Boxing the Octopus, page 8
“Why all the trouble when pot is practically legal for everyone in California?” asked Cape. “Why not just smoke the real thing?”
“This stuff is a lot cheaper,” said Dumont. “Made in bulk by labs in China, on the back end of some other chemical production. On the street it’s probably a tenth of what an equivalent amount of marijuana would cost. And because of the additives, it’s up to a hundred times more potent.”
Cape looked over the test tubes. “So these are just variations on a recipe.”
“Pretty much,” said Dumont. “You said the man’s leg twitched before he passed out?”
“Yeah,” said Cape. “But maybe he just got a cramp.”
“Could be,” said Dumont. “But he could be a chronic user. Some of the stuff in those packets contained traces of the prescription drug phenazepam, a type of benzodiazepine.”
“Dumont, we agreed you would always use small words.”
“It’s an antianxiety drug, but in higher doses it’s also an antipsychotic.” Dumont gestured toward the black test tube. “The stuff in the vial you took from the bag? That’s squeezed over standard tobacco or whatever you’re smoking, a few drops to give you an extra kick. Inhale that on a regular basis and you’ll start dancing like a marionette, sudden nerve tremors, loss of coordination.” Dumont’s expression was a weary blend of dismay at the human condition and fascination with the drug’s underlying chemistry. “You might not even notice at first, until one day you have a seizure and die.”
Cape looked at the black test tube, an oily invitation to oblivion. “Lovely.”
“But until you do,” continued Dumont, “it’s apparently a terrific high.” He turned away from the table. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”
“I’m already addicted to bacon,” said Cape. “I don’t need another vice.”
“What will you tell the police?”
“The truth,” said Cape. “But cops won’t like hearing that donuts are bad for your health.”
“And when will you tell them?”
Cape met the scientist’s gaze. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“I see.”
“Soon.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I just…” Cape let his voice trail off as he looked at the jagged lines on the diagnostic readout. “This drug you mentioned as part of the mixture, it was pharmaceutical?”
“One of several, actually, but that drug has a singular chemical composition. It popped right away.” Dumont connected the dots before Cape could interrupt. “You want to know where it’s made, don’t you?”
Cape shrugged. “If you know the where, sometimes you can figure out the why.”
“Russia.” Dumont answered without hesitation. “That drug is still used in former Soviet Bloc countries. It’s like the baking soda of drugs for neurological disorders, it has multiple applications—given to patients before surgery to enhance anesthesia; to office workers to relieve anxiety; to schizophrenics to keep from hearing voices. Like most antidepressants, they have no idea how it works beyond changing the chemical balance in the brain, but since everyone’s brain chemistry is unique, its effects vary from one individual to the next.”
“Russian roulette in a pill.”
“Precisely.”
“See?” said Cape. “You’re not such a bad chemist after all.”
“I suppose not.”
“You mentioned Chinese labs.”
“That would be my guess for the final product, yes, for the K2,” said Dumont. “The ingredient drug is Russian, but the bulk manufacturing, that’s got to be Chinese. Nobody else has labs that can mix hundreds of unregulated chemicals at scale. China started breaking bad long before Walter White.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Cape.
“I suppose,” Dumont replied. “But you still don’t know the why.”
“True,” said Cape. “But at least I know where to look next.”
23
“I want you to look up, okay?”
The man dressed like a pirate gestured toward a dark tunnel, its entrance designed to resemble the gaping mouth of an undersea cavern. The tourists stepped gingerly onto the moving walkway, stealing nervous glances at each other, any traces of boredom wiped from their faces. Return visitors knew this was the main attraction at Aquarium by the Bay, but even they wondered what might be lurking in the shadowy interior.
The underground chamber was a reverse fish tank—people inside and fish swimming outside in the actual bay. Acrylic walls and ceiling filtered the light streaming down from the surface of the water. At twenty-five bucks a head, it was one of Pier 39’s pricier attractions, but who could resist a virtual swim with all the undersea creatures of the Pacific.
The conveyor moved at a stately two miles per hour, suspense building as they neared the archway. The pirate crossed the threshold first and pointed his sword at the ceiling. He certainly looked the part. The sword gleamed in the half-light, dark streaks along the blade that could have been dried blood. His face was as pitted as the cutlass, deep crags around his cheeks and eyes, his voice a baritone audible to mermaids ten leagues away. But his whiskers looked about as real as cotton candy, and his tricorn hat was the same cheap felt they sold in the gift shop.
He turned his back on the crowd once the conveyor drew them inside the tunnel, his attention drawn by hundreds of fish swimming through the seaweed on either side. When he heard the first gasps behind him, his leathery face cracked into a smile and he spun on his heel, his voice echoing off the walls like a prophecy of flood.
“Say hello to Oscar,” he thundered. “Oscar G. Octopus is his full name…the G stands for Giant…because he’s a giant Pacific octopus, common to these waters.”
All eyes turned to the ceiling as the conveyor paused.
