Cowering in the stale darkness of an unfinished maintenance closet, he struggled to stifle the wheezing of his own ragged breath. Sounds of pursuit and the smell of fear blotted out his plans for relaxation on the banks of a well stocked trout stream. Max's thoughts flashed back to the morgue. Less than a week earlier, he and Manny were gazing into a small glass vial by the light of an X-ray viewer. The vial was so cold that his breath instantly frosted and crystallized on the glass. The pinkish, semi-liquid content was worth its weight in diamonds -- a thousand times over. Two of his friends, and several of his enemies, had paid more--much more. * * *I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to a friend of mine. Well, not actually a friend. More like an acquaintance.... Okay, I've never actually met him, but from what I have read, he is quite a character, and I'm sure that he'd consider me as a friend if given the chance.His name is R. Maxwell Beemer. He goes by the name of Max.Max recently played an instrumental role in ridding his community of a particularly nasty and corrupt detective working out of the county Coroner's office. Her name was Shelly Talbert. Talbert and her small cadre of henchmen were on the verge of loosing a diabolical street drug on the unsuspecting public. This drug not only held the potential for ruining the lives of its users, but it also depended on the death and dissection of uncounted others for its own existence.
