Santos.
I remembered enough from the date-rape pamphlets I’d received on my college campus to know that GHB was a drug — specifically, one of the most popular “roofies” on the market for sexual predators. Colorless, odorless, and practically tasteless, it was perfect for slipping into an unwitting girl’s drink at a party. I’d learned even more about it when I wrote a column last year about Manhattan’s most desirable drugs, as I’d spent two full weeks researching different substances and their effects — I had little doubt I was on a DEA watch-list somewhere, thanks to my browsing history.
In small doses, GHB was practically harmless. Some called it “Liquid X” because of its ecstasy-like qualities in lowering inhibitions and revving up one’s libido. It relaxed you, slowing your heart and breathing rates, and supposedly making you more sociable. In large doses, however, GHB could be fatal, sending its users into such a deep state of unconscious they could simply slip into a coma and never wake. Its other side effects — dizziness, disorientation, and amnesia — only added to its allure as a date-rape drug.
It wasn’t a huge mental leap to forge the connection between Santos’ presence at the warehouse and the delivery of the drugs. After all, he worked Vice. As a part of the narcotics unit, he’d have plenty of access to confiscated drugs leftover from raids across the city or, at the very least, know how to track down dealers who could provide him with the supplies he needed. Whatever his motive — money, power, or pure malice — Santos was involved.
This was it — my smoking gun.
If they were moving large quantities of GHB in and out of that warehouse, there was really only one purpose — and Smash-Nose had practically spelled it out for me.
We’ll have to find more… creative… methods of controlling the next arrivals.
They were drugging girls, I was certain of it now. Subduing them to be sold or traded or forced into sexual servitude.
Young, defenseless, kidnapped girls.
Girls like Vera.
I clutched my stomach with one hand and held my ponytail away from my face with the other as I succumbed to the nausea, vomiting up my lunch onto the pavement by my feet.