Read Afterparty for Free Online Page A

Then she went back to the women who ran the vegetable stand and the postal service, and explained the word “synergy.” Specifically:
    Hydroponics + Shipping + Money laundering = Vast cash opportunity.
    By 2025, the Millies controlled most of Ontario. They’d allied themselves with the pot farms out in the boondocks and facilitated shipments to the States, but the core of their business remained their locally grown, artisanal, organic weed, each bud glistening with enough THC to flip back your head like a Pez dispenser.
    We parked the car on King Street, just inside the Afghan neighborhood. Bobby said, “I can hear them talking. I think they’ve got me under a blanket.”
    The sidewalk was wet. The air smelled like an empty tuna can. Overhead, Dr. Gloria kept station between ground and gray sky. Shafts of sunlight perforated the cloud bank, which struck me as very beautiful.
    “God is punching air holes,” I said.
    Bobby looked up at the sky in alarm. “ What? Why? ”
    “Nothing,” I said. “Settle.”
    As soon as we walked onto Tyndall Avenue, the heart of the heart of the Millie empire, a passel of young kids ran past us flicking their pens at each other wand-style, casting spells and deducting hit points … and no doubt sending our pictures down the street to their moms and grandmothers. These free-range Harry Potters, I decided, were lookouts for the Millies.
    A chubby girl jumped in front of us. “Fling me a dollar? Two dollar I can level up!”
    “Kick it, kid.”
    “Shopping, then? A little something from the grandmothers?”
    “I’m good.”
    The homes on Tyndall were tidy brick affairs, built in the 1970s, with neat lawns and midrange cars at the curb. Dr. Gloria landed gracefully in front of a house in the middle of the block.
    Two kids in their twenties sat on the front steps, arguing with each other—in English. The boy in a nylon jacket, the girl wearing tight white jeans and a hot pink hijab.
    I said, “I’m looking for Fayza.”
    “I know,” the girl said.
    I hid my surprise. First try and we’d found the headquarters? Dr. G said, “Divine providence.”
    The girl nodded at Bobby. “He stays outside.”
    “But I’m already in there!” Bobby said. “This is just my body!”
    “Be cool, kid,” I said. “I’ll take care of this.”
    He slumped to the sidewalk. Dr. Gloria patted me between the shoulder blades. “Here we go. Be polite.”
    She didn’t have to remind me. Running a multimillion-dollar drug business—even a rural one—required a sociopathic outlook and a dick bigger than an ashwagandha tree. People who crossed Fayza and the Millies disappeared into the bay.
    I walked up the steps and pushed through the wooden front door. The house was clean but lower middle class: twenty-year-old wallpaper, worn upholstery, pine chairs in the hallway. The air sharp with the smell of spices I couldn’t identify. In the living room, five or six old ladies, none of them younger than seventy-five, sat around a low coffee table, most of them holding old-style tablet computers on their laps. They looked like they’d stolen their clothing from a 1980s’ hip-hop crew: bright track suits, gold chains, spotless white gym shoes. Only the head scarves marked them as Muslim. They chattered at each other and tapped at the tablet screens. The grandmother closest to me glanced in my direction.
    “Fayza?” I asked.
    She turned back to her screen. And then I saw what she was looking at: a live picture of my silhouette, in some kind of X-ray mode. The key fob in my right front pocket glowed yellow.
    Jesus, they had airport scanners? The damn thing had to be hidden behind the hideous wallpaper. I wasn’t sure what these old women would have done if I’d been carrying a weapon—bury me under a five-granny tackle?
    The woman flicked her fingers at me in a gesture I took as permission to enter the living room. I skirted the circle of women and headed for the far doorway.
    In the kitchen was an