"Hey, they're fuckin' Arabs or something," Lyle Mack said. "Who knows what they'd get up to?"
"You know, he's a harder guy than I thought," Joe Mack said. "I don't think he was kiddin' about all that." BARAKAT WALKED the bundle of cocaine out to his car, locked himself in, checked the ramp, then unrolled the sack and took out the Ziploc bag inside. Half a kilo: it looked right. And pure, crystalline white. Gorgeous. The Macks had said that it would be straight, unstepped-on; he'd believe it when he tried it.
And he'd try it now. A terrible risk: anyone could come along. Somebody could be walking down the ramp, quietly, see him in the car… but he was going to do it anyway.
He took his briefcase off the passenger seat, opened it, took out a paperback book with a slick cover, closed the briefcase and put it on his lap. Looked around again. His hands were shaking as he shook a pile of coke onto the paperback. The pile was the size of the last joint on his little finger. He dipped his little finger into it and tasted it. Tasted fine.
Still a little worried. Coke was sometimes cut with strychnine to boost the rush-that's what he'd heard, anyway. What if they'd added a little extra? But it tasted fine… and clean. Coke was cut with lactose, mannitol, lidocaine, dextrose, all kinds of other shit. He looked at the little pile, felt the cold sweat on his forehead.
Mentally flicked back to the Beirut story he'd told the Macks: all bullshit, an accumulation of legends he'd picked up from kids at school. But he was worried about the Macks.
He looked again at the pile of cocaine. Didn't matter if there was strychnine in it, he thought. He couldn't wait. He fished the cafeteria straw out of his pocket, made a last check, and snorted the stuff up.
One minute later, the world had changed.
First the rush, like electricity running through his nerves; then the power, the brightness, the focus.
Better than sex. THAT NIGHT, Adnan Shaheen let himself into Barakat's house, called out, "Alain?" Shaheen was a short man with a fuzzy, bushy mustache, dark-complected, soft brown eyes. He was wearing a parka over a white, hip-length physician's coat. He was in his first year of residency in internal medicine. "Alain, are you there?"
Barakat's car was in the driveway Instead of an answer, Shaheen got a thump from the back bedroom. Like a body hitting the floor.
"Alain?" He went back, down the hall. "Alain?" Pushed open the bedroom door. Barakat was sitting on the floor, back to the bed, his head back, eyes closed, saliva running over his lips and down his chin. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt, boxer shorts, and over-the-calf socks. His shoes were on the floor between his legs.
"Ah no," Shaheen said. He grasped the hair at the sides of his head, as though he were going to tear it out.
"Go away," said Barakat.
Shaheen ignored him, squatted on the rug next to the other man, switched to Arabic. "What is it? Cocaine? What have you taken?"
Barakat opened his eyes. "Maybe… too much. Better now." He giggled. "Pretty bad an hour ago. That was very, very crazy. You know. My blood was… on fire."
Shaheen stood up and turned on the bedside lamp, and Barakat shouted, "Off… turn it off!"
Shaheen turned the lamp off, but not before he saw the baggie of cocaine on the nightstand. A lot of cocaine. Too much.
"Where did you get this?" he asked. He poked a finger at the bag, but was careful not to touch it.
"Got some money."
"Not this much money," Shaheen said. "Three days ago, you borrowed two hundred dollars from me."
"Go away," Barakat said.
Shaheen looked at him for a long moment, then said, "If your father knew, he might disown you."
"So don't tell him," Barakat said. He waved his arms around, struggling to get up. His eyes were black as coal. "Gotta get something to eat."
"Sit on the bed. I'll get you something…"
Barakat shook his head, as if to clear it. Shaheen walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. Opened the refrigerator: empty, except for a bottle of olives. Checked the cupboards, where Barakat sometimes kept cereal. Nothing. There was no food in the house.
He went back to the bedroom, where Barakat was staring down at his shoes. His sport coat was thrown over a chair, and Shaheen picked it up, took Barakat's wallet out of the breast pocket, opened it. Ten or fifteen dollars, a five and a wad of ones.
"You have no money for food, even," Shaheen said. "Where did you get this cocaine? What have you done?"
"Fuck you," Barakat said in English. He pushed himself up, went to the cocaine, picked up the bag, pushed it in the drawer of the nightstand. Then, "You know what I need? I need falafel. A lot of falafel. I need three kilos of falafel, right now. And coffee. Lots of coffee."
"You have to go to work…"
Barakat shook his head. "I'm on day shift for two weeks." SHAHEEN AND BARAKAT had grown up together, Shaheen's family as servants of the Barakats; servants for generations. While Barakat was fouling out at one private school after another, Shaheen was thriving. He won a scholarship to the American University of Beirut, to study biology, the first of his family to finish high school, much less go to college. Barakat went off to Paris, wedged into the anything-goes foreign division of the Sorbonne, where he majored in women, wine, kief and cocaine.
Shaheen had spent a jobless year after graduation, his biology degree almost useless in a country that was falling apart. Then one day old man Barakat came to see him and they struck a deal.
Barakat was floundering in Paris. Five years, no degree in sight. Shaheen would go to Paris, move in with him, get him through school, get him through the medical exams, get him into a medical school in the U.S.
Get him through it, no matter how…
And Shaheen would go with him.
A journey of seven years, but they'd done it. They struggled, cheated, fought with each other, and Barakat-who was smart enough, if lazy-managed to scrape through. Shaheen did very well. Not quite as well as he would have on his own, because he was studying for two, and if anyone had found out how they'd cheated on virtually every test they took, they'd both be out on their ears.
But now it was almost done. Once through their residencies, they'd go their separate ways-Shaheen back to Miami, he thought, Barakat back to Europe, or perhaps LA. Someplace warm, where he wouldn't have to work too hard.
If, Shaheen thought, the American cocaine didn't kill Barakat first. THE TWO BEST falafel places in St. Paul were closed, and they wound up at a McDonald's on University Avenue. Barakat couldn't go inside because the lights were too bright, so Shaheen went in, bought two Quarter Pounders with cheese and two large fries and a strawberry shake for Barakat, and a chocolate shake for himself. They ate in the parking lot, Barakat wolfing the food like a starving man. And he might be starving, Shaheen thought, watching him. All the money was going on dope.
"You'll need a stomach pump," Shaheen said as Barakat finished the second burger.
"I'm okay," Barakat mumbled through the last of the beef.
"So you got more money from your father?"
"Mmm. Not yet. Next week. You get catsup?"
"In the bag," Shaheen said.
Barakat found the three little packets and squirted them on the fries, started stuffing the fries in his face.
Shaheen thought about it. A few days past, he'd loaned Barakat money for food, though he suspected it would go for dope. And there'd been no sign of food in the house. Now he said that his father's check wasn't due for a week.
He had a big bag full of cocaine, and had apparently spent most of the evening snorting it. Not an eight-ball, but a big bag full of it. So where did he get what felt like a full pound of cocaine?
Shaheen thought about it, and the idea came upon him like some dark miasmic fog rising out of a swamp. He tried to push it away, but it wouldn't go.