by Lamar Giles
I was slow responding—what was I supposed to say? Another message came through.
Reya: D was nervous when u talkd 2 him, right?
Me: yeah
Reya: They r sayin D was run off the road.
I looked through my window.
Reya: I can’t believe Carrey’s dead. We just saw him.
Stared at my driveway.
Me: Can we go 2 the hospital?
Reya: We can, but we won’t get past lobby. I’ve got texts from others, Family Only!
That was a problem. I needed to talk to whoever was conscious, Dustin or Lorenz. Today.
Me: Only relatives? This the same hospital Pilar’s in?
Reya: OMG, Nick!! Ur a genius. Can u b ready in 30?
Me: I’ll b waiting.
I got dressed, returned to my window, the news report on my mind. It said the police were searching for a dark truck or SUV. I could’ve helped them; there was one downstairs.
The Beetle pulled up outside and I went to Reya, kissed her, expecting the touch/smell/sight of her to be a bright spot in my dark, dark thoughts. I was expecting too much.
Dad, where were you last night?
A lingering question. With an answer I was afraid I already knew.
REWIND
Four years ago . . .
It was on. Tonight, I’d find out exactly where Dad goes when he does Cool Mob Stuff.
Once Mom left for her grown-up party, which sounded more like work than fun, giving my babysitter the slip was simple. I said, “I don’t feel very good. I’m going to bed now.”
Rachelle, being the attentive child-care professional that she was, disengaged from her iPhone for half a second. “If you throw up, you better be good with a mop. I saw you eat that corn earlier.”
Phase two of my plan to see Cool Mob Stuff involved a little more finesse. I slipped on my jean shorts and sneakers, then tiptoed to the garage. I brought a blanket for camouflage; I planned to blend in with all the other junk Dad kept in his SUV. The extra jackets, dirty car-washing towels, and other assorted chaos that cluttered his seats and made Mom call his vehicle Oscar’s Trash Can. That plan went by the wayside when I opened the door and found he’d removed the benches entirely.
I climbed in anyway, checking out the new stuff Dad had cleared space for. A shovel and a pickax clanked as I maneuvered a heavy bag of something called lye aside. A thick, blue tarp made a better cover than my blanket with the flowers on it. I slipped under the plastic sheet and waited. Not for long.
Dad took the driver’s seat, raising the garage door—Ka-chut-Ka-chut-Ka-chut. The sound always reminded me of roller coasters climbing. Another noise, a heavy thud. I couldn’t see, but I had this flash where I saw Dad’s forehead bouncing on the steering wheel.
He said, “Jesus, get it together.”
The engine rumbled and we were on our way. If this were a roller coaster, I’d put my hands in the air, waiting for the drop.
Some lady’s warbling high note blared through Dad’s speakers before being cut off by an equally high telephone ring, almost like it was part of the song. I was glad for the interruption. Not that the lady couldn’t sing, but it was a religious song from the gospel station. Dad never listened to that stuff, and it felt, I don’t know, creepy.
Dad took a long time to answer the call. He breathed deep before answering, “Yeah.”
“We’re here.” Kreso Maric’s accented voice, in concert quality. “Are you close?”
“I’m about fifteen minutes from you.”
“Be here in ten.”
“Mr. Maric, I’ll try, but maybe this is more of a job for—”
The singing lady picked up where she left off when Kreso hung up.
Dad stepped on the gas, urging the vehicle forward, faster.
Nine minutes later we slowed. I peeked from my hiding place and found the darkness startling. In our neighborhood, it was never dark dark. We had streetlights and porch lights and landscaping lights. Here there was no light other than a fingernail moon that I glimpsed only through the treetops. Dad’s brakes squealed and we were still; the engine went silent. His door seal broke, triggering the chime that meant he’d left his headlights on. He’d yelled at Mom for doing that once, because it drained the battery. He closed the door without noticing and I got scared thinking about having a dead battery in an unfamiliar forest.
