After the Plague by T. C. Boyle Page B

himself. He was breathing hard—got to quit smoking—and his tequila headache was heating up to the point where he was seriously considering ducking into Clubber’s andslamming a shot or two, though it was only half past nine and all the tourists would be there buttering their French toast and would you pass the syrup please and thank you very much. He’d had to go all the way out to Drake’s place and shake him awake to get the Tuinal—one of Drake’s mother’s six thousand and one prescriptions to fight off the withering aches of her seventy-odd years. Tuinal, Nembutal, Dalmane, Darvocet: Jason didn’t care, just so long as there was enough of it. He didn’t do barbiturates anymore—probably hadn’t swallowed a Tooey in ten years—but he remembered the sweet numb glow they gave him and the way they made his legs feel like tree trunks planted deep in the ground.
    The sun had burned off the fog by now, and the day was clear and glittering on the water. They’d started the race at seven-thirty, so that gave him a while yet—the first men would be crossing the finish line in just under three hours, and the women would be coming in at three-ten, three-twelve, something like that. All he needed to do now was finesse himself into the inner sanctum, pick up a stray T-shirt and cap, find the Gatorade and plant himself about two miles from the finish. Of course there was a chance the Amazing Bone Woman wouldn’t take the cup from him, especially if she recognized him from the other night, but he was going to pull his cap down low and hide behind his Ray-Bans and show her a face of devotion. One second, that’s all it would take. A hand coming out of the crowd, the cup beaded with moisture and moving right along beside her so she didn’t even have to break stride—and what was there to think about? She drinks and hits the wall. And if she didn’t go for it the first time, he’d hop in the car and catch her a mile farther on.
    He’d been watching one of the security volunteers stationed outside the trailer that served as a command center. A kid of eighteen maybe, greasy hair, an oversized cross dangling from one ear, a scurf of residual acne. He was a carbon copy of the kids he sold wetsuits and Killer Beeswax to—maybe he was even one of them. Jason reminded himself to tread carefully. He was a businessman, after all, one of the pillars of the downtown community, and somebody might recognize him. But then so what if they did? Hewas volunteering his time, that was all, a committed citizen doing his civic best to promote tourism and everything else that was right in the world. He ducked under the rope. “Hey, bro,” he said to the kid, extending his hand for the high five—which the kid gave him. “Sorry I’m late. Jeff around?”
    The kid’s face opened up in a big beaming half-witted grin. “Yeah, sure—I think he went up the beach a ways with Everardo and Linda and some of the press people, but I could maybe look if you want—”
    Jeff. It was a safe bet—no crowd of that size, especially one consisting of whippets, bone people and guppies, would be without a Jeff. Jason gave the kid a shrug. “Nah, that’s all right. But hey, where’s the T-shirts and caps at?”
    Then he was in his car, and forget the D.U.I., the big green waxed cup cold between his legs, breaking Tuinal caps and looking for a parking space along the course. He pulled in under a huge Monterey pine that was like its own little city and finished doctoring the Gatorade, stirring the stuff in with his index fingers. What would it take to make her legs go numb and wind up a Did Not Finish without arousing suspicion? Two? Three? He didn’t want her to pass out on the spot or take a dive into the bushes or anything, and he didn’t want to hurt her, either, not really. But four—four was a nice round number, and