Eddie indicated the red band where the tape had been. “It itches,” he said. This was no lie.
“I fell asleep on the plane— check the stew if you don’t believe me—”
“Why wouldn’t we believe you, Eddie?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “Do you usually get big drug smugglers who snooze on their way in?” He paused, gave them a second to think about it, then held out his hands. Some of
the nails were ragged. Others were jagged. When you went cool turkey, he had discovered, your nails suddenly became your favorite munchies. “I’ve been pretty good about not
scratching, but I must have dug myself a damned good one while I was sleeping.”
“Or while you were on the nod. That could be a needle-mark.” Eddie could see they both
knew better. You shot your- self up that close to the solar plexus, which was the nervous
system’s switchboard, you weren’t ever going to shoot yourself up again.
“Give me a break,” Eddie said. “You were in my face so close to look at my pupils I thought you were going to soul-kiss me. You know I wasn’t on the nod.”
The third Customs agent looked disgusted. “For an inno- cent lambikins, you know an
awful lot about dope, Eddie.”
“What I didn’t pick up on Miami Vice I got from The Readers’ Digest. Now tell me the truth—how many times are we going to go through this?”
A fourth agent held up a small plastic Baggie. In it were several fibers.
“These are filaments. We’ll get lab confirmation, but we know what sort they are. They’re
filaments of strapping tape.”
“I didn’t take a shower before I left the hotel,” Eddie said for the fourth time. “I was out by the pool, getting some sun. Trying to get rid of the rash. The allergy rash. I fell asleep. I was damned lucky to make the plane at all. I had to run like hell. The wind was blowing. I don’t
know what stuck to my skin and what didn’t.”
Another reached out and ran a finger up the three inches of flesh from the inner bend of
Eddie’s left elbow.
“And these aren’t needle tracks.”
Eddie shoved the hand away. “Mosquito bites. I told you. Almost healed. Jesus Christ, you
can see that for yourself!”
They could. This deal hadn’t come up overnight. Eddie had stopped arm-popping a month
ago. Henry couldn’t have done that, and that was one of the reasons it had been Eddie, had
to be Eddie. When he absolutely had to fix, he had taken it very high on his upper left thigh, where his left testicle lay against the skin of the leg… as he had the other night, when the
sallow thing had finally brought him some stuff that was okay. Mostly he had just snorted,
something with which Henry could no longer content himself. This caused feelings Eddie
couldn’t exactly define … a mixture of pride and shame. If they looked there, if they pushed
his testicles aside, he could have some serious problems. A blood-test could cause him
problems even more serious, but that was one step further than they could go without some
sort of evidence—and evi- dence was something they just didn’t have. They knew
every- thing but could prove nothing. All the difference between world and want, his dear
old mother would have said.
“Mosquito bites.”
“Yes.”
“And the red mark’s an allergic reaction.”
“Yes. I had it when I went to the Bahamas; it just wasn’t that bad.”
“He had it when he went down there,” one of the men said to another.
“Uh-huh,” the second said. “You believe it?”
“Sure.”
“You believe in Santa Claus?”
“Sure. When I was a kid I even had my picture taken with him once.” He looked at Eddie.
“You got a picture of this famous red mark from before you took your little trip, Eddie?”
Eddie didn’t reply.
“If you’re clean, why won’t you take a blood-test?” This was the first guy again, the guy with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. It had almost burned down to the filter.
Eddie was suddenly angry—white-hot angry. He listened inside.
Okay,the voice responded at once, and Eddie felt more than agreement, he felt a kind of
go-to-the-wall approval. It made him feel the way he felt when Henry hugged him, tousled
his hair, punched him on the shoulder, and said You done good, kid—don’t let it go to your
head, but you done good.
“You know I’m clean.” He stood up suddenly—so sud- denly they moved back. He looked at the smoker who was closest to him. “And I’ll tell you something, babe, if you don’t get
that coffin-nail out my face I’m going to knock it out.”
The guy recoiled.
“You guys have emptied the crap-tank on that plane already. God, you’ve had enough time
to have been through it three times. You’ve been through my stuff. I bent over and let one
of you stick the world’s longest finger up my ass. If a prostate check is an exam, that was a
motherfucking safari. I was scared to look down. I thought I’d see that guy’s fingernail
sticking out of my cock.”
He glared around at them.
“You’ve been up my ass, you’ve been through my stuff, and I’m sitting here in a pair of Jockies with you guys blowing smoke in my faces. You want a blood-test? Kay. Bring in
someone to do it.”
They murmured, looked at each other. Surprised. Uneasy.
“But if you want to do it without a court order,” Eddie said, “whoever does it better bring a lot of extra hypos and vials, because I’ll be damned if I’m gonna piss alone. I want a Federal
marshal in here, and I want each one of you to take the same goddam test, and I want your
names and IDs on each vial, and I want them to go into that Federal marshal’s custody. And
whatever you test mine for—cocaine, heroin, bennies, pot, whatever—I want those same
tests performed on the sam- ples from you guys. And then I want the results turned over to
my lawyer.”
“Oh boy, YOUR LAWYER,” one of them cried. “That’s what it always comes down to
with you shitbags, doesn’t it, Eddie? You’ll hear from MY LAWYER. I’ll sic MY
LAWYER on you. That crap makes me want to puke!”
“As a matter of fact I don’t currently have one,” Eddie said, and this was the truth. “I didn’t think I needed one. You guys changed my mind. You got nothing because I have nothing,
but the rock and roll just doesn’t stop, does it? So you want me to dance? Great. I’ll dance.
But I’m not gonna do it alone. You guys’ll have to dance, too.”
There was a thick, difficult silence.
“I’d like you to take down your shorts again, please, Mr. Dean,” one of them said. This guy was older. This guy looked like he was in charge of things. Eddie thought that maybe—
just maybe—this guy had finally realized where the fresh tracks might be. Until now they
hadn’t checked. His arms, his shoulders, his legs . . . but not there. They had been too sure
they had a bust.
“I’m through taking things off, taking things down, and eating this shit,” Eddie said. “You get someone in here and we’ll do a bunch of blood-tests or I’m getting out. Now which do
you want?”
That silence again. And when they started looking at each other, Eddie knew he had won.
WE won, he amended. What’s your name, fella?
Roland. Yours is Eddie. Eddie Dean.
You listen good.
Listen and watch.
“Give him his clothes,” the older man said disgustedly. He looked at Eddie. “I don’t know what you had or how you got rid of it, but I want you to know that we’re going to find out.”
The old dude surveyed him.
“So there you sit. There you sit, almost grinning. What you say doesn’t make me want to
puke. What you are does.”
“Imake you want to puke.”
“That’s affirmative.”
“Oh boy,” Eddie said. “I love it. I’m sitting here in a little room and I’ve got nothing on but my underwear and there’s seven guys around me with guns on their hips and/ make you
want to puke? Man, you have got a problem.”
Eddie took a step toward him. The Customs guy held his ground for a moment, and then
something in Eddie’s eyes—a crazy color that seemed half-hazel, half-blue—made him
step back against his will.
“I’M NOT CARRYING!”Eddie roared. “QUIT NOW! JUST QUIT! LET ME ALONE!”
The silence again. Then the older man turned around and yelled at someone, “Didn’t you
hear me? Get his clothes!”
And that was that.
2
“You think we’re being tailed?” the cabbie asked. He sounded amused.
Eddie turned forward. “Why do you say that?” “You keep looking out the back window.”