I slithered from under my cover, careful not to rattle anything. On hands and knees I moved up, keeping my head low until I reached the console between the front seats. The headlights flared over an awesome Mercedes, two men leaning on it. I dropped down before they spotted me, then realized that wasn’t possible. I’d played with enough flashlights to know that in the dark, you couldn’t see the person behind a light. You might catch a shadow, but mostly you were blind.
I raised my head again, with confidence. Ready for Cool Mob Stuff.
One of the men was Kreso, his tanned face, neck, and hands in contrast with his pale gray suit. Beneath the jacket, his blue shirt hung open at the collar, revealing two golden chains. The other Mean-Face guy was less dapper—denim, sneakers, plain button-down shirt—and huger. He looked like he could bench-press the car.
Dad approached them. No words were exchanged.
Mr. Maric motioned toward the car with his chin and the back door opened. Two more guys left the vehicle. One was an undersized version of Mean-Face in a nearly identical outfit. The other was a skinny, bushy-haired blond in a Bart Simpson shirt. He looked like one of the kids that rode the high school bus.
Mean-Face #2 pushed the kid down on his knees. Kreso reached under his jacket and produced a square, black handgun. I’d seen pistols before, but never like this. Dark woods, four guys surrounding a crying, begging kid. This wasn’t what I came to see. But I couldn’t look away.
I shuddered, waiting for the bang, knowing what was coming.
Really, I didn’t know anything.
Kreso handed the gun to Dad.
CHAPTER 32
Go home. I’ll take care of the mayor.
Dad said that. Not even a week ago. Looking over the ER waiting room at Stepton General, packed with classmates like the halls at school between bells, I wondered if this was how Dad took care of things. The whole thing felt like a somber continuation of last night’s Dust Off. Reya did the talking at the visitors’ desk, and we were on our way to the maternity ward with a couple of visitor passes.
In a private room, Pilar lay propped up in her bed with MTV playing on a low volume, a Teen Mom rerun. Next to her bed an egg-shaped baby squirmed in a bassinet, imprisoned in a mummy-tight blue blanket.
Pilar turned to us slowly, fatigued. “What brings you here, cuz? Need some practice staring down your nose?”
“I came to make sure my favorite cousin was doing okay,” Reya said, her voice flat. “Because I love you. So much.”
Pilar said, “Really?”
Pilar wasn’t being snarky about Reya’s sarcastic shot. She sounded hopeful. My one and only hospital stay was a tonsils thing when I was five, and I remembered being terrified whenever Mom left the room.
Was it any less terrifying for Pilar now? Where was her dad? The kid’s father?
Her new baby gurgled, then broke into a high-pitched cry.
She forced a smile, motioned to her son. “Reya, bring him to me please.”
Reya went rigid. “Are you sure? He’s so small.”
“You won’t break him. Babies are tougher than you think. That’s what your mom told me.”
Reya slid past me to scoop the kid up. When she did, his shrieking cut off like someone hit the pause button. He proceeded to shove his whole fist in his mouth. He was pale brown, and a knit cap covered most of his hair, though a few slick black strands slipped out. Big, green eyes stretched wide like they might swallow his head.
I gave him a little wave as Reya handed him to his mother. “What’s his name?” I asked.
“Absolut Citron Rios.”
I winced. “Um, that’s—i
t’s—”
Pilar cracked up. A second later, Reya did, too, and pointed to a card taped to the bassinet. Ricardo Elijah Rios.
Elijah.
Reya blinked away fresh tears. “Best name I ever heard.”
The kid got bored with his fist and resumed his shrieking.
“He’s hungry,” Pilar and Reya said together. A look passed between them, real understanding.
Pilar said, “Nick, would you mind stepping out? I have to—” She motioned to her chest.
“Say no more.” To Reya, “I’m going for a walk.”
She nodded, understanding that I wasn’t strolling for the cardio. I closed Pilar’s door and headed to the nurse’s station.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m on the wrong floor. Is there any way for you to look up the room numbers for Lorenz Murphy and Dustin Burke?”
Lorenz wasn’t an option. He was in the intensive care unit, immediate relatives only. Dustin, however, was on the second floor, room 214. I cracked the door into gray darkness.
