Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

Author:Robert Stone [Stone, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary, Historical, War, Mystery
ISBN: 9780395860250
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 1974-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Marge woke up as soon as he closed the door. She had lodged herself in the space between the edge of the mattress and the wall.

“O.K.,” Hicks said. “Let’s get high.”

She sat up with her hand shading her eyes.

“Is that a joke?”

He had taken the plastic-wrapped package from the airline bag and set it on a chair. “No, it ain’t a joke.”

He set a sheet of white writing paper across the telephone book and lifted a white dab from the package with a picture postcard of Marine World. She watched him raise the post card and shake the powder onto the sheet, flicking it with his finger to dislodge the first flakes. White on white.

“We’ll need some works for you if you’re gonna be a righteous junkie. Maybe Eddie Peace bring us some.”

He made a funnel from the back of a matchbook, took Marge by her damp and tremorous hand and led her to the desk.

He pared away a tiny mound of the stuff with the card board funnel and eased it onto the postcard’s glossy blue sky.

“I don’t know much about dilaudid so I don’t know what your tolerance is. Scoff it like coke and see if you get off.”

He moved the bag from the chair; Marge sat down and looked at the postcard.

“It’s scary,” she said.

“Don’t talk about it.”

She crouched over the stuff like a child and drew it into her nostril. Afterward she straightened up so quickly he was afraid she would pass out. She shook her head and sniffed.

He made a second little mound for her.

“Go ahead. Hit the other one.”

She hit the other one, and then sat stock-still; tears ran from her closed eyes. Slowly, she bent forward and rested her forehead against the desk. Hicks moved the phone book out of her way.

In a few minutes, she sat up again and turned to him.

She was smiling. She put her arms around his waist; her tears and runny nose wet his shirt. He bent down to her; she rested her head on his shoulder. The tension drained from her in small sobs.

“Better than a week in the country, right?”

Holding to him, she stood up and he helped her to the bed. She lay across it, arching her back, stretching her arms and legs toward its four corners.

“It’s a lot better than a week in the country,” she said.

She began to laugh. “It’s better than dilaudid. It’s good.”

She rolled over and hugged herself.

“Right in the head!” She made her hand into a pistol and fired into her temple. “Right in the head.”

He sat down on the bed with her. The glow had come back to her skin, the grace and suppleness of her body flowed again. The light came back, her eyes’ fire. Hicks marveled. It made him happy.

“It does funny little things inside you. It floats inside you. It’s incredible.”

“People use it instead of sex.”

“But it’s just gross how nice it is,” Marge said happily.

Hicks touched her breast.

“Walking with the King. Big H. If God made anything better he never let on.

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