Chapter 10
1
He dreamed about the crows. He’d woken up in a sweat, and swore to God there were black feathers suffocating him, but he’d pulled the comforter up during the delirium, probably to sop up the salty perspiration from his forehead, and the split in the seam let loose a few quills from the down fill. But here he was, ol’ Lewis making up stories about a bunch of dead birds.
No, what was real, what was truly abnormal, was the man everybody called Lazarus holding a gun to his head, tapping his skull so that he could still hear the stuttered thud of lead against bone in the echoed hollows of his temples.
You’re doing the right thing, Betty said. He wanted to believe her. But there were certain percolations of that man’s threat, just hanging there, reverberating. There’s a plan here. It’s already in motion. And if you fuck it up, a lot of people will die. He thought of the man’s scars, and the almost defensive reaction when Lewis had called him Lazarus. No, the rumor mill may pulse, but that didn’t make the noise real, did it?
The girl up front was snapping gum and reading a trashy novel with a shirtless pirate on the cover, standing astride the brow of a ship. “Can I help you?” She looked him up and down, one finger mindlessly curling the hair by her ear, her elbow propped on the counter by the phone. You hang around cops all day, small town or otherwise, you’re bound to be suspicious of people. That was true, but he partly blamed the apathy of this girl’s generation that would turn respect into indifference.
“There an officer here I can speak with?” He could see into the bullpen behind the front desk, the clutter of tables pushed together, and in the back an office with ratty venetians. There were a few deputies sitting with their feet up, one telling the others a story or something, cause the lot of them would break into hearty guffaws. He remembered those days. Sitting in the pen. Bored of paperwork and waiting for a call, hoping, in some deep part of their brains, for a real clusterfuck just to break the monotony. Boy do I got one for you.
“There some trouble?”
“If there is, it’s something I’d rather talk to an officer about. And you really shouldn’t chew gum. If you’re dispatch, it might be hard for a vic to understand the girl to whom he’s pleading if her words are broken by Bazooka Joe.”
Her face flushed. Lewis thought she could be cute, but the holier-than-thou attitude made sure she wasn’t. She sort of reminded him of Barb, when she started hanging around Trevor and those hippie do-gooders putting flowers in rifles and arguing about My Lai. He thought she might have understood his tone, though, recognized the very real possibility this old man with the nicely combed hair (most of it still intact) was once a cop. “Yeah. Just a moment. Would you like a coffee or anything?”
He only shook his head, impressed that she swallowed the gum instead of spitting the wad into her hand. He watched her trudge into the bullpen; he saw the deputies eyeing her up and down. Some things would never change. And he knew that’s why this girl would wear the tight Wranglers to the station, even despite how uncomfortable they fit around the thighs when she was sitting up front. Because she appreciated every look. And she liked that their wives loathed her. Is that what you think? That I hated Penny and Margery at the station, that because neither of them had spit out kids yet that I envied their supple little bodies? That what you think? Maybe, maybe not. Lewis could only chuckle. Betty had her qualms, but a lack of confidence was not one of them.
A deputy came back with the errand-girl. The front flap of his shirt had come untucked, and his hair was mussed. He’d left his hat back at his desk, but at least he had the good sense to keep his gun in his belt and not out in the open for wandering eyes. He looked miffed he had to leave story hour. But Lewis thought he had a good chunk of news for these men. Better than high-tailing it to an accident scene to play clean up while the Staties sent in forensics.
“Can I help you sir?”
He thought of the birds falling dead from the sky. Thought of the pile of corpses they joined. Thought of the cameras and Lazarus and the videotapes of now deceased men delighting in the nose candy. “Actually, I’m here to help you.”
2
“So we’re set up for tonight then?”
They were back at the bleachers. Fenway was off the map for now. It killed them to make such a declaration, but beyond the freedom of summer and baseball, there were other more important matters. The Jew knew that meant keeping grampa off their trail and the small town Badges from seeing the same boys who’d witnessed the grizzly car accident on Woodvine that left Robert Wilson staring out his side window in perpetuity. Once you become a familiar face, more and more people start watching out for you. A game of hide and seek is tougher when the adults know whom they are trying to find.
“Yeah. My brother was…I dunno, excited. I think? I played him like a fiddle. Did what you said, Adam.”
“And he took the bait. I knew he would.”
“Ange took a shower after I, well…after I showed her the pic. She said it was cause I made her feel scuzzy. I feel bad, guys.”
“Yeah, that’s understandable,” Adam said, looking at Horace, whose LA Dodgers cap was rimmed with a bead of white above the brim that was summer exertion in a nutshell. “But there are sacrifices. We knew that going in.” He felt bad for the Mormon. Pug always told the guys how family was important, that his own father valued it more than anything in the world. Croak always noticeably envied the stories, he did, and he usually clammed up when anybody brought up their parents. Adam took something away from Pug by asking him to betray his sisters. But it had to be done.
“What about you?” the Jew asked. His fro was tucked under his NY hat, but it burst out over his ears in tangles. “You talk to grampa? Cause this all means shit if he’s eyeballin’ us from his car.”
The boys sub-consciously checked Main from the bleachers, glancing at the parking lot behind the school and the arteries leading through the field to the suburbs; they were all looking for a Tercel. But there was nothing. It was a quiet workday in the Creek. Next week this time the field would be bustling, the parking lot full. For now it was probably only the janitorial service inside tidying up and some teachers perhaps readying for another year in front of self-righteous brats.
“Of course I did. I said I would.” He was defensive. He didn’t like the Jew’s tone. But mostly he disliked the accusatory distrust. Sure, he broke what Danny felt was the valiant code of boyhood, but they were in something deeper than any one of them could seriously comprehend. Grampa was a sort of lynchpin. But what he saw last night, what he saw of his grampa scared him. Because he didn’t think ol’ Lewis was being honest. And for the first time in his life, he felt like his grampa lied to him.
“Temper, temper.” Danny ran his hand over his brow.
“He seemed spooked. I don’t even know if that’s right. He had smokes. A pack, I mean. Not opened or anything, but they were there. Like a shield or something.” He thought that sounded right. Because he thought a lot about what his grampa said and a lot about how his grampa looked when he said it. They were two very different presentations. Because he saw more than he’s leading on. That was precisely what he thought. He lay in bed thinking about it for a long time. Sleep was hard to find. He listened to Patty stir in his room, muttering something as the boy dreamed. He could hear his parents talking, safe from any spying cameras because hell, his house was wireless. Just your average home in the middle of a movie set. He heard his parents talk a lot. He heard his mom cry sometimes and always just thought his dad was being an asshole. Because that’s what absence sometimes makes you. He wondered if they were speaking about the men that had brought grampa back into their lives. The men who came to do bad deeds because his father made a bad investment. He sometimes dreamed about that. For some time his mom took him to a therapist. Because those dreams had a lasting bite. He wanted to believe any creaks he heard in the closet weren’t the men in suits waiting to come out, carrying shears and knives, dangling rope from their hands so they could tie him up and snap each of his fingers one by one.
“But he told me about Lazarus. He knew that’s what I was coming to him about. He knew Pug an’ Croak saw him. He wasn’t even hiding. He told me he had his suspicions, but that he found out Lazzie’s just a hippie selling drugs. Nothing special.”
“You believe him?”
Adam looked at the Jew and he tried his best to appear earnest. He didn’t believe his grampa. Not at all. He was hurt by the lie, but he also understood, at a far baser level, that the old man was trying to protect him. To protect them all. “I want to. He used to be a cop. Small town. He’s seen shit just like this. But if we’re going to meet Lazarus, we’ll do it when we know nobody’s looking.”