“Who is it?” Dustin asked in a scratchy voice. “Who’s there?”
I slid inside. “It’s Nick.”
My hand hovered over the light switch, and he said, “No! Leave it off. I want it dark.”
My eyes adjusted. Dustin sat on his bed, in a shadow shell. The television glow flickered over him, bandages heavy on the left side of his head. His left arm was cast and in a sling, the fingers sticking from a plaster glove like fleshy plants poking through snow. More gauze covered his neck and lower jaw, where the skin looked mad infected. The pupil of his left eye, the one that was bruised before the accident, now seemed to float in cherry Kool-Aid. I fought a grimace.
I didn’t hide my reaction as well as I thought. He said, “I know. Pretty hideous.” He laughed the same humorless laugh from the last time I saw him.
“What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
“I don’t mind, if you answer a question for me. How are Lorenz and Carrey doing? No one’s telling me anything. I would’ve gone to find their rooms myself, but I get dizzy when I stand up.”
I know he said more, but I was stuck on the Lorenz and Carrey question. He didn’t know? His red eye looked through me before tears spilled. The gush came so fast I thought he had splashed me. “Damn, dude. Your poker face sucks. Both of them?”
I’m ashamed to say I reacted to the “poker face sucks” comment first. After my time in WitSec, I took offense, as if I were in the NBA and someone told me I had a weak jump shot. I processed the rest—what he was asking me to confirm—next.
“Carrey died last night. Lorenz is in intensive care. I don’t know how he’s doing.” I got angry. Someone should’ve told him before now. Why’d I have to do it? With everything else I was dealing with. “Tell me what happened to you all last night.”
Dustin shook his head, flinging tears sideways, dampening his bandages. “You should forget this now. Forget everything we talked about. Jesus, Carrey?”
“I’m not forgetting anything. The news said you were run off the road by a dark SUV. Is that true?”
He nodded.
“You didn’t get a look at the driver?”
“No. And I never want to. Leave it alone.”
“Do you think this has something to do with what you told me, the stuff with your dad?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dustin.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t think this has to do with the stuff I told you because I didn’t tell you everything.”
That, I wasn’t expecting. “Explain.”
“I told you what I thought about Eli because, I don’t know, it seemed—relevant? Is that the right word?”
I couldn’t tell if the question was about his head injury or poor vocabulary. “That depends on you.”
“Right. Well, the day I got caught snooping in my dad’s office, he wasn’t alone. There was a guy with him; I’d seen him around the house a couple of times. Only, he was pissed, him and my dad were yelling at each other.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything specific. All of sudden, they were in my face. When they came in, the guy started pointing at me and yelling at my dad. I think the beating I got later was more about Dad being embarrassed over the guy than me snooping.”
The guy.
My dad knew the mayor, had some kind of shady dealings with him involving crime in Stepton. At some point they’d had a disagreement, evident by Mayor Burke’s creepy interest in me and Dad’s insistence that he’d “take care of” Burke.
While Dustin talked, I ran the timeline down in my head. Monday, I found Eli’s body. Tuesday, I met Dustin in the park, his first attempt at clueing me in on his shady dad. Wednesday, the mayor took me for a ride and Dustin got a shiny new black eye. Most likely, this meeting between “the guy” and Mayor Burke happened sometime on Tuesday. Enough time for the mayor to work off some steam by abusing his son, then deciding to send a message to “the guy” by picking me up the next day.
“Who was the man yelling at your dad?”
I waited for it, waited to hear, “I never got his name, but he’s a tall, black guy. Maybe in his forties. Muscular, mean looking. Come to think of it, Nick, he looks a lot like you if you were older.”
After a labored sigh, “It’s a guy people around here don’t talk about much. He runs stuff in town, I mean, the bad stuff. Drugs and things. His name is Miguel Rios.”
CHAPTER 33
WAIT. WHAT?
Was he talking about Pilar’s dad? Reya’s uncle?
