Selling students cigarettes

The clear sky was streaked with orange-red light as the sun began to set. Three elongated shadows moved across the ground as the students to which they belonged approached Warner's General Store.

As Montare led the two girls up to the general store, he glanced around the outside of the store for something or someone in particular. Eventually he got rather close to the store, and stopped rather than go inside. "John?" he called, continuing to look around.

Jane had clung onto Montare's arm the whole way, humming a quiet tune to herself as they crossed campus and into town. It'd be getting dark some time soon, but she figured that was for the best, if they were leaving with what she thought they were leaving. Not just cigarettes, but booze, grass, pellets, pills, blotters. All for the party, hopefully, unless something went wrong before then. Maisie was strapped with dad's cash (something told her that she didn't like him much), and Montare had lead them out... here.

The convenience store?

But at the call of his name, John slipped out from the shadows. He had a charming, roguish look to him, with his stubble and his messy black hair. Gray eyes. Jane had always liked gray eyes. "So you're back," he greeted, a tinge of amusement in his voice. The scent of tobacco clung to him like perfume. "With more pretty friends too."

She gave Montare a small nudge. "Other 'friends', huh?" she asked with a small mischievous smile. "He never told us he was so popular. And I thought you said you'd never bought from him?"

John put a hand on the back of his head, trying his best to look sheepish. "Sorry. Never meant to blow your cover." He bent forward in a cursory little bow of greeting. "It's nice to meet you, ladies. I'm John. I'll understand if you don't want to give me your names."

"My mother taught me to never talk to strange men in dark alleys," Jane said. "They could be dangerous."

"Your mother's a smart woman. It doesn't look like you listened, though."

"Dangerous men excite me, what can I say?" She winked. "And we heard that a certain shady man set up shop somewhere around here."

Maisie had let go of his arm to get money from the ATM. She kept herself that way, distant to the convenience store, an eye to the sinking sun. He wasn't taking them to get mugged, was he? Montare didn't look like that type of guy.

John was rugged and shady, but had a strange handsomeness to him. Maisie crossed her arms, but her eyes were calm. He was a shady man, but he didn't seem like he'd hurt them. Her eye had never been wrong before, except for that time two Christmases ago. Who knew weed could get so psychedelic? "Do you have anything for a couple of students like us," she asked, glancing sideways to the street behind them. "Anything for a Friday night?" She knew he had cigarettes, but what else was he hiding?

Montare simply stood quiet as the two spoke to John, but while he didn't say anything to him, the look Montare gave John was enough to show he wasn't too happy about John revealing what he had. At least he didn't mention what Montare had purchased, which he may end up purchasing again. Montare decided to open his mouth when he heard Maisie's question. "Oh, he has plenty of things besides cigarettes," he partially answered for John.

John smiled and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, stepping back into the alley. "Come and look for yourself, if you trust a humble shady merchant then."

Jane untangled herself from Montare's side and followed.

When you thought of dark alleys, you thought of grimy backstreets strewn with trash and old needles, prowled by gangsters, rapists, and drug dealers. As it turned out, whoever owned the convenience store ran a tight ship, and the place looked surprisingly clean, like someone had just come through with a pressure washer and a push broom. He gestured to a stack of unmarked cardboard boxes lining the store wall. Jane flung open the top to be greeted by cases of Budweiser and Corona. "All the booze you'd ever need. Tequila, rum, whiskey, liquor, beer, you name it." John opened his coat to reveal a multi-colored galaxy of pills, bags, vials, and paper. "Pot, acid, uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, ether... I'll sell you loosies for fifty cents each, five bucks for a pack."

The man reached behind and pulled out a salt shaker. Jane took it out of his hands and held it up to inspect it. "Be careful, that isn't sugar." For some reason, she didn't think it was salt either.

He let his hands fall to his side and closed his coat again. "That's about it. If you're looking for anything harder than that, like heroin or meth or something, then you're outta luck. Stuff ruins your life. I wouldn't sell it to kids even if I had some."

She raised an eyebrow. "But you'll sell everything else."

John smiled and shrugged. Smiles came easily to his face. "A man's gotta have a code. So what will it be?"

