Chapter 30: Green Vine

In the center of Marakan Town, the cross atop the church spire, the brand-new statues of the Twelve Apostles, and the sturdy, freshly painted walls were all glaringly out of place in this impoverished little town.

On the outskirts, a “volunteer” from the Ivy Foundation enthusiastically handed out supplies, seemingly entirely undisturbed by the filthy, stinking poor who crowded around him.

“Can pregnant women take it? Of course they can, ma’am! This is troglitazone, an American medicine. It will be good for your child… Oh, oh, we’re a charitable organization. There’s no need to pay… A donation? You’re far too generous. May the Lord bless a kind person like you!”

“Your little boy hurt himself falling? This is OxyContin, a miracle drug even Americans haven’t had the chance to use! Whatever pain he has in the future, just give him one tablet and it’ll be gone… Oh, no need to thank us. This is Jesus’s blessing!”

“…”

Beep, beep…

At that moment, on an inconspicuous street corner, a Chevrolet Caprice was parked beside the gravel road not far from the central church, its V8 engine rumbling at low revs.

Milton cautiously surveyed the surroundings from inside the car.

The parking spot lay completely within a blind angle of the pharmacy, and there were few pedestrians as well. Unless they were extraordinarily unlucky, no one would notice them.

“You two, keep a close eye on the surroundings and the radios. I’m going to question the pharmacy here first.”

Luz was preoccupied with the compensation money and looked somewhat uneasy. “Boss, this is too dangerous. Shouldn’t I go instead?”

“I don’t trust your brain.” Milton refused to let the muscle-bound man handle delicate work. “You two stay put in the car.”

With that, Milton took his loaded Ruger Mark II, tugged his ragged clothes into place, and walked toward the pharmacy around the corner.

Given the speed of information transmission in this era, Milton believed that after only a single day, the townspeople had probably heard his name, but were unlikely to remember what he looked like.

As long as he made himself look sufficiently disheveled, no one would recognize him.

To eliminate every possible flaw, the entire outfit Milton was wearing had been stripped from a genuine patient at a black-market pharmacy.

Several dozen seconds later, Milton reached the pharmacy entrance. He glanced around and confirmed that most of the nearby people were gathered around the charity foundation, trying their luck. Since no one was likely to visit the pharmacy in the short term, he pushed open the door and went inside.

The pharmacist was lazily sprawled in a chair. When he saw a customer enter, he asked, “Where are you from? What do you need? Got a prescription?”

“Just got out of the hospital… glyburide. I don’t have a prescription.”

The moment he heard that there was no prescription, the pharmacist named a price without a second thought.

“One thousand quetzals a bottle.”

“One thousand?!” Even while conducting his investigation, Milton could not help frowning. “Why so expensive?”

The pharmacist was extremely impatient. “First, you don’t have a prescription. If I’m going to get the medicine for you, I have to take certain measures. Second, there’s been a major problem at the border checkpoint. Supplies are short everywhere.”

Milton was silent for a moment before asking, “Is there a cheaper option?”

He was testing whether the pharmacist was selling cheaper illegal drugs.

“Of course.” The pharmacist let out a contemptuous laugh. “You can turn around and get out right now. Look to your right. They’re handing out free medicine at the church. Maybe you’ll get lucky and receive some. Or you can go to the black market in the old district, if you can find a black-market dealer and if you aren’t afraid of getting robbed… More than a dozen people died there yesterday. So what do you say, beggar? Want to go?”

Unlike what many people imagined, diabetes was not exclusively a disease of the affluent. In places where sugary drinks were easier to obtain than clean water, and where people could fill their stomachs only with high-sugar, high-calorie processed foods and mushy staples, diabetes was relatively widespread.

The rich, who ate natural foods and followed meal plans designed by nutrition experts, were actually less likely to develop the disease.

The pharmacist truly despised the poor from the bottom of his heart.

Milton glanced at him, said nothing more, and turned to leave.

When he returned to the car, the two men, who had heard the entire exchange, immediately began cursing.

Brandon gave a cold laugh. “Hah! I heard the ‘boss’ say before that this pharmacy supplies part of the hospital’s inventory. They’re never short of orders, so they act incredibly arrogant. Looks like it’s true.”

Luz was also furious that anyone had dared speak to his patron like that. “If he knew that the man standing in front of him was the ‘Hell Tax Collector’ who killed more than a dozen people in the black market, he would’ve wet himself!”

Milton shifted into gear and accelerated toward the next pharmacy. When he heard that unpleasant nickname again, he nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel. He took two deep breaths before managing to steady his emotions.

