“Whatever, Rev,” Cassiopeia snapped, sashaying away. “Losers are as losers do. Just see if you can keep from grabbing too many others on your way down with you.”
The bell rang. As the crowd reluctantly broke up, Dalton wiped his forehead with his tie, wondering if he’d been able to hide how impressed he was with Cassiopeia’s new look.
CHAPTER 4
WHEREIN DALTON GOES TO THE SHOP FOR A MAJOR TUNE-UP
When Dalton finally found his second-period class, he was late. He put his hand on the doorknob as a Scam Wow zipped up behind him, looking like a sideways ax. “Pssst.”
“What?”
“Here’s my offer: School pass. Totally legit. Fifty bucks.”
He held up a piece of paper signed by Inference and Miss Honey Bucket.
“No thanks.”
“Okay, forty. Only forty bucks.”
Dalton walked into the room. The teacher, a tiny Kleenex of a woman in an enormous cable-knit sweater, said nothing. There was an empty seat in back, right next to the girl with the blond pixie. Dalton sat and took out his notebook, listening as the teacher recounted the short, flaming arc of the Etruscan civilization. They were good with pottery, but not so hot at predicting the behavior of volcanoes. As the class settled into its first layer of bored despair, someone cut a One-Cheek Sneak. There were giggles and moans as it hovered like a rogue weather pattern. Some kids moved closer to the windows. Macy used the commotion to hand Dalton an elaborately folded note. It said, in her adorably proper handwriting:
—It’s you, isn’t it?
Dalton took out his pen and wrote:
—Yeah, it’s me.
They continued to pass the note back and forth.
—Thank Bob you’re finally here.
—Not sure Bob has much to do with it. Speaking of money, do you have my deposit? I’ve already had a few… expenses.
Macy wrapped the butterfly hairpin in the next note. Dalton had mailed it to her so he’d know who his client was, an idea that had actually worked. It was going straight in the Private Dick Handbook.
—I’ll pay you after class.
Dalton pocketed the butterfly and wrote back.
—Good. Also, I need you to pull my coat on some things before I can get to work.
—Pull your coat?
Dalton gave her a sideways glance to see if she was kidding, but Macy was staring straight ahead, cheekbones lightly shadowed in profile, eyes betraying nothing as the teacher glanced over. God, she was cute.
—Give me more information. You were right about Inference’s safe. Someone jacked it for sure. And I need to see the suicide note.
—Oh. I guess we can meet out at the bus stop after school. But be careful. You really made an impression on Jeffrey.
Dalton nodded. It was disconcerting to be sitting next to her after all the nights they’d spent IMing, talking about the case. Her mostly talking him into taking it. At first he’d refused; articles in the Salt River Courier made it sound like the police had it pretty much sewn up. A suicide. But then she’d mentioned Inference. And the rumors about Inference’s safe. It was more cash than he’d ever had a chance to sneeze at, even on a percentage basis. Dalton already felt like he knew Macy. And he could tell she felt the same. The flirty shorthand they’d developed had made it just that much harder to refuse.
—Don’t worry about Chuff. Anyway, you can tell me all this later.
—But where do we go? What if someone sees?
Miss Splonge turned around mid-ramble, knee-deep in the origins of Dionysian cults. She stared directly at Macy. She stared at the note. She stared at Dalton. Then she went back to writing on the board.
—Don’t worry about it. I’ll give you a ride. You can pose as my tutor.
—I’m not very good at posing.
—Yeah, but you’re a Euclidian, aren’t you? Perfect cover story. Besides, I really need to get my grades up, or I’m not going to be around long enough to do you any good.
—Okay. I meant to mention, by the way, there’s someone else you need to watch out for. A bunch of someone elses.
—Who?
—Pinker Casket.
—What’s a pinker casket? Dalton wrote, as the paper was torn away. He fished for his wallet, ready to slip Splonge a twenty, but it wasn’t Splonge. It was a tall rocker with permed hair and a cheesy leather jacket. He had rings in his lip and eyebrow and nose. He had studs punched in his ears. He wore a shirt that had a picture of a pink casket and said PINKER CASKET SO TOTALLY ROCKS!
