Chapter 11

July, 1950

I knew that I had promised the dinosaur people to visit the next day, but something had come up that I couldn't ignore. Besides, I could visit any time in my time and shift to whenever I wanted to in their time. This time shift could get to be really confusing if I let it.

My more pressing interest right now was a report among the teenage community of drugs becoming readily available. I couldn't say what it was about drugs that bothered me so much, except that I equated the selling of drugs to being the worst kind of bullying. Well, whatever the reason, I wanted to put a stop to it!

Possession of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or morphine was a felony at that time that could get you put in jail for many years. There was no distinction made for type or quantity—drugs were drugs! Sure, the effort was misguided, but the authorities thought that they were doing the right thing.

Anyway, I decided that the easiest way to start my search was to find someone using a drug and backtrack up the distribution chain. Since I could read minds, the people under investigation didn't even have to know that I was examining them.

Step one of my investigation was to do a POV scan to find a user. I told Mother that I would be busy with a criminal investigation for a while, but to call me for supper. I went into my room, took off my shoes, and lay on my bed. I started with the White residential neighborhoods, the richest first, because I figured that they would have the most disposable income to devote to drugs (I had a lot to learn!). It wasn't long before I found a heroin user, but it was a woman, not a teenager.

This user felt that she was trapped in a loveless marriage and her children had no more regard for her than did her husband. This week, her husband was in Panama City, Florida, with his mistress of the moment, and the most disturbing factor for his wife was that he made no attempt to hide his tryst. Her children were off "partying" somewhere, she didn't know where. She was afraid to leave her husband because she would be penniless, with no prospect for employment; she didn't even think that she would make a successful prostitute, after all the aspersions her husband had thrown at her about her looks and age.

I wanted to help her, but I simply didn't know how. I suppose that I could have arranged for her to acquire enough money so that she could leave her bastard of a husband and unlovable children, but I feared that she was gone too far into despair to know how to rescue herself. I promised myself to come back to her problem, later.

Meanwhile, an examination of her mind showed that she had recently read of how drugs were administered in a newspaper article, so she knew what to do when she ran across her daughter's stash while cleaning the girl's room. Thus, the woman had no idea of the source of the heroin she was using. As I was preparing to leave to continue my search, I realized that she was about to administer a fatal overdose. She had no idea of how much to use, so she was using all she had found in one dose. I TKed most of the heroin to the toilet, leaving her just enough to feel a short, but, I hoped, harmless high. I hoped that I had done the right thing!

The next stop on my search was an early teen aged boy smoking marijuana. He had gotten it from a friend who had stolen it from his father's cache. I identified the friend and went looking for him. I then went looking for the father and found him working on a water main which had developed a bad leak. From there I found a man on a street corner who sold marijuana cigarettes, but knew nothing about other drugs. As I was watching the street corner, another man walked up and took some money from the first man in exchange for additional marijuana cigarettes. I followed the new man back to an office behind a service station.

Finally, I was getting somewhere! This man was a district distributer for a gang that sold all manner of drugs. I got an address from him which led me to a posh office in the ritziest office building in town. This was the primary dealer in town. He didn't have any drugs in his office, but his mind told me of the location of the storage warehouse on the south side of town. He also gave me a complete list of his employees down to the street corner level.

In an effort to keep from having the whole operation compromised if a part was discovered, the sales of drugs was divided into one division who sold only marijuana and another division who sold only "hard" drugs. The marijuana sales force vastly outnumbered the other group; there was a marijuana salesman every few blocks, but only 10 hard drug suppliers in the whole city. It seemed that the marijuana operation had been around a while, but the hard drug operation was just getting started; the latter operation was what had caught my attention.

Further investigation revealed that the drugs were coming into Alabama through the port of Mobile; they originated in France and were coming in hidden in wine shipments. I stopped my investigation with the Mobile connection, since the list of gang members had already grown to nearly 300.

I ran off the list on the computer (I made it look typewritten) for Dad to give to DC (Detective Captain) Jones; we decided that we had enough for the police to wrap up the case.

I decided that the best I could do for that woman that I had encountered early in my investigation was to work on her husband. Using POV, I found him in Panama City and gave him a very heavy dose of guilt and renewed love for his wife. She didn't know what was going on, but was happy with the change. I was going to have to look into setting up some sort of way for women to find help in this type of situation. Maybe Mother could suggest something.

I was now free to return to the dinosaur people. I used my POV to be sure Uttie was alone and jumped to her location. She was startled to see me, but recovered quickly.

Bruce:"Hello, Uttie, I sorry that I startled you."

Uttie:"That's alright, Bruce. I just was not expecting you until later in the day. I am the only one home right now; everyone else is out and the children are at school."

Bruce:"That's just as well. I would like to get some information from you about the social and political organization of your world from your point of view."

Uttie:"I don't know what to tell you; we're just people."

Bruce:"But, Uttie, I know absolutely nothing about you or your people. Anything you tell me will be useful. For example, how is you home life organized?"

Uttie:"Well, we are a pretty ordinary family. I have four co-wives and Asly is our husband. I am the third ranking wife, but that really means nothing; Asly treats us all the same, except when we are in our individual mating season. Then, Asly treats that person as if she were someone special.

"We are all madly in love with him. Actually, we wives are actively looking for another wife to add to our family to even out the birthing cycle, but please don't tell him that—we want it to be a surprise when we find the right person. Of course, if he finds someone he likes before we do, she will be perfectly acceptable to all of us. The usual number of co-wives is six, but that is not a requirement.

"We currently have eight children, but only Sril is living at home. All but Sril are attending boarding school and Sril is still young enough to live at home and attend primary school."

Bruce:"Why do you have many wives for one man, Uttie?"

Uttie:"I don't know for sure. We have always done things that way. There are so many more women than men, that is the only fair way to do it.

"Wait, I hear someone coming. It's time for Asly to be getting home from work."