This plan—though hastily arranged and moderately risky, with us diverting from our route and snooping through the trunks—went fine, at least the part we discussed. Damon followed me down I-70 until the exit and frontage road, which the memory was still fresh enough to find easily. I checked my mirrors often. My hands began to sweat when we turned down the dirt road, now deep in the woods. I imagined he was on edge as well.

The contents of the first trunk were eerily similar. It still baffled me they weren’t locked, but once again I pressed the trunk release button and it popped open, flooding light into the darkness of the mountain night. I instructed Damon to do the same, and we peered into the trunk of his Malibu.

“Speakers,” Damon said, motioning toward the scattered boxes that lined the bottom of the trunk. Probably two dozen of them; small, desk-sized speakers.

“It’s always electronics on top,” I said as I shoved them to the edges, clearing a space in the trunk. I found the handle for the spare tire compartment—placed a foot from the last car I’d driven—and pulled up.

Spare tire. Car jack. Tire iron. Brown heroin. Bricks of it.

Damon needed a minute. He paced around and came to terms with the fact that he was a felon, facing decades in federal prison if caught, ignorance be damned.

When he was ready to go, I patted him on the shoulder and assured him we’d figure out a way out of this, as if I had some master plan. I did not, of course. We got in the cars again and took off, me in front, him in the rear.

When I saw the flashing lights, it was like a dream. We were no more than ten miles down the freeway from where we’d pulled off when my rearview mirror lit up with a maelstrom of blues and reds and whites. I was numb immediately, filled with the sinking feeling of impossibility. This could not be happening. There was a police officer behind me, and he was going to pull someone over.

I glanced down at my speedometer. Eleven miles per hour over the limit; my speed had crept up to try to make up time lost by stopping. That stupid. Stupid.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid

The lights got brighter and I slowed down, at once resigned to the fact that I’d been caught and fabricating flowery scenarios in which I wouldn’t get caught. I pulled to the right shoulder and realized he was pulling over someone behind me. The police officer with the flashing lights was pulling over another car, and not mine. My heart leapt.

It was Damon. My heart sunk.

My car now idling on the shoulder, I saw clearly in my rearview that it was Damon. The officer’s spotlight shone brightly on the Malibu, illuminating its burgundy paint job.

He was screwed. Or he wasn’t. From an outsider’s perspective, there was nothing to indicate Damon’s car held thousands of dollars worth of heroin. Unless the officer had a dog, there was no way to tell. Perhaps it would be a routine speeding ticket. Perhaps Damon would play it cool, be polite, crack a whimsical joke, and send the officer on his way.

Perhaps.

I got back on the highway and drove. It was all I could do—sticking around would only raise suspicion. I carefully stayed under the speed limit until I reached the drop point, where I waited for Damon.

35

He never made it. I waited for an hour, insisting to the handler he would show up any minute. They got agitated, those faceless individuals who received the cars at that shadowy location in the hills, then the handler drove me home. They were always stoic and mute, going about their business with focused intention, but that night, they were agitated. They asked me questions that bordered on interrogations. Where was he? What happened? Was I involved? They were not used to things going awry.

Initially I considered lying to them, telling them I didn’t know anything, but I thought better of it. If he was really in trouble, they might be able to help. Vince might be able to use his influence somehow, and make this go away. So I told them about Damon getting stopped, and that was when they started freaking out. A young, skinny guy put his finger in my chest. Another man dialed his cell phone and walked into the shadows. This was not normal.

Eventually they took me home. I wanted to wait—he would be there any minute, I said—but they insisted. Whatever the problem ended up being, there was nothing I could do to help. A blonde man—who looked no older than twenty—drove me to my apartment in silence. I slept two hours, unable to get the image of those flashing lights out of my head. Then, around 3 a.m., Damon called.

He was in jail, and he was frantic.

“Just what in the fuck am I supposed to do?” he asked me, breathing hard into the phone and trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice down. “I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.”

“Ok, calm down,” I said.

“Seriously dude, fuck.”

“Alright,” I said. “Okay. What happened?”

“Well…fuck. The dude pulled me over. Asked if I knew why he did, but I can hardly even talk straight ‘cause I’m freakin’ out so much. I’m all sweaty and twitchy and shit, ya know? ‘Cause I know I just need to be cool and everything’ll be fine, but I was still jacked from seeing that shit in the trunk or whatever, so I was all messed up before he pulled me over. Then when he did…man, when I saw them blue lights, I just freaked. So I’m tryin’ to answer his question, but dude can obviously tell somethin’ ain’t right. So he talks to me a little more, tells me I was speeding. Meanwhile I can’t do nothin’ but nod. That’s it: just noddin’ along. So he tells me to get out of the car, and that’s when I knew I was fucked.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah so I get out, can barely balance to stay up ‘cause my head’s so messed up. He looks around a little, shines his flashlight into the windows and shit, asks whose car it is.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Told him it was a friend’s. Told him I was driving to meet him, in Frisco. Just made some shit up. He says okay, can he look in the trunk? And that was like…that was like a knife into my side or something. But I tell him yeah.”

“You told him yes?”

“Yeah! The hell was I supposed to do? Tell him no?”

“Yes!”

“Jesus, Julian, I didn’t fuckin’ know what to do. I figured dude would arrest me on the spot if I told him no.”

I sighed. “Alright. So what happened?”

“I’m like, listen, my dad always taught me, you get pulled over by the cops, you just go along with what they say. You just be polite, say ‘yes, sir,’ do what they ask, and you’ll be alright. So man, that’s what I was tryin’ to do. I tell the dude yeah, you can look in the trunk, ain’t no problem, figurin’ maybe he’ll just see the speakers and say alright. But right when I pop the trunk, another cop pulls up, this one even meaner. He sees the speakers, then they pull up the bottom. And I’m like, fuck, man, my life is over.”

There was a pause.

“So they found it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “they found it. And they were like, total dicks about it, too.”

“So they cuff you,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“And they drive you to jail.”

“Yeah.”

“And then what.”

He inhaled loudly. “Then I tried to explain myself.”

My head sunk. Fucked indeed.

“You told them what, exactly?”

He inhaled again. “Told ‘em the truth, sorta. Told ‘em I didn’t know that shit was back there, which up until today was true.”

“And when they asked for the name of your friend, who owned the car?”

“I didn’t give ‘em no names. I ain’t real smart, but I know I’m not supposed to tell ‘em that. So that’s when they got pissed, when I wouldn’t give ‘em names. And now I’m in a cell, and this is my phone call.”