“Listen,” he said soothingly. “You definitely earned your end. Okay? That little brain in there is totally worthy of Euclidian status. The test batches and financing couldn’t have happened without you. But I guess I never thought the stuff would actually work, so I didn’t take the time to think through the consequences.”
Macy tried to ignore her brother’s compliment but smiled despite herself.
“You’ve seen how people get when they drink Rush,” he continued, giving her a sideways look. “Um, especially since you tripled the dosage without bothering to tell me? Total bloshite move, by the way, but at least it opened my eyes. Rush isn’t a racket—it’s a death sentence. A long and slow one. Thank Bob the last batch is almost gone.”
Macy shrugged unhappily. “The only thing I see is cliques wanting to spend. Lined up at the lockers, pushing and shoving to buy more. And more. And more.”
“What about those Crop Crème girls? Tried talking to one of them lately? Or Jeffrey. Have you noticed how paranoid he’s gotten?”
“Since when did you grow this big fat conscience, Mistah Populah?”
Wesley held out his arms. “Since I realized how farcking fake all of this is. Freshmen come and seniors go and the only things that stay are Inference and rackets. Climbing on the backs of lesser cliques is worse than meaningless. It’s cruel. Euclidians don’t deserve to be in charge if Rush is what it takes to get them there.”
“What about all your big talk about changing things from the inside? How else does it ever happen without getting your hands dirty? You can’t just wave signs about fairness or justice like some whiny Barefoot. You have to be strong enough, or rich enough, to demand that people listen.”
Wesley slipped and lost his balance, almost falling off the stool. Macy didn’t move to steady it. “It’s already decided. Jeff is for giving the money back too. He’s going to give Balls to Chugg and concentrate on acting again. And then we’re going to State together in the fall.”
“Oh, really? You and Goliath gonna share a room? Hold hands like everyone’s favorite freshman couple?”
“They’re a lot more… open-minded there. It’s not like Salt River.”
“You fool! It’s exactly like here. They’ll run you off campus.”
Wesley frowned. “Maybe. But at least there we won’t be lying anymore.”
“Jeff isn’t giving that money back.”
“Ask him,” Wesley said, taping the other end of the sign. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
“I already did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I asked him how he’d feel if the other cliques knew,” she said acidly. “How he’s going to get kicked off the team. How he’s gonna have to buy a beret and a black skirt and become a Plath for the rest of the year.”
Wesley paled, trying to smile. “No one will believe you.”
“Probably not. Who would ever believe a lowly Euclidian spreading rumors about Balls and Crop Crème? Who would believe the crazy kid sister of Wes Payne?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant. And you’re right.”
“About what?”
“About no one believing me. Unless I had photos.” She held up a set of contact sheets. Telephoto shots. Of Jeff and Wesley near the football field. Pretending to argue. Jeff pretending to shove Wesley behind the porta-potties. So they could make out with no one seeing.
“You wouldn’t,” Wes said. The stool wobbled again.
“Yeah,” Macy said. “I would.”
“I’d believe her if I were you.” Jeff Chuff walked out of the darkness and put his arm around Macy.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s called cutting a side deal, Wes. It’s called looking at your cards and knowing you’re beat.”
Wes Payne’s face was almost entirely without color. “Beat at what?”
“You and me? No way. Never happened. This whole cash back rebate deal? You heard what you wanted to hear.”
Wesley fought to speak calmly. “I heard what you told me, Jeffrey.”
“I know…” Chuff trailed off until Macy squeezed his arm. “That cheddar’s not going anywhere, Wes. Shite’s invested. Production and distribution. We need to secure the materials and go from there. We need that formula.”
“It’s almost like,” Wes said, in a low voice, “it’s almost like you’ve been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Macy laughed, putting her hand in Chuff’s shirt.
“It’s not too late,” Wesley said, ignoring his sister. “We can—”
“We can’t.”
