Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets Read Online Free PDF Page A

Playful. Actually funny, even, if you can believe it, and one of the best friends a man could ever have, if you could get past his weirdness.
    I first met Sherlock Holmes at the closing party of the first Factory, that silver box filled with pills and people, covered in tin foil, mylar, and plexiglass. He walked in, this tall, rail-thin man, white skin and black hair slicked back, cut short, like a banker or lawyer or something. Not my type, but I couldn’t stop watching. He was the opposite of hip, but people noticed when he walked in and stood in the corner, smoking cigarette after cigarette, rolling each one himself. He watched everyone watching him, and, after an hour, came over to me, offering me a roll-up.
    “It’s only tobacco. That’s all you smoke. You had enough of marihuana and opium In Country after you hurt your shoulder. You’re more involved with things that are a bit more imaginative, something that might spur you to get up and do something, aren’t you?”
    His voice was low, with an accent that was hard to place, his flat vowels and clipped consonants emanating effortless cool. A strange way of talking, too. Educated. Erudite, rejecting the language of the street, but also avoiding the affected language of the Factory pretenders, claiming European authenticity as a tiny bit of recognition. Style was the thing, convincing others that you were brilliant. Andy had a shotgun approach to catch whatever outstanding people happened to fall into the orbit of his ragtag collection of sexual deviants and junkies.
    I didn’t like him coming up and telling me things about myself.
    “How’d you know I was In Country? And just what do you think I’ve got for you? I don’t have anything to do with grass, or mushrooms, or any of that hippy shit.”
    I watched his thin face while he spoke, his jawbone etched out of granite there, though long and delicate, not like the ad men. I couldn’t stop looking at him, listening to his talk. “You’ve got a shoulder wound, that’s apparent from the hitch you had leaning against the wall, but you didn’t grimace, so it’s something you’re used to. New Yorkers don’t get much sun, but you’re brown, with malaria scars. The way you move and stand shows a streetwise city upbringing. You watch other people around you, keeping an eye out for customers and the police, yet you’ve rolled your eyes at two deals, grass and heroin. So: you were in Vietnam, bored with common drugs. You’re looking to sell something. I need something to occupy my mind and time. Something beyond even the delights manufactured in this Factory.”
    I didn’t know what to say, so I took the cigarette he offered and lit it. It was a strong blend, thick, pungent smoke pouring out of the end, but nice. I looked up at him.
    “It’s called Drum. It comes to me from the Netherlands—from someone who owes me a favour.”
    He smiled at me, a crooked smile that turned my guts to water. I’d have a talk with him, and find out more about this observant, smoking man who’d just walked in to my life; for more than just a conversation, as it turned out.
    We talked for a while, about what he liked. Up, but with a twist. Some psychedelic effect was useful, but nothing debilitating. I had just the thing, but back at the Chelsea Hotel. Blue beauties, I called them, stealing the name from the common black beauties, but they were as different as night and day. The chemical was amphedoxamine, but they wouldn’t just take you up, they’d make you feel good, too. I made my rounds and sold a little to those I knew would be talking to me later, and came back to this Sherlock Holmes.
    “I think I may have something right up your alley. It’s in my more... private stash. There’s just one thing, though. I need you to distract the landlady. We have a disagreement about the rent.”
    “You don’t have it, yet she insists you pay it anyway?”
    “Exactly.”
    “W HICH WAY DO you live, John?”
    I don’t know