“And when’s that?”
Adam pulled the mailer out of his pocket.
“My mom was looking at that this morning. Found it in the postbox.” Pug took the paper from Adam.
“We’ll have Randy set up the meeting during the party. Cause I doubt a drugged-out hippie will show up to a back to school barbecue.”
3
It wasn’t so much an interrogation room as an old leftover table from the school library tucked into a neglected corner where the deputies had lined a few of the old filing cabinets that were now just collecting dust. The station itself was a leftover from the pre-Corner days, so with a few of the new staff filling up all available space in the pen, a lot of the cold case files (as if that was a thing in Reedy Creek) were shoved into this re-appropriated janitor’s closet. Growth was sort of a bitch that way. When cities saw their booms, the old infrastructure took a beating. Lewis wondered if this cop, Allen Webster, was here prior to the subsidies, or if he just followed the jobs. There was a Grapes of Wrath vibe in the place, as if the feds sent out pamphleteers highlighting the opportunities available in this shitburg, using just the right apothegms to sell the place as the kind of ideal hidey-hole not quite accessible to the general public yet, so there was still a level of peace and quiet. Lewis wondered how long that would be. How long would it take for the ethanol distillery here to branch offshoot industries taking advantage of the government largess? He wondered if the cameras were a part of some federal oversight committee, something done off the books perhaps as a means to tidily keep track of the subsidization program and the sort of people it attracted. Would the feds really do that? Or would the FISA courts bring the hammer down?
He thought about the birds falling from the sky and then closed his eyes. The room was cold. Deputy Webster sat across the table, casually sipping his coffee. Lewis knew the man’s look. He was annoyed. Lew was just an old nuisance to this young prick.
“You have information on a crime?”
“Better than that,” Lewis said, leaning forward. He was a concerned citizen, yes, but on another level he was terrified. Because the young man with the scarred face had showed an astute, and rather resolute clarity when he held that gun against Lewis’s temple, tapping his skull; the sound so similar to the crows falling dead to the grass, he thought he must have made up the calamity in a dream. Because how could it be real? “I have information on future crimes.”
“Okay.” Webster’s eyes were disbelieving. He didn’t so much as mutter it, but the look was there: you watch too much fuckin’ Matlock, ol’ man. Truth be told, Lewis hated Matlock. Hated Andy Griffith, and that southern charm that just seemed like veiled malice. As if he was concealing some other part of himself apt to explode if you disagreed with any of his niceties.
Do you think this office knows about the cameras? Or do you think that sort of suspicion, that you’re being watched day in and day out wouldn’t be applicable in a place like this, so he just hasn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary? Cause isn’t that how it was with you? One day you’re taking your walk, the next Adam’s telling you about a tape he found of a dead dude, and then you’re seeing cameras everywhere. Places you always went, unperturbed, now with the added paranoia of others most likely watching you.
“You no doubt know about Lazarus. It’s not his real name, of course, but news of the sort spreads quickly among townies.”
“The man with the scars.”
“Yes.”
“Has he done something to you?”
Lewis thought about the farmhouse. About the man in the fedora. About sitting in his car and realizing Lazarus had sat down next to him, prodding his head with a gun because he’d overstepped his boundaries. He touched his fingers together, wishing he’d just opened that pack of cigarettes but hating the way Adam looked at him when he saw them. “I’m an old coot. I can see the judgment in your eyes. No, don’t deny it. I would’ve done the same. Probably had when I was your age. When you’re old you get bored. My grandfather once told me, when he was close to the end, that at some point you stop becoming who you are and you just exist as a thing. A thing people talk about but never to. Like furniture. I’m that way at my daughter’s house. My son-in-law is a real asshole, excuse my language—” Webster just smirked and sat back, listening intently, but still annoyed. “—but I helped him out of a jam and they had me come live with them. I did. Out of spite. But my God they just live as if I am a love seat. And I hear them talk about me, about the hypothetical when…that moment when my heart gives up. They say these things as if I can’t hear them. But I can. And I can see I’m boring you, I can. I’m not that far gone. So I walk. Getting out of the house, away from my son-in-law, that still means the world to me, because outside people nod their heads to me, they acknowledge me. I don’t want to give up like my granddad did. Cause he fell for that little bit of bullshit and became what people expected him to be. A piece of furniture. So I walk. To listen to the birds. Look at the trees. I’m not from here, so things are new to me. I’d imagine the autumns are beautiful here.”
“Yes, the Creek has a great fall. But summer’s a bitch.” Webster ran his hand through his hair and it mussed even more. He sounded like he’d been here a while. It was the way he said ‘the Creek’, as if the idiom had become a part of his automatic parlance. So maybe Lewis could preach to his goodwill to the town. His history. Maybe.
“Yes, well, the sun’s been wreaking havoc on my skin, and my joints, usually reserved for soreness during the rain, seem to have decided sunlight is an asshole as well.”
Webster laughed. It seemed genuine, even though his eyes remained skeptical.
“But walk I must. I’m new to the Creek. Been about a year. I think. That doesn’t matter. What matters is what I notice. You start seeing your familiars. I’ve always known towns. Always. So you know you have your barber, your dry cleaner. You know you have your bartender and your realtor, your accountant and your grocer. You know the Jews and the Protestants. You’d know the Muslim, cause there’re so few girls with head covers, but things stick out like a sore thumb when you start to know people for their routines. And I started to recognize patterns. Never any names. And whether or not these people saw me sometimes reminds me of what I’ve become to my daughter. A couch. There’s the professional, the Angela Bower lady with the willow tree. She gets her paper in the morning, but sometimes she snatches it up from her path and sets it on her front porch. And leaves it there. I never understood why. And then I realized on one of these walks just what she left in the paper, because that one time it sort of stuck out. Would have been a shame had I been a hungry teenager seeing it, cause it was a hundred dollar bill. Maybe a few of them. Tucked inside that rolled newspaper. Why would anybody do that? I know the Post is only a few bucks a month. And subscribers pay the paper boy when he comes by on Saturday at the end of the month with his billing notice. This wasn’t right.”
Webster leaned forward. He was far more interested now. That annoyance had changed and he seemed far more engaged. Intrigued.
“You know what they say about curiosity. I made sure my walks remained consistent. Same time. Same route. And I often waited near that house. Near the willow. Because I was at a loss. I was. This lady, Angela Bower, she wasn’t paying for the Post, she was hiding that money for something else. Somebody else. And then a G20 van pulled up one morning. Beautiful frame. Dark blue. And I noticed the guy who climbed out cause everybody’s seen him around town. Not sure what he does here, but aware he’s a staple because he’s become a part of things. A part of the pattern. And so rumors make sense of the unknown. When facts are sparse stories have to do. It’s why Stephen King’s so successful. Cause the darkness hides shit from us we’d rather not know, but he likes to tell it like it is. And folks gobble it up. I’ve heard people say this guy fought the Sandinistas and took a bullet to the head. I’ve heard other stories say he tasted the business end of a shotgun and lived to tell about it. Missing is the why, but I don’t think that matters. Because the what is a better story. The how. This guy people call Lazarus, back from the dead, he goes up to Bower’s front porch, to that newspaper. And now I notice he’s carrying something as well. He’s carrying a small bag. Under his arm. Not noticeable. Maybe he’s just by to drop off a hanger. I’m not sure where the guy works, or if he even has a real job, but I do know he takes the money from the newspaper and he leaves his bag. I can sort of see the brown paper folding out a bit, I can. And when he’s gone, when his van’s down the street, Angela opens the door and takes that paper as if it’s the first time she’s seeing it in the morning. And maybe to her neighbors it is. Because it’s the first time they’re seeing her. So it’s a ruse. But it’s her pattern.”
