The hotshot: yrstruly reads the tell and lets C boot first; C dies

pivotal · 25 Dec YDPAH, small hours, Copley library blowergrate

• When: the early hours of Christmas, 25 Dec YDPAH, at the crew's hot-air blowergrate behind the Copley library
• What: Cooking up at the blowergrate, yrstruly gets his "cold super station" about Poor Tony — who, un-characteristically, does not whine about booting last and keeps his back turned away from the drugs. Reading the tell too late to be sure but early enough to act, yrstruly deliberately cooks up slowly, lets the lighter go out, and lets the dopesick C tie off and boot first. C's dose is a Drano-laced "hotshot" and he dies at once and horribly — high-pitched screaming, blood from mouth and nose, an eye popping clean out on a blue string, shitting himself, biting through Poor Tony's feather boa. Only after does it come clear: all three bundles were "Hotshots. Laced." — Wo's payback. yrstruly's calculated hesitation is the arc's moral center: he survives by letting his crewmate go first, and he narrates it as a confession.