Wesley rubbed his neck, up on the stool, completely lost. “I thought—”
“That’s the problem!” Chuff forced himself to yell. “I realized… Macy and I realized… that you’ve been thinking for me. So Rush is addictive? It’s nothing compared to power. This time next year elevator doors will open, and Rush will flow through Salt River like Kubrick blood. Euclidians and Balls will be beyond rich. I’d be… I’d have to be a fool not to get in on it.”
“You’d be something, all right.” Wes held the rope above his head, looking down at Jeff and Macy holding hands. “You’re already there. Both of you. At the bottom floor.”
“The Rush formula,” Macy told her brother. “I want it on my desk. Next to my pink pencil holder. I want it by tomorrow morning, or these pictures are all over school.”
“Do it,” Chuff said, unable to meet Wesley’s eyes.
“I don’t believe this is you,” Wesley told Jeff. “All ball, no brain. Confused with greed. Emotionless.”
“Believe it,” Macy said. “Chuff would duct tape Chugg to an A-bomb for a hundred grand.”
Wesley cut down the sign with a penknife. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
Macy led Chuff away. “I knew all along I was the kid with the special need.” Their laughter echoed across the field, dying beneath the bleachers.
When they were gone, Wesley Payne made a decision. Monks had lit themselves on fire to protest war. Single men had stood in front of tanks, refusing to let them pass. But making a difference also meant making sacrifices. Macy was his fault. He’d apologized too often for her. Deluded himself that she would get better. She would never get better.
Wesley gathered up his things and drove home. He wrote down the formula, staring at it for a long time. It was too dangerous, even on a piece of paper. It needed to be hidden somehow. Hidden in plain sight. Hidden so that it could be decoded when the time came, if only as proof he was telling the truth.
Wes bit his fingernails, then got up, plastic crunching under his foot. It was a CD case. He reached for it and the lyric sheet fell out.
In plain sight.
He wrote ten pages of longhand, explaining how the racket was going to work. The delicate balances needed in the chemistry, the protocols he’d devised to maximize production. All of the damning truth. Then he got some of his father’s tools from the basement. It was one a.m. by the time he got to school. He had just enough time to get to the police station and back before the first buses arrived at six.
It was better to be a symbol than be alone.
People talked endlessly about their beliefs, but very few put theory into practice.
Being popular was a yoke and a currency.
But it was his to spend freely.
Wesley Payne retied the rope to the goalpost, next to four rolls of duct tape, and then carried his red duffel bag full of tools to the window outside Principal Inference’s office. He hit it with his elbow, shards of glass tinkling lightly across the floor.
CHAPTER 29
I SENT THE MALCONTENT
“You killed Wesley Payne,” Dalton almost whispered.
Flares of red darkened Macy’s face. “No, I didn’t!”
“You might as well have. You talked your own brother into killing himself.”
“That’s not how it’s going to read to the cops if you’re not around to tell them,” Macy said, backi
ng through the shadows. “I mean, technically, I guess you could say that I didn’t leave him a lot of choices and he took the weak one. The cowardly one.” She tried a hard laugh. “Plus, like you, he just wouldn’t give me the money.”
“Big mistake,” Dalton said, following her. “On both our parts.”
“Okay, so I didn’t think he’d actually… I mean, listen, he could have just handed over the formula. He could have… everything would have just…” She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. The hard-girl face fell like a curtain. “Farck it. I tried to toughen him. But it didn’t take. Never does with true believers. That’s why no one likes them. He killed himself to spark some mythical revolution, and people barely noticed. His death changed nothing.”
“That’s right,” Dalton said. “Reason it all out. Play me a song about how it’s all someone else’s fault. About how everything’s meaningless so you don’t have to feel guilty about what you did. Wesley’s death changed nothing, not even you.”
Macy started to blink. Just her left eye. First like Morse code, and then in shuddering triplets. She put her palm over it and pulled a bottle of Rush from her purse, taking a huge gulp. She finished the bottle and threw it at Dalton’s feet. He watched it bounce away.
“Wesley goes and drills Inference’s safe and takes the money just so you can’t have it. You believe that? A guy pulling the rug out from under his own sister? And then, you know, here I come along and do the same thing? That’s really got to hurt, huh?”
