"Mannona-come..."

"Onnamann..."

Blessed Ona, we give thee thanks!

A scream froze in Blackjack"s throat when something slimy, humid, and hideous reached out of the dark and very gently touched his shoulder.

Twenty.

Something hot seemed to insinuate itself along Phil"s nerves to his brain, where it then lodged and seemed to hum. At once, he felt edgy, disjointed, but at the same time tranquilized. He knew there was no way to fake it, not around these guys. They were pros. He"d taken most of the drag in his mouth, holding it, then snorting it out through his sinuses, and had actually inhaled only a trace.

But only a trace had been enough.

G.o.dd.a.m.n, he thought, flabbergasted. What a buzz...

Sullivan took the joint back. "Hey, bub, don"t be a bogart." Then he laughed and began to smoke it himself.

Thank G.o.d, Phil thought. The stuff packed a heavy wallop; he knew that if he had to smoke any more of it, he wouldn"t be able to stand up, much less drive a car. Got to shake this off, he told himself. He started the Malibu. "Decent flake," he said. "Big buzz. So where are we going?"

"North up the Route," Eagle said.

Once he got going, he began to feel better. He let the fresh air from the open window rush into his face. His brow p.r.i.c.kled, dark splinters seemed to twitch at the farthest peripheries of his vision, and every so often he was touched by a chill that was somehow hot.

Sullivan finished the flake joint as though he were eating the dense smoke. "Okay, bub, now I know you"re for real. One of our partners beat town a couple weeks ago, so we need a new driver full-time. You"re it."

"Sounds good," Phil said.

"What we do is pick up the finished product from our supplier, then drop it off at our points. The money"s good, and the cops aren"t on to us."

Oh, yeah? Phil thought. I can"t wait to send you up to the slam for five...bub. "What"s your circuit?"

"Just north county," Eagle said from the back of the Malibu. "Millersville, Lockwood, Waynesville, thereabouts. Rednecks buy this s.h.i.t hand over fist. Our product"s better and cheaper than the regular supplier. We"re gonna cut him out."

"Who"s the regular supplier?" Phil asked, but he thought he had a pretty good idea already who they were talking about.

"Never you mind about that," Sullivan griped. "You"re just the wheel-man, so get on the wheels."

"Right," Phil said.

Eagle directed him through several turns up roads he never knew existed. Most were dirt roads, rutted and potholed, often so narrow that overgrown brush swiped the car on either side. Eventually they came to a clearing, and Phil was instructed to stop.

"f.u.c.kin"-A," Sullivan complained. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d ain"t here. Are we early?"

"We"re five late," Eagle said.

"Then where the f.u.c.k is Blackjack?"

Phil just sat there and kept his mouth shut. He knew he"d learn more about the network in time. But Sullivan and Eagle seemed overly distressed, pressing themselves into long silences, jerking their gazes constantly about the car.

They sat there a half-hour, and no one showed up.

These guys are freaking out because their point man"s running late? Phil thought. It didn"t make much sense. Why are these guys s.h.i.tting their pants?

Eagle nervously swept his hair out of his eyes, leaning forward from the back. "How many times has Blackjack been this late?"

"Never," Sullivan hotly answered.

"So the guy"s late," Phil offered. "What"s the big deal?"

"Tell him the big deal," Sullivan said, waving a hand.

Eagle"s face in the rearview looked pale. "Lately a lot of our point men and distros have been disappearing."

"Jake Rhodes, Kevin Orndorf, and now Blackjack," Sullivan grimly recited. "And there have been others, and I mean a f.u.c.kin" s.h.i.tload of others."

"Maybe the cops are on to us," Eagle suggested, "and we"re just too stupid to see it."

"You guys are moving local dust," Phil jumped in. "The county and state could s.h.i.t care less about it-dust is small time to them. They"re all out after scag and c.o.ke. And the local cops? Guys like Mullins? No way. Those town clowns can"t even write parking tickets; they"re too busy taking bingo graft and pad money. It ain"t cops, fellas."

"The f.u.c.k"s going on then?" Sullivan shouted.

"Wake up and smell the coffee. You just got done telling me you"re trying to undercut the major dust supplier in the area, and all of a sudden your people are disappearing. What"s that tell you?"

"Somebody"s putting the whack on us," Eagle said. "And we"re sitting here like three ducks in a bathtub."

What a couple of dupes, Phil thought, chuckling all the way back. No wonder the idiots had done time; they were just plain stupid. f.u.c.kers couldn"t sell shovels to ditch diggers. He"d dropped them off at their trucks back at Krazy Sallee"s, and agreed to meet them tomorrow night. Mullins is going to love this. Gotta hand it to the guy, though. He called the whole thing right from the start.

The "other" dust supplier had to be Natter, and it had to be Natter who was putting contracts out on these new movers. So far everything fit.

Now I just got to plan my own next move, Phil realized, and it better be a good one.

It was past two when he"d dropped Eagle and Sullivan off. He drove around an hour just to make some leeway, then parked the Malibu behind the strip mall where they had the cleaners who did his shirts. Then he made a halfmile walk to the station.

