Chapter 53

Sandy’s return from Europe is a bit hectic. His answering machine goes on for two and a half hours, at a minute maximum per message. It seems that half the messages are from Bob Tompkins, too. So he calls Bob. “Hi, Bob, Sandy here.”

“Ah, Sandy! You’re back!”

“Yeah, I decided to, to—”

“To let things cool down a little, eh Sandy? Well, it worked.”

Bob laughs, and Sandy nods to himself. It did indeed work. Talking to Bob on the day he got the news would have been blistering.

“You shouldn’t worry so much about things, Sandy. I mean when I first got your message I was upset, sure, but it didn’t take me a week to get over it, for Christ’s sake! I mean when you’ve got the Coast Guard breathing down your neck, what else can you do? You could have dumped those barrels over the side, right? So just the fact that we might be able to recover them is a big plus. Listen, if you can liberate that stuff, there’ll be a bonus in it for you, for duty above and beyond the call.”

“That’s great, Bob, I’m glad you feel that way about it. But there’s a certain problem with where we stashed the stuff. We just picked the nearest isolated spot on the coast, you know, and dumped them in a bunch of boulders. But then we noticed that the buildings for Laguna Space Research were on the top of the bluff above us. And they’ve just announced an increase in security around their facility, because of the recent sabotages. Including a watch against boats landing.”

“Ah ha. That is a problem. So … this company is a defense contractor, then?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.” Long pause. “Okay, well listen Sandy, we’ll have to figure something out to help you, then. I’ll get back to you on this, okay? Meanwhile just let it ride.”

Fine with Sandy. He’s free to concentrate on some heavy-duty dealing. He’s got quite a bit of ground to make up, and so for the next few days he goes into overdrive, working sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours each day, to the point where he has to put some serious effort into supply as well as sales. Angela, who sees the need, is doing overtime herself taking care of him and the ap and their meals and the nightly party, which has regained its momentum in the days since their return. The constant running around in traffic, keeping track of handshake deals, doing the bookkeeping in the head, all over a ground base of massive drug intake, is exhausting in the extreme. In fact he’s finding it hard to come home at night and really enjoy the party.

“Wow, burnout,” he says to Angela.