Ecstasy Read Free Page A

it’s hot as Satan’s rec room, and sanitary facilities consist of overtaxed Porta-Johns and
     rusty taps sticking out the side of a barn. Consequently, the whole place stinks—not only of urine and sweat but also frying
     foodstuffs, incense, stale beer, and veritable gallons of patchouli. It’s also one of the most crowded events I’ve ever had
     the misfortune to attend, so there’s no escaping the aforementioned aromas. You’re constantly elbow-to-elbow with young ladies
     who’ve never heard the words
brassiere
or
disposable razor
and gentlemen who equate their shoulder tattoos with the goddamn Sistine Chapel.
    The music is okay, I guess, though I can’t say I paid much attention to it. It all kind of blended in together to make this
     incredibly tedious, drum-heavy soundtrack that was impossible to escape; within an hour I felt like the guy from “The Tell-Tale
     Heart” who goes stark raving nuts because he can’t get the beat out of his head.
    After about four hours of this, I decided I’d had enough. I told my quote-unquote date that I needed to go home, whereupon
     he said that was fine with him and went back to searching for his erstwhile lady friend. Which might not have been so bad—if
     Melting Rock weren’t held in a little village ten miles outside Gabriel.
    I walked home. Honest to God. It was either that or hitchhike, which is something my mother would not approve of. I got back
     to my apartment after midnight and jumped into the shower with my stinky clothes on.
    These memories were, shall we say, plenty vivid as I sat at the leisure desk listening to Sondra prattle on about what a humdinger
     of an assignment I’d just been shafted with. To summarize the various points of my misery:
I was not only going to the goddamn Melting Rock Music Festival, I was going there for the next
five days.
I was actually going to have to talk to people who frequent such events. Then I was going to have to write down what they
     said and churn out stories that presumably made it look like I gave a damn.
I was going to have to eat a lot of greasy carnival food. (Okay, maybe this part wasn’t so bad.)
Any plans to spend the weekend in the boudoir of a very attractive policeman named Brian Cody were out the window.
    And, worst of all:
I was going to spend the next four nights in a tent.
Four.
In a
tent.
    I was pondering this litany of misfortune when my newsroom compadres finally started filing in. I was on the point of unloading
     on one Jake Madison when I realized that—big surprise—he was already very much in the know.
    “So you guys knew she was gonna sandbag me and you didn’t even give me a heads-up? Thanks a lot.”
    “Hey, every man for himself.”
    “Lovely.”
    Mad took a seat on the edge of my desk and unwrapped his tuna sandwich. “Human nature.”
    “Yeah, maybe
yours.
”
    “Come on, you know,” he said, “it’s like that story about the two guys and the bear.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Two guys are walking in the woods and they see this bear, right? So one of them pulls his sneakers out of his backpack and
     puts them on. And the other guy says to him, ‘What are you doing? You know you can’t outrun a bear.’ ”
    “And?”
    “And the first guy goes, ‘Hey, man, I don’t have to outrun the bear.’ ” He smiled his wolfish Mad smile and poised to take
     a bite. “ ‘I just have to outrun
you
.’ ”

CHAPTER 2
    J ump forward half an hour. Since one of the two men in my life was offering me zip in the way of consolation, I decided to
     go in search of the other. So there I was, standing in the vestibule of the Gabriel police station, talking to a certain red-haired
     officer of the law. And, okay, I wasn’t just trolling for sympathy; I also needed to ask him to baby-sit my dog and to lend
     me (
ugh
) a sleeping bag and a tent.
    To give you some background:
    Detective Brian Cody is thirty-three, as upright as they come, and the most unabashedly