The next morning I took the half hour drive to Chicago. I wish I
had gotten up earlier, though; the Dan Ryan Expressway was jam-packed
of school buses and assholes. Although it’s a half hour drive, it took
me about two hours to reach my destination; the skyscraper known as the
Sears Tower; it was in fact the tallest building in North America; it
had been since 1973. With one hundred and four elevators and one
hundred and eight floors this baby stood one thousand seven hundred and
thirty feet tall.
The closest parking space I could find was five blocks down. I
didn’t mind; it had been ten years since I walked down the beautiful
streets of Chicago. I wanted to smile as my feet went along the
pavement, but knowing what I was about to do there was no way I could.
I pulled the bill of my Cubs hat down a little bit to block the sun out
of my eyes, and then stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets. I entered
the Sears Tower to find a room full of tourists and businessmen. Good
thing I wasn’t here for the magnificent sights above; I was here
strictly on business. I sighed and approached the first security guard
I could find. I told him I was looking for directions to Big John’s
Pizzeria. There really was no Big John nor did he have a pizzeria.
The guard gave me a funny look and told me to follow him. I won’t go
into details on where he took me, because well … I don’t want to end up
at the bottom of Lake Michigan if you catch my drift. But I will say
that it was somewhere in the building that he took me to. Cough,
cough, secret lower floor, cough, cough. Damn cold.
We stood in front of a large steel door. He told me to lean
against the concrete wall and spread my legs. I had been through this
procedure countless times before so I did what he said. He quickly
frisked me and announced I was clean. He then took me through the
steel door and we were in that familiar hallway. Two more steel doors
and hallways later we were in a large office. The carpet and wallpaper
were the color of red and yellow stripes; just as it was ten years
ago. The brown oak desk sitting on the left side of the room had a
lamp and a couple sheets of paper on the top. The vermillion colored
chair was empty. On the right side of the room a stone waterfall was
build up against the wall, from floor to ceiling. The water flowed
with a smooth current that could easily make you relaxed; it had calmed
me down on several occasions in the past, but something told me that it
wouldn’t work for me this time. The stone pillars all throughout the
room were wrapped around in a green-lettuce colored ivory with thorn
vines. Clear across the room there was a small, lonely brown door.
That door was a sign of trouble. Nobody wanted to go in there, well …
besides the man who resided here.
The brown door swung open and out squeezed a very large, short
man. He was maybe five feet and eight inches at the most, but at least
three hundred pounds. Most of the weight wasn’t fat; almost all of it
was muscle. He wore a red tie tucked into a white suit with buttons
about to pop out at any moment. His broad shoulders were ones of a
football player’s. His shiny head glistened off of the chandelier
above. He was from London; had been a crime boss there, too. He had
ruled London; he still did. But, after years of owning the place he
decided to move out to American and take the States over. Now he just
controlled London by telephone. He had a vision of ruling the entire
Earth one day. Another thing, this man truly believed that his
grandfather was Jack the Ripper. Yeah, this guy was a little on the
psychotic side. His name was Vincent King.
“Maddox!” he exclaimed, as he made his way towards me. “’ello! I
see you’re out of the nick, eh? Did ya have a bit of tumblin’ with the
soap then?”
I couldn’t tell him to fuck off like I did to Benny, so I forced a
smile and choked out a fake laugh. “It’s good to see you again, ole
pal!” he exclaimed. I really didn’t think he thought so much of me.
Maybe because I didn’t rat him out when I got caught with the blow, I
don’t know.
“Yeah, you to, Mr. King.” Here’s a little tip of advice, never and
I mean NEVER call Vincent by his first name. It is always Mr. King.
Always!
“Not to be a rude bugger or anything, but what can I help ya with? I’m kind of busy with something in the back room.”
“Well, I need a job --”
“That’s me boy! Day after servin’ in the clink and you already
want some work. You’re a good ‘un, you are. Well, I actually do have
a job for ya, but I think it might be best if ya see what I got cookin’
up in the back room first. Follow me.”
The security guard went back to the top floor and I followed King
to the brown door. The thought of him shooting me in the back of the
head once we got in there never crossed my mind at the time, and I was
a fool not to think about the possibility. Good thing it didn’t
happen.
The Room had many similarities to a basement. Concrete flooring,
concrete everything. In the center of the Room there was one light
bulb hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Another, thinner chain hung
from the top of the bulb. Even though the light was turned on it was
very dim and only lit up the middle of the Room. Placed in that circle
of light was a wooden chair, and with his hands tied behind his back on
the chair was a skinny Mexican. His face was bruised and sweating
blood. He was wearing a white tank top and gray camouflage pants; both
were soaked through with sweat. He had a blood stained goatee and
ridiculous looking dreadlocks.
“This is Felipe; a test subject.”
“Fuck you, King!” the Mexican spat out. As soon as those words
left his mouth a man came out of the darkness and punched him across
the face. He was a tall, muscular black man wearing a red Hawaiian
type of tee-shirt with dark blue jeans. He wore light brown
sunglasses; I thought that strange since we were already in a very dark
room as it was. His hair -- if he had any -- was hidden by a baby blue
colored gold cap. After the strike to the Mexican’s face, the
mysterious man crept back into the shadows.
