The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

and a fourth doorway back to the front of the store, though it led through the curtained-off, “check with management” room of pricier books.
    Les, a pale, tall fellow with a domed forehead and a neatly trimmed mustache, who supplemented his income as a vampire novelist with his work at Books on Benefit — though Matthew sometimes suspected it was the other way around — counted chairs, was glad to see they wouldn’t have to evict Tyrone the other orange tabby, since his presence still left four chairs free, and they’d only need three for now.
    “Matthew, thanks for seeing me. First off I want to thank you for providing room and board for Padre Emilio. If we can help defray some of those expenses, please let us know.”
    “It’s been a pleasure having Emilio here, Worthy. He’s out doing some last-minute shopping, actually. No compensation necessary. My politics may not be exactly the same as yours, but the way your brother was railroaded was a travesty. These jurors hear people swearover and over they’re going to tell ‘the whole truth,’ but the lawyers and the judges make sure they hear as little as possible of ‘the whole truth.’ Anyway, I was glad to have Emilio here. I’m just sorry he and your other witnesses were never allowed to testify.”
    “The media cover these things as though there was a fair trial, Matthew, when in fact the defense attorneys will be jailed if they even try to tell the jurors they have a right to refuse to enforce any law they see as unjust, the same way Northern juries refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Read Judge Leventhal in the Dougherty case. Defendants like my brother have about as much chance of explaining the real issues to one of these stacked juries as some Russian trying to hold his pants up without a belt in one of Joe Stalin’s kangaroo trials.”
    “No argument, Worthy.”
    “Obviously, there are limits to what it’s wise to say with the press around, but I know you and Les are on our side, at least in principle. They claim they’re fighting a ‘War on Drugs,’ but that’s ridiculous.”
    Worthy Annesley couldn’t let go of it, this afternoon. He acted like a guy who’d been gagged all through his brother’s trial — which was probably close to the truth — and now needed to let off some steam.
    “Every plant on earth was put here by Nature’s God for our use, and every one has a legitimate use. Good luck anaesthetizing the eye to do surgery without cocaine and its derivatives. People in chronic pain desperately need the opium poppy, but the drug police would rather see cancer patients writhing in pain than open the market so they can get what they need.”
    “Worthy, I’m mostly with you here, it feels odd to take the other side,” Matthew said, holding his hands open. “But you know they’d say junkies steal their neighbors blind, ruin their families’ lives, end up destroying themselves.”
    “But why, Matthew? They steal because they have to pay hundreds of dollars on a black market for opiates that wouldn’t cost any more than maple syrup if the Drug Warriors repealed their drug laws. If they can get their chosen poisons at market prices, most drug userscan hold down jobs, function just fine. Beer and coffee are addictive, but we don’t drug-test employees and fire them if we find out they drank 12 beers last Saturday night, or four cups of coffee this morning. And why is it drug users today turn to heroin and crack where a hundred years ago they might have smoked a pipe of opium or poured themselves a Coke or a glass of coca wine?”
    Coca-Cola had actually been invented to replace coca wine when alcohol Prohibition hit the state of Georgia, decades before it went national, as Matthew recalled. But he saw no need to interrupt. Let Worthy have his blow, here among friends.
    “Prohibition is why. Prohibition makes it more cost-effective for drug dealers to transport more potent versions of their drugs, the same way alcohol