by Steven Gould
Caffeine, to my relief, was not at the meet.
As soon as my events were done, Mom said, “I’m going to go check on Grandmother.” She gave me a hug and said, “Joe does have potential.”
I hung out with the rest of the team until it was time for the van to leave.
“Tonight?” Joe said. “We’re back in town about 7:30.” We were standing close together, watching as the others loaded their gear.
I scratched my nose and, while my mouth was covered, said, “Come to my house. We’ll shoot pool.”
I waved goodbye to the team at large, including Joe, and then, out of sight, jumped to the Yukon for a good soak in the hot tub.
This beat the crap out of four hours in the van, but I got to thinking about spending some of that time with Joe in the hot tub.
I had to get out of the tub, flushed and overheated. Joe wouldn’t be back in New Prospect for three more hours. I moved another bookshelf from the cabin to the house, and started stocking it with some of my favorites. When I was finished, it was still two hours until the team van would get back.
What the hell.
* * *
I looked over the broken walls and saw three cars parked alongside the garage/clubhouse. One of them was Caffeine’s tricked-out Honda with the crumpled right fender. Another was a Toyota with a lowered suspension. I didn’t recognize the make of the last one. It was an old Datsun, whatever that is.
I jumped to the alley side of the garage roof and crouched, scanning for more cars, but it was just the three. I’d expected the black Hummer. I returned to the skylight. The sky was dark enough that I didn’t think I’d be silhouetted.
None of the figures below looked happy. They were hunched in on themselves and Caffeine was gesturing sharply. I wished I could hear what they were saying.
Why not?
It was all too easy to recall the closet with the camera. I could hardly think about it without shuddering.
I appeared standing next to the camera mount in the dark closet. Light came into the closet from around the camera and the edges around the badly hung door. I could hear their muffled voices though the wall.
I moved down toward the door and heard, “—gonna tell Jason?” That was Caffeine talking. “’Cause I don’t think you’ll like the results. Part of the deal is that we get our share because we’re taking care of the problems. Jason has to step in, then our percentage goes down.”
Hector’s voice was so strident that I had trouble recognizing it. “Yeah? I’m not seeing a way to take care of this particular problem! What do you suggest? Silver bullets? Garlic?”
I’d been nervous up to then, ready to jump away at the slightest sound, but now my lips tugged up at the corners. Garlic? Maybe they’d pull out the crucifixes, too. That gave me ideas for the next time I wanted to make an impression.
Caffeine said, “Shut your mouth. Someone is playing tricks, that’s all. I thought it was that new girl, but she was in a skirt when I saw her at school.”
Calvin agreed. “She’s too small. The thing in the woods was bigger. It tossed us around like we were toys”
Caffeine sighed. “Maybe it’s the Sureños.”
“No way!” That was my friend from the coffee shop stairway—Marius. “They don’t give a shit as long as we stick to ecstasy, pot, and ’ludes.”
“Well, maybe then it’s the Norteños moving in?” Caffeine said.
Marius laughed, but not in an amused way. “Was it bullets? Or machetes? Then it isn’t the Norteños or the Sureños.”
Calvin cleared his throat. “You just don’t want to tell Jason ’cause he won’t believe it. He’ll say we’ve been using our own product. I say we need to let him know what we’re up against.”
And Hector said, “And what is that? What are we up against? Do you know? DO YOU KNOW? WHAT IF—”
I heard a slap and a gasp.
Caffeine’s voice said mildly, “Don’t do that. We don’t need to be fighting each other.”
Hector, almost as strident as before, said, “Jesus! Marius, you asshole!”
Caffeine’s voice raised. “Hector, shut the fuck up. Grow a pair, already!”
Hector mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out.
“Pussy,” said Marius.
Caffeine went on. “We need to increase the pressure on my three little boyfriends. And they need to do more than just carry the stuff in. We need them to start selling.”
“They’re refusing to carry it in,” Calvin said. “What makes you think they’ll go for selling?”
“We’ll up the pressure,” said Caffeine.
“More than a broken finger? A busted nose?”
“Time to bring them back together,” Caffeine said. I heard her pat the couch. “Right here, where it all began.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Marius said. “Between the broken finger and the broken nose, you think they’re going to come anywhere near you?”
Caffeine said, “Sure. ’Cause I’m going to offer them what they want—the video.”
* * *
The team van got back into cell coverage about an hour short of New Prospect. Joe began texting me: U sure u want to hang at ur place?
Why?
Privacy.
I remembered some of my thoughts in the hot tub and blushed. But it was too soon. And we would need privacy for?
It was five minutes before his next text. Ur house ok.
No witnesses? Your pool skilz that bad?
Are we playing for money?
For kisses, I texted.
How does that work?
Loser has to kiss the winner.
He responded immediately. How humiliating. Not.
I grinned. Winner has to kiss the loser?
Ur doin it wrong.
No kisses?
Let’s not be hasty. Am willing to experiment with osculatory scoring system.
For science!
For science.
* * *
So, you know that bit where one person is showing another person how to shoot pool so they put their arms around them from behind to guide their hands on the pool cue and talk right next to their ear?
