January Already (Inge & John)

It was January –already. And Alfredo Adonis, the famous drug dealer, had barely begun to work out his plans for the year. Would he need to order in more Afghan Red or should he concentrate his capital outlays on building up stocks of MDMA?
Did any of his competitors in nearby areas need eliminating, or should he try to involve them in some kind of cartel? As ¶ always the life of a drug dealer was filled with bewildering decisions, and Alfredo (or Mr. Adonis as he liked to be called) was no exception. There was no doubt; his companion had to be killed. ‘You know too much’, Alfredo said before firing the gun, in an attempt to make his companion sort of comprehensive for the fact that he had to die. ‘You don’t..’ But before he could finish his sentence Alfredo ¶ had shot him. ‘It was also for your own good really’, mumbled Alfredo and put his gun back in his pocket. It was still warm from being fired and the heat from it felt obscene in a way he could not quite explain against his thigh. Without thinking about why, he felt a sudden impulse to call his mother, and acted on it, taking out his phone and dialing the number from memory. But ¶ having made the call, he heard on the other end, only an unearthly electronic duotone wailing, like the sound of a siren slowed down by half. The line was dead. His mothers line. Why?
Alfredo got nervous, then angry, then rational. He called a taxi and went to his parential house, or his mothers’ house rather, since his father had long died. His father, such a good man, so wise, such dignity... even when confronted with the enemy, even when he had to shot them because they knew too much, he never ever lost his politeness. ¶ Speaking about him with the taxidriver made Alfredo highly sentimental. He thought of the many happy scenes of his boyhood, now bathed in a honeyed glow of nostalgic warmth. This made him think of the feeling his heroin addicted clients described getting from their drug of choice. ‘Of course’, he thought ‘they didn’t, mostly, have the kind of secure and loving upbringing that I did. But if, in a small way, I’m able to give them some of the same feeling, then I will ¶ have made a difference I can feel good about.’ And he smiled to himself, imagining the love and gratitude of a thousand mouldering junkies. ‘I am a good person,’ he said ‘I do good to the world. My existence makes a difference. I’m an angel, dark, like Lucifer, but nevertheless an angel. Maybe even an undiscovered planet.’ Tonight Alfredo’ll find himself in conjugation with Venus and Jupiter.