He stared at her. “I don’t exactly write this stuff in my diary.”
Nessa tried to do the math in her head, tried to think of when John would have planted the heroin in her house. Had it really been sitting there all that time? It didn’t make any sense.
Goose bumps rose on her arms as she considered the possibilities.
Was John not doing crack? Was this some sort of setup?
The feeling that overcame her had a hallucinatory quality. She remembered when she was a child, long before drugs, when all of a sudden, for no reason, she’d have no idea what day it was, what season it was, how old she was. It would be as if she’d pierced the veil between this dimension and whatever lay just outside it. She had that feeling now.
“He must have jumped to one of my competitors,” Tyler said, wistful.
Nessa shook off her déjà--whatever--it--was. Of course John was doing crack. She’d caught him in flagrante delicto. Of course he was.
Because she could not contemplate the alternative.
She focused on Tyler. “I was hoping you could tell me where I could find him.”
“Nope.”
“Can you give me contact information for your competitors?”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Seriously? I’m not Macy’s in Miracle on Thirty--Fourth Street. I don’t send dissatisfied customers to my competitors.” He went on driving and then said, “So are you going to buy shit from me or what?”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m looking for someone who sells this.”
She held up her phone and the image of the glassine bag.
He pulled his hands off the wheel as if she’d just presented him with a fresh dog turd.
“Well, that explains it,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t do that shit. John’s moved on to the hard stuff.”
“As opposed to crack,” she said. “You can’t be serious. Do you know who sells this brand?”
“I might,” he said. “Let’s go see if he’s home.”
“Great,” she said.
“Sunflower,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He shook his head.
Tyler drove to a little yellow house that seemed to sag and stopped in front of it but didn’t turn off the car.
“There you go,” he said.
“Aren’t you coming in too?”
“Fuck, no. I don’t want anything to do with that shit.”
This was not good. Nessa remembered the old days and the nonchalance with which she had approached apartments and abandoned parks in order to score dope. She hadn’t had a son then. She’d had no reason to be afraid. Now she did. But she had to find John and she had to stop him.
“Could you call the guy to let him know I’m coming and that you, like, vouch for me?”
The guy sighed deeply and pulled out his phone and called. He squinted out the window at the house, which was dimly lit from the inside.
The phone rang several times.
Finally someone picked up. Nessa could hear the person on the other end of the line. His voice was gravelly.
“Yeah, hey,” Tyler said. “I have a friend here who needs something. You think you could help her out?”
There was silence. Nessa figured the guy had nodded off or just wasn’t interested in “helping.”
“All right,” the voice said. “Send her on over.”
“We’re out front. She’s coming in now, so don’t shoot.”
“You’re out front? Get the fuck out of here, man! You don’t idle in front of a man’s house!”
“Sorry. She’s coming now.” He clicked off his phone.
“Thanks, Tyler,” Nessa said, feeling light--headed.
“Listen,” he said. “You need to brace yourself. Don’t stare at him. He hates it when -people stare.”
“Who does? What do you mean? Why would I stare?”
“Just do what I say. You’ll see what I mean when you get in there. I have to go.”
She got out of the car and dropped the cigarette to the ground before crushing it out. She made her way quickly up the walk, pulled back the screen door, and knocked lightly.
The front door opened and standing there was a woman in her fifties or sixties with long, thinning, oily hair, the color of peanut brittle. She wore wire--frame glasses and was shaped like a giant bowling ball with stick arms and legs.
Nessa had thought the person on the phone was a man, with that low voice.
“You Tyler’s friend?” she said. Not in the voice Nessa had heard on the phone.
“Yeah,” Nessa said.
“Well, come on in, you’re letting all the cool out.”
Nessa stepped inside and the dark smells of unwashed bodies in the Kansas heat combined with tobacco smoke and rotten food to give the place a very specific ambiance. The bacteria colony in this place could take over the world.
Nessa rubbed her arms.
“You look in bad shape,” the woman said, putting her icy, spidery hands on Nessa’s shoulders and shaking her a little bit. Then she laughed, her voice cracking and hissing thanks to a thirty--year three--pack--a--day habit.