We did that.
We also changed the scoring system. Every time one of us missed a shot, they had to kiss the other.
Turns out we’re terrible pool shots.
Later, we got serious about the pool. He was better than I was and he did show me how to improve my aim.
During a snack break, upstairs, we had a nice discussion with Dad about The Three Musketeers, the actual book, and all the different movies made from it. Joe had seen the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks silent version but both of them agreed that the best was the pair of Richard Lester movies made in the seventies.
Then we went back to the pool table. I did pull him into my bedroom, briefly, for a review of some of my favorite titles. And no, that’s not a euphemism.
We were both blinking and yawning by eleven and he said, reluctantly, “If I don’t go home soon, I’m going to drive off the road on my way.”
I walked him up the hill to the car. It was snowing lightly and I loved the way snowflakes caught in his hair.
“Tomorrow?” he asked between kisses.
“I don’t know,” I said. I felt his muscles tense and added, “I’ve got this Caffeine thing.”
“What?”
“You know my three freshman?”
“Yeah. Grant and his two buddies. Uh, Tony and…”
“Dakota. Yeah, those guys. Caffeine is after them. They used to run packages for her, but they refused to do any more.”
Joe nodded. “Heard that. That was what the bloody nose was about. And the broken finger, right?”
“Right. And there’s other stuff, too. Anyway, I need to work on that tomorrow.”
“What do you mean by ‘work on that’?” He sounded worried. “You’re not going near Caffeine and her peeps, are you?”
I didn’t want to lie to him. “I’m
just keeping an eye on the kids. If I need help, I’ll phone you, okay?”
“So it’s like a stakeout? I could help.”
“Help distract me. Remember our deal?” I pointed back and forth between us. “‘We’ are a secret for the next few weeks.”
“What is the other stuff? Between Caffeine and the boys?”
I said, “It’s not my secret to tell.”
“Ah. Did she do the sex-video thing, again?”
My mouth dropped open. “So, not the first time, eh?” A horrible thought hit me. “Not you?”
He took a step away, “Heard that’s how they got Hector into the gang last year. Not that he wasn’t willing. But me? Puh-lease. Give me some credit for taste, if nothing else.”
“I thought guys liked big boobs.”
He reached toward my chest, “I like yours.”
I knocked his hand aside. “We’re saying goodnight, remember?”
“Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
We kissed again and he finally opened the door of the VW. The engine barely turned over, but then started. He rolled down the window and I kissed him once more.
“I’ll try not to do anything stupid,” I said. “But you know how it is when you start a relationship.” I bit his lip gently. “Anything might happen.”
He groaned and drove off, snowflakes swirling in the car’s wake.
* * *
Grant spilled the beans without much prodding when I called him.
“She said two PM. At the garage.”
“You going?” I was trying for neutral, like Mom’s therapist, nonjudging voice.
“She said if we didn’t, she was posting it to a public website and broadcasting the URL all over town. But that if we did come, she’d give us the only copies.”
“Do you believe that?”
He let out a long sigh. “No. But Dakota wants to believe it. Tony is freaking out big time.”
I tried one more time. “What’s on the tape that they’re so afraid of?”
He disconnected.
Little shit.
At least I wouldn’t have to watch the boys. I could confine myself to watching the garage.
* * *
It was still snowing when I jumped to the clubhouse roof at one. Caffeine’s dented Honda was parked by the side door. I didn’t want to risk looking through the skylight. It was all white above. It would be all too easy for someone to notice my head against the snow, helmet and all.
I was considering jumping down into the closet when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
I jumped back to the middle of the lot, in the ruined house, and fumbled the phone out of my pocket. It was Grant. I hooked the balaclava down from over my mouth and hit the answer button with my nose since my gloved fingers had no effect on the touchscreen.
“Hello, Grant.”
“Uh—” he said and stuck there, making sounds that aspired to be words but failed.
“Deep breath, Grant. What’s wrong?”
“Tony. He just hung up on me.”
“Ironic, that. Like you hung up on me earlier?”
“Not exactly. I think he’s taken something.”
“Stolen?”
“No! I think he’s swallowed something. I think he’s trying to kill himself!”
My stomach lurched. “Did you call his parents?”
“No answer. His family are evangelicals, though. They spend most of Sunday at church. Tony didn’t go today. Told them he was sick.”
“What makes you think he took something?”
“I called him to talk about what we were going to do, with Caffeine and all, and he was, like, calm—well, no longer freaking out. When I talked to him earlier, he was practically sobbing.” Grant exhaled sharply. “And then he said it didn’t matter what anybody did. Not anymore.” And then Grant said in a rush, “And he hung up on me and he’s not answering his cell and not answering the landline!”
“When did you last talk to him?”
“Uh, I’ve been trying the phones over and over. I guess twenty minutes?”
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
I could hear his mouth working but he didn’t manage words. “I’ll check on him,” I said.
* * *
Tony’s house was in the residential section of Fourth Street, south of downtown. I’d followed him and Dakota there after the incident in the alley. I jumped to the corner and, despite the snow, spotted the huge blue spruce that marked the house. I rang the doorbell and banged on the door, but no one answered.
