Knife Edge

Knife Edge - chapter 16

Susie Stockton giggled as she huddled in a secluded corner of the garden with two or three of her friends. In the background the house was a blaze of lights and a swirl of people and chatter, punctuated by raucous laughter, the sounds of splashing and screaming from the pool and the first riffs from the band. The party was humming. A couple of the waiters hired for the occasion were just out of this world and Susie was pleasantly drunk, and about to get increasingly out of her head. Maybe, she giggled to herself, she might make a play for one of them. The Spanish looking guy was just something else.

Her friend Banshee swayed in front of her holding a small bottle over a pad of cotton wool. With excessive care, he allowed a few drops of the pale liquid to caress the surface of the pad.

‘Oh yes,’ he breathed. ‘This stuff is just dynamite. It takes the mind on a cosmic trip to the planet Lovebrain.’

He passed the pad gently and carefully to Susie. She looked at it with mounting seriousness of purpose.

‘Myoto,’ breathed Banshee with awestruck passion. ‘Nectar of the gods. To be imbibed only by the cosmically pure of heart. Touch it with your lips and breathe it deeply, then pass it around. Then let it take effect. Forget coke, forget crack and rage, forget shurm. This is the essence of the Holy Spirit.’

Susie touched the impregnated pad with her lips, drawing the myoto around her mouth then she inhaled deeply through each nostril. She passed the pad to one of her companions. There was no immediate reaction except for a slight tingling on her lips.

After a moment or two she could not open her mouth. She was sailing up out of her body and merging with the night stars, where the wild ones waited for those who had discovered the key to liberation.Scott strolled through the house and grounds acknowledging the smiles, talking and laughing. Most of the board of Stockton Industries was there, with wives, partners or someone just hired for the night. Scott was feeling pleased with himself. Susie’s present had been an inspired choice. If he had believed in some kind of universal power under which mankind was controlled through apparent chance or destiny, then he would have said that his stars were shining, bestowing upon him not just the Midas touch, but a happy knack of getting it right.

Susie had crooned over the Porsche. Even for a young woman who could have virtually everything, the car was a symbol of liberation and personal power. It said take me, the world is yours and I can transport you to places you never dreamed existed.

Scott emerged into the pool area, and listened to the band for a few bars. The techno-rock they played had made a comeback in recent months, but it was too anarchic for his taste. Give me the sounds of the past, he thought as he watched the guys in their metallic suits lurch around the cramped, makeshift stage.

Then he saw him.

The way he stood, just gazing into the swimming pool reminded Scott of his days at Winfield. The lights from the underwater lamps illuminated the swarthy good looks and the arrogant set of his shoulders.

Wayne Krantz looked up and smiled.

‘Wayne, you made it old buddy,’ Scott grasped his old friend by the hand.

‘Sure, wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’ Krantz stared at Scott with a slightly ironic smile on his lips. He looked around, almost inhaling the atmosphere of monied wealth that permeated the house and grounds.

‘You’ve done well for yourself, Scotty. I still think about this place you know. Remember I used to come here. And Winfield. Shit, we had some fun didn’t we?’

‘We sure did.’

Krantz pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket, jammed it into his mouth and flicked a lighter. Scott was momentarily taken aback. Nobody he knew smoked these days. Krantz had certainly never done so. They had far better things to inhale than tobacco. He noticed, too, that Krantz’s hand was trembling as he lit the weed. And his nails were dirty. When Scott came to examine his old friend more closely, he saw that his tuxedo was old and hadn’t been cleaned. And Krantz’s skin had a slightly unhealthy pallor.