“Love notes?” The guy laughed, reading in a flowery voice: “Oh my darling, even one minute is one minute too long to be away from you…. ”
Dalton grabbed the paper back and palmed it to Macy, who slipped it into her skirt.
“Hey, Miss Splonge?” the rocker asked. “How did this purse get in here?”
The teacher turned from the chalkboard. “Mister Freeley, please sit down.”
“Call me Mick.” He smiled as the second rocker got up and stood on the other side of Dalton. His shirt said PINKY TUSCADERO DIES TONIGHT. He also wore black lipstick and looked like he’d woken up in the middle of a middling Victorian novel.
“Yeah, maybe this dangle found his way into the wrong class, Miss Splonge!”
“I don’t think—”
“This probe could have taken the wrong hallway! He could have, you know, even taken the wrong highway exit.”
“Please, if you—”
“This knob could have gotten the wrong schedule! Check your master schedule, Miss Splonge! He might even be enrolled in a totally different school!”
“Yeah, like that one across town for motards!”
“Boys?” the teacher asked. “Can you sit down? Please?”
The door banged open. A lo-fi buzz filled the room, as if someone jammed a nail clipper into one of the sockets. A Plath whimpered. A New Skid joined her. Out of the shadows emerged a third rocker, taller than the others, with a black sheaf of hair gelled up off his forehead. Tattoos ringed his neck like chains, except the links were Latin cursive. Dalton knew enough to half-translate, something about trees and the blood of tyrants.
“I’ll need to see your pass,” Miss Splonge said. The rocker handed it to her impaled on the end of a long black fingernail. Out in the hallway, a Scam Wow was bent over, holding his bleeding mouth.
“Your papers seem to be in order, but you’re tardy.”
“Funny,” the rocker said. “I don’t feel tardy.”
People snickered uncertainly as the rocker walked down the aisle, cowboy boots clacking, until he stood directly in front of Dalton. His T-shirt said THE CASKET OF AMONTADILDO. Up close, he was ugly and handsome at the same time, with a long face and ludicrous sideburns, looking either eighteen or fifty depending on the light, like Rasputin’s younger and older brother simultaneously. He looked like he’d spent six straight months on a tour bus without seeing the sun, or maybe six straight months in prison sharpening his teeth with a chunk of concrete.
THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #9
Does a showdown with this character smell like hospital time followed by about ten thousand dollars worth of Freudian analysis?
Um, yeah.
“I’m not getting up,” Dalton said. “If that’s what you’re waiting for.”
“He don’t want your desk,” Mick Freeley said.
“Duh,” the other rocker said. Dalton squirmed, finding it hard to believe he’d let himself get flanked so easily. What old-school Dick lets himself get boxed in like a two-dollar Happy Meal? It was the girl. Macy. He was paying too much attention to her. To her cute neck and her cute hands. Totally unprofessional.
“I’m Kurt Tarot,” Kurt Tarot said, his accent pure industrial mishap. “But since this is my school, you can call me zir.”
The word zir echoed around the room, which was otherwise entirely silent. Everyone waited for Dalton to respond. To get up and throw spinning kicks. To bust out the perfect line. To radio in air cover
.
“Please don’t drink my blood, sir,” he finally said.
No one laughed.
Except Kurt Tarot. He waved his fingers at Miss Splonge, who gulped and went back to writing on the board. The other rockers pinned Dalton’s legs beneath the tiny desk. There was nowhere to go, no way to make a move. In Forty Leagues Under Berlin, Lex Cole had been trapped in a German pillbox with nothing but a spoon. In Right Cross, Mob Boss, he’d fought off a gang of hopped-up Zoot Suiters with a leather wing tip. Neither scenario was much help now. Kurt Tarot leaned over and began to whisper. His tongue was pierced with a huge silver skull. The skull had two ruby eyes that blinked with each word, the hunk of metal forcing a z sound each time it caught on his glottal downslope.