Right.
I tried the doorknob but the door was locked. The drapes were drawn over the front windows, but a side window gave me a glimpse of the kitchen, and I jumped inside.
“Tony!” I yelled.
I tore through the house. I found his parents’ room and two other bedrooms that clearly belonged to sisters, then came to what should’ve been another bedroom door.
It was locked.
I went outside and located the room’s windows. They were blocked by drawn blinds. I jumped back to the hallway and tried to kick the door open. Nearly sprained my ankle.
Fine.
I stood across the hall from the door, tucked my chin, and jumped in place, adding ten miles an hour toward the door.
The door splintered at the lock and I tumbled into the room, the breath leaving my lungs in a huge gasp, but the armor I wore did its job, spreading the force. I scrambled back to my feet.
Tony was across the bed, face up, mouth open. I shook him. He didn’t respond. He was breathing shallowly. I slapped him across the face and his head flopped over. His eyelids fluttered but he was still out. I ground my knuckle across his sternum through his T-shirt. His eyes opened very briefly and then closed again.
His pupils were tiny dots.
I looked around. What did he take?
There wasn’t anything on the bed or the floor, but a half-open door led to a bathroom. In the sink was a prescription bottle, empty, lid lying on the floor. I snatched it up: Vicodin ES, 60 tablets 7.5 mg of hydrocodone bitartrate, 750 mg of acetaminophen. It was his mom’s prescription, apparently, for back pain.
I stuffed the bottle in my jacket pocket and, back in the bedroom, pulled Tony into a sitting position, then over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He was no lightweight. It took everything I had to struggle upright.
I’d seen the hospital a few times. It was on 87, between downtown and the municipal administration complex, but I really couldn’t recall it well enough, so I jumped to the alley behind Main, where it crossed 87. I jumped down the sidewalk to the hospital in fifty-yard chunks, about as far as I could see through the falling snow. Hopefully the snow would confuse anybody who glimpsed my progress. I staggered up the last ten yards of the ER driveway and through the automatic doors.
A man’s voice said, “We need a gurney!” and then two figures in scrubs were beside me, taking Tony’s weight off my shoulders and lowering him to the ground.
One of them, a woman, said, “What happened?”
I kept my head down as I pulled the bottle out of my jacket. I used my deep, hoarse voice. “Suicide attempt. This is what he took. I don’t know how many were still in the bottle. He was talking on the phone twenty minutes ago, so it was recent.”
There were security cameras. I kept my face averted. My hair was completely under the balaclava and the helmet, and while I didn’t have the goggles over my eyes, they were up on the edge of the helmet, obscuring my face from above like a visor. The balaclava wasn’t over my mouth, but it was up over my chin. The weather justified it.
The woman read the label and then yelled toward the back of the room. “Drug overdose. Get the gastric kit!” She checked Tony’s eyes. To the man beside her, she said, “Better get the Narcan and the Acetadote out, too.”
Two more people arrived with a gurney, which they collapsed to floor level. Three of them picked Tony up and eased him onto it, then raised it. They began rolling it back toward the treatment ro
om even before it locked in the upright position. The woman turned to me and said, “Anything else? He didn’t fall or anything?”
“Found him on his bed. The bottle was in his bathroom sink.”
She looked out through the doors, then gestured at my helmet. “You bring him on a motorcycle?”
“Of course not.”
She looked down at the bottle again. “Well, I’m guessing his name isn’t Gladys.”
“It’s Tony. I think those are his mother’s. The address is right.”
“Not your brother then?”
“No. A friend of his called and asked me to check on him, worried. Because I was close. He was the one who talked to him in the last half hour.”
“Where are his parents?”
“Church. I don’t know which one.”
“Okay.” She pointed toward a double set of glass doors. “Go in there and tell the reception clerk as much as you know.” She walked back to treatment.
I passed through the first set of doors, and jumped away.
TWENTY-NINE
Davy: Grainy Image
The image on the computer screen was grainy. Millie had shown it to him without context or preamble.
He studied it. There was a palm tree visible on the corner and California plates on the Mercedes and BMWs parked against the sidewalk. The stores across the way looked like ritzy boutiques. There was a time/date stamp which put it at the previous Thursday afternoon.
He focused on the two figures walking on the sidewalk, then swore.
Millie nodded. “Yeah. This is from a bank lobby in LA—the Venice Beach area. Last Friday.”
“Get this from Becca?”
Millie nodded. “Right.” She tapped the screen with her finger. “Recognize him?”
Davy shook his head. “Who is he?”
She shook hers in response. “Don’t know. The FBI hasn’t ID’d him, either. Not yet. Just wondered if you’d seen him at that building in LA”
“The Rhiarti building? No.” The image, taken by a camera pointed diagonally across the sidewalk, showed both Hyacinth and the man in three-quarter profile. The man had wide shoulders and a narrow waist and his posture was balanced. “Looks like one of the guys I’d be more likely to see at Stroller and Associates, down in Costa Rica.”