"I'm throwing a party some time this week," she answered. "I need to keep my guests entertained."

"So, you'll want..."

"Booze, cigarettes, pot, acid, pills," she listed with a smile. "If they're not drinking or smoking, then I want them high off their minds. We'll take the coke too."

John smiled. "Can do, if you think you can handle it. And?"

"Condoms."

"Hey now..."

"Just being safe." She winked before glancing back at the other two. "I think we're taking some things for the road too."

"Oh?" He looked over Jane's shoulder to the other two. "And what are you ordering?"

While Jane inspected the merchandise hands-on, Maisie perused from a distance, eyes shifting from every item, every condensed bag that was packed tightly into the man's containers. It was a while before she took three packs of cigarettes, but that was all. "These and what my friend's buying." She winced at the inclusion of condoms. What kind of slut was she dealing with here? "How much we looking at?"

Montare gazed at everything John had, surprised by the fact he had any drugs except for weed. That didn't change things, though. Montare didn't need to include drugs as one of the things he consumes or uses that he shouldn't. "I'll take some vodka if you still have some," he told John plainly. No use bothering to hide the fact he'd bought vodka from John before at this point, especially when it's probably the least bad thing he could have bought.

Friend, huh? Maybe an empty courtesy, but it was a step up from what Maisie had been calling her before. Vodka too? So much for stoic and virtuous...

"Well, that depends..." John muttered with a sheepish grin. "Three packs, a bottle of vodka, plus your party favors..." He tapped a gloved hand against his chin, calculating the fees in his mind. A true businessman through and through. "Let's say, an eighth of pot, party bag of pills, half a pint of ether, another pack of cigarettes, a sheet of blotter acid, plus some tabs, a vial, the salt shaker, condoms, and... four cases of booze. Does that sound right?"

"Make it a fourth and add some salvia and you have a deal."

There was a sharp hiss of breath. "That's a tall order, kid. Your first timer discount would make that around..." He closed an eye and glanced up toward the reddening sky. "Six hundred bucks, and that's a really great deal. Can you pay for all that?"

Maisie narrowed her eyes, looking at Jane for a moment and to the wares for longer. Why the fuck was she ordering his whole goddamn stash? It seemed she wanted to drug the student population, and with her wallet. Well, her dad's wallet. She brought a thousand, but this wasn't exactly an over-the-counter deal. Haggling was always open. "Mister, you're going to get me in a lot more trouble of my daddy finds out I took 600 dollars instead of...let's say..." She smiled sweetly. "500?"

Montare simply stood and listened as John began listing off all of the things that would be "party favors," with a look of dismay becoming increasingly visible on his face as the list grew. "I hope you don't end up getting us caught." Montare said half to himself. If it was found out he was at a party on school grounds where there was drugs, alchohol, cigarettes, and, judging by the inclusion of condoms, sex... He'd be pretty screwed.

John gave a light chuckle under his breath. "I don't think your dad will be happy either way." He ran a gloved hand through his hair. "Promise me you'll come back for cigs, drinks, and whatever else, and I'll knock the price down to five-twenty-five and throw in some extra peyote to sweeten the deal. Limited time only, alright?"

Maisie kept her smile, it growing as she walked up to the man. She counted the money, running her fingers through the crumpled twenties, and extended her hand to the dealer for a shake. the bills were in her palm. "It's a deal," she said. They better have been watching, because that was how they did it in Texas.

John took her hand, and in the next moment, the bills were gone. "Pleasure doing business with you." He opened his coat, reached inside one of its many hidden pockets, and procured a plastic bag identical to the ones from Warner's General Store.

With a smile and a hum like she was window-shopping for jewelry, Jane went through the coat under John's watchful eye. Ziplock baggies of pot and salvia and peyote crowns, an unmarked amber bottle, tabs, a paper sheet, what looked like an eyedropper full of a clear liquid, a box of condoms, a pack of Marlboros, and pills, pills, pills. She slipped the saltshaker into her pocket.

"And the beer?"

"I'll come back for it soon. Just keep it cold for me for a couple days, alright?" She winked and spun on her heel, with the bag swinging in her hands. "I'll see ya around, mister."

Now she just had a $500 debt to pay and a get-together to plan.