"How was the rednecking tonight?" Susan asked from behind her radio console.

"Not bad," Phil told her. "Maybe I really am a redneck at heart; I"m fitting in just like the real McCoy."

"I was getting a little worried," she said. Her bright blue eyes glittered up at him. Her blond hair shined. "I didn"t hear from you over your portable all night."

Worried about little old me? Phil thought. Well, that was a good sign. "It"s hard to whip out the police portable when you"re driving on a pickup run with two PCP peddlers," he proudly replied.

"You"re kidding. Who?"

"Eagle Peters and that guy Sullivan, the one who filed the missing persons a while back." Phil smiled. "They"re both dust peddlers, and I"m their new driver."

"That"s great!" Susan exclaimed. "Jesus, you"re really getting in deep, and fast."

"It"s just my well-proven expertise, my dear. I can"t help it-I"m a supercop."

"Yeah, well, Supercop better be real careful. The closer you get to these people, the more dangerous it gets."

"Danger," Phil said, "is my middle name. Oh, and you were right; I had to prove myself tonight."

"What?" she asked very speculatively.

"I had to smoke some dust."

"What was it like?"

"I only smoked a little, but it put a whack on me pretty fast, made me feel kind of mellowed out but hyper at the same time. I don"t know what the big deal is, though. The c.r.a.p just gave me a headache after the buzz. But, anyway, these guys think I"m legit now, so I"m in."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I"ve got a good idea, I think. What I need right now is for you to punch up Sullivan again."

"Why?"

"I need his address."

Susan looked doubtful. "What have you got cooking, Phil?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

She wavered at her console, then, reluctantly punched up Sullivan"s name on the county mainframe-link. Then she gave Phil the guy"s address.

"All right, see you later."

"Wait a minute." Susan got up and came toward him at the door. "You"re really spooking me. What are you going to do?"

"Hey, I told you, don"t worry about it. Let"s just say that I"m going to spin some grease and see how fast I can turn a tough guy into a stool pigeon."

"Phil, I don"t like the sound of this. You can"t be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with these people. At least let me go with you."

"Forget it. I"ll talk to you tomorrow," he said and turned for the door.

But before he could leave, she grabbed his shoulder and urged him around.

Then she kissed him.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"I don"t know," she replied. "I guess I just felt like it."

"Well, you can feel like it anytime you want."

"Besides, my kisses are good luck, and I have a feeling you"re gonna need it-whatever this hare-brained scheme of yours is."

Phil paused a moment, and took in the vision of her beautiful face. Don"t turn into a sap, he commanded himself. "Like I said, don"t worry about it. Talk to you tomorrow," he said and left.

The kiss tingled on his lips. Yeah, I must be doing something right, he thought. So make sure you don"t get yourself killed now...

Sullivan lived in one of the big trailer parks just out of town; Phil drove straight to it. Hope Paul"s an early riser. It was close to four-thirty in the morning when Phil pounded on the flimsy aluminum storm door.

"Who"s that?" came Sullivan"s rocky voice after a good five minutes of knocking.

"It"s me, Phil."

"Who?"

"Phil. You know, your new driver."

"Whadaya want?"

"Come on, man. Open up. This is important."

With further grumbling, Sullivan undid several safety chains and opened the inside door. He stood there groggily, dressed only in boxer shorts. "What? Ya find that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Blackjack?" he asked.

"No, man," Phil said. "Sorry to wake you up, but this really is important."

"Yeah, bub, ya already told me that."

"I need to ask you something."

Sullivan"s muscled chest flexed when he thumbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Ask me somethin"? What?"

"Well, I need to know which side of your face do you want me to bust first, the right or the left?"

Sullivan"s beady, sleep-puffed eyes stared at him. "What the f.u.c.kin" h.e.l.l you talkin" ab-"

Phil punched right through the flimsy storm screen; his fist slammed into Sullivan"s big, wedgy face with a sound like a baseball bat to a heavy bag. Sullivan reeled backward, arms pinwheeling, and stumbled over a tacky armchair. He landed flat on his back.

Phil invited himself in. "Wow, Paul, great place you"ve got here. I love the Dart Drug furniture, and those carpet tiles?" Phil whistled. "I"ll bet they cost you a buck a piece at least, huh?"

Sullivan dizzily tried to rise; Phil kicked him in the chest with his pointed boot. "Oh, by the way, Paul, your previous trepidations were quite on the mark. I"m a cop. And one more thing... You"re under arrest for possession of and intent to distribute PCP."

Sullivan looked up from hands and knees. "A cop? You chump motherf.u.c.ker. I knew there was somethin" f.u.c.ked up about you."

"Congratulations on your perceptivity," Phil said. "And, let me make it perfectly clear-" Phil rammed the heel of his palm into the top of Sullivan"s head -whap!- "that you have the right to remain silent" -whap!- "and anything you say will be used against you in a court of law." Whap! "You also have the right to an attorney. If you can"t afford an attorney" -whap!- "the state will be happy to appoint one to you at no cost." With that, Phil picked up a flimsy, fiberboard coffee table and promptly broke it over Sullivan"s head- crack!