The Breeze turned and leaned back, scanning the club for a likely candidate. He had set his sights on a homely but tight-assed little blond in leather pants when Billy broke his concentration.
“You got any blow, man?” Billy had shouted to be heard over the music, but his timing was off; the song had ended. Everyone at the bar turned toward The Breeze and waited, as if the next few words he spoke would reveal the true meaning of life, the winning numbers in the state lottery, and the unlisted phone number of God.
The Breeze grabbed Billy by the front of the shirt and hustled him to the back of the club, where a group of Techies were pounding a pinball machine, oblivious to anything but buzzers and bells. Billy looked like a frightened child who had been dragged from a movie theater for shouting out the ending.
“First,” The Breeze hissed, waving a trembling finger under Billy’s nose to enumerate his point, “first, I do not use or sell cocaine.” This was half true. He did not sell since he had done six months in Soledad for dealing — and would go up for five years if he was busted again. He used it only when it was offered or when he needed bait when trolling for women. Tonight he was holding a gram.
“Second, if I did use, I wouldn’t want it announced to everybody in San Junipero.”
“I’m sorry, Breeze.” Billy tried to look small and weak.
“Third,” The Breeze shook three stubby fingers in Billy’s face, “we have an agreement. If one of us scores, the other one gets cut loose. Well, I think I found someone, so cut loose.”
Billy started to shuffle toward the door, head down, his lower lip hanging, like the bloated victim of a lynch mob. After a few steps he turned. “If you need a ride — if things don’t work out — I’ll be at the Mad Bull.”
The Breeze, as he watched the injured Billy skulk away, felt a twinge of remorse.
Forget it, he thought, Billy had it coming. After the deal tomorrow he wouldn’t need Billy or any of the quarter-ounce-a-week buyers of his ilk. The Breeze was eager for the time when he could afford to be without friends. He strutted across the dance floor toward the blond in the leather pants.
Having wafted through most of his forty years as a single man, The Breeze had come to recognize the importance of the pickup line. At best, it should be original, charming, concise but lyrical — a catalyst to invoke curiosity and lust. Knowing this, he approached his quarry with the calm of a well-armed man.
“Yo, babe,” he said, “I’ve got a gram of prime Peruvian marching powder. You want to go for a walk?”
“Pardon me?” the girl said, somewhere between astonishment and disgust. The Breeze noticed that she had a wide-eyed, fawnlike look — Bambi with too much mascara.
He gave her his best surfer-boy smile. “I was wondering if you’d like to powder your nose.”
“You’re old enough to be my father,” she said.
The Breeze was staggered by the rejection. As the girl escaped onto the crowded dance floor, he fell back to the bar to consider strategy.
Go on to the next one? Everybody gets tubed now and then; you just have to climb back on the board and wait for the next wave. He scanned the dance floor looking for a chance at the wild ride. Nothing but sorority girls with absolutely perfect hair. No chance. His fantasy of jumping one and using her until her perfect hair was tangled into a hopeless knot at the back of her head had been relegated long ago to the realm of fairy tales and free money.
The energy in San Junipero was all wrong. It didn’t matter — he’d be a rich man tomorrow. Best to catch a ride back to Pine Cove. With luck he could get to the Head of the Slug Saloon before last call and pick up one of the standby bitches who still valued good company and didn’t require a hundred bucks worth of blow to get upside down with you.
As he stepped into the street a chill wind bit at his bare legs and swept through his thin shirt. Thumbing the forty miles back to Pine Cove was going to suck, big time. Maybe Billy was still at the Mad Bull? No, The Breeze told himself, there are worse things than freezing your ass off.
He shrugged off the cold and fell into a steady stride toward the highway, his new fluorescent yellow deck shoes squeaking with every step. They rubbed his little toe when he walked. After five blocks he felt the blister break and go raw. He cursed himself for becoming another slave to fashion.
Half a mile outside of San Junipero the streetlights ended. Darkness added to The Breeze’s list of mounting aggravations. Without trees and buildings to break its momentum, the cold Pacific wind increased and whipped his clothes around him like torn battle flags. Blood from his damaged toe was beginning to spot the canvas of his deck shoe.
A mile out of town The Breeze abandoned the dancing, smiling, and tipping of a ghost-hat that was supposed to charm drivers into stopping to give a ride to a poor, lost surfer. Now he trudged, head down in the dark, his back to traffic, a single frozen thumb thrust into the air beaconing, then changing into a middle finger of defiance as each car passed without slowing.
“Fuck you! You heartless assholes!” His throat was sore from screaming.
He tried to think of the money — sweet, liberating cash, crispy and green — but again and again he was brought back to the cold, the pain in his feet, and the increasingly dismal chance of getting a ride home. It was late, and the traffic was thinning to a car every five minutes or so.
Hopelessness circled in his mind like a vulture.
He considered doing the cocaine, but the idea of entering a too-fast jangle on a lonely, dark road and crashing into a paranoid, teeth-chattering shiver seemed somewhat insane.
Think about the money. The money.
It was all Billy Winston’s fault. And the guys in Big Sur; they didn’t have to take his van. It wasn’t like he had ever ripped anyone off on a big deal before. It wasn’t like he was a bad guy. Hadn’t he let Robert move into his trailer, rent free, when his old lady threw him out? Didn’t he help Robert put a new head gasket in his truck? Hadn’t he always played square — let people try the product before buying? Didn’t he advance his regulars a quarter-ounce until payday? In a business that was supposed to be fast and loose, wasn’t he a pillar of virtue? Right as rain? Straight as an arrow….
A car pulled up twenty yards behind him and hit the brights. He didn’t turn. Years of experience told him that anyone using that approach was only offering a ride to one place, the Iron-bar Hotel. The Breeze walked on, as if he didn’t notice the car. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his surf shorts, as if fighting the cold, found the cocaine and slipped it into his mouth, paper and all. Instantly his tongue went numb. He raised his hands in surrender and turned, expecting to see the flashing reds and blues of a county sheriff cruiser.
But it wasn’t a cop. It was just two guys in an old Chevy, playing games. He could make out their figures past the headlights. The Breeze swallowed the paper the cocaine had been wrapped in. Taken by a burning anger, fueled by blow and blood-lust, he stormed toward the Chevy.
“C’mon out, you fucking clowns.”
Someone crawled out of the passenger side. It looked like a child — no, thicker — a dwarf.
The Breeze blew on. “Bring a tire iron, you little shit. You’ll need it.”
“Wrong,” said the dwarf, the voice was low and gravely.
The Breeze pulled up and squinted into the headlights. It wasn’t a dwarf, it was a big dude, a giant. Huge, getting bigger as it moved toward him. Too fast. The Breeze turned and started to run. He got three steps before the jaws clamped over his head and shoulders, crunching through his bones as if they were peppermint sticks.