“Do you know what’s in the bag?”
“I suspect I do, officer. Because watching Lazarus interests me. Angela Bower’s pattern, and others like her, led to Lazarus, so I watch him. It’s better than Columbo. Because I’m here now. With you. I’m a part of things. Not furniture.”
“He’s peddling, right? The moment these fucking Corners came to town, it invited thugs to the Creek to partake in big city buggery.”
“His G20 is an apothecary on wheels,” Lewis added.
“I know,” Webster confirmed.
“You do?”
“Oh yeah.”
“So you know he’s approached minors and sold them contraband? I’ve seen it. Bored kids will always be bored kids. And idle hands…”
“Yes sir, we do.”
“And you haven’t done anything about it, or were you just waiting to make your case?”
“Order’s from up top that he’s a non-entity.”
“What does that mean? From whom?”
“Sheriff Napolitano. Big shot from Philly’s what he is. I wasn’t one to give two shits, but I can tell you one thing: if you notice patterns out there, I’ve noticed some in here. Coupla veteran deputies thought top brass would’ve gone to them once word got out the feds were throwing money down the pipeline to attract busybodies to the Creek. Me, I didn’t care either way. I’ve only been on the beat for three years now. And I like the gig cause it’s easy as pie. Don’t tell Sheriff Andy that, nah, but a few of us were pissed he waltzed right on in. From the big city. Big fuckin’ deal. Never looked like he held a gun before, but he told us that guy Lazarus is an asset. We keep our hands off him. I seen some of the shit he’s done. I have. I’m with you there, sir, I am. But Andy says it’s the devil you know that’s easier to court than the devil you don’t.”
It sounded like something Lewis might have said. Earl Cloven, Lewis. Lazarus is the Creek’s Cloven. The Cloven Hoof. Get it? The devil’s in the details. He wanted to snicker, but even Betty’s pun wasn’t enough to break Lewis’s disappointment.
“I guess it’s some big city shit to keep your enemies close. But I’ve seen the scarred fuck sit in Andy’s cruiser. Like friends, they are. I’ve even seen him in Andy’s office. With the door closed. And we can’t question it. But the guys that have been on the Creek’s PD since it was just farmers and ranchers quarreling, they see this guy bringing in big city drugs and they fear for the day we have a drug war or some shoot out on Main. Because drugs bring with them territory and I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens.”
“So you can’t do anything?”
Webster was silent. But he looked crestfallen. He did.
“I have a grandson. Starts school on Monday. And this asshole could approach him, get him hooked on something. And you can’t do anything? All you’d have to do is bust his tail light for reasonable cause to search his van. And you’d find a goddamn pharmacy.”
“I’d find a reprimand from brass. Look, I know how that sounds. And I know you came in here doing the right thing. I commend you. A hundred fucking percent. But Lazarus is immune as long as Andy’s wearing the pin. No matter what the policy does to the Creek. Between you and me, few of us believe the accident, Mr Wilson, the fatality on Woodvine…we think once blood tests come back from Davenport that ol’ Wilson will be guilty of some sort of possession, and I betcha a hundred bucks who would have given him the medicine.”
Lewis thought of Robert Wilson, shirtless and in his room, beads of sweat globed on his clavicle as he bent over his nightstand to snort lines. Not knowing he’d be dead soon. Not knowing the Audi on his driveway would be his coffin.
“I know that’s not what you came to hear. I respect the hell outta citizens like you. That’s why I think you were once one of us, right?”
Lewis only nodded. It was pretty good deduction by a townie who didn’t give a shit. Though he does. You can tell. He cares about this town. He just hates this recent spate of immigration.
“Thought so. Well, you keep your ear to the ground.”
Lewis took Allen Webster’s hand and shook. He had a strong grip. I’ll be keeping my foot to the ground. The pedal to the metal. Isn’t that the saying?
Lewis knew what he was going to do when he left the station.
4
“Randy, did you get your haircut?”
Croak hadn’t seen his bro, so he did look up from the table when his mom spoke. He was eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes, slurping the sugar milk off his spoon the way he always had since he graduated from his mom’s airplanes.
Randy Hopson had never been what one might call a charmer. Cory had already settled on the notion that the boy was not far enough removed from his absentee daddy that he wanted to do whatever he could to appear different when he looked in the mirror. But the shock still hung heavy in the air, because the person standing in the kitchen wasn’t the Randy he’d known for years now. No, this boy was new and improved.
“Just a snip.”
“My God. You look amazing.”
Croak’s mom did a quick tour around Randy and Cory chuckled. Randy joined in.
“Jesus mom, it’s just hair.”
“Language. But I can see your face. Your eyes.”
His hair was combed in a coif the Randy from earlier that morning would have called preppy or square. It was trimmed nicely by his ears, and the T-shirt he wore, a simple white, showed the slight tan on his arms that was the result of his sitting out in the yard with a beer and smoke when mom was at work.
“You look so handsome.” And at that moment Cory felt something. He saw something in his own mom that almost made him well up. She was crying. Because for so long there was nothing between her and Randy. Nothing but this incommunicable void whose vast chasm was always widened by Randy’s conceivable restraint to remain isolated. The moment they moved here, the moment she demanded he cut ties with the assholes he hung around, was the moment he closed his door on her. That was what cemented things. He blamed her for their dad. Because he saw the guys she dated now, the volume of suitors, and he knew the man he looked like would never be back. Even if he left of his own volition, she remained, so she was easy to blame.
Avery Hopson pulled Randy into her arms and gave him a hug. He only looked over her heaving shoulder at Croak and arched his brows. What is this? But Cory knew a part of him loved it. A part of him needed it. “You look so good,” she whispered.
“Thanks mom.”
She let him go and stood there looking at him as he sat down; he was the same boy but he wasn’t. Croak had never really remembered Randy without the long tangle of hair, the mostly concealed face. Sure, there was some acne on his jaw, and his nose was a little bulbous, but for that they could blame the asshole who was right now probably gallivanting with a girl stupid enough to believe he was her one. Just as Avery once had. He looked handsome. Like one of those older brothers on TV. Mike Seaver on Growing Pains. Or Theo Huxtable. Clean cut. Too mature for the bullshit.
“She’s on something today,” he joked when she turned around and went upstairs. Probably to get ready for her own date.
“She’s just surprised. So am I. You look good.”
“What, you got the hots for me now, little brother?”
Croak knew it was an insult. Randy always called him a faggot, but mostly because the word itself was pretty profane. But his tone today was different.
“You think Angela will like it?”
“You did this for her?”
“Well…no…and yeah.” Randy thumbed through some of the unopened mail on the table. He came across the Back to School BBQ mailer and skimmed over it. “I was thinking ‘bout the guys she’s used to. Like some of the dickheads I’ve seen her with. And they’re mostly the same. Jock types. Ya know. Don’t want to say preps, but close enough. And I thought it might be nice to surprise her. She thinks she knows me. The fuckin’ greaser, right? Well, what if she didn’t recognize me…what if she sees me the way mom did? Then the little shindig’s off to the right start, cause I doubt very much she wanted to be seen with a rocker in an AC/DC shirt. Cause I know girls like that, Cory, I do. And I know they don’t easily agree to a date with a guy like me. Not if you don’t have something on her.”
“Randy, I—”
“Ah, shut up little brother. I’m not stupid. I saw the relief in your eyes when I agreed to it last night. Like you scored something you didn’ expect would come easy. Your eyes are a pretty obvious tell. Don’t ever play poker.”
