Mojo

by Tim Tharp

  And I’m like, “Yeah, this is the greatest. Who owns it?”

  “Rowan Adams and I. Well, we don’t actually own it—we just run it. Rowan’s dad owns the warehouse. He owns property all over the city, but real estate being what it is these days, he’s just holding on to it till he can get a better price. Meantime, he let us fix it up for our extracurricular activities.”

  “Must be nice,” I said. “What’s with the name Gangland?”

  “Just a little game we have going. Over the summer Rowan and I were kicking around ideas about how to make our senior year monumental, and we decided to start our own gangs.”

  “Your own gangs?”

  “Yeah. He’s the godfather of one and I’m the godfather of the other. Only instead of having turf battles and drug wars and whatnot, we have these different contests, and the gang that loses the most by the end of the school year has to pay for the biggest graduation party in the history of graduation parties.”

  “And Gangland is your headquarters?”

  “Something like that. We call it our ‘rec hall.’ That’s what we tell our parents, anyway.”

  “So what kind of contests do you have?”

  “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Crazy stuff, that’s all. Like this battle-of-the-bands thing we have going. Tonight, Rowan has a band competing against the one I hired last week.” He stopped walking and looked me in the eye. “Remember, this is completely confidential. I’m just telling you because you seem like a really good guy, and you’re helping out with Ashton and everything.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “All I’m interested in is writing about the case.” I couldn’t help regretting the confidentiality clause, though. I mean, the kids at my high school would eat up a story about something like Gangland, even if they never would get to be a part of the gangs. But what could I do? I was a journalist, and journalists were supposed to have ethics about this kind of thing. Plus, I’d never get invited back.

  Just then, a spotlight shone down on the stage, and a tall thin guy stepped into it. I recognized him immediately from his Facebook photos, mostly because of the red blazer he was wearing—Rowan Adams.

  In addition to the blazer, he wore a mauve shirt with ruffles down the button line and these crazy green-and-yellow-striped pants. His face was long and lean, and his brown hair fell down over his ears and swooped over one eyebrow in front. To top off the look, he waved a cigarette in one of those long black cigarette holders in his right hand. Altogether, he looked like some kind of fairy-tale duke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into a handheld microphone. “Welcome once again to Gangland, where all of your foulest dreams can come true. As you remember, last week our poor unfortunate and most terrible wide receiver almost-friend Nash Pierce attempted to introduce us to what he thought was a memorable band—the totally unworthy Rat Finks.”

  The crowd seemed about evenly split between those who cheered the Rat Finks and those who jeered.

  “Yes, it was a pathetic attempt, Nash. But tonight, it’s my turn to invigorate your musical senses, so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Colonoscopy!”

  With that, the band scrambled onto the stage, took up their instruments, and began thrashing away. It was nothing but noise, and not good noise. Those guys looked like eighth- or ninth-grade fake juvenile delinquents. The bassist and lead guitarist even had tattoos that had obviously been drawn on with Magic Markers. The keyboardist twisted his face into a snarl, but you could tell, by day, he was really a band nerd. Still, the crowd cheered as if the all-time greatest dead rock stars had risen from their graves just to play a gig at Gangland.

  “Hey, I like these guys,” said Randy, and Audrey’s like, “Are you kidding me? They’re the most terrible band that ever existed.”

  “Damn, you’re right,” Nash said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “They are the most terrible band ever. That Rowan has one-upped me again.”

  Audrey pulled her camera out of her bag, but Nash clamped his hand on her arm. “No pictures,” he said.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “You know I like you,” Nash said. “But we’re trying to keep this place on the down-low.”

  Audrey looked at the crowd. Several people were taking pictures of the band with their cell-phone cameras. “What about them?”

  “They’re members.”

  “Members, huh? Okay.” Audrey slid the camera back into her bag, but I could tell she didn’t like it.

  By the middle of the band’s second tune, Rowan walked up to Nash, slapped him on the back, and said, “So, Nash, are you ready to admit defeat?”

  “Not yet. They still have to play a whole set. They might be better than the Rat Finks yet.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You guys are having a contest to see who can find the crappiest band?”

  “Pretty much,” Nash said.

  Rowan looked at me like I was some kind of specimen he wasn’t familiar with. “What do we have here?” he asked Nash.

  Nash introduced me, along with Randy and Audrey.

  “Glad to meet you,” Rowan said, and then looking at Audrey: “How you doing, little guy?”

  “I’m a girl,” she said.

  Rowan cocked an eyebrow. “Hey, I took a wild guess.”

  “Don’t pay attention to him,” Nash said. “He thinks being a douche is funny. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  Rowan asked something that Nash had to ask him to repeat. We had to talk pretty loud to be heard over the squink-squawnk of the band.

  “I said”—Rowan raised his voice—“are these some of your newest prospects?”

  And Nash’s like, “No, this is the guy I told you about, the investigative reporter who’s helping find Ashton.”

  Rowan inspected me more closely. “Right. You’re the one who found Ashton’s shoe. I guess you want to ask me some questions.”

  “Well,” I said, “you were the one who dated her most recently.”

  “I dated her all right, but I don’t know if I dated her most recently.”

