Johan considered the streets, the pushers and crooks, the tweakers and junkies. Dirt everywhere. Decay. Desperation. It was just a matter of time before some scumbag pulled a .44 or otherwise tried to fuck him over. The fucking Mexicans had shown him that no motherfucker—no motherfucker—could be trusted. How fucking sweet would it be to shift to a different product, an exclusive product, and cater to a more trustworthy clientele?

“I’ll give it a run,” he said.

Johan took the Citromantyl-vee-four to a couple of actor friends, Lorenza Scialfa, who’d costarred in some movies back in the aughts, but hadn’t worked on anything serious since MySpace was a thing, and Mickey Hubbel, the washed-up star of A Perfect Situation, whose current situation was anything but perfect. Ramón’s yellow powder turned things around for them both. Lorenza scored a regular role in a popular HBO drama, and Mickey returned to prime time as the bumbling dad in Fox’s Robot in the Family.

Within three months, Johan’s client base had expanded. It included actors, musicians, directors, and CEOs. The momentum was building.

“Forget crystal,” Johan said to Ramón during one of their regular business meetings. They were poolside at Johan’s crib, smoking Arturo Fuentes. “It’s a dirty game. We need to focus on canary, and you need to make more of it.”

“Canary?” Ramón frowned.

“That’s what the celebs call it,” Johan said. “For us, it’s gold dust.”

“Okay, man, okay.” Ramón had laughed. “I can up production. How much do you need?”

Johan blew a fat ribbon of smoke into the air. “It’s Hollywood, amigo. How much can you make?”

They ripped through the desert, the highway a shimmering strip. Johan estimated that the heat beyond the windshield was somewhere in the low hundreds—positively arctic compared to the suffocating temperature in the Mustang. He rocked back and forth in his seat and ran his fingers along Krókr’s handle. It didn’t get any cooler.

East of Barstow, he tried calling Ramón again. Still no reply. He swore—slammed his cell phone down on the dashboard. It rang seconds later and he snatched it up, answering before he even saw the number on the screen.

“Ramón?”

“Afraid not,” Tera Montecino said.

Johan growled and wiped sweat from his eyes.

“Listen,” Tera said. There was no emotion in her voice. “The market in Nueva Vida isn’t so hot. You should try Pale Bone, Nevada.”

“Thank you,” Johan said. He closed his eyes and saw forest fires.

“Call me when you’re close and I’ll give you the details.”

Johan hung up. He stroked Krókr’s handle for a moment, but couldn’t suppress the eruption. It came like a tumbling boulder. He unleashed a torrent of expletives, kicking the dashboard, punching the door until the panel popped loose. Xander flinched but kept his eyes on the horizon.