t matter! If human beings do it, this resort is set up to permit the most advanced, the most—”

  “What?”

  “Let me begin at the beginning,” Harmon said. “This resort is located in the Caribbean, right? Okay. The first thing is, nobody knows exactly where it is. It’s a huge secret. You fly to Miami, and then stop over in Nassau, and from there you take an airplane with no windows to this island. Everyone assumes it’s one of the Exeumas of the Bahamas, but nobody knows for sure. It’s a seaplane, and when you land—”

  “At San Cristobal?”

  “Yes. At San Cristobal, once you land there, you find yourself in the most superb, fully equipped, fantastic resort. You’ll adore it. You’ll love every minute of it.”

  “But what do you do there? Tennis? Swimming? Golf? What?”

  “Everything,” Ron Harmon said. “It’s just fabulous.”

  Clark sat down. He stared at Harmon for a long time.

  “Confirm my flight to Mexico City,” he said.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Harmon said.

  “I want to go to Mexico.”

  “Mexico is nothing.”

  “I want to go there.”

  “You’re crazy,” Harmon said, digging into his desk for the files once more.

  9. THE BEST

 
AT EIGHT, CLARK MET Janice Connor at Orloff’s. She wore a black dress scooped as low as the brassiere engineers would allow; her hair was piled high as the hairdresser could manage; she looked very elegant, and rather precarious.

  “Smashing,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Orloff’s was not a restaurant Clark frequently visited. For one thing, it was expensive. For another, it was Hollywood. Looking around, he saw several noted stars. Clark disliked Hollywood heartily. He thought it unworldly, foolish, vain and self-centered. But it was also glamorous, and Janice was drinking in the glamour.

  While they waited for a table, Janice told him that she had once been a UCLA cheerleader, and that she had majored in psychology; that was how she had started working for Dr. Shine. He was really an interesting man, with his theories of hypnosis and so forth. Did Clark know that he treated a lot of witches?

  No, Clark said, he hadn’t known.

  “Well, he does,” Janice Connor said.

  They ordered dinner. The wine came; when it was poured Janice reached into her purse, took out a pill, and gulped it back, swallowing it with wine.

  “What was that?”

  “Headache pill. I have a headache.”

  “But what was it?”

  “Something new. Phenimol.”

  “It’s addicting.”

  “Addicting, schmaddicting,” Janice Connor said. She smiled at him and leaned forward over the table, her low-cut gown well-displayed.

  “You’re not worried about it?”

  “Not at all. If it was dangerous, would my doctor give it to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Clark said.

  “He wouldn’t,” Janice said. She smiled at him. “You’re so serious.”

  “Not really.”

  The appetizers came. When they finished, Janice reached in her purse for another pill, swallowed it, and gulped wine.

  “What was that?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s a little embarrassing.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I was tense, is all. That was two hundred of meprobamate.”

  “Oh.”

  “I take it when I’m tense.”

  “Oh.”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything. I mean, not personally. Frankly, I find you very attractive. Are you on something?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know. Some kick or other.”

  “No.”

  “That’s surprising,” Janice said. “I mean, I would have thought doctors would have access to all this stuff….”

  “We do.”

  “And you don’t take it? Listen, I was once up on dex for a week. It was unbelievable. I’ll never forget it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Have you ever made love on dex? I don’t want to embarrass you. I meant it just as, you know, a question. Have you ever made it on dex? It’s great. Fantastic.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just great.” She reached into her purse and withdrew another pill.

  As she swallowed it, she said, “That was the you-know-what.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” She dug her elbow into his ribs.

  Her apartment was small but stylish, with very modern, spare furniture. He looked around. “Nervous? Here, have one of these.” She opened a small case on the coffee table, and took out a tiny gray pill. She passed him his drink. “Go ahead. Take it.”

  “What is it?”

  “B twelve. Twenty-five mikes. Really give you a lift.”

  He shook his head. “No thanks.”

  “No, go on, take it.”

  He looked at the pill, very small in his palm. “I don’t need it.”

  “Need it? Of course you don’t need it. But it will make you feel better, all the same. Listen, you ever take ascorbic acid? Really heavy, like twenty-four hundred millis a day? You know how that makes you feel, sort of vibrant all over? Well, this is better.”

  He protested for a while, but she was insistent, and finally he took it, popping it into his mouth, washing it down with the martini. She had made a very strong martini; it burned all the way down to his stomach, where it made everything very warm and glowing, very hot-pink and burning, a stomach that glowed like a beacon-light, shining through his skin and his undershirt and his shirt… She was staring at him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  It was hitting him very hard, that martini, going right from his stomach to his head, where his brain was turning a charming pink. Very, very charming. “Do you like my nipples?” she asked. He was staring at her and she was turning out the lights, the room was going dark, very slowly and peacefully dark, and he was feeling tired in a gentle, peaceful sort of way. “Isn’t that lovely?” she asked.

