.././.\\.\//.///\...//>>>>>>>.

The haul is a potpourri of narcotics that could propel a Mongol invasion with enough left over for a blitzkrieg into Poland. It comes in thrice-wrapped bricks, bags, and boxes.

"There's a little something for everyone," Glenn says, looking satisfied. "No one is stupid enough to write 'drugs' on the outside, but I recognize the symbols. That one's cocaine. That one's benzos. Got some MDMA and 'shrooms for the kids, too. I wouldn't be surprised if they figured out how to get dried khat over here—that'd be a new one. There's brown heroin in that one and that one. White and black, too."

Which one is heroin? The one over there?

"Are you sure?" Zandra says. She hunches over to rub her ankle.

"Oh, so you're one of those people, huh?" Glenn says.

"One of what people?" Zandra says.

"It's OK. I don't give a shit one way or the other," Glenn says. He picks up a package and drops it next to Zandra's nose. "This can be part of your guys's half then."

Zandra breathes in deep, the package a few inches from her face as she rubs her ankle. The package is wrapped too thick for there to be a scent available to anyone other than a drug dog, but logic escapes Zandra for the moment. She feels like her eyes could roll back like a shark the second before delivering the coup de grâce.

"Man, I wish Ray was here right now to see this," Chad says as he sorts through the haul.

Bexley joins him. "I don't."

"Come on, he's not so bad."

"He tried to kill you," Bexley says.

"Yeah, but he would, like, appreciate this. Like how some artists are assholes, but they're the only ones who can appreciate art," Chad says.

They come to an agreement on the 50-50 split. Glenn sticks a thumb toward to the boat and says, "What do you want me to do with that thing?"

Zandra snaps back to attention. "Drive it to somewhere else on the river and sink it. It's got fingerprints and evidence all over it."

"Got it. I'll pull the drain plug this time, though," Glenn says with a chuckle. He loads up the boat with gear and his half of the haul. Before he floats off downstream, he turns toward Zandra and waves. Zandra doesn't wave back. Chad does, though. With both hands.

Like a child on Christmas morning.

The three of them form a circle around the pile at their feet. Zandra makes sure one toe is touching her package of choice.

"How much do you think is here?" Zandra says, looking down at her feet.

"Enough to keep everyone in Stevens Point high for, like, ever," Chad says and cups his hands at his chest with glee.

Zandra, still looking down, rephrases the question. "How much money?"

Bexley does some quick math. "I mean, we'd have to open everything up and figure out the purities and the weights and all that. But just eyeballing it here, millions. Maybe more. Maybe less."

"So we split it up and we're left with less than a million?" Zandra says.

"No," Bexley says. "Millions each."

Zandra hacks into her sleeve.

Holy shit.

Chad shakes open a contractor bag. "Oh, man, Bex, we gotta celebrate tonight. I know a place we can party."

"Party? Isn't that a little dangerous?" Bexley says. "We get wrecked, and the next thing we know someone walks off with this stuff."

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that," Chad says and starts loading up the bag.

"No. We need to stash this and think how we're going to unload it," Bexley says. "Maybe we pay Ray a visit in the hospital. He can't be too mad if we show up with this. He'll know what to do with it."

Zandra lights a cigarette. "I'd offer up my guy, but you did try to kill him."

"No worse than what we did to Ray, right?" Chad says with a laugh. "But yeah, it's better if we keep it in the family. Blood and water and all that shit, right? But we still gotta party."

While Chad occupies himself with the bag, Zandra asks Bexley to join her at the edge of the river.

"What?" Bexley says.

Zandra looks out at the water and exhales a cloud of smoke. "Are you going to let him fuck this up?"

"Thanks for your concern, but it'll work out," Bexley says.

Zandra nods and repeats "it'll work out" under her breath.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Bexley says. She lights up a cigarette, too.

"This might be the last time we can talk like this. I'm leaving Stevens Point. Forever. So you need to hear this," Zandra says. She clears her throat. "You're better than Chad."

"Oh, please. I don't...," Bexley starts to say.

Zandra interrupts her. "Let me finish. You've got something special inside of you. It's worth protecting, and no matter how hard anyone tries to snuff it out, it's always going to be there. If you don't follow it, you'll have to find ways to pretend it doesn't matter. But after a while, those ways aren't going to work anymore. You'll drag yourself down, constantly in search of ways to convince yourself you're happy, until there's nothing left but regret as the years go by. If you make it to 20 years from now, you'll wake up one morning and realize you don't even know yourself. What then?"

Bexley looks out at the river, too. It gently gurgles and swirls like a baby on a blanket.

"I think you know what I'm talking about," Zandra says between puffs. "Build your own life. Don't build a life around a man."

Bexley stays quiet for a slow and heavy minute.

Got her.

"Don't build a life around a man, huh?" Bexley says. "What, like you did?"

Oh.

Ohhh...

Zandra's cigarette trembles free from between her lips and falls into the river. She watches it float downstream until it's out of sight. When she turns, Bexley is gone.

"Hey, let's go," Chad calls out from behind her.

Zandra trudges back into the woods. Chad and Bexley each hold contractor bags.

"This one's yours," Chad says and holds a bag out.

Zandra rips the bag away from Chad.

"Hey, what's the deal?" Chad says.

Zandra doesn't respond. She's still silent when they reach Ray's car.

"You can party with us if you want," Chad says to Zandra once they're all seated.

Zandra, clutching the contractor bag on her lap in the backseat, looks out the window. Once the car is on the road, she says, "Citric."

"Citric?" Chad says while Bexley drives.

"What is citric?" Zandra says.