“And that was Winston,” King chuckled. “Now, Maddox, you see
Felipe here has stabbed my back quite a bit. He’s been snatching
llello; a little thief he is, eh? Well, now he’s my test subject. You
see, a business partner and I have recently developed a new drug.
That’s right, a new one. A Designer drug. And this is the drug of the
century, let me tell ya. This is going to make us millions,
billions.” He reached into his pocket and brought out an ominous
miniature black spray bottle. “A revolution in narcotics. This is a
psychoactive, psychedelic significant piece of history.” His English
accent was suddenly lost. It was as if he had never had one before.
“A drug mixed with so many different chemicals of the phenethylamine
family, hints of paramethoxyamphetamine; propylthiophenethylamine;
ethylthiophenethylamine; and many others. It is a psychostimulant,
hallucinogenic drug. All of it transformed into particulates that
spray out of this little bottle right here. One whiff of this stuff
and your brain grows a supernatural dependency for it constantly. This
is the most addicting thing ever to be conceived. This is the
beginning of the new drug era.”
I was stunned beyond belief of how King had just talked. Not just
his accent disappeared, but how the hell was he able to pronounce all
of that? I got a migraine just trying to sound some of those words out
in my head. I was also a little scared of what he had just informed me
on. “Jeez, Mr. King, when did you get so good on your chemistry? And
your accent? You’re talking like an American now.”
“That was just my business partner’s speech; I memorized it in my
ole noggin for safe keeping. Tell you the truth, I don’t understand a
bloody word of it, but money doesn’t lie. And so far I have dealers
waiting from around the corner wanting in on some of this action,” King
smiled. “Now, to demonstrate the drug’s effect on someone taking it
for the first time … just pay attention, Maddox.”
King walked over to Felipe and told him to open wide. He refused,
so King backhanded him in the throat; causing the Mexican to choke and
opened his mouth. That was all King needed to spray the substance
inside the black bottle into his mouth -- I quickly noted that it was a
drizzly, bright purple mist that had sprayed out. Felipe continued
choking as if he had had too much garlic, or perhaps he was trying to
get some phlegm out of his lungs. “What the fuck … did you … give me?”
“Jericho, just a simple hit of Jericho. By the way, it’s called Jericho after its developer; Jericho King.”
“Your brother?” I said aloud. I knew King had a younger brother
named Jericho, but I've only met him a couple times before. If it was
possible, I'd say he was more psychotic then Vincent.
“Yes, my brother. Now, let’s watch how his beautiful invention works.”
We both were silent then, watching this Mexican basically coughing
up his insides. Then he abruptly stopped and looked at us. “What the
hell was that, King? Fuckin tasted like aerosol. Look, I’m sorry I
stole from you, alright? I promise you I won’t do --” His mouth
stopped talking and his eyes froze on us. They widened in puzzlement.
“What did you -- what happened? What did you do to your faces? You
don’t even have faces, where did they go? You’re blank. You’re all
blank!”
“He thinks we lost our fa--” I began to say, but was interrupted by Felipe.
“Ahhh! No, don’t please! I’ll be good, I promise. Don’t eat my soul, pleeeaase! I’ll do whatever you say -- ahhhhhh!”
“The hell is he screaming about?” I asked, a little freaked out.
“Well, I’m guessing he thinks we’re some kind of demonic beasts trying to eat his soul.”
“What?”
“It’s the Jericho taking effect; it scrambles your brain waves and your perception.”
“Amazing,” was what I said, but what I was really thinking was this
might be the thing that finally brings down America. If something like
this got in the wrong hands, well … we’d all be doomed. Felipe began
shaking in his chair and swinging his head in vicious circles. He was
screaming a blood curdling shriek of lunacy. Now, imagine if this drug
got mysteriously switched with breath fresheners, with pepper spray.
There would be riots all throughout the country, the world. It would
be total chaos. Definitely not a safe place to raise a daughter in.
After the ‘demonstration’ King took me back to his office and told
me what he wanted me to do. I was to take a briefcase loaded with five
spray bottles of Jericho to a Dollar Inn down in Joliet. I was to be
there at twelve o’ clock tomorrow; no earlier, no later. Even though I
didn’t like the idea of this Jericho in the slightest bit, I was still
going to do this. I needed my sweetheart, and in order for that to
become a possibility I needed money. King said that I was to go to
room twenty-three and knock three times, wait, and then knock two more
times. I would then give them the briefcase and they would give me
another briefcase containing two point five million dollars. Sounded
easy as pie to me. Nothing could go wrong, well … accept for the
unusual arrival of the police, but that almost never happened. I was
dumbfounded to hear that he would be paying me seventy-five grand. He
said it was a welcome home present. I was so happy. I would only have
to do one job. One job and I would be with my beloved Kristie.
I started to have second thoughts about the whole deal when I found
out who I was delivering the Jericho to. He wasn’t as crazy as King,
but he was damn well brutal enough. I hated this man with a passion
and I’ve never even met him; it was all street credit that I’ve heard
of him from. His real name was Jules ‘Reaction’ Jackson, but he also
had a nickname.
Most people knew him as the Black and White Pimp.