He said the name again. “Miguel Rios. He’s badass, Nick. Like a for-real gangsta.”
I felt like the hospital was tilting. Nothing made sense anymore. “What kind of business would your dad have with a guy like that?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted his broken arm. “But I don’t think it’s going well.”
I’d heard “dark SUV” on the news, connected it to Dad’s beef with the mayor, and thought I was Sherlock Holmes. This was something else entirely. Reya’s uncle was some kind of boss?
I remembered what Reya had told me the day I phoned her at the funeral home, how odd it sounded. Once Eli got these tiny microphones off the internet and put them in our uncle’s car. I thought Miguel was going to . . . You just don’t do that to Miguel.
What was going on here?
This was so far over my head. I needed some advice, like now. Of course, I ended up giving Dustin advice, because I’m so qualified. “Dustin, don’t tell this to anyone else.”
“I didn’t even want to tell you. You’re like a bulldog, dude.”
One thing Deputy Marshal Bertram had stressed to my family during our years in the Program was the burden of information. Everyone thinks they can keep a secret, particularly a dangerous one. Most people are wrong. “I’m serious. Until I get back to you, keep this between us.”
“Keep what between you?” The politician’s boom of the mayor’s voice made me want to jump.
Dustin sputtered, “D-Dad?”
I faced the mayor, which makes me sound braver than I felt. Given an option, I simply preferred not having him behind me.
“Keep what between you?” he said again, spittle flying.
I didn’t say anything. Neither did Dustin. Fury flashed on the mayor’s face like lightning inside a cloud. He pushed me aside—not hard, more like a nudge—but I felt the muscles in his forearm flex, latent power that could’ve sent me flying if he chose. I got a small fraction of what Dustin must see all too frequently.
“Get out of here, Nick! Don’t come back. You’re to have no contact with my son again.”
I hesitated, fearing for Dustin.
“Now!” the mayor roared.
A passing nurse stuck her head in, concerned. “What’s going on in here?”
“Nothing.” I slipped by her and kept going down the hall. I hated the way I left, like a punk, but what could I do? Throw the boxing champ mayor out of
his own son’s room? Me and Dustin take him down together? Maybe in the movies.
I texted Reya from the elevator to let her know I’d be in the lobby, then took a seat in the waiting area, away from the other kids. I wasn’t in the mood to hug or join in a prayer or do any of the stuff that was a thousand times more normal than what I’d just experienced.
They could keep their moral support. I wanted to talk to a killer.
I lied to her. Again.
I told Reya that Dustin hit his head and was too weak to give me any good information. She bought it. Why wouldn’t she? I was trustworthy Nick.
If what Dustin said about her uncle Miguel being Stepton’s version of Kreso Maric was true, Reya already knew about it. But she didn’t know about the thread-thin link between her uncle’s activities and Eli’s death. If there was one. I couldn’t risk her going ballistic and confronting Miguel until I knew more. No telling what that could lead to. Better to keep her in the dark, for now.
“Back to original plan?” she said.
“Original plan?”
“The J-Room. Eli’s backups. Whispertown, the key to everything.”
“I guess.” Whispertown might really be the Mayor’s construction project. All the dying could be something else entirely. Nothing made sense.
“You wanna come back to my house? Mami will probably go visit Pilar again. You can explain that whole ‘vanilla ice cream’ thing.”
The words sounded good, but there was no enthusiasm behind them. Another teen was dead. She proposed a make-out session as a distraction. Something to tarnish last night’s perfect end. No thanks.
“My mom told me to be home.” A lie. “I’ve got chores.” Lie.
“Okay.” She didn’t sound disappointed.
She gave me a light, passionless kiss when she dropped me off. While our lips touched, I wondered if I’d saved enough allowance money to buy a disposable phone.
In my room, I logged on to my computer to start the process me and Bricks had rigged for when we needed to talk, a system he insisted on after we went into the Program, when I called him from a stolen cell in San Diego. I could still hear the rage in his voice. Tony, you’re in California! I can tell from the area code. You never let me know where you are. Never! You understand?