"Oh, like citric citric. Got it," Chad says. "You mix citric acid with water and a little of your favorite brown stuff. The citric makes it easier for the shit to dissolve, so you can shoot it. Pretty neat, huh? And by brown and shit, I mean heroin, not actual shit. I knew guys who used lemon juice. Nasty. Citric acid, the real kind, is way better."

Zandra stares out the window. "Drop me off in downtown."

"With that bag?" Chad says. "Better hope no cops are around."

The police aren't near the gyro restaurant, so that's where Bexley pulls the car over. Zandra opens her door and steps onto the sidewalk with the bag. She watches the car pull forward a few feet and stop, as if Bexley is going to roll the window down and say something to Zandra. She doesn't. Zandra watches the car accelerate away, with Chad looking over his shoulder back at Zandra.

Zandra waits with a cigarette in her mouth and the contractor bag slumped over at her feet. And waits. And waits. A police car drives by, but the officer inside doesn't seem to notice her. Not long ago, a sight like hers would garner suspicion. Now she's only one of several people wandering downtown with garbage bags.

A server from the gyro restaurant offers Zandra some food. She refuses, but she does take up the chance to sit on a chair they bring out for her.

"Hey, are you OK? Need me to call someone?" the server says after dragging out the chair.

Zandra shakes her head and sits down.

Night settles in. Patrons go in and out of the restaurant. A few make comments. Zandra ignores them. The restaurant eventually closes. The server sets a takeout box with food next to Zandra and leaves without a word. Zandra can only bring herself to pick at the food. Then she sees the headlights.

The van pulls up alongside the gyro restaurant. The sliding door opens. Zandra picks up the contractor bag and shuffles inside.

The smell of cleaners is overwhelming. A new driver sits behind the wheel, and a new set of muscles sits next to Zandra. She hands the bag over without so much as a "hello."

The man in the van, sitting in the dark behind Zandra as usual, examines the bag. "A little lighter than I was expecting."

Zandra stares straight ahead, counting the streetlights as they pass.

The man in the van continues. "It's good you ditched your friends, if they were your friends at all. They annoy me. You held up your end of the deal regardless. Even if the yield on this little adventure wasn't as thick as you hyped up, you did a good job."

Zandra still holds a small brick on her lap.

"Excuse me, but did something fall out?" the man in the van says.

The muscle beside Zandra reaches for the brick. His hand stops at the edge of the lawnmower knife.

"You're free to keep it, but it comes off of your cut, and mine," the man in the van says. "Would you like to hear my suggestion?"

Zandra stays quiet.

"Very well then. At least put the knife away," the man in the van says.

The muscle retracts his hand. Zandra slips the knife back up her sleeve. The hand comes back as soon as the knife is away. Zandra jerks in her seat, but she's restrained with a meaty paw. The muscle hands the last of the score back to the man in the van.

"I'm only trying to help, Zandra. If we lighten the load too much, it won't be worth my time. That's not good for anybody. Understand?" the man in the van says.

Zandra resumes counting streetlights.

"At any rate, you held up your end of the deal. The Pixie problem is no more, and thank goodness for that," the man in the van says. "Now the proverbial ball is in my court, and it's going to take some time for me to turn a bag of shit into a bag of cash. I'm curious, so tell me, Zandra. What is it you're going to do with the money? I forget if we talked about this before."

Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five.

"Zandra? It's rude not to answer when someone asks you a question," the man in the van says.

Sixty. Sixty-one. Sixty-two. Sixty-three.

"Zandra?"

Sixty-seven. Sixty-eight. Sixty-nine. Seventy. Seventy-one.

"Hello?"

Zandra coughs into her sleeve and says, "Go to the hospital."

The man in the van chuckles. "The hospital? You'll have enough money to stay out of the hospital, I hope."

Zandra continues. "Go to the hospital and pay off everyone's medical debt."

"Oh, how very noble," the man in the van says. "And, if I may, very stupid. Surely you didn't go through all that just to throw the money away, did you?"

"Yes," Zandra says.

"I don't think you know how much medical debt is out there," the man in the van says.

"I'll give away everything except for enough to leave Stevens Point," Zandra says. "You'll never hear from me again."

Zandra runs out of streetlights to count. They're leaving downtown.

"Never hear from you again? You don't have to leave Stevens Point to do that. You can kill yourself right here," the man in the van says and laughs. The muscle and the driver laugh along with him.

The streetlights pick up again, but they're a different kind. They're bigger. The van is headed for the interstate.

"Well, Zandra, I believe I can help you with that. The leaving Stevens Point part, not the suicide part," the man in the van says.

Zandra hears the doors lock. The muscle beside her pulls a gun.

"Where are you taking me?" Zandra says.

"Like I said, it's going to be a little bit before I can liquidate these assets. In the meantime, I need your help again, in Washington," the man in the van says. "You up for a civics lesson?"

Zandra beats at the muscle beside her. It's fruitless. He presses her into the seat with one hand and muzzles her with the other.

"You ever been to the nation's capital? The District is lovely. Well, parts of it are. OK, maybe nothing about it is lovely. You'll see," the man in the van says. "My business here in Wisconsin is taken care of, so I thought who better to bring along with me to DC than the unsinkable Zandra?"

Zandra struggles the whole way to the airport in Appleton. It's no use.

Maybe I can make a scene at the gate.

But there isn't a gate. There's a private jet. No check-in required.

Before they leave the van, the man behind Zandra leans forward and whispers into her ear a word. Zandra stops struggling when she hears it, stunned. He says it twice just to be sure it registers.

"Contraction."

The End