• all batrachotoxins, including 100% immunity to Phyllobates terribilis
• all cyclopeptides, monomethylhydrazines, coprines, muscarines, ibotenics, psilocybins
• anesthetics, intravenous and inhaled and ingested, including:
- propofol
- barbiturates
- midazolam
- nitrous oxide
- isoflurane
- xenon gas
- etomidate
- benzodiazepines
- ketamine
- enflurane
- sevoflurane
- gamma-hydroxybutyrate
- tsusensan
- iocaine powder
- burundanga
• paralytics, including but not limited to:
- vecuronium
- mivacurium
- atracurium
- succinylcholine
- Perrelet
- norisol
- nixolophan20
- pancuronium
- rocuronium
- cistracurium
- curare
- picotine
- grisogonol
Notable Busts
Simon McCord21
Crummy Markovich
Rona “the Body” Bedzilnik
Zed22
Marty & Benji Estrovece
Deacon Breedlove24
Pituitary Jones24
Dallas Spicer23
Boki Fujiwara24
Frito Kriskstein24
Frankie “Nickels” Bozzuto and Tony “Kong” Mavrogordo25
Now, as I stand in my boss’s office and look back over the file, I can’t help smiling in fondness for the good old days when all the top talent feared me, when I had a perfect retention record and was getting top gigs all over the world, but that sends Po-Mo the wrong message. He interprets it as cavalierness.
“Is there something funny? Am I missing it? Maybe I don’t have the greatest sense of humor—maybe I’m not getting it, Starks—but you tell me, is there something funny about losing almost thirty million dollars for Janus clients in nine months? Does that sound like a knee-slapper to you?”
“No, sir,” I say, abashed.
“Me either. Look. You know I like you. You’re one of the most promising pulses I’ve ever seen. Despite what Detective Nunes thinks—”
“Who’s he?”
“She,” he says. “Cheryl Nunes. In charge of the investigation.”
“What happened to Fritzy?”
“Off the case.”
“What do you mean off the case?”
“He was moonlighting.”
“Doing what? Killing baby ducks?”
“Seems the city wasn’t paying him enough to investigate; the Rat Burglar paid him better not to.”
“I hadn’t heard this.”
“So far it’s an internal affairs matter. The chief doesn’t exactly need any more bad Rat Burglar press after all Fritzy’s bad arrests, does he?”
“So Nunes is his replacement?”
He nods. “Going back over Fritzy’s ground. Which includes you—”
“Me?”
“—but when I think back on that interview, when I look at that file, when I think of those busts—and when I think of Frankie Nickels cooling upstate—I like to think that you’re not . . . involved in the thefts.”
“Involved?” I say, feeling something screw down in my gut. “What does that mean?”
“I prefer to think that you’re just having a bad spell. I prefer to think that maybe you’re fatigued for...personal reasons. Or maybe for . . . pharmacological reasons.”
I think: oh no. Here we go again.
“I’ve told you a thousand times, haven’t I? Haven’t I told you to quit with the pills? Didn’t I tell you that no one—not even you, Starks—can take all that juice? Didn’t the guys in tox tell you the same thing?”
“Yes,” I say sheepishly.
“Didn’t they tell you dozens of times?”