Macy shrugged, her teeth chattering.
“How did Wesley get upside down?”
Macy flinched, her fingers under the Kia’s door handle. “He didn’t. I just told you that. Told you to keep you. Poking around. Annoying people. Your greatest. Skill.”
“Chuff wasn’t forcing himself on you at Lu Lu Footer’s, was he?”
“No.” Macy wrapped her arms around her body as if she were freezing. “That was just good. Acting. Jeffrey is. Multitalented. We saw you sneak into Footer’s room. Sure, Jeffrey needed some… prompting. But I still have those. Pictures. Couldn’t have you guessing. Too much. Before you found. The money.”
A group of Snouts began walking across the lot. Macy saw them coming and shook her head violently. Her eyes cleared, dried spit in the corners of her mouth. She reached in to start the engine. Dalton took a quick step forward. Macy jerked the gun up, pulling the trigger, as a BoxxMart security guard with a bloodstained shirt kicked it out of her hand. Macy tried to get in the car, but the guard grabbed her by the wrists.
“About time,” Dalton said.
“I thought you two might need a word alone,” the security guard said, then took off his hat. Except it wasn’t a him.
Macy stopped struggling. “Wait a minute. You two work together?”
Cassiopeia waved genially. “Hi.”
“Of course,” Dalton said. “It’s Rev and Jones Associates. You don’t think I’m dumb enough to work alone, do you?”
Macy stomped her foot like a child. And then did it again. And again. Her heel broke off and skittered across the pavement.
“Is that what our name is?” Cassiopeia asked.
“It is now.”
“Partner?”
“Full partner.”
Cassiopeia nodded and began unbuttoning her security guard uniform. Underneath, she was wearing a T-shirt that said THE VELVET UNDERGROUND IS THE ONLY BAND THAT MATTERS. Three Snouts arrived at the cyclone fence, lifting up the corner where Dalton had snipped the tines.
“Dalton, honey,” Macy said, shifting gears. She was deep in a Rush overload, suddenly talking too slow, her lids drooping. “I’m sorry. Okay? Listen, it’s not too late. There’s still time. I. You and I. We could still… Dalton? I’m.”
“You’re what?” He wanted the answer. He didn’t want the answer.
“Look,” she said. “Look at me.”
He did.
“I. Love. You.”
Cassiopeia punched Macy in the stomach. Not too hard, but hard enough.
“Unprofessional,” Dalton said as Macy bent over and threw up half a gallon of soda.
“Sorry, but I can’t listen to that Euclidiarrhea anymore. Besides, it’ll save her from getting her stomach pumped. Not to mention she’s the one who put the M-80 in my microphone.”
The Snouts walked into the circle of light. It was Hutch and Estrada, along with six uniforms struggling to carry a battered Chuff, hog-tied like he was about to be roasted on a spit. They set him down with relief.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Dalton said.
“Good to see you in one piece, Rev,” Estrada said.
“You too, Detective.”
Chuff looked up at Cassiopeia, craning his neck painfully. “But I saw you get shot. The fish blasted you.”
Dalton pulled out his gun and pulled the trigger. A tiny flame danced as Cassiopeia instinctively rubbed her ketchup-stained chest.
“So who do we have here?” Estrada asked.
Dalton pointed to Macy. “She’ll be taking the fall for Wesley Payne. You’ll find his wallet on her, along with a chemical formula that she and her brother used to manufacture the crude liquid accelerant they’ve been selling at Salt River. There’re a few cases of it left in the basement of her father’s house, in a metal cabinet, along with the equipment used to cook it. It’s set up for large-scale production. The key to the cabinet is in her pocket, has a number nine on it.”
“Excellent,” Estrada said.
Dalton pointed to the still-dazed Chuff. “I know it’s hard to believe, but LeadWig Wittgenstein there is the main backer of the Rush enterprise. You’ll find the base components on the pallets he was trying to steal, primarily a combination of cold medicine, seltzer water, and Flavor Flavah.”
“Bathtub crank, eh?”