No. He had to find a way to get rid of that nickname!

Milton interrupted their complaints. “At least this proves the troglitazone didn’t come from him. Stop wasting time. Let’s investigate the next pharmacy.”

As they left the pharmacy, Milton noticed a blonde woman apparently holding a camera and arguing with one of the Ivy Foundation’s volunteers.

But he had no time to concern himself with that. He hurried back to the car and drove toward the next location.

“…”

A few minutes later, Milton pushed open the door of another pharmacy and asked the owner the same questions.

The answer was more or less the same.

“Can’t be helped. One thousand quetzals. Ask anywhere and you’ll get the same price. Unless you’re brave enough to go to the black market. Everything there is smuggled, so there’s no tax. You can get it considerably cheaper.”

Milton asked, “Are there cheaper substitutes, or some other less expensive option?”

“Hmm… How about this? If you buy ten bottles at once, I’ll give you a five percent discount. Let’s see, how much is that…”

Milton answered instinctively, “Nine thousand five hundred.”

The pharmacist spent quite some time tapping the battered plastic keys of his calculator. Then he looked up and praised him in surprise. “That’s right, nine thousand five hundred. You calculated it accurately—and so quickly!”

Milton clenched his fists, then slowly relaxed them. He turned and left without hesitation.

Even if that compliment had been directed at a Chinese middle-school student, it would have been an immense humiliation.

There was nothing more to say. They would investigate the next pharmacy.

…

Milton returned to the car and drove toward the third pharmacy.

It was now around seven in the evening. The sky had not yet grown completely dark, but it could already be described as gloomy.

Milton frowned and reluctantly switched on the headlights. “Once night falls, there aren’t many places that still have electricity. These streetlamps are practically ornamental.”

“What can you expect? How many people here can afford to pay their electric bills? The local government certainly won’t bother with something like this. They only care whether their own houses have power.”

Brandon shrugged. “The power company can’t even afford to chase down unpaid bills. The collection costs might exceed the electricity payments they recover, so they may as well cut people off directly.”

“It’s not so bad. At least there’s power for a few hours every day. Being alive is good enough.”

“Ah, forget that… Why don’t you tell us about yourself, Boss? What did you do before this? You’re incredible with a gun, your brain works like a charm, and you’re even good at mathematics! You’re the most impressive person I’ve ever met!”

“Who would’ve thought the ‘Hell Tax Collector’ not only knew how to kill people, but was a mathematician too!”

Are you two ever going to stop?

Milton finally reached the limits of his patience. He slammed a hand against the dashboard and roared, “Enough! From now on, you are not to call me the ‘Hell Tax Collector’!”

Brandon did not understand. “Why not? It sounds so imposing. Even my coworkers approve of it. Just saying it is enough to scare people to death.”

“I’m the boss. If I say you’re not to call me that, then you’re not to call me that! Otherwise, I’ll dock your pay!” Milton put on the full authority of a boss, spun the steering wheel, and brought the car smoothly to a stop. “All right, I’m going in. Keep an eye on the radios!”

What a miserable mess.

With all those aggravations churning inside him, Milton shoved the door open with noticeably more force than before.

He strode to the counter without bothering to be polite and rapped his knuckles on the pharmacist’s desk. “You got medicine? Glyburide.”

The pharmacist was already accustomed to this sort of thing and found nothing unusual about it. Those self-important but ultimately worthless thugs from the slums were all like this.

Without even looking up, he quoted the price. “No prescription, right? Then it’s one thousand quetzals a bottle.”

As usual, Milton asked, “Anything cheaper?”

This time, however, the pharmacist did not answer immediately.

He raised his head. The wrinkles on his face folded over one another as he studied Milton for a long while, apparently weighing whether he should say what he was about to say.

His clothes and bearing seemed perfectly ordinary…

More importantly, he had bribed a great many people, and those people had bribed others farther up the chain. Each level protected the next. Unless the other party had connections as powerful as a provincial high official, even reporting the matter to the police would accomplish nothing.

How could a poor wretch who might be dead by tomorrow possibly have a powerful background?

Rather than let the man carry his money into the grave and leave it for scavengers, the pharmacist might as well make a profit himself.

The pharmacist’s left hand slipped quietly beneath the desk and closed around a short-barreled shotgun. He glanced toward the door and lowered his voice slightly.

“There is. A new drug. Only three hundred quetzals a bottle. How about it?”

Note: OxyContin is an extended-release form of oxycodone, an opioid painkiller with ten times the potency of morphine. It can be said to be the source of the current epidemic of drugs in the United States.