Croak didn’t know what to say. And here he thought he’d pulled one over on Randy. As if Adam’s idea was that fool proof.
“You know what, all joking aside, I appreciate it. I do. School’s on Monday, and I know from what I’ve seen around here, there aren’t many in the Creek like me. And I don’t want to be the last guy picked or whatever, ya know. The guy nobody wants to sit beside in the cafeteria. Jesus, look at you. Gangly fuck you are, you’ve got some good friends. Even Adam seems cool enough. Sure, one’s a Jew and the other’s Mormon, but they’re good to you, right?”
“Yuh—yeah,” Cory stammered. His hand was frozen around his spoon, its end submerged in the last of the tasty milk.
“Well, then, you did right. You did. You put yourself out there. So that’s what I’m doing. I know Angela didn’t want to go out with me. Why the hell else would you give me forty bucks? If it’s about meeting Lazarus with me there to score some bud, cool. I can back you. Every kid needs to try weed just to see if it’s in his wheelhouse. If that’s what you want before school starts, like a final summer hurrah, I like it. You’re always too fucking good. Making it easy on mom. You screw up, it takes the heat off me.” He laughed. A genuine laugh. And Croak joined him. He liked this Randy. He wanted this Randy to stay.
“Well, you look great. You do. And Ange will like it. Pug’s shown me some of the guys she’s hanging around. I saw one of ‘em yesterday. Guy wears an Indians cap, but the same shirt as you. You’re right, she will be surprised.”
“Good. I don’ want her resenting me the whole night. Even if this is a one-time thing, I might as well make her enjoy it.”
“What are your plans?”
“Well, I thought I’d ask you that.” Randy leaned forward. He was thin, but Croak noticed some bulk in his shoulders, as if he busied himself doing push-ups all summer behind closed doors. Croak had noticed a grungy old set of dumbbells in his room, whenever he had the unfortunate duty to open his door and let out the murk of teenage stink. They were probably hand-me-downs when dad left. Another vestige Randy just couldn’t shed. “What do you think she’d want to do? Like dinner? Or a movie?”
Croak knew it was a movie. It’s what Ange told Pug when she did decide to speak with the little traitor. She wanted a movie because it was two hours when the two of them didn’t need to speak. He wouldn’t bring that up because he didn’t want to hurt his brother. Yesterday, maybe. Yes. He wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But this new version. This nice substitute. No. He didn’t want to see that smile turned off. “I figure you take her for a quick slice or something and then hit up the Revue. Maybe for Roger Rabbit. I’m not sure she’s seen that one.”
“Do you know what flowers she likes?”
“You’re buying flowers?”
“I was thinking about it.”
That Croak did not know. He knew his mom liked flowers; he knew any time a guy brought flowers, they found residence in the foyer within whatever vase she had at her fingertips. So if he was going to assume based on the generalities of his mom’s behavior, then why wouldn’t Angela follow suit?
“Maybe a few roses or something. You know, to break the ice. You always see it in the movies. The movies chicks dig. I’m not romantic, but I can maybe trick her into thinking I am.”
“That’s a good idea, Randy. I think…well, I think you’ll have her pretty shocked.” His voice broke. This time it wasn’t puberty. No, Croak thought he might have been on the verge of crying. Like mom.
Randy knocked his knuckles on the table and stood up. Croak barely recognized him; he thought only of the boy to whom he spoke just last night. Sitting out in the yard with a bottle and a Winston. He looked so pathetic. So lonely. This was not that guy anymore. And it wasn’t just the haircut. It was the level of candor Randy was willing to accede.
“Thanks. For this, I mean. You watch. I’m going to make her like me. I’m going to make her think this was all her idea.”
Randy smiled and turned around, leaving Croak to sit alone with his bowl of cereal and a heavy heart.
5
Lewis drove around for a long time. Time was sort of skewed for him; he figured that may have come with the boredom of old age, but there was another pressing matter for him.
You know what I think already. You do. But you’ll do whatever you think will work. Even if it won’t.
He grasped the steering wheel and watched his knuckles turn white. Allen Webster may have been a good man. But he wasn’t a good cop. Because he was allowing something beyond the rule of law to inform his better judgment.
Didn’t you do the same with Earl Cloven?
“We’ve already had this conversation,” he muttered. It wasn’t the same, even despite how the argument looked on paper. Webster was right: the guy who didn’t like to be called Lazarus (oh yes, you recognized his tone last night as one of annoyance when you used his Biblical name) was bringing big city vices into the Creek along with the migration of Corners, as if the two were mutually inclusive. And maybe they were. Maybe big city chemists and business people were a greater market for the expensive shit than the townies he was so used to busting. Mostly high school kids with reefer or uppers. But Earl Cloven never held an inventoried catalogue of his users abusing the bad stuff. He never had access to a multitudinous array of cameras wired around town in such abundance Lewis felt awkward and paranoid when he took a shit. And he hated the fucking pusher for taking something away from his own pushing.
Betty snickered in his head. He loved her laugh. Would always love it. But she was wrong about Cloven. Because Lazarus and Earl were nothing alike. For one thing, Earl never carried a pistol on him. No, because he wasn’t that dumb. Even if he had a concealed carry permit, he wasn’t sure Earl would have put himself into that sort of hot water. Because a gun carried far more weight. Implicit in its possession was a potential ol’ Earl wouldn’t have pondered, because he was one of those proto-peaceniks who would soon, when the 60s came into full bloom, stick a flower in a National Guard’s rifle to protest Vietnam. No, Lazarus was different because he was immune. Webster said it all. He would be reprimanded the moment those cuffs came off his belt. No matter how dangerous the guy was. No matter how many birds fell dead from the sky. Because top brass had a use for him. The Corners had a use for him.
Lewis didn’t like that.
He was parked by the curb in front of Robert Wilson’s house. The same place where Adam had brought him before he confessed about what the boys had found at the farmhouse. There was a solemnity to the place now. The front door would never swing open for the man again; he would never put his coat on the rack. Never cook in the kitchen again. The place was just a shell now. The grass just a little long. He wasn’t sure if a home ever felt remorse when it just became a house, but to Lewis it looked like the dim windows over the garage were bleary eyes.
The G20 was parked ahead. He’d been following Lazarus for the better part of an hour. He didn’t even care if Scarface knew he was there. He didn’t. He just watched the smug asshole making a delivery at one of Wilson’s neighbors. Because the people in this town were far too stupid to notice a trend. A woman opened the door. She skipped any pleasantries, and mainly tried to keep her gaze distracted from the pusher’s face. The entire transaction was in line of a few cameras Lewis could see on the light post ahead of his car. He took her money, nodded his head, and trotted down the path to his running van.
You’ve gotta give the brass a reason to indict the sonofabitch. In a democracy, that means you gotta make sure enough people see the guy for what he truly is. Not just in the shadows.
It wasn’t Betty’s voice. It was a darker alternative, something like addiction, like a cigarette of the mind. He didn’t like its tone, but he required its honesty. He watched the van pull away, and he even caught eye contact with the bastard. He saw the cold lifelessness in those eyes and he remembered the dull thud of his own skull as Lazarus knocked the barrel of his gun against his temple. Maybe he’ll be carrying his gun when the cops do come. They’d have to at least ask questions, right?
I won’t let you do this, Lew. I know you think you’re doing the right thing. I know you think once the piñata explodes, that people will see it for what it truly is. But I don’t think it will work. Call it motherly intuition, but I think it will make everything worse. Everything.
“He’s a disease, Betty. A disease on this place. If the authorities aren’t the cure, then the people will have to come up with one.” He touched the gas pedal and lurched away from Wilson’s house.