“Not quite that potent,” Dalton said, “but close.”
A cruiser parked next to Mole’s Kia, followed by an ambulance. Two EMTs picked up the still-unconscious Mole and cuffed him to a gurney. A lady Snout put Macy’s arm over her shoulder and helped her, trembly legged, to another cruiser.
“Dalton?” she slurred. “Babylove?”
He watched as she was plopped unceremoniously into the backseat. Part of him wanted to help her in. Part of him wanted to kick the door closed.
“So, have you found that money, by any chance?” Estrada asked.
“Last I saw, the cash was in Hutch’s locker.”
“No shite?”
“Nope.”
Estrada exhaled deeply. He nodded sadly. He brushed his mustache contemplatively. Then he pressed the SEND button on his radio, about to tell more dress blues to come over and arrest his partner.
“Which is exactly where you put it,” Dalton added, holding up Detective Estrada’s business card. The one he’d found in Wesley Payne’s wallet.
“What?”
“Wes Payne gave you the money. Before he killed himself. Ran the whole enterprise down for you, formula, production, all of it. Who would have thought you’d see it as a road map to get in on the racket yourself, instead of arresting Inference and everyone else involved? Who would have thought it was you who was going to bankroll the next batch?”
“Ridiculous,” Estrada scoffed.
“It’s true,” Chuff groaned, from the ground.
“What, like anyone would believe what this perp says?”
“I’ll sign a deposition,” Chuff said, allowing himself to blubber dramatically. “Whatever it takes to make up for what I did to Wesley.”
Estrada kicked Chuff in the stomach on general principle.
“Or, who knows, Estrada?” Dalton said. “After you saw Wesley’s confession, maybe you did go to arrest Inference. And maybe while you were doing it, she used her leadership talents to walk you down another path. Maybe you and she started having one-on-one meetings, planning out how things could go if they were handled the right way. That version’ll sound better to the judge, I’m sure. Honest cop led astray by the femme fa
tale. Even if you had the fatale’s stolen money all along.”
“Are you through?” Estrada said, backing up. He smiled at Hutch. “Do you believe this?”
“Out of the closet and onto the tier the same day,” Chuff said, coughing blood. “Hey, Estrada. Maybe we’ll be cell mates.”
“Look, Hutch, he’s got a gun!” Estrada yelled, pointing at Dalton and reaching for his piece, but Hutch slipped it out of the holster first.
“What are you doing? Shoot!”
Hutch grabbed Estrada’s wrists and turned him around roughly, before cuffing him. “Your girlfriend Inference is already in jail. We found her in a motel out over the state line with twenty grand worth of office supplies. She rolled over on you, buddy.”
A sergeant ran over. “Detective Hutcherson? We’ve got most of them cuffed and Miranda’d, but the rocker seems to have gotten away with a vehicle full of goods.”
“Well, Officer,” Hutch said. “You think you might want to put out an APB on a big rusty van that has Pinker Casket spray-painted on the side in huge red letters, or should we just let him go?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, jogging away.
“We’ll get him,” Hutch told Dalton, and then stuck out his hand. They bumped knuckles.
“You Dicks are working together?” Estrada yelled.
“I called Hutch first thing, when I took this job,” Dalton said.
Hutch nodded. “I used to moonlight security at BoxxMart way back. I’ve known Dalton and his brother since they were little kids, playing around on the crates, waiting for their dad to punch out.”
“Couldn’t have gotten in the front door without him,” Dalton said. “Let alone the security gate. I would have had to really shoot a guard, which, you know, is pretty much against Private Dick operational standards. Let alone the law.”
Hutch smiled. “Nothing to it once we got it cleared with the captain.”
“Speaking of ethics,” Dalton said, massaging his jaw where Hutch had hit him. “That time in the nurse’s office? You were a little too convincing, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. But Estrada sure bought it, didn’t he?”
“Bought it enough to stash the money in the cops’ locker room until things cooled off. When they didn’t, he put it in your locker to frame you.”
You Killed Wesley Payne Page 22