The Traveler

“It was just an accident, Mr. Boone. I wasn’t trying to-”

“But you didn’t see anything.”

“Unfortunately I did, but…”

Boone glared at Richardson as if the neurologist were a stubborn child. “You didn’t see anything,” he repeated.

“No. I guess I didn’t.”

“Good.” Boone glided into the right lane and took the turn for New York City. “Then there isn’t a problem.”

***

IT WAS ABOUT ten o’clock in the evening when they reached Manhattan. Richardson stared out the window at a homeless man searching through a trash can and a group of young women laughing as they left a restaurant. After the quiet environment of the research center, New York seemed noisy and uncontrolled. Had he really visited this city with his ex-wife, gone to plays and restaurants? Boone drove over to the east side and parked on Twenty-eighth Street. They got out and walked toward the dark towers of Bellevue Hospital.

“What are we doing here?” Richardson asked.

“We’re going to meet a friend of the Evergreen Foundation.” Boone gave Richardson a quick, appraising look. “Tonight you’ll discover how many new friends you have in this world.”

Boone handed a business card to the bored woman at the reception desk and she allowed them to take the elevator up to the psychiatric ward. On the sixth floor, a uniformed hospital guard sat behind a Plexiglas barrier. The guard didn’t look surprised when Boone pulled an automatic pistol out of his shoulder holster and placed the gun in a little gray locker. They entered the ward. A short Hispanic man wearing a white lab coat was waiting for them. He smiled and extended both hands as if they had just arrived for a birthday party.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Which one of you is Dr. Richardson?”

“That’s me.”

“A pleasure to meet you. I’m Dr. Raymond Flores. The Evergreen Foundation said you’d be dropping by tonight.”

Dr. Flores escorted them down the hallway. Even though it was late, a few male patients wearing green cotton pajamas and bathrobes wandered around. All of them were drugged and they moved slowly. Their eyes were dead and their slippers made little hissing sounds as they touched the tile floor.

“So you work for the foundation?” Flores asked.

“Yes. I’m in charge of a special project,” Richardson said.

Dr. Flores passed several patient rooms, then stopped at a locked door. “Someone from the foundation named Takawa asked me to look for admits picked up under the influence of this new street drug, 3B3. No one’s made a chemical analysis yet, but it seems to be a very potent hallucinogen. The people taking it think they’ve been given a vision of different worlds.”

Flores unlocked the door and they entered a detention cell that smelled of urine and vomit. The only light came from a single bulb protected by a mesh screen. A young man wrapped in a canvas straitjacket lay on the green tile floor. His head was shaved, but a faint haze of blond hair was beginning to appear on his skull.

The patient opened his eyes and smiled at the three men standing over him. “Hello, everyone. Why don’t you take out your brains and make yourselves comfortable?”

Dr. Flores smoothed the lapels of his lab coat and smiled pleasantly. “Terry, these gentlemen want to learn about 3B3.”

Terry blinked twice and Richardson wondered if he was going to say anything at all. Suddenly he began pushing with his legs, wiggling across the floor to a wall, then forcing himself up to a sitting position. “It’s not really a drug. It’s a revelation.”

“Do you shoot it, snort it, inhale it, or swallow it?” Boone’s voice was calm and deliberately neutral.

“It’s a liquid, light blue, like a summer sky.” Terry closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. “I swallowed it at the club and then I was cracking out of this body and flying, passing through water and fire to a beautiful forest. But I couldn’t stay for more than a few seconds.” He looked disappointed. “The jaguar had green eyes.”

Dr. Flores glanced at Richardson. “He’s told this story many times, and he always ends up with the jaguar.”

“So where can I find 3B3?” Richardson asked.

Terry closed his eyes again and smiled serenely. “Do you know what he charges for one dose? Three hundred and thirty-three dollars. He says it’s a magic number.”

“And who’s making that kind of money?” Boone asked.

“Pius Romero. He’s always at the Chan Chan Room.”

“It’s a midtown dance club,” Dr. Flores explained. “We’ve had several patients who have overdosed there.”

“This world is too small,” Terry whispered. “Do you realize that? It’s a child’s marble dropped into a pool of water.”

They followed Flores back out into the corridor. Boone walked away from the two doctors and immediately called someone with his cell phone.

“Have you examined other patients who have used this drug?” Richardson asked.

“This is the fourth admit in the last two months. We put them on a combination of Fontex and Valdov for a few days until they’re catatonic, then we lower the dosage and bring them back to reality. After a while, the jaguar disappears.”

* * *