Free Dermaphoria by Craig Clevenger Page B

when someone’s coming and they won’t be able to get in easily.”
    “If the Feds are coming, it doesn’t matter how sturdy it is,” I said.
    “I’m not talking about the Feds. I’m talking about people who arepissed and looking for you. I’m talking about home invasions and payback.”
    “Otto, who are we working for?”
    Somebody named Hoyle ran everything. The supply chain, the distribution chain and everyone involved. Hoyle’s word was final. Hoyle didn’t want acid. Acid didn’t make people want more acid. Hoyle wanted the things that woke up the slumbering instinct for More, and woke it with a vengeance. Otto had never met Hoyle. He knew someone who had, and for whom we were waiting.
    A wake of desert dirt billowed from the tires of a white van. I know that van, though I’ve never seen it before. My memory’s stuck in a loop because I’m remembering things that haven’t happened yet, the order of events from yesterday and the day before collapse into the events prior to the fire. Here and now collide with then and there and, for a second, Manhattan White and Toe Tag are standing in my room at the Firebird with flames engulfing everything while I lie with my arms around you in the middle of nowhere. The moment passes, each note of memory arranging itself from noise to symphony.
    Manhattan White approached on foot. Otto made himself scarce. White’s son sat on the open back end of the van, ice-cream stains on his shirt and snot running from his nose. He played with a pair of wire clippers.
    “My name’s White.”
    We’ve met.
    “I’m Eric.”
    “I know.”
    “You got a first name?”
    “They call me Manhattan. White will do. I understand you’re a chemist, Eric.”
    “I am.”
    “What I want to know is, why?”
    “Can you be a little clearer?”
    “Why did I drive all this way to meet you? Why should our business back you when I’ve got a hundred guys who can do the same thing? Why is it you’re better than they are?”
    “I don’t know who they are, White, so I don’t know if I’m better.”
    “I hear you’ve opened a window to God.”
    “That was an experiment.”
    “Is that what you want to do?”
    “What I want to do is something nobody else has done.”
    “Again, my question is, why?”
    “Couldn’t tell you. Maybe some unresolved questions about God from when I was younger. All I know is I’ve got the focus and the patience for it and there’s not many other jobs that will indulge me that way.”
    “We’re not here to indulge you, either, or help you with your childhood issues. We’re here to make a profit and to do so inconspicuously. You’re here to build us a lab, for which you will be well paid.”
    “So you say. Let’s have a look.”
    White unlocked three deadbolts on the front door. The inside looked as though a family of shut-ins had survived a decade of collective agoraphobia on canned beer, frozen dinners, cigarettes and television, and were finally evicted by a tribe of drunk monkeys driving snowblowers.
    “What’s that noise?” I asked. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first, but it sounded like a finger squeaking across a wet windowpane, thousands of them.
    “What noise?”
    “Is there an attic here?”
    White looked to the ceiling. “Of course,” he said. “Bats. Don’t worry. They’re harmless.”
    “And dirty.”
    White pressed the solitude and space the house afforded. I countered with the need to disconnect the gas for the heating and stove because I couldn’t have open flames. I wanted to map the circuits so I could shut down certain outlets and work with the select few I needed.
    “That sounds excessive,” White said.
    “How many accidents have you had to cover up?” I asked.
    “A few. It’s a numbers game and accidents are part of the risk.”
    “It’s only a numbers game when you leave it to amateurs or chance,” I said, then pointed to the outlets at floor level. “See those?”
    “Yeah, they’re plugs.