"You got the cash?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got—where's the—"
The younger man clapped a well-manicured hand over the older man's wrinkled, ruined mouth and its shrunken teeth, barely clinging to inflamed gums. "Not here, asshole, and not so loud." He removed his hand and tossed his head towards a darkened passageway on the motel's first floor. "There."
The older man raised a shaking hand to point to their proposed destination. "There? But it's dark, and…" His voice died out as he dropped his hand to confront the younger man. "You think you're gonna take me in there, and grab my cash—"
This time the younger man silenced him with a single finger to the older man's lips. "Harry, I don't know how you used to do business with my, uh, predecessor, but I like to transact business with at least a little privacy." He took a short, thick black metal flashlight from his pocket. "Besides, we'll have light." He took his finger from the man's lips, spun him doll-like towards the darkened passageway, and gave him a slight push. "You first. Age before beauty and all that."
The old man walked towards the passageway but began again to complain. "Can't light up that hall with just a flashlight."
"I don't intend to. We'll have enough light to conduct business."
Once in the darkened passageway, the young man positioned the older one against a wall, turned to face the parking lot, and, huddling against him, held the flashlight at chest height, pointed it at the ground, and turned it on. "Let's see it," he said. Trembling hands brought a small pile of worn bills into the cone of light. "Not like that," the young man said. "Fan them out. Let me see it." There were a few muttered words, then fumbling compliance. "Nice," the young man said. "The man is good." He reached out with a small plastic bag, which he deftly put into the older man's quivering fingers while taking the cash with the same hand. "Welcome to the modern world, Harry."
He was about to extinguish the flashlight when the older man took it with a surprisingly strong grip and used it to examine the contents of the small bag. "What is this shit?" he spat, "I used to get twice as much for that money! And what's this about—stuff is goddamn blue!"
"That blue is the mark of excellence in meth, Harry," the young man replied. "And it may only be half as much, but it's more than twice as strong. The man who makes our meth says your old stuff was maybe 40% pure, and that was on a good day. This is greater than 95% purity."
"That's bullshit! Old stuff was fine. Gimme my money back!"
"Tell you what," the young man said as he took the flashlight from the old man, flicked it off, and hit the wall with its back end. Then he held the light as before, this time using it to expose a package full of small blue crystals. "You have your gear here? Take one of the smaller pieces and fire it up. On the house."
The older man was having none of it. "That's bullshit—even if that's good, how do I know I got the same?"
The young man sighed, and then shined the flashlight in the older man's eyes. "Hey!" he yelped. Frisking him quickly, he extracted the packet he had just given the older man from a dirty jeans pocket, held it against the wall, and smashed it with the flashlight as he had done before. Then he held out both packets. "That just cost you a free high. But I'm a fair man—take a smaller piece from either packet, fire it up, and if you like it, then that packet's yours. If you don't like it, you get your money back."
The older man continued to mutter imprecations, but produced an unexpectedly clean glass pipe in one hand and took a grain of tiny sparkling blue from a packet and placed it in his pipe. "We'll see about this crap you're trying to oversell me," he said and began sparking a lighter.
It took more than five tries before he had a steady flame. Holding it up to the pipe bowl, one could see the small sparkling blue crystal become brighter and brighter until it seemed to burst into a tiny star and sublimed into a whiff of gas which the older man inhaled greedily. There was a moment of silence, followed by an ecstatic exhalation as the older man slid to the ground.
The young man smirked and shone the flashlight directly on the quivering pile at his feet. "Still want your money back?"
The older man shook his head back and forth in a violent no. "This'd be cheap at triple the price," he panted and raised his arms to run wizened fingers through greasy hair, astonished and thrilled at the sensations.
The young man regarded the now familiar response with satisfaction. "Don't worry, the price is still the same. And considering how little of it took you on such a ride, it's probably worth triple the old price for you."
He held out the bag, and the old man suddenly roused himself to snatch it, but it was just slightly out of reach. Then he pulled the bag back and tossed it hard against the ground. Most of the blue crystals remained inside, but much of it was scattered on the passageway's floor, among cigarette butts, crushed vials that held the previous product, scraps of paper, and dog dirt both old and fresh. "But THAT is for dissing my product. Consider it asshole tax."
He turned and walked away. This scene had played itself out so often before in the past week that he knew he had nothing to fear from the older man. As with the others, his most recent customer was too busy scrambling through the filth on the floor to find each bit of blue heaven to attack the man who had scattered it so. But this time, the older man had gathered up enough blue crystals while the young man was still walking from the parking lot to yell, "And it's Herb, not Harry, you well scrubbed punk! There was a time you worked for me, remember? You were so desperate you wrote a song for tires! From me, Herb!
The young man stopped and stood still for a moment. Then he turned and dashed back to the passageway, pulled the hapless Herb from his search for what blue crystals he still had not collected, and gave him the back of his hand. "I did? Then say my name, Herb. I was trying to give you a little privacy, some anonymity, even protect your pride. You want all your buddies you party with to know this broken down hump was once Lawndale's most successful car dealer? Then give it all away, Herb! C'mon, say my name! I wanna hear you say my name."
Herb's anger had turned to abject fear and he was weeping piteously in the younger man's grasp. "No," he finally choked out between sobs. "You were right. Call me whatever you want. Harry is fine."
"You're goddamn right," the younger man said and let the older man drop to the floor, where he continued his search for the magic blue crystals.