Read Online The Lotus Crew by Stewart Meyer - Free Book Online Page A

She found a girl dealer, who gave her bagged nickels of reefer up front and hipped her how to pass it and score dope with the proceeds. It was a real education. Much more demanding and rewarding than Cooper Union, where consequence was less immediate and dense with abstraction. Everything else became petty in the face of heroin. Simply nothing in the world like it. It liberated her from the tribal madnesses of competitiveness, inherent hostilities, even sex. She found her point of view shifting in what seemed like a practical, even pleasant way.
    Weekly phone calls to her parents in Jersey had always been painful and frustrating. But on the goodness she could call and babble cheerfully. It mattered little that she couldn’t relate to her market-analyst father and secretary mother. Empty-headed suburban mystics. That’s what she thought of them. Their fancy props and hysterical inevitability made her ill. But on dope she could sound loving for ten minutes. Without the slightest effort she could dream up intricate explanations for how she was spending her time. No, she was not attending classes. Her faculty adviser fully approved of an independent study program, and of course she would receive credits after completing a series of paintings. And she was supplementing the income Daddy sent her by selling an occasional painting. That part of her tale was true. A few of Terry’s musician friends were making money. She’d offered three paintings for a total of seven hundred bucks. That’s seventy bags! No small score! She was still painting sometimes, when she had enough stashed to sit still.
    The glowing phone calls to Jersey paid off. Daddy upped the ante from fifty to a hundred bucks per week. Kathy had her own room in a pad she shared with two other Cooper students, and her portion of the rent was small. She ate like a bird, particularly on heroin. A mere twenty bucks weekly took care of food.
    Kathy had style enough to look hip without spending money. She rarely had to pay admission or buy her own drinks at the punk clubs. She was a long way from desperation. Except for dope. It put pressure on her. Made her count pennies. It forced her to deal reefer and risk not only arrest but her ass as well.
    Kathy looked up. She wondered if the three young PRs bopping her way were going to surround her and take her off.
    Her hand slid into her jacket pocket and closed around a can of Mace. But they were content to make sucking noises as she passed.
    â€œOOOooOoO mometta!”
    â€œFlacita! Petita!”
    Kathy ignored them. The Triad spot on C was in a building and kept no touters on the street, so it was hard to tell if they were open. She walked up to the storefront and rapped on the door. An eyeball peered back at her through the peephole. The door swung open. Kathy was a regular, and her face was well known.
    â€œHey, Chu! Got a bundle for me?”
    He smiled and dropped the package in her hand.
    She paid him. “You have a gimmick, Chu? I’m really feelin’ like shit tonight.”
    â€œDon’ sell gimmicks. Go roun’ t’Third an’ D.”
    â€œThanks,” she said, “but I don’t like goin’ near those guys.”
    â€œI know what j’mean. Pretty girl gots no business on that street. When m’frien’ come back I send him t’get a weeper. Yus’ si’down’n hang out.”
    â€œHow nice of you.” She flashed her man-melter smile at him.
    Kathy was impatient to get straight and was about to open and sniff a bag when Chu handed her a tinfoil pipe and told her to draw on the tip when he lit it. The acrid smell of burning goodness filled her lungs at once. She’d never smoked before and was amazed at how quickly it went to her head.
    After a few deep, satisfying hits, Chu lit a joint of strong Thai reefer sprinkled liberally with heroin. A far cry from the harsh commercial ’lumbo reefer she was used to. And the dope