  “What do you mean? I haven’t heard about anyone else dating her.”

  “I can’t tell you anything for sure.” Rowan fixed another cigarette into the black holder and lit it. “There were just some rumors she was maybe seeing someone from another school. A South Side school, no less.”

  He said the phrase South Side like it was a cheap cut of meat he had to spit out before he tasted too much of it.

  “I never believed those rumors,” Nash said.

  Rowan blew out a puff of smoke. “Well, something was keeping her from dating anyone at Hollister. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t have plenty of guys asking her out.”

  “Surely, someone would know,” I suggested. “Are any of her best girlfriends here?”

  Rowan glanced at the crowd. “Some of her ex-best friends are here.”

  “Ex-best friends?”

  “Yeah, she started hanging out with a different crowd.”

  That was an intriguing morsel of news. If she’d had a falling-out with her friends, maybe they were the ones starting rumors about her. And maybe—just maybe—they did something worse than that. But I could check on that later. Right now I wanted to delve into Rowan’s relationship with Ashton a little more.

  “I guess you weren’t too happy about some of those rumors,” I said. “If it was me, I’d be pretty mad.”

  “I’m sure you would be,” he said. “I, on the other hand, have plenty of other interests to keep me occupied.”

  “Is that right?” I said. It was a lame comeback, but it’s kind of hard to be snappy when you’re talking to a guy who looks like a mad aristocrat from a Brothers Grimm story. Audrey came to my rescue, though.

  “What about the day Ashton went missing?” she asked, stepping into Rowan’s personal space. “Were you pursuing one of those other interests, or don’t you have an alibi?”

  “An alibi?” He laughed and looked
at Nash. “Really, Nash, these people are too funny. I’ll have to give you points for finding them.”

  “Yeah, we’re real funny,” I said. “We’re the kind of comedians who don’t like it when an ex-boyfriend goes looking for revenge against the girl who dumped him. So maybe you can just answer a simple question and tell us where you were.”

  “That’s a good one,” Rowan said. He took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke into my face. “You are a comedian. Apparently, you’ve mistaken me for the kind of people you’re used to hanging out with, running around in their sweaty muscle shirts, getting into arguments over welfare checks, hitting each other in the face with toasters, and chasing women around the apartment complex with steak knives.”

  “Hey,” Randy interrupted. “We’re not on welfare.” As if that was the worst part of Rowan’s picture of us.

  “Come on, Rowan.” Nash stepped up, pressed his hand to Rowan’s chest, and eased him back. “These people are my guests. They aren’t accusing you of anything. They just want to help find Ashton. I know you want that too.”

  “Yeah, they’re just routine questions,” I said, and immediately realized I sounded like the cops who quizzed me about the Hector Maldonado case. Whether that was a good thing, I wasn’t sure.

  Rowan looked away, then back. “You’re right, Nash.” He turned to me. “My apologies. I’m not really the asshole you might think I am. I have my role to play. But you’re wrong if you think I’m not worried about Ashton. Everyone here is. You may think these little recreational activities of ours are in poor taste with Ashton missing, but we have to do something. You can’t just sit around feeling black. If you hurt, you have to take some kind of medicine, you know?”

  “I never said otherwise.” Suddenly, I felt bad about using the cop routine on him. It was probably true—he probably really was hurting. Maybe he still loved her.

  “So,” he said, patting my shoulder, “no hard feelings. I hope you three musketeers will mingle and have fun until ten o’clock.”

  “Ten o’clock?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Nash said. “It’s a Gangland members-only thing after ten.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Rowan made a slight bow with his head. “I have to make the rounds and see to it that everyone’s having a good time.”

  When he was gone, Randy goes, “That guy’s a real dick.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” Audrey said. “I’d hate to have to put on that act all the time.”

  “I got the impression that, underneath, he really is pretty broken up about Ashton,” I said. But at the same time I realized he’d left without ever answering the most important question: Where was he when Ashton Browning disappeared?

  CHAPTER 15

  Nash left us to try out our mingling skills on our own, but Audrey and I weren’t exactly advanced in that department—especially around an upscale crowd like this—so since there weren’t any tables or chairs, we lagged back by the wall, sizing everyone up. Audrey even snuck in a few photos with her cell phone. Randy, on the other hand, poured himself right into the mix, his idea being that “these rich girls would love to hang with a real guy instead of the snakes they’re used to.”

  Most of the crowd had broken into small groups that paid no attention to the band, but a couple rows’ worth of people actually crammed together near the front of the stage, I guess judging whether Colonoscopy was worse than Nash’s band the Rat Finks. Everyone looked like they were having a good time without putting out much effort. Kids at my school had to strain to have a good time. They had to grab a good time by the hind legs and wrestle it down. There was that kind of desperation to it. Not here. Fun floated on the air like a light fog, despite the Ashton Browning situation.

  “You know,” I said to Audrey, “I’m not so sure about what that jerk Rowan said. These people don’t look like they’re partying down to forget about their good friend Ashton. They look more like they already forgot about her.”