  And he said that he was, at least he thought he said so, and then there was an elephant, a large gray elephant tromping through the high grass, where the cheetah waited, sly and muscular, the cheetah in the high grass, waiting, patiently, but the muscles tensed beneath a smooth fur coat, the muscles flexing in an absent, animal way as the elephant came closer, and closer still, moving up heavily to where the cheetah lay slinking in the high green grass.

  “Well?” she said.

  He heard her, from a great distance.

  “What is this?” he said.

  She laughed.

  Her laugh echoed through the room, and through his ears, huge ears cupping the sound….

  “What did you give me?” he said.

  She laughed again, her voice cracking like ice on the rooftops, melting in the sun, dripping from the shingles onto the snowy ground.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said.

  “What is?”

  “It?” She laughed. “Peruvian Green, they call it. It’s manufactured in Peru. It affects your mind.”

  “No kidding,” he said. His voice was thick and heavy, as if he were talking submerged in a huge vat of maple syrup. A huge, thick brown vat.

  This has happened to me before, he thought.

  “It is ineffective,” she said, “except with alcohol. You have to drink when you take it. That starts the reaction.”

  “Reaction?”

  “Bubble, bubble,” she laughed. “Toil and trouble…”

  Fires burning around a huge vat, the liquid boiling, the steam rising around shadowy figures. Dancing around the boiling liquid.

  “Peruvian Green,” she said. “They call it supergrass.”

  “Do they.”

  “Yes. They do.”

  “And what do they call that?” he said, looking at her.

  “They call that,” she said, “what nasty little girls do to nasty little boys.”

  He felt that was rather interesting, really quite worthy of further and deeper consideration, and he was about to think about it, think quite carefully and coolly about it, when he found he wasn’t thinking any more.

  The world began to race for him, to pick up speed and momentum, until it was rushing like a train out of control, an airplane crashing to earth, whining and whistling in the wind, with the ground rushing up.

  And then his head exploded, and he saw white pure light for several blinding instants.

  And then nothing.

  PART II: Eden

  “If an urn lacks the characteristics of an urn, how can we call it an urn?”

  Saying of Confucius

  10. A FEELING OF POWER

  HE OPENED HIS EYES. It was dark. Through the open window, he could see the moon, hazy through the smog. He coughed and looked around him. He was lying on a couch, alone in the room. He sat up slowly. Someone had put a blanket over him; it fell away and he felt the cool night air.

  He stood, expecting to feel shaky. But he was calm; in fact, he felt good. He had a sensation of being fully awake, alert and calm.

  A very peculiar feeling: there was a kind of intensity to it that was almost disturbing. He looked around the room once mor
e. It was unfamiliar in the night, a strange and bizarre room.

  He caught himself.

  He was back in his own apartment.

  “That’s funny,” he said.

  His own apartment. He went from the living room to the bedroom, still not quite believing. The bedroom was empty, the bed neatly made. Which could only mean…

  He looked down at the coffee table in the living room. The newspaper was there: Tuesday, October 10.

  But he had taken Janice to dinner on the eighth. The night of the eighth. And that meant—

  He rubbed his eyes. Two days? Was it possible? Had he really been here two days?

  He wandered around the apartment, unable to understand. In the kitchen, there was an empty coffee cup, with a cigarette stubbed out in the saucer. There were traces of lipstick on the cigarette.

  Beside the saucer was a photograph, torn out from the newspaper. It showed Sharon Wilder sitting on a suitcase, miniskirt high to show long smooth legs. She was smiling, sitting very straight, breasts thrown forward to the photographers. The caption read: “Sharon Wilder To Resort.” Resort to what? he wondered, squinting to read the fine print in the darkness. It said that Sharon Wilder, Hollywood starlet, was leaving for the new resort of San Cristobal.

  By the front door he found the rest of his mail, unopened. Included in the stack was a telegram, which he tore open. It was from the Aero Travel Agency:

  WHERE ARE YOU? AIRLINES AND HOTEL CANCELLED RESERVATIONS BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO PAY DEPOSIT. CALL IMMEDIATELY.

  RON

  “Hell,” he said, staring at the telegram. That was annoying. What was he going to do now?

  Drive. Perhaps he would drive south. It would be good, to make the trip by car…

  The telephone rang. He looked at his watch, wondering at the time, but his watch was stopped.

  “Hell.”

  He picked up the phone.

  “Dr. Clark.”

  “Roger?” A female voice. “This is Sharon.”

  “Sharon? I thought you were gone.”

  “No, silly. I was about to leave, but the flight was canceled. Mechanical difficulties. I won’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh. What time is it?”

  “One fifteen. Did I wake you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Are you all right, Roger?”