Don’t say that word. Disease. He’s nothing of the sort, Lew. He’s a parasite. Educate the people about drugs. If people know, if they learn, then he won’t have anything to leech to.
“These people know exactly what they’re doing. What they’re putting in their noses.”
He wanted to wait until the G20 reached Main. That was the golden ticket. And maybe that’s why he truly drove around the Creek for as long as he had. Because he was waiting for the opportune moment, the benefit of a few pedestrians on a late afternoon stroll, minding their business.
Please Lew. Not like this. Betty was crying. That goddamn cry of hers. He remembered, a few years before Barb was born, when he got home from work and she was sitting on the linoleum floor, her dress puddled around her splayed legs. Crying. She’d miscarried. Barb was supposed to have an older sister. But Nature could be cruel. Lew had cursed God then. He had, even when Betty had reassured him that it must not have been the right time for them, that the universe worked in strange ways. But he would forever scold a God that could so callously perch atop humanity while babies who would never be born made way for people like Lazarus who would. It wasn’t so much an argument about good and evil as it was about equal opportunity. Because he would have raised that little girl (Betty wanted to call her Rose) with the best intentions. With love. He would have set her out on the world with the right foundation.
We did the same with Barb, but look what Trevor was able to do.
She was still crying. She was, but without even thinking about it, Betty had made his point for him. No matter what anybody’s intentions were, there was always somebody else there to ruin them. That’s what Lazarus was. A fucking misdeed.
He pulled the Tercel up to the Depot. By the alley. Because he knew Lazarus’s flight path; he’d watched the ingrate enough over the last few days to know he used the alleys behind Main because most folk preferred the shadows when they were feeding their own misdeeds.
Lewis. I love you. I always have. But I will never respect this decision. Never.
“I don’t expect you to understand, Betty. But I looked into his eyes. And I saw nothing.”
The G20 pulled out of the alley. Lazarus stopped to look both ways. For one who broke so many laws, Lewis was surprised to see him abiding by traffic legislation. Irony was always pretty nifty with criminals. Lewis wiped his brow. It was now or never. The nerves were suffocating, but it was the sound of Betty crying he hated the most. Because her sobs were always so sincere. So earned.
There were a few people in the Depot. A few pedestrians across the street. A tan guy wearing shorts and a tank top, holding hands with a girl in the same outfit. All in their own world. All unassuming. Soon they’d all crane their necks. It would be the sound first. And then the judgments. But that didn’t matter now.
He hit the gas. His tires squealed; he felt like a teenager in his father’s Plymouth, out for a joyride while the old man was out for the night. Cause boys with cars got the most tail. He saw Lazarus’s eyes when he noticed the blue bullet coming his way. He didn’t have enough time to back up or lollop forward. No, he did what was expected of that first instinct. He braked. Lewis saw the first sign of life in the boy’s eyes; there was a recognition in them that proved that maybe the asshole wasn’t immune.
His bumper smashed the undercarriage first, tilting the van up until the momentum of the Tercel’s ass end met the inertia of the G20’s much heavier chassis. As the van rocked back down, its side window imploded, sprinkling the interior with shards of tinsel glass, and most likely mixing with the assorted powders and pharmaceutical goodies littering the interior like a drug den. Lazarus’s body first went right, and then wobbled left, his face striking the driver side window and leaving a bloody smudge on the pane that was most likely his scalp bursting open in a ribbon that would leave his cheek marred with freshets of crimson. Lewis felt the impact in his chest; his ribs exploded with fiery pain as the belt, pretty tight to begin with, ground into his flesh and constricted around his cage with contracting fury. He let out a long gust of air and smashed his head on the rest when the Tercel lurched back, its hood crumpling up like used tissue, smoke sifting from the engine in trails that were starting to mask the van itself. He was far enough away to get the little car to about twenty. He didn’t look down to check. He didn’t want to miss the asshole’s reaction. He didn’t. And he loved what he saw. He loved the dawning humanity in the fuck’s eyes. If he was any younger he imagined he might be stiff as a board down there.
People ran from the sidewalk. There was concern in their eyes, but accusation. Lewis was just an old guy who shouldn’t be behind the wheel; it was clearly his fault. They wouldn’t be able to prove if it was pre-meditated, but the good-hearted nature of people clearly brought them over to make sure everybody was okay. The guy in the shorts broke the handholding with his cute girl and came over while she rushed over to a payphone. Soon the cops would be by. Lewis wondered if Webster would be the deputy on site, if he would have to detain Lewis a few hours after the old guy coincidentally warned him about the disfigured asshole ironically scarring Reedy Creek. Jesus, his chest hurt. His joints ached. Soon they’d balloon, he was sure.
Lazarus pushed open the van door and stumbled out. His head was really bleeding now. He’d probably require stitches. Serves you right, you ugly bastard. Might as well scar both sides of your goddamned face. Lewis wanted to laugh but couldn’t muster the grit to do so. The pain was too sharp still in his ribs.
The guy in the shorts tried to help Lazarus as he stumbled, trying to find his footing, but he only pushed the do-gooder away. He came right up to Lewis’s window, his eyes angry, empty, but not afraid:
“You did this to her. You fuckin’ did this to her, because you wouldn’t listen! I gave you proper warning. Remember that, ol’ timer. You decided for her!”
That was it. He trundled back down the alley, holding closed the slit on his forehead, smearing the blood with his fingertips as he toddled toward the dumpsters, apathetic to those trying to steady him. Lew’s door was opened and people asked if he was okay. Lewis saw in their eyes that they blamed him for what happened, that senile oldies shouldn’t be behind the wheel, but they feigned sympathy the best they could. That didn’t matter. Something about what Lazarus said did.
Maybe he has a concussion…maybe he’s just spouting nonsense. He didn’t think that was it.
Oh Lewis. I bet he knows about Rose. I bet he knows about our baby girl. It was Betty’s voice. As if she understood what the fool meant. And maybe she did. Maybe that’s why she was still crying.
6
The doorbell rang. Pug had stayed away from Ange for as long as he could. Her eyes were like daggers whenever she turned his way; he knew he deserved it. He’d stuffed the pictures Croak took of her and Wendy in the woods into his dresser, bunched under his socks with a few of his extras from the ’87 Topps set that would forever remain in the darkness of his drawer. Filler cards usually did just disappear. He didn’t think he’d have use of the photos anymore. And even if he did one day find an opportunity to blackmail her, he didn’t think he could. It was hard enough the first time.
Chels yipped at the door and pawed at the floor. She hadn’t been sick in a few days, but Pug noticed something off about her. Even now. It wasn’t something he wanted to concentrate on, because that was just one more stress he couldn’t deal with. Usually she was a relentless mess of zig-zagging fur and tail when the doorbell rang, and her bark was far more confident; its tone now was one of indifference. Of bored happenstance. The response to some sort of habitual stimulus. She slept beside him the last few nights, and he woke up a couple of times to hear her moaning. It was an awful, guttural sound. He told himself she was dreaming, but he didn’t think that was right.
So stop thinking about it and it will go away. It was the only way he could stop worrying.
Ange was standing with Wendy. She’d put on a simple gray sweater, big enough to hide her figure, as if by removing her femininity she was somehow punishing the rocker down the street who sometimes watched her sunbathe with a smoke plucked between his grisly lips.
“It’s only a few hours,” Wendy said.
“Do I look positively bland? Normal?”
Wendy only laughed.
“I’m not giving this dork the satisfaction.” She looked at Pug as the doorbell rang again. He knew that was a strike against him. Impatience. “I do this, you destroy every last one of those pictures. Every last one of them.”