  “Yeah,” Audrey said, looking at the crowd. “I just wonder what Rowan meant when he asked Nash if we were his newest prospects.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they bring in new prospects to nominate for gang membership.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not so sure their gangs are as innocent as Nash was making out.”

  “What do you mean? You think a bunch of Hollister kids are going around robbing banks or selling crack?”

  “No. I just think it’s a little weird that they chose to be gangs instead of, say, teams or families or something.”

  “Families? Are you kidding? Gangs are just a more fun concept. Besides, maybe they already had the posters.”

  “Well, I’d be a little worried about someone who was obsessed with gang posters.”

  “That’s because you’re a girl,” I said. “It’s a guy thing.” And that was the truth. Besides, I couldn’t see Nash getting up to anything too nefarious. Rowan, maybe, but not Nash.

  For me, a more important line of investigation concerned the girl gangsters in the room. Which ones were Ashton’s ex-best friends? Everyone knows that when it comes to certain things, girls can be a ton more evil than guys, so I couldn’t help wondering if her old clique hadn’t come up with a way to wreak some vengeance on her for ditching them. None of them looked evil, though. In fact, if I’d had as much nerve—or stupidity—as Randy, I wouldn’t have minded talking to about a dozen of them.

  “Why don’t you go over there?” Audrey said. “You know you want to.”

  She’d caught me staring at a cute blonde who was dressed in a white tuxedo, of all things.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Dylan, you’re never going to get a girlfriend just by standing around staring.”

  “You really think that girl and me might make a good match?”

  “No, but at least you could get some practice in.”

  “Yeah, at getting rejected. No thanks. I think I’ll hold out for Ashton Browning.”

  “Really? Even if she ever does show back up, how are you going to talk to her when you can’t go up and talk to any of the girls here?”

  “Hey.” I threw her my best one-eyebrow-raised suave expression. “When you save somebody’s life, you don’t have to have a good opening line.”

  Audrey looked past me. “Well, maybe you’re not going to need an opening line tonight.”

  At that point I turned to see, coming straight at me, none other than Brett Seagreaves, the tasty black-haired, blue-eyed hottie from the search-party hamburger cookout. “Hey, Dylan,” she said, nudging me with her shoulder. I couldn’t believe she actually remembered my name. “Where’s your cool hat?”

  “My hat? Oh, it’s probably at home under the bed, hiding—as it should be.”

  She laughed. “I like your T-shirt. Iron Maiden—scary.”

  “Not as scary as this band that’s playing,” Audrey said.

  Brett glanced toward the stage. “They’re pretty bad all right. Poor Nash. He had such high hopes for the Rat Finks.”

  “More like low hopes,” I said.

  She touched my arm and laughed again. “How do you like our little recreation center?”

  “It’s cool,” was all I could muster at the moment. The touching and laughing threw me off balance, this not being the usual hot-girl reaction to my humor.

  “So,” she said. “Nash tells me you were interrogating Rowan for your news articles about Ashton.”

  “I wouldn’t call it interrogating. Just trying to clear some things up. He did say something I found interesting. Apparently, Ashton was kind of on the outs with a lot of her old friends. You know anything about that?”

  She brushed her black hair back from her face. “Oh, I don’t know if I’d say she was on the outs with any of us. We just kind of went our separate ways.”

  “Separate ways?”

  “You know—we had different interests. Lately, she got so involved with her charity work. Not that we don’t all do our parts for charity. I can’t count all the lu
ncheons, dinners, and galas I’ve been to, but I draw the line when it comes to delivering free meals to people at their homes. Those neighborhoods are scary. I understand some people have it hard, but you’d think they could at least drive over to someplace nice to get their food instead of having it delivered.”

  “You mean like drive over in their Rolls-Royces?” Audrey asked.

  “You sound like Ashton,” Brett said.

  “Did she work for some kind of charity organization we could check into?” I asked.

  Brett thought for a second, then shook her head. “I’m not sure, but I know someone who could tell you. Wait right here.”

  When she left, Audrey’s like, “You realize she was flirting with you, don’t you?”

  “No way.”

  “Sure she was—complimenting your shirt, laughing at your little joke, touching your arm. That’s what flirting is.”

  “But why?”

  “Good question.”

  Before I could figure out an answer, Brett was back with none other than the cute blonde in the tuxedo. Introductions went around and it shook out that her name was Aisling Collins.

  “Love the Iron Maiden shirt,” she said, and reached over and touched my arm.

  I glanced at Audrey, and she gave me this look like, Something is up, but I don’t know what it is.

  Brett explained to Aisling how I was out to help find Ashton by doing some articles for the school paper about her disappearance. “He was wondering if you knew the name of the charity she worked for delivering meals and whatnot.”

  Aisling pressed a finger to her bottom lip. She really was incredibly cute, and the tuxedo just added to it. “Let’s see, I think it’s called FOKC.”

  I’m like, “Did you say Fock?”

  She giggled. “No, FOKC. F-O-K-C. Feed Oklahoma City.”

  “Wow, that’s some acronym,” I said. “So, you used to be pretty close with Ashton?”

  “Oh my God, yes. We were practically like sisters. Brett too.”

  “I guess it was kind of—I don’t know—awkward when she stopped making time for you.”