“When snorted with the Selzucaine . . . Well, I guarantee you’ll get the results you’re hoping for.”

Mixing a stimulant hallucinogenic, like Selzucaine, with an anesthetic analgesic depressant, like Tranadyl, would produce a similar effect to a speedball, when you shoot up heroin and cocaine.

A potent drug interaction that led to waves of euphoria and then a crash.

And then euphoria again.

Quite a ride, until you die of an arrhythmia or you bottom out into a coma.

Yes, he had sold his soul to the devil. But at least he’d saved his son. The brain-muddled addicts would eventually shoot up or snort their way into the grave anyway—they were just getting what they deserved.

No. No one deserves that.

Jake did his best to quiet his conscience, to beat it down with his well-rehearsed rationalizations.

“Five hours,” the man said. “Alright. I understand.”

Then Jake took his son home to spend as much time with him as he could before his past found him out and caught up with him for good, which he was becoming more and more convinced would eventually occur.

49

I finished skimming Vidocq, still unsure what specifically Calvin wanted me to glean from the memoirs of the pioneering detective.

However, I did take away a few of Vidocq’s hints: Go where the criminals are, gain their confidence, and get them to respect you, to like you, even. Use subterfuge whenever necessary.

Good advice, reinforced by my own personal experiences.

It was just after six, and I started gathering my things to head out for my dinner date with Christie when Ralph stopped by my office to tell me that Senator Murray had gambling debts that he was keeping quiet.

“How do we know this?”

“Greer sent me a memo. I’ll forward it to you. He said it took some digging.”

“Well, if Murray does have debts and his son knew about them, it’s possible that he really was speaking to his father when he said, ‘This is for you,’ just as Mannie claimed.”

“You think someone paid to cover his dad’s debts and then watched him commit suicide in return?”

“I’m not sure what I think, but that’s a possibility.”

I knew we were drifting into speculation, but when you’re working a case with so many variables, sometimes it’s helpful to just throw ideas out there and see where they lead.

“Is this you looking for motive?” Ralph asked me.

“It’s me looking for answers.”

Ten years ago I never would’ve believed the scenario we’d laid out here, but today, with the upsurge of live-feed suicides and homicides, it was, tragically, not that incomprehensible.

“I couldn’t find any legislation that the senator is currently reviewing that appears to be directly related to the case,” he said. “However, he has a pet project right now dealing with new technology in encryption and Internet privacy.”

“Internet privacy?”