A reddish-brown knot of tentacles lurked atop the roof of the tunnel. Bulbous eyes glared at the humans as if studying a lesser species in a zoo. Though Oscar was curled into a dark corner where the ceiling curved against the wall, even in the wavering light it was obvious he wasn’t just a giant octopus, he was enormous. His head was a balloon three feet across, and two of his arms draped across the ceiling halfway to the exit.
“Eighteen feet across and over two hundred pounds,” sang the pirate. “And a lot smarter than any of you lot.”
Some of the tourists looked bemused, wondering if they had just been insulted. The pirate jabbed his sword at a couple near the front, a woman wearing an Iowa sweatshirt and a man sporting a T-shirt with a smoking crab and the name of a local restaurant.
“This your husband?” demanded the pirate.
“Y-yes,” said the woman. “You bet.”
“Does he have a big heart?”
The woman’s mouth did a wave like a crowd at a stadium, her lips deciding whether to land on a smile or a frown. “Sure he does.” She wrapped an arm around her husband’s waist and pulled him close.
“Well, Oscar has three hearts,” replied the pirate. Murmurs from the children. “That’s right kids, three hearts. Two to pump blood to the gills and a third for the rest of the body. And that’s not all!”
The crowd was riveted.
“Your wife, matey.” The pirate pointed at the man in the crab shirt. “She have a brain?”
The man hesitated for effect until his wife elbowed him playfully in the ribs. “Yes sir, Cap’n. She’s a lot smarter than I am.”
“Of that I am sure,” said the pirate. “But once again, we humans come up short. Oscar has nine brains.” The pirate let the susurrus of the crowd subside. “Nine, can you imagine?”
“That’s incredible,” said the man in front. “But he’s only got eight arms…”
“Says the man with only two,” scowled the pirate. “You notice the size of his head, eh? A brain for the head and one in each arm. So each tentacle moves independently, like the krakens of old.”
Some of the kids waved their arms up and down, trying to imagine what it would be like to have eight appendages—one to eat dinner, another to do homework, one for video games, one to shop online, another to text their friends, and three more to torture their siblings.
“And he puts those brains to good use,” the pirate continued. “Oscar can navigate a maze, open childproof jars, recognize faces, and trick predators by changing color, blending with any background instantly, no matter how many colors or patterns.”
Oscar’s head swelled as his eyes swept over the crowd. He seemed unimpressed with his monochromatic guests.
“Is it true he squirts black ink?” An earnest voice, a girl who felt compelled to raise her hand. “So he can hide and swim away?”
“Most of his kind do,” said the pirate, “but a giant Pacific octopus releases ink that’s red.” The pirate rested his right hand on the hilt of his sword. “Like blood in the water.” The pirate lunged forward, the point of his sword alarmingly close to a man’s Adam’s apple. “Say I were to cut your throat with my cutlass?”
Nobody moved.
“Would you bleed red like any other man?” Before the man could exhale, the pirate lowered his weapon. “Of course you would.”
He sheathed the sword. “Not our Oscar, though.” The tourists took their eyes off the belligerent buccaneer and gazed again at the sinister cephalopod. “Cut Oscar and he bleeds blue.”
“Blue blood?” A chorus of voices as people tried to visualize the inner workings of the alien life form directly above them.
“Yep, it’s being studied by folks almost as smart as Oscar,” said the pirate. “Some believe an octopus’ blood can help human brains heal. Memories, strokes, seizures, maybe even cure Alzheimer’s.”
Now the crowd regarded Oscar with a look of shared gratitude. The pirate knew that last piece of trivia would spike sales of stuffed animals at the gift shop. A mere mention of medical miracles could transform a souvenir into a talisman to ward off evil.
The conveyor jerked back to life, startling spectators as the pirate finished his pitch. “Oscar is just one of three Pacific giants here at the aquarium, but he’s the biggest. You can see the other two, Ophelia and Sammy, in the big tank upstairs across from the sharks.”
A boy toward the back called, “Can we see a Great White?”
“Sadly, no, those beauties don’t do well in captivity.” The pirate shook his head wistfully. “Some sharks don’t care one way or another, as long as you feed ’em, but nobody’s kept a Great White alive for long.” He paused. “Yet.”
“Why not?” asked the boy.
As the conveyor pulled them inexorably toward the exit, the pirate looked into Oscar’s eyes as he answered the boy.
“Animals don’t like being locked up any more than we do.”
24
“I could have you locked up.”
“No, you couldn’t,” Cape replied, giving Beau a knowing look. “I didn’t make the drugs, didn’t buy the drugs, would absolutely deny that I stole the drugs, and am under no obligation as a private citizen—or as a private detective—to hand over the drugs to my local precinct.”
Cape paused to consider the subdued chaos of the Personal Crimes Division of police headquarters. Men and women in plainclothes bustled about, looking more harried than hopeful. A few uniforms shuffled between half-empty desks.
“However, I did bring you and Vinnie some drugs…after I had them tested.”
Beau’s stone visage cracked into a grin. “Now that was thoughtful,” he said, “and I would’ve done the same thing.”
“Things still squirrelly in Narcotics?” Cape figured on enough ambient noise so his voice wouldn’t carry beyond Beau’s desk. After the story broke about the disappearing cocaine, Narcotics-and-Vice had several high-profile resignations.
