Free The Shaft by David J. Schow Page B

not say anything. According to Bauhaus, her name was Krystal.
        They were always named Krystal. Or Chaka or Suld or Lolabelle or Star or Tanya or Chari. They always wound up overdosed, discarded, burned out. Or off the nearest balcony…
        Chiqui did her trick again in Cruz's mind. Splat.
        Cruz moved closer to the movie. Bauhaus was feeding noodles to the girls. A bean sprout clung to the two-day stubble on his chin; Chari purred and licked it off, chewing lasciviously, her impudent little tits bobbing and weaving with every motion of her aerobicized bod.
        'You ready to perform?' Bauhaus said. He stood and ignited an overpriced Cuban cigar, puffing furiously until an inversion layer of gray hovered in the dining room lights.
        'What you got?'
        Bauhaus jerked his stogie in the direction of the bar, where Chari had set things up as instructed. Three neat pyramids of white powder were arranged on the onyx. Track lamps spotlit them dramatically.
        'Rosie recommends your awesome nose,' Bauhaus said. 'I'd like to see you do your stuff. Do my stuff.'
        Krystal giggled like an axe murderer.
        Cruz quickly scoped the coke. It looked fresh from the brick. Chari had laid out two clean mirrors, some single-edged razor blades, lab spatulas, atomizers, cotton swabs and several cork-stoppered glass vials. It looked as though surgery on an alien lifeform was about to commence at the bar.
        'Door Number One, Door Number Two' Bauhaus enumerated the piles. 'And Puerto Numero Tres.' This time both girls laughed and settled in to watch on either side of him, behind the bar.
        Cruz inhaled through his nose. Both barrels were clear. He raked up a stool and sat, facing off with them.
        'So tell me about this stuff here,' Bauhaus said.
        He took a pinch from the leftmost pile and rubbed it between clean fingertips, dusting most of it back onto the pile. He touched his finger to his tongue-tip.
        'Got distilled water in one of these?' Cruz said, indicating the squeeze bottles.
        Bauhaus nodded. 'Got Vitamin E oil if you want it.'
        'Not yet.' Of the first pile, he said, 'Off hand, I'd place this cut at about forty percent.' Using blade and mirror he chopped a thirty-milligram line exactly two inches long. He looked around until handed a glass straw, and hoovered the flake up his left nostril. He let the mix burn, then cocked and shot an aftersniff, pinching his nostrils shut alternately.
        'It's cut with baby laxative and speed.' Some mystery additive was numbing his nasal tissues; not the anaesthetic freeze of pure coke, but more likely the psychoactive saltiness of procaine or the coffee boost of benzocaine. As blow it was hardly potent enough to raise Cruz's blood pressure. But it would pass on the street. 'Five or six lines at least, to jump start. You sell this stuff to high school kids? Figures. They wouldn't know any better.'
        'Baby lax for babies.' Bauhaus gloated. 'Right… babies?' The bimbettes tittered.
        Cruz used the inhaler to blow back stray particles. He hung fire a moment - rinse cycle - then turned his attention to the middle pile, snorting a sample up his unpolluted nostril.
        'Oh.' He jerked his head back, half-surprised. He sniffed again. Several times. 'Mm. Wow. Purer. Eighty-two percent or better.' He lifted one of the glass vials and uncorked it, smelling to verify Clorox. 'These clean?'
        Bauhaus looked offended. Cruz would not put doctoring test materials past this guy, not on the flavor of the acquaintance they'd shared so far.
        Using one of the petite lab spatulas, Cruz held the vial level and dumped in a pinch of Pile Number Two. It hesitated on the surface, then about half of it began to course downward, a milky tail still linking it to the pooled amount topside. Each particle emitted its own opaque vapor trail. Cruz thought of Magic Rocks. A few grains veered off