“Word is you’re here about The Body. I wonder who it was azked you to come around, get all nosy in everyone’s business, Dick? I know it wasn’t me, Dick. And if I didn’t ask, Dick, then you shouldn’t have come, Dick.”
“Totally shouldn’t have,” Mick Freeley agreed, his eyes lined with mascara and the desire to hurt.
The rest of the class had already gotten up and leaned against the walls to watch. Some kids came in from the hallway. The Scam Wow, with a handful of folded bills and a swollen mouth, was taking action. Odds on Dalton? Long. The Scam Wow slipped some bills under the apple on Miss Splonge’s desk, and she turned back to the board. Macy stood by the door. Dalton was amazed by how expressive her face was. Just a slight lifting of her chin clearly said, Should I try to get someone?
Dalton shook his head. Who?
Her eyes flashed. I’m sorry I got you into this.
His eyes flashed back. I got myself into this.
“So who waz it?” Tarot asked, the skull making an insect click against the back of his teeth. “Some parent hired you? Somebody for some reason thinks they have a conzcience?”
Dalton shrugged. “Sorry, Count Chocula, but I’ve got zero clue what you’re yammering about.”
“Time to play you a knuckle song,” Tarot said. Mick Freeley kicked the desk leg, causing Dalton to sprawl onto the floor.
THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #10
Knuckle song?
Dalton tried to get to his feet. Kurt Tarot spun around and got him into a headlock, forearms like steel cable from playing endless power chords. The other Caskets began to punch and kick, wearing heavy rings that dug between Dalton’s ribs. He yelped in pain, managing to catch Mick Freeley in the gut with his heel. There was a satisfying hurk. Dalton pulled the jeweled butterfly from his pocket and stuck the pin deep into the second rocker’s hand, which made him jump back and swear like he’d been stung by a wasp. Kurt Tarot bore down, his breath like copper pipe and spot-welds. Dalton could hear a Splongey voice above it all: “Mwah, mwah, mwah, pottery mwah, cartography mwah, Zeus mwah…”
“I know… where the… hundred thousand is…”
Tarot’s grip lessened for a second. He put his teeth right in Dalton’s ear, like he was getting ready to gnaw it off.
“Where?”
“You… killed… Wesley… Payne.”
Tarot’s arms clamped harder. A gurgle rose in Dalton’s throat, stayed there.
“Everyone has to pick a side,” Tarot whispered. “Even if it’s suicide.”
Dalton’s face tingled from a lack of oxygen. A little cartoon vampire appeared on the tip of his nose and did a little cartoon jig, adjusting its cape with a deep bow. Just as Dalton passed out, he swore he heard a bang, bang, bang. It could have been gunshots. Or it could have been his vertebrae snapping.
CHAPTER 5
YES, IT’S A FLASHBACK
Dalton stuck out his thumb. Landon laughed and plopped his little brother onto the back of his motorcycle. Then he plopped the helmet onto Dalton’s head, a few sizes too big, so that he looked like a skinny, pimply lollipop. It was the middle of Dalton’s freshman year. Landon was a senior. It had been a great few months, at least as far as Dalton was concerned. Being the younger brother of the star running back of Tehachapi High’s football team sucked in some ways, like constantly being reminded that you not only weren’t a star yourself, you didn’t even play because your mother thought you were too skinny. And that she was right. Dalton joined the chess team instead, and even though he was the strongest player, it was still like saying you were the least Assy out of a van full of Assbournes. On the other hand, being Landon’s younger brother meant an endless train of sexy girls laughed and flirted around the house in their tight outfits and complicated perfumes and giggle-twisted bangs. Dalton got to hang out while Landon and his friends goofed off in the backyard, listening to music, punching each other’s arms and saying “No effing way! Get outta here! She did what?”
Landon’s friends all called Dalton “little bro.” They didn’t tell him to leave them alone, didn’t squeeze the loose skin on his chest and twist, didn’t push him to the ground and laugh like what happened most days at school. After games, Dalton’s father would replay the entire thing aloud from memory, adding in details and comments, smacking the steering wheel every time Landon faked some kid half out of his jock. Dalton would be in the back, next to Turd Unit’s child seat, playing a parallel fantasy reel in which he was the one barreling through the secondary, while his mother endlessly searched the radio for an acceptable song.