“I will.” His voice broke. Chels cuddled up against his heel, watching Ange approach the front door, her frame far wider than what one would assume having seen her lounging around the yard in a bikini. She’d thrown her hair into a ponytail, and though she wanted to look unimpressive, there was still a certain level of insecurity attached to her confidence when leaving the house, so she’d thrown on some purple eye shadow and lipstick.
She opened the door.
Pug was just as surprised as Croak. He figured Ange was as well. He watched her pull loose that messy ponytail and toss the elastic behind her, letting her hair fall in bunches to her shoulders. Randy Hopson was like an older Croak. They had similar features, for sure, from the gangly limbs to the spackled acne, but for the longest time Pug had only known the older bro as one with whom Cory did not quite get along, and who sulked for long periods in his room within the gloom of heavy metal to protest his re-location to the Creek. He was an asshole, as Croak put it, and Pug always believed him. He’d heard his screaming fits with Croak’s mom, and had to politely excuse himself from their house during one uproarious match, hearing Randy through closed doors even as he walked down the street wishing Croak could join him, could get away from that toxic hellhole where he’d been immersed for so long that he was forgetting what it meant to have a real family. You know he watches The Cosby Show, Family Ties…not because he thinks they’re funny. He watches because he likes to pretend. His dad up and left, his mom’s always working or dating, trying to find a suitable replacement, and his brother’s a jerk.
This wasn’t that Randy.
He was holding a bunch of pink roses. Something one might find at a convenience store, but cute. And Wendy even melted a bit, smiling when she saw this boy at the door hand over flowers.
“Hey Angela. These sorta reminded me of you.”
Ange took the flowers; she was still silent. Pug understood her shock as one of overturned prejudice, of a person making up her mind about something and watching those expectations shatter like brittle glass. Randy was a good-looking guy. Nicely coifed hair, like George Michael. He wondered why Croak never called him in advance to warn him about this, but he figured the surprise would make for a better story. Randy’s voice still showed the grit of his behavioral maladaptation, if that made any sense, and Pug even figured the only reason why he brought pink flowers was a recall to the same fuchsia two-piece that had been a mainstay on their front yard. As if the memory of this girl stored in his mind was the near pornographic haze of her body through the smoke of his Winstons as he oh so casually hid behind a willow with all the courage of a mouse.
“Thuh—thanks. Wendy, would you mind putting these in water? They’re, well, they’re beautiful.”
“No. You’re beautiful,” Randy said, and no matter how cheesy it might have sounded to Pug, Wend and Ange ate it up like a T-bone steak. “Hey Pug. Wendy.” He nodded his head. Pug didn’t think he’d ever heard Randy use his nickname. Or say anything to him beyond the epithet their entire foursome shared: faggot. He could only nod his head. Still in disbelief. And happy. Because no matter what he’d done to make this happen, he still wanted his sister to have a good time, to do something she wanted to do. He hated twisting her arm. Wendy stole off with the flowers, probably to find one of mom’s nice vases in the kitchen. “I borrowed my mom’s car. She told me if I can pick up my grades this year, she’ll put down half on a junker. I guess she figured I knew how to fix cars because of my hair. Well, my old hair.” He chuckled. He’d made a joke. Pug wasn’t sure it was a good one, but it was self-deprecating, and Angela laughed as well.
“Beats walking,” she replied, still smiling.
“Indeed it does. Look, I hope you like pizza. Some girls kind of watch what they eat, right, but you don’t look like you need to.”
Another compliment. Cheesy as hell but effective. Even if she did look a bit boxy in that sweater and jeans far too big for her trim legs. Pug wondered if she might go upstairs and quickly put on something more flattering, more revealing, but she didn’t. She just smiled.
“I love pizza.”
It wasn’t the answer Pug expected. Especially when she told him she’d only do a movie. “That’s two hours when I don’ have to look or talk to the prick.” He’d passed that little doozy to Croak. Whether or not he found the guts to relay that message to Randy was lost in translation now, because older Hopson had found his groove and there would be no letting up. Ange stepped outside with Randy, nodding her head at Pug with a silent approval just as Wendy returned carrying a crystal bottle just tall enough to ensure the long stems didn’t tip out.
She looked at Pug as they stood staring at the closed door. “You never told me Croak’s brother was cute.”
“I didn’t know.” He went to the phone and made the call he knew his friends were eagerly anticipating.
7
Just as grampa was sitting in the back of a cruiser, heading to the station from which he’d just left hoping he’d done the Creek a solid, the Fenway Four was making its way across the school’s field toward Main and Woodvine. The Pizza Parlor was a small brick reno as far south as center street went before it branched into the woods and led to the 34. Adam had never known it to be anything different, but townies pined for the original bakery that was owned by a Ukrainian family that had since left Reedy Creek when the matriarch passed away. They took the business with them and Corner money, and Corner appetites, brought a Chicago/New York fusion to the farms that left the Jew, among a few immigrants, particularly fond of the nostalgic taste of a big city hole in the wall. The name was apparently an ironic literalism, as if the food itself didn’t require a clever pun or catchall because the food spoke for itself. Adam thought it was okay. But pepperoni pizza was pepperoni pizza, and these Italian cooks made the dough too thin and airy. “It’s how it’s done in Florence, capiche.”
“You guys won’t believe it when you see him.” They were trudging by the ball field, the cameras on the posts blinking the early evening sun. Chels didn’t join them for the expedition. When Pug threw on his shoes he called for her but she only lolloped onto the couch at the front window and watched him leave, her head on the armrest. She’s fine, just tired. Don’t think about it. So he wouldn’t.
“Don’t ruin the surprise,” Croak said.
Croak only laughed when Pug called him after Randy and Ange left. It was a happy laugh, and Pug delighted in hearing it. Because for too long the boy who lived just down the street would often pout to Pug wishing to share what he had, joshing about how strict his parents were while propositioning they teach Randy a thing or two about temperance. “Your dad would never leave you, right?” Pug didn’t think so. As far as he was concerned, his folks were happy. Always had a laugh around the dinner table. But it was those things you didn’t really notice once you took them for granted. He couldn’t say it was the church or its values that acted any sort of glue, because it wasn’t something Pug ever dwelled on. It was just normalcy for him. The same way a single mom was normal for Croak.
“I can’t believe she’d agree to pie. She does know that means the asshole will talk to her, right?”
“I’d say I might have once agreed with that, but just wait and see,” Pug simply said.
Main was pretty quiet. The boys wouldn’t know, not yet at least, that a Tercel was being towed to the junkyard, and people had still gathered around the accident where deputies were mopping up a scene Lewis had caused. So the errand-goers and rubberneckers were collecting like moths to a porch light because something out of the ordinary had happened, and that was enough to convince them that their curiosity was worth a zap. The Parlor was across the street. A few cars were parked at the curb, and there was a small lot to the south whose macadam smelt hot, even as the air cooled with the clouds coming in for the night. The windows at the front looked out on the street, a simple barber-shop colored awning canopied above the plate glass and door. The Pizza Parlor was written in stencilled letters across the glass. Again, very simple.
“Is that him?”
Croak looked at Adam. His older bro kind of resembled the Adonis among them, and that made him beam because one simple truth could be gleaned from the prospect: he still had a chance.
“Man, he looks like a different person. If I’d known a simple haircut would make me a pussy magnet, I would have already taken my dad’s clippers to my head.” The Jew guffawed, his hands firmly resting on the planter as the boys each looked in past their own reflections. That wasn’t all. Croak and Pug both knew that. It wasn’t the hair but the confidence. That surety of himself that was always hidden behind the fortification of brooding music and self-righteousness.
