Chapter 7
The second and third bowls of carob and vanilla-bean natural ice cream at Alison's organic restaurant were like giant helpings of ambrosia to Levi, Richard and the two girls after finishing that fourth thick joint of marijuana on the way down from Lafayette. It was so wonderfully rich and smooth it seemed to slip down their throats without the bother of swallowing it.
Holly kept having the nagging notion that everyone in the crowded cafe was an undercover narcotics agent, and they all knew she was stoned; just sitting there waiting for the right chance to nail her. She was able to dismiss all that foolishness as just drug-induced paranoia, one of the avocational hazards of turning on illegally. One quick look around the faces of the crowd was even more reassuring; nearly everyone packed into the tiny wooden booths looked even more stoned than they did. There was something vaguely enheartening about being among brothers of the Zig-Zag papers, a brand of cigarette rolling paper, almost a falsely reassuring sense of safety and sanctuary from the omnipresent clutches of the law.
She hated to leave when the last smear of ice cream had been spooned from the huge bowls; but Levi had proved to be the bearer of more ill-gotten spoils than he had mentioned on the phone.
When they were all back in the relative privacy of his car, Levi pulled a tiny yellow envelope from under the rubber floor mat at his feet.
"Super-speed!" he ceremoniously proclaimed, "And it's bound to be good, 'cause I burned a jive pusher for it!"
"You what!?" exclaimed Lisa from the back seat.
"Oh, don't worry. I was cool about it. There's this black dude that's been after me for weeks to get him some of that good Gold we were smoking ..." He paused there to get his fuzzy thoughts in better order. "Anyway, he even started bugging me at the store, that's just not a good scene at all. So I sold him a couple of lids for twenty each, and I cut it down with catnip and some shitty green stuff I picked by the side of the Interstate in Iowa this summer. He might get high from the crap, but more likely he'll just get a big headache."
It took a long, quiet few seconds for all that to sink in. "Wow, that's a pretty heavy story," said Holly, "Burn scenes really scare the shit out of me. 1 mean, people get killed for doing what you did."
Levi only laughed. "Not the cool ones . . . You've gotta' know who to burn and who not to. This guy's a loser anyway. He'd probably never know if he was smoking dog turds instead of grass. Bums like that expect to be burned . . . you're doing them a favor."
Richard suddenly began feverishly rolling down his cracked window. "Hey, let's talk about something else. You're putting me on a real downer."
Levi turned the ignition on and the bruised relic came slowly to life. "You're right . . . we'll change the subject. Anyway, ' just told you about Leroy - that's the spade guy's name - because I bought these amphetamine capsules with the money I took from him. Here, pop a couple and you'll see why I call 'em super-speed."
It was nearly three quarters of an hour before the "speed" began to take effect, but when it did, it was like a hundred Sylvania Blue Dots popping off at once. Like those newsreel films of the Beatles at Shea Stadium with wall-to-wall cameras flashing like a thousand inaudible gun reports flashing in the darkness. That was exactly the way it affected you, speeding up everything until the world whizzing by in the car windows took on a surrealistic light-show effect, as if some giant strobe light in the sky was controlling the animation. Like one of those nickel flip-books from the childhood of another era, with all the unreal characters jerkily lifting and lowering their arms and legs as you flipped the tiny pages past.
The City basin was still hazy, streaked with the residue of a full day of clogged freeways choked with thousands of smog-belching autos, but the brighter lights managed to twinkle anyway, sparkling defiantly through the soupy miasma that hung like a vaporous shroud over the far-reaching expanse of San Francisco that stretched across the bay from them as they climbed higher into the dry, brushy hills of Berkeley.
"Hey, where the hell are we?" muttered Richard, his head lifting momentarily from its resting place in Lisa's willing lap. "We've been driving long enough to be in Los Angeles."
Levi had been the last to knuckle under to the powerful amphetamine, but now. he too was floating in space, drifting like a lost wisp of a cloud, wheeling the old car through the narrow, twisting turns on his instincts alone.