Landon strapped on his football helmet, since they had only one real motorcycle one, and got on the bike as well.
“When are they going to make you captain?” Dalton asked, unable to fit his arms around his brother’s muscular back.
“Don’t want to be captain.”
Landon fiddled with the choke, jamming the kick start and trying to get his old Kawasaki to cough to life. They were going out to the lake together, Landon having talked Dalton into ditching school.
“Why not?”
“I dunno,” Landon said, getting off the bike. He had longish hair, which the coach hated but didn’t dare give him crap about, and was always flipping it out of his eyes. “Unless it’s Captain Kirk, captain just doesn’t feel all that cool, you know?”
“Not really.”
Landon fiddled with the bike some more and then gave up. “I guess we’re not going anywhere, dude. Sorry.”
Dalton slid down and took the helmet off. “That’s okay.”
“Didn’t really want to go swimming anyway.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nah. Wanted to talk to you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. Something important we gotta get straight.”
Landon sat in the grass and Dalton joined him, not liking the way it pricked the underside of his legs. His brother peeled a tall weed and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. Dalton thought about doing the same, but didn’t want to be a copycat, and also sort of worried a dog might have taken a piss there.
“I hitched up.”
“To who, Donna? Or wait, that redhead? Mary?”
Landon laughed, throwing his head back. His teeth gleamed. “No, dude. Hitched up with the jarheads. I’m going Full Metal Marine.”
Dalton stared at his brother, his face suddenly cold. “You’re leaving?”
“Guess so, man. Unless they’re gonna let me do boot camp in the backyard.”
Dalton nodded, just able to make the urge to cry stop in time.
“When?”
“Four months. Soon as I graduate.”
“Huh. How come?”
Landon kicked off his boots and stuck his toes into the dirt. “Maybe you hadn’t heard, but there’s a war on. The Front called and I answered the phone.”
“Why?”
“Had to make a decision. No scholarship coming. Jobs around here? What, like delivering pizza? Landscaping? No, thanks.”
“What about football?”
“Sure, in a small town like this. In college? Those bad boys’d eat me for breakfast. Too small, too slow. Besides, even if I thought I could make it, no one’s offering. Except the military. They’re offering plenty.
”
“Offering what? To get you killed?”
Landon’s eyes narrowed. He pulled a long string off the frayed end of his shorts. “Anyway, broha, what I wanted to talk about was Mom and Dad.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be making decent money, sending some home. But, obviously, I’m not going to be here to deal. That falls on you. Kicking in a little extra with a job, plus helping Mom out with Captain La-Z-Boy.”
“What about him?”
“You know what about him.”
Their father had been laid off from BoxxMart, hurt lowering forty-pound tubs of applesauce by hand after a forklift had broken down. They’d pulled his insurance and pink-slipped him for not filling out the right forms.
Dalton frowned. “When his back is better he’ll find something else.”
Landon spat out the blade of grass and selected another one. Birds flew over their heads in a ragged V.
“There’s nothing wrong with Dad’s back.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, he doesn’t need that brace anymore. He needs that brace like he needs another remote control.”
Dalton looked down at his lap. An ant crawled across his thigh. He thought about mashing it and then just flicked it away.
Landon tapped his forehead. “It’s nothing you need to get all uptight about, but Dad’s not going to be leaving the house much any time soon. Dad’s going to be sitting in the dark a lot, cause that’s where his head is at. In the meantime, Mom’s gonna need you to get up off your ham. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” Dalton said.
“Good.”
“But, like what do I do?”
“Pudding Patrol, for one.”
“So I bring dessert.”
“It’s not just pudding, it’s his meds. Mom crushes them up; he won’t take them otherwise.”
Dalton nodded, understanding for the first time there was an entire drama being played out in his house that he didn’t have tickets to. “I’ll make sure.”
You Killed Wesley Payne Page 3