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Authors: Hugh Pentecost
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York’s Lower East Side or among the organized pilferers on the North River piers. They wear white ties and tails and their women wear jewels, and they attend receptions for ambassadors and VIP ’s.”
The room was silent.
“Well, gentlemen,” Digger said, starting to rise from his chair, “it’s been nice to have known you.”
“Sit down, Mr. Sullivan,” Chambrun said. He didn’t move or lift his eyes to Digger’s face. “I’m not particularly interested in turning the Beaumont into a shooting gallery, but there are wars and wars. If any of the big wheels in the narcotics trade are using this hotel as a base of operations, then, by God, I want in. I need to know more, Sullivan.”
Digger sank slowly back into the armchair. “I got into it just the way you two may get into it,” he said. “Accident. Just stumbled over it. Standing on a street corner, minding my own business, and—there it was.” He let his breath out in a long sigh. “I could have run away from it, just as you can.”
“But you didn’t,” Chambrun said matter-of-factly.
“I didn’t, but I wish to God I had. Not because I’m afraid of danger. But because—because I got a taste for something myself that I can’t shake. Something harder to kick than the drug habit.”
“Juliet Valmont?” Chambrun said.
“Yes,” Digger said. He turned his head from side to side. “Yes, yes, yes!”
It began during a big international road race in southern France, Sullivan told us. A driver he knew well—a fellow American from Texas named Al Jenkins—had a bad crackup and was carted off to a French hospital on the critical list. After the race, in which Digger finished second, he went to the hospital to see Jenkins. Before he got to see Jenkins, the doctor on the case told him Jenkins had only a long shot chance of pulling through. He’d been given drugs to ease the pain of severe internal injuries; Digger wasn’t even sure Jenkins recognized him. But that Texas boy was a tough kid. He hung on day after day, and finally the doctors began to believe he might make it. Digger visited him regularly. At the end of a couple of weeks Jenkins was actually sitting up in a wheel chair and the medical report was that he’d won. But there was something wrong with Jenkins. The more hopeful the medical reports, the more disturbed he seemed to be emotionally.
Then one day he broke down and confessed to Digger what the trouble was. He was on H—heroin. As he grew physically better and the doctors took him off morphine, his personal problem was driving him crazy. He begged Digger in a kind of jabbering hysteria to get him a supply of heroin without which he couldn’t live. He’d kill himself if he had to go another twenty-four hours without it.
“You can be awfully pure and moral in a situation like that,” Digger told us. “You can use a lot of silly phrases like ‘grin and bear it.’ Unless you’ve been involved in that kind of torture, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I pacified Al Jenkins as best I could. I let him tell me the name of the man who would supply me with a fix for him. It was something of a shock. The pusher was a fellow named Langlois who was chief mechanic for the racing cars operated by the Bernardel Auto Company. I knew this Langlois well from a dozen races. I told Jenkins I’d do what I could. That, I thought, would keep him alive for another day.
“Then I hunted up the doctor. He knew Al Jenkins was an addict. He frankly sympathized with him, but he couldn’t help him. He couldn’t get drugs for Al without its being called to the attention of his superiors. They wouldn’t approve it. The doctor’s immediate superior was a bug on drug addiction. He seemed to believe the only cure was will power. The doctor told me if I could help Al, he’d turn his back on it. ‘Your Monsieur Jenkins can fight his personal fight some other time,’ he told me, ‘when he has his strength and health back.’ ”
So
The room was silent.
“Well, gentlemen,” Digger said, starting to rise from his chair, “it’s been nice to have known you.”
“Sit down, Mr. Sullivan,” Chambrun said. He didn’t move or lift his eyes to Digger’s face. “I’m not particularly interested in turning the Beaumont into a shooting gallery, but there are wars and wars. If any of the big wheels in the narcotics trade are using this hotel as a base of operations, then, by God, I want in. I need to know more, Sullivan.”
Digger sank slowly back into the armchair. “I got into it just the way you two may get into it,” he said. “Accident. Just stumbled over it. Standing on a street corner, minding my own business, and—there it was.” He let his breath out in a long sigh. “I could have run away from it, just as you can.”
“But you didn’t,” Chambrun said matter-of-factly.
“I didn’t, but I wish to God I had. Not because I’m afraid of danger. But because—because I got a taste for something myself that I can’t shake. Something harder to kick than the drug habit.”
“Juliet Valmont?” Chambrun said.
“Yes,” Digger said. He turned his head from side to side. “Yes, yes, yes!”
It began during a big international road race in southern France, Sullivan told us. A driver he knew well—a fellow American from Texas named Al Jenkins—had a bad crackup and was carted off to a French hospital on the critical list. After the race, in which Digger finished second, he went to the hospital to see Jenkins. Before he got to see Jenkins, the doctor on the case told him Jenkins had only a long shot chance of pulling through. He’d been given drugs to ease the pain of severe internal injuries; Digger wasn’t even sure Jenkins recognized him. But that Texas boy was a tough kid. He hung on day after day, and finally the doctors began to believe he might make it. Digger visited him regularly. At the end of a couple of weeks Jenkins was actually sitting up in a wheel chair and the medical report was that he’d won. But there was something wrong with Jenkins. The more hopeful the medical reports, the more disturbed he seemed to be emotionally.
Then one day he broke down and confessed to Digger what the trouble was. He was on H—heroin. As he grew physically better and the doctors took him off morphine, his personal problem was driving him crazy. He begged Digger in a kind of jabbering hysteria to get him a supply of heroin without which he couldn’t live. He’d kill himself if he had to go another twenty-four hours without it.
“You can be awfully pure and moral in a situation like that,” Digger told us. “You can use a lot of silly phrases like ‘grin and bear it.’ Unless you’ve been involved in that kind of torture, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I pacified Al Jenkins as best I could. I let him tell me the name of the man who would supply me with a fix for him. It was something of a shock. The pusher was a fellow named Langlois who was chief mechanic for the racing cars operated by the Bernardel Auto Company. I knew this Langlois well from a dozen races. I told Jenkins I’d do what I could. That, I thought, would keep him alive for another day.
“Then I hunted up the doctor. He knew Al Jenkins was an addict. He frankly sympathized with him, but he couldn’t help him. He couldn’t get drugs for Al without its being called to the attention of his superiors. They wouldn’t approve it. The doctor’s immediate superior was a bug on drug addiction. He seemed to believe the only cure was will power. The doctor told me if I could help Al, he’d turn his back on it. ‘Your Monsieur Jenkins can fight his personal fight some other time,’ he told me, ‘when he has his strength and health back.’ ”
So
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