"We're somewhere near Walnut Creek," offered Levi, "Hell, we might even be in Walnut Creek for all I know ... or care. Fuck, that stuff was something else . . . I'm wiped out of my mind."
There was a ripple of acknowledgement from the others, but no one seemed to possess the desire to go through all the tiring strain of speaking. Finally, Levi broke the silence once more. "I don't know about you guys, but that shit made me hornier than a bitch in heat ... It must have been the speed; I don't think Alison put anything in the ice cream."
Richard pulled himself up from his cozy rest and sat up once again. "You know, Levi . . . you might just have a real idea there, baby ... I mean ... I mean, I'm getting a hard on just thinking about a little strange right about now."
That poked a sore point with Lisa.
"What'ya mean, 'a little strange'? You've got the best right here ... Why settle for hamburgers when you could have steak?" She reached playfully for Richard's crotch and he doubled up in a tight ball, screaming like she'd yanked his cock right out of his body.
"Cut out all the crap, man," ordered Levi, "I was serious about getting some fresh pussy."
Richard quickly slipped into a serious mask. "I'm all ears, master. "... and eight inches of hot dick." She had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.
"More like two inches of limp celery," she teased.
There was a definite sinister seriousness to Levi's voice when he spoke again. "Did you hear me, Richard? Remember the night with Lenny DeLong . . . before he went back to France? Those two surfer chicks from Santa Cruz we picked up on the beach?"
Richard fondly recalled the long night just a year ago. It brought a wistful stirring in his loins even now whenever he remembered those delectable, eager teeny-boppers and the way the three of them had put them through the paces. They'd fought it at first, he recalled, but it was a different story before the sun began to peek over the tops of the mountains. What a night that had been!
"You do remember those girls, don't you Richard?"
"Do I!?" exclaimed Richard. "You haven't found two more like those, have you? I've got such a hard on now, I think I could handle them both myself, and ..."
"Just hold on, sweetheart," interrupted Lisa. "You've got more than enough for you to handle right here in the back seat. And there's more up front if you want to be greedy."
Levi squinted through the fogged-over windshield as if he was looking for something alongside the winding, empty road.
"There just might be a way to keep everybody happy, provided you people don't mind running a little risk," said Levi. "I think I've got the perfect plan to cap off the night just right."
Everyone just stared blankly at their driver and apparent decision maker, waiting for him to explain.
"What'ya say we roust a couple of teeny-boppers and have a little fun? I've seen a half dozen already parked back in the trees and bushes along this lover's lane. They wouldn't be expecting company . . . and what's the harm in a little fun?"
There was a pregnant silence, then Holly spoke. "I ... I don't know. It sounds like we could get in a lot of trouble. I'm not sure it's such a good idea. Maybe ..."
"Who asked you to think, baby!?" bellowed Levi. "If I say it's a good idea, then it's a good idea!"
"Okay ... Okay," replied Holly softly, "Whatever you want is okay with me."
Levi brought the car to a dead stop in the center of the deserted road, then backed it to a turn-out maybe fifty yards behind them. He rolled down his side window, and peered into the darkness, searching the roadside below where the highway wound snake-like down the mountain. "I think I've spotted our prey, gang. There's an old Chevy down there that's got teen-ager written all over it. I'll go in real easy like . . . Richard, you and Lisa stay down out of sight. They'll just think we're another couple of parkers once they see we're not cops."
He eased the car down the tight, steep turn and wheeled into the littered entrance of the narrow trail where the old Chevy was parked. His headlights went out, and the parking lights came on as they approached the silver gray car. Someone peered from behind the back seat as they silently coasted to a halt, then disappeared again as the well-worn vehicle proved not to be a sleek, dome-topped police cruiser.
Levi rummaged through the glove compartment until he found his flashlight.
"Richard, you come with me... you girls can come when I signal you. And get ready for some real fun!"