A Matter of Unimportance

24. Cosmic

Six months before waking up and deciding that I felt comfortable committing murder, I swallowed a bit of my pride and called my old friend Harrison Barker. We hadn't spoken in a long time. He had tried reaching out to me when I stopped going to school, and I wasn't receptive because I still didn't know what to say. I think I maybe felt like it would be a betrayal to Bonnie if I kept her step brother in my life.

But this was a matter of life or death, and I was playing cards against a master, so I needed his help.

I asked Harrison for his aid. I asked him for information. I asked him for secrecy.

I didn't know it yet, but Harrison had started to figure some things out in the few years we'd been apart. When I pointed him in the right direction, he discovered exactly who his uncle actually was. Then he called me back and told me he was on the way to my house.

"Don't," I said quickly. "Not unless you want them to know."

We had a conversation. Harrison answered the majority of my questions regarding my targets. He told me even more that I wouldn't have known how to guess otherwise. He told me things that would be infinitely more useful than I could have imagined.

I still don't get to see Harrison face to face very often. Much of our conversations occur over the phone from a distance. I think we both are a little unsure of the other and neither of us truly know how involved the other is, but Harrison is my most trusted contact. He always will be, I think.

As it was, I was standing in that dirty little house in the Hollywood district completely unaware that target number one had already died, and I was face to face with my lovely target number two.

He had dark hair and a wide smile that looked absolutely glued into his features. I'd seen him many times. He was the one who'd handed me pills for the first time, and subsequently many times after. He was older than me. I'd determined at least five years separated us. He was friendlier than the others that followed me, almost always willing to hold a conversation. His willingness to hold a conversation was maybe his downfall, although he lied often. It's important to learn when people are lying to you.

He'd told me he was a college student, but as a narcotic industry plant I'd learned that he was actually just a college loiterer. He actually had a secondary day job as a medical assistant at the hospital in the city. In addition to following me around in the evening, his actual God given task was watching which patients were getting their pain prescriptions cut off by their doctors. He then swooped in to offer them a solution.

He had no kids. He did have a wife. I felt bad for her because I didn't know if she knew that her husband was tasked with preying on people that already hurt. His career alone was enough to make him a good enough target for me, but it was personal too. He saw me suffering and he offered me pills because his specialty was destabilizing people. I'd fallen right into it more than once.

His name was Garrett, and he was still smiling at me because he'd finally miscalculated.

"Hey!" He called as he sighted me mingling. "The Herb is here! How are you, kid?"

I smiled back. I disengaged from the conversation I was having on a slightly damp sweaty smelling couch in the living room and I excused myself to the two young people I'd just sold some right pocket joints to. They'd asked for pills. I'd left most of the pills at home.

"Just the person I wanted to see," I said, and I forced a slur into my voice when I said it. I had a plastic cup in my hand. I was pretty sure I was drinking something called jungle juice that one of the couch people had given me, but I was sipping it slowly like wine. I didn't particularly trust drinks that were just handed to me, especially not in dark houses like this one with an overabundance of people mingling by lamplight. "I have something for you."