Page 9 of Deep Cover

6

Once became twice. Became half a dozen times. A dozen. Became the need to score some more and that wasn't hard either.

Jesse was dead and dad was sick and being charged and Mark was angry and kids were dying and –

And Dave Samuels said they were pulling the plug on my operation. I'd been given leave I didn't ask for and when I came back to work - once your father is doing better which I thought translated into your fiancé had some things to say and we believe you need a month, and you're valuable enough to us to get it - we'd discuss my next assignment.

"Narcotics?" I said.

"Yes," he said, and then, "Annie, your voice isn't right and you've missed calls from the captain and I get it, your dad is not doing okay and when he does he has a shitstorm to work through but you've got to get it together."

"I don't know what you mean," I said angrily.

"Really? Okay, let me put it this way. You want your job back? You need to get clean."

On the last day of the two weeks, my handler Dave Samuels said he knew what was going on with me and hinted it was a very delicate thing, not letting everyone else know too. On that day he told me if I got cleaned up and did it now, there was a chance no one on the force would ever know, other than him, and he could keep a secret.

I almost asked him What do you need in order to keep that secret? But I didn't have to because he went on to tell me.

All I had to do was show up clean at the end of my month’s leave.

Right. But it had already been two weeks. The stuff was strong. And currently? I wasn't.

He knew a guy who could help, he said. Worked in pharma and when I asked - no, the legitimate pharmaceutical industry, and he was working on a drug that was rainforest-based and had the tremendously promising effect of ending most addictions without killing the addict and without harsh measures.

It would be just like going undercover again, he told me. Because I was to tell no one where I was going or what I was going to do.

"How am I supposed to disappear on my family? My fiancé? My father's in the hospital!" I didn't want to admit to myself how out of the loop my family was keeping me, as if they expected at any minute the job would pull me away.

"Find a way," he said. "Because otherwise it's going to get out, what's happened to you. Even if you can deal with it, can your father? Your fiancé?"

It was a low blow. But it worked. Even now I could feel the fire starting to crawl through my veins, the desire for more. My teeth kept sinking into my lower lip and the hand not holding the phone kept scratching the skin on my other arm. Digging for something. Sanity. Clarity. An end to the pain.

"All right," I said finally. "All right. I'll find an excuse. I'll meet this man. They'll all just think I'm undercover again, right?"

Dave didn't actually answer.

"Right?" I was crushing the phone in my hand.

"Let me tell you what you need to do," Dave said.

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