“Then you’d just look like a dick. So a different kind of pussy magnet,” Adam said, punching Dan in the arm. Croak burst out laughing, slapping his legs. The planter ledge at the front under the window was full of soil, cigarette butts, and a slew of dying flowers that looked sadly inappropriate as a frame to the scene above it. At the back of the restaurant was a counter and fire-roaring stone ovens, shooting spurts of smoke into the air from the stack on the roof. There were a few high tables with bar stools, and more formal dining in the center of the room, which looked like a perfect square, with dark walls and pics of Italian footballers. Though of the weak European variety, Adam figured, and not the Joe Montanas and Jerry Rices of American ass-kickery. Randy and Angela were sitting at one of the higher tables near the back counter, feet hoisted up on the stools’ legs. They already had their pizza. Randy was busy chewing his slice while Ange regaled him with some sort of tale. But there was a connection. It was undeniable.
“Hate to say it, but Croak’s brother is prettier than your sis, Pug. So I’m not sure where that leaves you.”
Pug only offered a half smile to Adam. He was mostly just glad that Ange was offering something of herself, that she was opening up in a way he figured his little scheme had denied her. It was nice to see her happy. To pick up a slice of pie and fold it the way big city on-the-goers did without a second thought and take a bite while nodding her head to this boy she was so damned certain she would hate.
To Croak they were his parents; it was an awkward relapse, but it was sentimental. As if he was peering in through the window of a better past, before his dad took off, when the two of them were just together. Were not aware of what the future held and just took each day as they would come. Because Randy did look like their dad. And so he supposed every failed marriage started out this way, didn’t it? Every successful one as well. Neither measured by the weight of the could-haves but rather the moment. And he saw that now. Saw that in Randy’s eyes. Because he understood their spying was pretty obvious. A few diners casually glanced out at them with curiosity. But not Angela and Randy.
“I’m not even sure what my bro would have to say to keep your sister interested. But it’s something.”
“I’m just glad this worked,” Adam said. He wondered about his own parents sometimes. Had asked grampa about them as well. What had they been like when they were younger? The answer was always the same. His mom was a peach until Trevor Kramer spoiled her. And then grampa would apologize for insulting his dad.
But it did work, didn’t it? They weren’t just fooling themselves? This was going better than planned, because Randy and Angela stayed in the Parlor for three hours. They missed the movie that night. Pug wasn’t sure if Ange would ever see Roger Rabbit.
Maybe if Randy had never gone to the barber things would have been different. Maybe if he’d never purchased the roses or borrowed his mom’s car. Maybe if he’d just followed his gut instinct at first and told Croak to shove his bribe up his ass. Maybe then things would have been different.
Maybe.
8
“So what did they have on you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He could tell she was trying to sound cutesy. He’d never really spoken to her before, sometimes just nodding his head if they ever crossed paths, but even then he understood how he must have looked to her. He’d seen himself in the mirror enough to recognize why he required they retain a modicum of distance whenever he ogled her. They were sitting in the Pizza Parlor; she’d ordered a specialty sausage, and the pie was sitting in front of them, still too piping hot to risk eating lest they both wanted peeling skin on the roofs of their mouths. He saw his mom, how she was with the countless guys she paraded around. He knew which ones she liked by the way she played with her hair. Always twirling the strands. Always putting them behind her ears when she was done playing with them. Angela was doing the same. Plucking strands around her forefinger, kneading them indifferently before letting them fall in a splash to her shoulder before starting again on the other side.
“I can’t expect this was your idea.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“That right?”
“You don’t think I’ve seen you. You just live down the street.”
“Maybe you have. Maybe you haven’t. Either way, coming out with me would never be your idea. Look at you.”
She blushed, frantically grabbing at another strand of hair. To say he’d learned a thing or two from his mom’s countless courtiers was an understatement. The flowers. The compliments. They were the accoutrements of the first date hoping to score a second. “To be fair, I was never into the hair bands. Your long hair scared me off.”
Randy laughed. “So I made the right call sitting at the barber’s today with a clipping of Tom Cruise in Cocktail?”
“Well…it suits you.” She stole a slice of pizza and plopped it on her plate. A few chunks of sausage rolled off and she mindlessly picked them up and dropped them back on the pie. She never took her eyes off his. Her wonderful blue eyes. Randy had never noticed just how blue they were. How much they popped stuck between frames of that dark hair. How could you, when you were always just looking at her tits from a distance? It was the thought any red-blooded male would have, but at the moment it made him feel dirty. He was no stranger to hormones, certainly, but he wasn’t a slave to them. He wouldn’t be like his father, who’d chase any skirt as long as she flirted with him.
“I thought it only right. Because your brother…my brother, they had something on you, right?”
She was silent. And coyly so.
“You can be honest. You won’t offend me.” He laughed. “I mean, the very idea that I’m here with you now has been sort of a pipe dream this summer.” He took a bite of his own pizza as he waited for her to talk. She did the same. A strategic bite, giving her time to think. To calculate the right answer. The place was busy but strangely romantic. They both could feel the heat of the ovens, warming them with the queerest comfort that this place was right. That there could be no other place. At least Randy thought so.
“You promise, right? I mean, this is just us being honest.”
“Of course.”
“Pinkie swear?”
She put out her hand, her smallest finger formed in a hook. He gave it a quick tug and she held the contact longer than he anticipated. Their fingers remained hooked, just above the platter of pizza, and when she let go she did so with a smirk. A sensual provocation if Randy had ever seen one.
“My stupid brother had pictures of me with a joint. We got it from Lazarus. Been getting weed from him all summer. I never thought that little shit would be following us.”
Randy started laughing.
“Hey, you promised we could be honest. No repercussions.”
“I’m not laughing at you. My brother used you as bait for the same reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“I guess Adam Kramer and the Jew, that’s Cory’s nickname for him, not mine, they want to score bud from your supplier and they thought I could get it for them.”
“So we’re both pawns in their sick game…” She took another bite, unaware her brother was watching her through the window. Unaware of anything beyond their table.
“Seems so.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“Hey, it’s gotten me this far with you. And I’m no welcher.”
Angela reached forward and took Randy’s hand; she held it firmly for a moment. “You don’t let Horace touch the stuff. I don’t care about Adam or…well, or the Jew. But I don’t want Horace starting my bad habit.”
“Horace? I thought his name was Pug.”
She burst out laughing and clapped both hands over her mouth. She had a beautiful smile; it was something she must have been self-conscious about. Every girl had a certain insecurity only she was truly aware of; the general public just saw an idealism projected by the feminine mystique. Or so Randy thought to call it. “I never understood why those boys call Horace Pug until I actually saw one of those critters on TV. Then eureka. I hope puberty’s kind to him.”
“Well, Pug…or Horace, he mentioned you’d never seen Roger Rabbit. Cory’s been yammering up and down all summer about the movie. Said it’s the shit. Said Doc Brown from Back to the Future plays a pretty sick villain. I was told it was your wish to see that flick. So the offer’s still on the table.”
“That was a younger me,” she simply said, taking another quick bite of pizza. “I’d much prefer to finish this pizza and get dessert. Maybe walk down Main for ice cream. If that’s okay with you.”
Randy smiled. He didn’t want to see a movie. He could give a shit about Roger Rabbit or cartoons. A walk and an ice cream sounded just fine and dandy. Maybe they would even hold hands.
9
“He’s not going to press charges.”
“He’s not? I was fairly certain the moment you got a look at the inside of his van, or even frisked the sonofabitch to make sure he was okay, you’d have reasonable cause to haul his ass here.”
