Blindsight

“Make sure there aren’t any other people up here,” Angelo said as he returned from glancing into the kitchen. He then disappeared back toward the master suite.

“Hey!” Kendall called. “You can’t search my apartment!” He turned to Tony. “You have to have a warrant for this.”

“A warrant?” Tony questioned. “Oh, yeah, the warrant. We always forget the warrant.”

Angelo returned.

“I’d like to see your identification again,” Kendall said. “This is an outrage.”

Angelo reached into his Brioni jacket and withdrew his Walther pistol. “Here’s mine,” he said. He motioned for Kendall to sit down. Tony snapped open the latches on his doctor’s bag.

“What is this, a robbery?” Kendall asked, staring at the gun. He sat down. “Help yourself! Take what you want.”

“I’m the candy man,” Tony said. He lifted a long, clear plastic bag and a small cylinder out of the bag.

Angelo moved behind Kendall, gun in hand. Kendall watched nervously as Tony used the cylinder to inflate the plastic bag with a gas that was obviously lighter than air. Once the bag was completely full, he occluded the end and put the cylinder back in the doctor’s bag. With the plastic bag in hand, he approached Kendall.

“What’s going on?” Kendall demanded.

“We’re here to offer you a wild trip,” Tony said with a smile.

“I’m not interested in any trip,” Kendall said. “Take what you want and get out of here.”

Tony opened the base of the plastic bag so that it looked more like a miniature transparent hot air balloon. Then, holding two sides of the base, he crammed it down over the top of Kendall’s head.

The unexpectedness of the move caught Kendall by surprise. He reached up and grabbed Tony’s forearms and halted the bag at his shoulders. As he tried to stand up, Angelo threw the arm with the gun around his neck. Angelo’s other hand grabbed Kendall’s right wrist in an attempt to free its grip on Tony’s forearm.

For a second the three people struggled against one another. Kendall, terrified at this point, opened his mouth and bit Angelo’s forearm through the plastic bag.

“Ahhhh!” Angelo cried, feeling Kendall’s incisors break his skin. Angelo let go of Kendall’s arm and was about to punch Kendall in the face inside the plastic bag when he saw it wasn’t necessary.

After having taken only a few breaths in the plastic bag, Kendall’s eyelids sagged and his whole body, including his jaws, went limp. While Tony followed Kendall to the floor, maintaining the plastic bag in position, Angelo got his arm back.

Quickly Angelo undid his cuff link and pulled up his sleeve. On the inside of his forearm, about three inches from his elbow, was an elliptical ring of puncture wounds corresponding to Kendall’s dentition. A few of them were bleeding.

“The bastard bit me!” Angelo said indignantly. He put his gun into its shoulder holster. “In this line of work you never know what the hell is going to happen.”

Tony stood up and went back to the doctor’s bag. “Every time we use that gas, I’m amazed,” he said. “Old Doc Travino sure knows his stuff.” He got out a syringe and a piece of rubber tubing. Returning to Kendall, he used the rubber tubing as a tourniquet. “Look at these veins, will you!” he said. “God, they look like cigars. No way we can miss these. You want to do it or should I?”

“You do it,” Angelo said. “But you better get that bag off his head. We don’t want another Robert Evanstype screw-up.”

“Right,” Tony said. He worked the plastic bag free, then shook it out. “Ugh,” he said. “I hate that sweet smell.”

“Give him the coke, will you?” Angelo said. “He’ll wake up before you’re finished.”

Tony took the needle and pushed it into one of Kendall’s prominent veins. “There, what did I tell you?” he said, pleased to have scored on his first try. He pulled off the tourniquet, then pushed in the plunger, emptying the syringe into Kendall’s arm.

Tony left the used syringe on the coffee table and put the rest of his paraphernalia back into the doctor’s bag. At the same time he took out a small glassine envelope. Going back to Kendall, he poured a small amount of the white powder into Kendall’s nostrils. Then he dabbed a little onto his thumb and snorted it. “I love leftovers,” he said with glee.

“Stay away from that stuff!” Angelo commanded.

“Couldn’t resist,” Tony said. He put the glassine envelope next to the used syringe. “What do you think, into the fridge with him?”

“Let’s skip it,” Angelo said. “I was talking with Doc about it. He says that as long as the body’s not out longer than twelve hours we’re okay. And the way we’ve been working this, everybody’s been found way before twelve hours.”

Tony looked around. “Did I get everything?”

“Looks good,” Angelo said. “Let’s sit down and see how Kendall likes his trip.”

Tony sat on the couch while Angelo sat in the armchair that Kendall had been occupying.

“Nice apartment,” Tony said. “What do you say we glance around a little to see if there’s anything we might want to pick up?”

“How many times do I have to tell you: we don’t take anything when we do these drug trips.”