A Scanner Darkly

“A spray can,” Barris said. “Of Solarcaine.”

“Sunburn spray?” Charles Freck did not really believe this was happening, but on the other hand, who knew? Who could be sure? He followed Barris to the counter; this time Barris paid.

They purchased the can of Solarcaine and then made it past the cop and back to their car. Barris drove rapidly from the lot, down the street, on and on at high speed, ignoring posted speed-limit signs, until finally he rolled to a halt before Bob Arctor’s house, with all the old unopened newspapers in the tall grass of the front yard.

Stepping out, Barris lifted some items with wires dangling from the back seat to carry indoors. Voltmeter, Charles Freck saw. And other electronic testing gear, and a soldering gun. “What’s that for?” he asked.

“I’ve got a long and arduous job to do,” Barris said, carrying the various items, plus the Solarcaine, up the walk to the front door. He handed Charles Freck the door key. “And I’m probably not getting paid. As is customary.”

Charles Freck unlocked the door, and they entered the house. Two cats and a dog rattled at them, making hopeful noises; he and Barris carefully edged them aside with their boots.

At the rear of the dinette Barris had, over the weeks, laid out a funky lab of sorts, bottles and bits of trash here and there, worthless-looking objects he had filched from different sources. Barris, Charles Freck knew, from having to hear about it, believed not so much in thrift as in ingenuity. You should be able to use the first thing that came to hand to achieve your objective, Barris preached. A thumbtack, a paper clip, part of an assembly the other part of which was broken or lost … It looked to Charles Freck as if a rat had set up shop here, was performing experiments with what a rat prized.

The first move in Barris’s scheme was to get a plastic bag from the roll by the sink and squirt the contents of the spray can into it, on and on until the can or at least the gas was exhausted.

“This is unreal,” Charles Freck said. “Super unreal.”

“What they have deliberately done,” Barris said cheerfully as he labored, “is mix the cocaine with oil so it can’t be extracted. But my knowledge of chemistry is such that I know precisely how to separate the coke from the oil.” He had begun vigorously shaking salt into the gummy slime in the bag. Now he poured it all into a glass jar. “I’m freezing it,” he announced, grinning, “which causes the cocaine crystals to rise to the top, since they are lighter than air. Than the oil, I mean. And then the terminal step, of course, I keep to myself, but it involves an intricate methodological process of filtering.” He opened the freezer above the refrigerator and carefully placed the jar inside.

“How long will it be in there?” Charles Freck asked.

“Half an hour.” Barris got out one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, lit it, then strolled over to the heap of electronic testing equipment. He stood there meditating, rubbing his bearded chin.

“Yeah,” Charles Freck said, “but I mean, so even if you get a whole gram of pure coke out of this, I can’t use it on Donna to … you know, get into her pants in exchange. It’s like buying her; that’s what it amounts to.”

“Exchange,” Barris corrected. “You give her a gift, she gives you one. The most precious gift a woman has.”

“She’d know she was being bought.” He had seen enough of Donna to flash on that; Donna would make out the shuck right off.

“Cocaine is an aphrodisiac,” Barris muttered, half to himself; he was setting up the testing equipment beside Bob Arctor’s cephalochromoscope, which was Bob’s most expensive possession. “After she’s snorted a good part of it she’ll be happy to uncork herself.”

“Shit, man,” Charles Freck protested. “You’re talking about Bob Arctor’s girl. He’s my friend, and the guy you and Luckman live with.”

Barris momentarily raised his shaggy head; he scrutinized Charles Freck for a time. “There’s a great deal about Bob Arctor you’re not aware of,” he said. “That none of us are. Your view is simplistic and naive, and you believe about him what he wants you to.”

“He’s an all-right guy.”

“Certainly,” Barris said, nodding and grinning. “Beyond a doubt. One of the world’s best. But I have come—we have come, those of us who have observed Arctor acutely and perceptively—to distinguish in him certain contradictions. Both in terms of personality structure and in behavior. In his total relatedness to life. In, so to speak, his innate style.”

“You have anything specific?”

Barris’s eyes, behind his green shades, danced.

“Your eyes dancing don’t mean nothing to me,” Charles Freck said. “What’s wrong with the cephscope that you’re working on it?” He moved in closer to look for himself.

Tilting the central chassis on end, Barris said, “Tell me what you observe there with the wiring underneath.”

“I see cut wires,” Charles Freck said. “And a bunch of what look like deliberate shorts. Who did it?”

Still Barris’s merry knowing eyes danced with special delight.