“I don’t work there anymore,” said Beau. “I prefer dead people to drug dealers, so homicide suits me fine.” He leaned across his desk, the scarred wood groaning as his sequoia-sized arms made contact. “If I was a betting man, I’d say Internal Affairs is just getting started and more heads will roll. Since the SFPD began outsourcing lab work, Narc detectives are expected to do their own initial drug testing, which could make things…” He let his voice trail off.
“Unpredictable?”
“Exactly.” Beau flipped though the printouts Cape had brought. “So somebody’s selling K2 on the pier.” He dropped the report onto his desk and leaned back. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
Cape was taken aback. “You knew?”
Beau shook his head. “It’s everywhere, that’s the problem. And some of this shit is even legal, sold in delis or smoke shops as potpourri, with cute names like Blue Dream, Orange Oh, Black Mambo.”
“This stuff does more than make your apartment smell like Haight-Ashbury.”
Beau glanced at the lab report. “Last week a street in the Mission was littered with bodies, people having seizures from overcooked Spice.”
“You know the source?”
“Don’t work vice anymore.” Beau drummed his fingers on the desk. “Doubt it’s a single source, though. Crackpot chemists are making their own recipes in garages all over town, and stuff keeps getting stronger, a hundred times more than real grass. My guess? Your friends on the pier have their own supplier.”
“So you’re saying I haven’t cracked the case.” Cape was mildly crestfallen.
“I’m saying the house is on fire, and you just found termites in the basement.”
“You don’t think it’s connected to the armored car.”
“Didn’t say that.” Beau spread his hands.
“It’s connected to money.”
“True.” Beau gestured at the empty desks adjacent to his own. “But that’s a long way around, and we’re spread kinda thin around here. Look at it this way—if Narcotics busts the donut guys, you’ll never find the source. And if they stage a formal investigation to follow the drugs or the money, it’ll take months to make a case.”
“And by then…”
“By then we’ll have one of the drivers,” said Beau.
“Any progress?”
“The guy who was handling the pickups, Lou, might’ve gone back to his apartment, but he rabbited before we got there.”
“Might have?” Cape was incredulous. “You weren’t watching the apartment?”
“We had it wired,” said Beau, a cynical undercurrent in his tone. “Couldn’t keep a car there around the clock, and the response time wasn’t what you’d call speedy.”
“My tax dollars at work.”
“Every penny wasted,” agreed Beau. “At least we’re consistent.”
Cape felt a pang of sympathy for his friend. Working for a bureaucracy like the city government was about as satisfying as a tapas bar after a hunger strike.
Beau picked up the lab report and handed it back to Cape. “Either way, if I accept this,” he paused, searching for the right word. “This gift, then it’ll just slow us down.”
“By us you mean—”
“—you and me both,” said Beau. “You’ll lose the angle, and I’ll have to share.”
It was Cape’s turn to smile. “And you hate to share.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
25
“Does anyone want to share something?”
Captain Cragg pulled the fake whiskers off his face as he slammed the door marked No Admittance. He still wore the pirate costume from his last tour of the aquarium, and with his weathered face and nautical swagger, it wasn’t a stretch to believe he dressed like that all the time.
“Anybody?” he asked more loudly, but the only response was a sudden splash and a whimpering cry from somewhere near the rafters. “Anybody?”
Directly ahead was an open tank set into the floor, as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Rays of light bounced off the water, chasing the echoes of Cragg’s voice around the walls like fairies in a game of tag.
“You still up there, Lou?” Cragg strode along the starboard side of the pool and craned his neck toward the ceiling.
Another muted cry from the overhead beams.
Cragg moved to a control panel with red and green buttons alongside a few metal switches. He slapped a gnarled hand onto the red button and waited for the crying of steel cables to trigger the screaming of his guest.
Lou found his voice as the cage dropped from the shadows into the watery light. Until then he’d crouched in the dark with his mouth shut and eyes closed, like a child wishing he could make himself invisible.
“I’m here…I’m fucking-don’t-do-this-fuck-me-I-don’t-know-shit here!”
“Glad you’re still with us, bucko.” Cragg kept his hand over the panel as the machinery turned. “Would’ve been disappointing if you’d taken a swim without me here to watch.”
The shark cage was an aluminum box, but the bars comprising the front panel had been removed to expose its sole occupant. In the early days of shark diving, cages were made from steel, but the weight required a special crane that threatened the stability of a boat. Aluminum cages were stronger and immune to corrosion, but this particular stunt made its lighter weight a liability. A single hook at the end of a steel cable was secured to the center most bar of the cage, so the cage spun drunkenly as the cable wound and unwound with Lou’s gyrations.
No matter how much Lou tried to twist and shout, the cage lowered inexorably closer to the pool.
“That’ll do.” Cragg punched the red button when the cage was a mere ten feet above the water before. “Let’s take in the mainsail, shall we?”
The cage jerked to a halt and Lou lurched forward, clutching the bars like a man about to be sucked out of an airplane. He waited until the spinning slowed enough for him to make eye contact with Cragg.