The deputy sitting across from Lewis, in that same stuffy office that had been the graveyard of files and pass-me-down furniture, introduced himself as Officer Stevenson. Ned. And Lewis did recall the guy. He was at the scene of Wilson’s untimely death, under the delusion it was merely an accident when Lewis himself was certain once the medical examiner’s report came back, if it ever did, the blood tests would show a metabolized intoxicant of the Nose Candy variety, or maybe a little alcohol to keep the buzz strong. Lewis wanted Allen Webster. He felt he’d gained a certain camaraderie with the man strictly based on his tagging Lazarus as an other, an outsider in a town filled with immigrants. He sensed there was, perhaps hidden beneath the surface, a growing conflict between the townies and Corners; it was something nobody spoke about, at least not in polite company, but guys like Webster and the vet officers who were overlooked when Napolitano took the big office, probably had a hankering to ensure this corn boom found its inevitable demise when something more sustainable, like nuclear power, took precedence in American policy. The French were pretty successful splitting the atom, weren’t they?
“I don’t know what you mean.”
But he did. Lewis knew Ned understood exactly what he meant, because he seemed like the type who understood the cold war currently underway in Reedy Creek, even if he himself wasn’t truly a native.
“You know who I hit? You’d have to if you know he’s not pressing any charges. I’m not sure how’d you’d press charges for an accident anyway.”
“That’s not what we heard, Mr Forsmythe. Witnesses already filed a report claiming your vehicle was at a dead stop in front of the Liquor Depot, and you only hit the gas when the G20 exited the alley.”
Lewis leaned forward. “I know what you’re thinking. It was the same thing Webster thought when I came in earlier.”
Ned cocked his brow.
“I’m an old coot. Probably half out of his mind. On pills. Looped out. And maybe you’re half right. But I’m not on medication. This place should be. Needs medicine for its sickness. You’ve got a problem in this town, and none of you guys are willing to overstep some stupid fucking boundaries to take care of it. I’m not a cop. Anymore. So your sheriff’s rules hold no warrant over me. I did what I had to do to expose that scarred piece of shit, and all you can tell me is he’s not pressing charges.” Lewis wanted to laugh, but it came out as a slight titter. He was furious. A part of him expected the van would explode in a tuft of powdery white the moment his Tercel impacted, as if its cavity were so over stuffed with shit cooked at the farmhouse that its seams were already bulging. But that was just a cartoonish pipe dream. He understood that now. So you went and destroyed your car and any reputation you might have had in this town...and for what? Maybe he didn’t think that far in advance because of what he’d already seen. The van making its scheduled stops. Dropping off cocaine for Corners sick of small town life, missing the big city lights.
“You’re indicting yourself with talk of pre-meditation.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
Ned rubbed his brow. Lewis thought he was a sharp looking man. Sharper and better put together than Webster.
“I want to talk to Allen Webster. He may just appreciate my theatrics.”
Ned didn’t say anything for a moment. Lewis hated the silence, because in that quiescence there could only be a period of judgment. He saw Webster on the scene, and the officer had looked at him being escorted to the backseat of a cruiser as if the two of them hadn’t shared a heart to heart that morning.
“Look, we didn’t find anything in his van. Didn’t find anything on him. Except for a nasty cut on his head.”
“You didn’t find anything? Bullshit. I was on his tail all day, and I watched the asshole handing out bags to morons with a few bucks to give.”
“Maybe he was. I’m not so daft to think the Creek is hunky dory. Deputy Webster already filled us in on your thoughts, Mr Forsmythe. And we commend you. We do. Because a lot of us were here before the Corners, a lot of us remember when this place was just a drunk tank. The Feds stepped on a lot of toes around here. I know Webster filled you in. And then you filled in the blank spaces. I wish I’d been here for the conversation, but he didn’t wish you luck as you left assuming you’d turn vigilante. But for now we can only turn a blind eye, because Sheriff Napolitano considers the man you hit with your car an asset. We don’t have to agree. I know you don’t. And I certainly don’t. So if one of us had found a baggie of cocaine in his van, or a gun in his glove box, why, fancy that, there was also a receipt from the bakery for flour and a conceal carry permit with his registration. Nothing out of the ordinary here, because it can’t be.”
It was Lewis’s turn to be silent. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Couldn’t believe what was coming of this country. It was a thought that often bubbled to the surface when he spoke to Trevor Kramer. Especially in those first years, when he felt he had to defend who he was to this boy courting his daughter, whose ideas were bound to a Cause far greater than the tradition of respecting one’s elders. He knew America was in for a tough time when a boy he barely knew had the audacity to question his beliefs because he flew the flag from his stoop.
“You’re cowards. The lot of you. There are so many fucking things happening here, in this town, that you haven’t a clue about. But you’re content stuffing your mouths with so much ignorant pie your breath smells like the Sheriff’s dick.”
“Okay, sir, careful.”
“No, no, not a chance. You haven’t been to war, have you? I fought in the big one. And again in Korea. And believe me it wasn’t so the Badge would let some lowlife fuck peddle drugs to my grandson.”
“Do you need to calm down in a cell?”
“I need a cop with balls.”
Ned smiled. “Seems you’ve got enough for both of us.”
There was a knock on the door. When Ned invited the interloper in, the cute girl from the front, snapping gum as usual, peered her head in. She’d already seen Lewis escorted through the bullpen with Stevenson and found her own personal sort of victory in the transaction. She even popped in a fresh gum to mark the occasion.
“Sorry to bug ya, Ned. We got a call. The other deputies are moppin’ up the wreck on Main. Caller found his neighbor dead on his La-Z-Boy. Needle sticking from his arm.”
“Thanks. Maybe a little discretion when you break the news next time, ok Becky?”
She flushed and swallowed her gum.
Another of Lazarus’s victims. It was bad timing, for sure, but Lewis only looked at the deputy across from him with an I-told-you-so.
“All right, Mr Forsmythe. Duty calls, as you’ve been made aware. You’re free to go. I’m not holding you on any charges beyond a stern warning about your lead foot. Do you have anybody that can come pick you up?”
Lewis had never felt so alone. Never. Now, without his car, he’d have to muster the remaining ounce of his dignity to make a call he never wanted to make. “My daughter. Number’s listed under my son-in-law’s name. Should be under Kramer, Trevor.”
Ned’s eyes lit up. Lewis did catch that; it was a momentary reaction, like an ignition that tended a certain awareness, but the deputy exhaled instead and stood. “Becky, you mind making the call?”
She only nodded. She couldn’t wait to bring to light just what this lecturing old man did. With intent, the deputies were saying. Oh how stories spread around here. “Sure thing, Ned.”
“I know what you think you did was right. And maybe it was. But Reedy Creek seems to play by different rules. Seems like you figured that out as well.”
Lewis stood up, not sure he understood what Ned was on about but confident the name Trevor Kramer meant something to him. Maybe he’s just read his shit stain of a book. “I know you guys gotta pull your heads out of the sand.” That was all he said. He waited up front by the desk where the girl named Becky looked right at him as she dialed the number to the Kramer household. He thought he saw a gloating brio in her eyes as she popped a fresh piece of gum, holding the receiver to her ear as she snapped the first bubble.
10
Trevor Kramer.
Shit, that was something of a coincidence, Ned thought, looking at the old man across from him as his heart sank into the pit of his gut. He did feel for him. He did. Because he was on the level, and truly understood just what was going on in the Creek’s sewers. Or at least a part of it. And he’d pinpointed ol’ Lazarus himself as a part of the problem. Which Ned and Cole Moore already knew.
It was a coincidence because Ned had followed Trevor Kramer and his wife to Davenport that day. Where they visited a medical clinic.
The world worked in strange ways. Especially in Reedy Creek.
