You Killed Wesley Payne

by Sean Beaudoin

  “Not very ethical,” Hutch said. “That’s not how a buddy treats a buddy.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Estrada said.

  “You’ll get one, you purse,” Hutch said as a Snout van pulled up, full of cuffed Caskets and Balls. Hutch shoved Estrada in with them, banging his head on the roof and forgetting to say “Watch your head.”

  “What about the money?” Chuff asked as seven grimacing officers lifted him up and rolled him into the cruiser.

  “Yeah,” Cassiopeia said, running her hand over her short, bristly hair. “Where’s that folding green at, Dalton?”

  CHAPTER 30

  WILL THE REAL JETT RINK PLEASE STAND UP?

  Dalton looked at Hutch. “You may need to cuff me too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that money’s gone.”

  “What money?”

  Dalton held up the empty red duffel.

  “Oh, you mean the bag the suspects all keep referring to that was never officially recovered?”

  Dalton nodded.

  “It’s a true investigative mystery. Now, I did hear a wild rumor that some Russkies just got a little richer. And maybe Landon got a little safer. But that’s all I know about that. Rumors. I mean, otherwise, far as I understand, it’s still missing.”

  Cassiopeia looked at Dalton. “I thought you weren’t cool with that. Landon getting it that way, I mean.”

  “Macy was right about one thing. Acting scared, or superstitious, is a way to avoid making hard choices. So, yeah, I sent the full boat to the Russians. Eff it. Armor is armor, period. Money isn’t clean or dirty. It’s a tool. What was left over I donated to the fund Wesley started. The thing for special-needs kids at Salt River. And that’s that.”

  Dalton turned to Hutch. “Kosher?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about.” Hutch got in the car and started the engine. “Didn’t hear a word.”

  Dalton motioned for him to roll down the window.

  “One other thing.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How did Wes Payne’s body get into my mother’s laundry room? Especially a month after he was dead?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been looking into that pretty much since you called. It’s a total blank.”

  Dalton stepped closer and lowered his voice. “What’s going to happen to Macy?”

  Hutch looked at him without blinking. “What do you think?”

  “I know. It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You wanna do something, kid? Call her a good lawyer. Aside from that? My advice is forget her. She’s gonna be gone a long time.”

  The cruiser peeled toward the entrance ramp.

  When they were finally alone, Cassiopeia looked at Dalton.

  “Need a ride?”

  “Nah, I got my scooter.”

  “I still don’t get why they didn’t arrest you.”

  “For what?”

  “Shooting a security guard and all.”

  “Oh, yeah. That. I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yup.”

  “Listen, Cassie—” Dalton began, as Ronnie Newport ducked under the hole in the cyclone fencing. He walked over and stood next to Cassiopeia. Then dipped his finger in the red blotch on her chest, licking it. “Can’t believe people still eat Flavor Flavah after the Shanghai recall.”

  Cassiopeia put her arm around Newport and kissed his cheek.

  “Are you serious? You two too?”

  Cassiopeia nodded happily. Newport shrugged, expertly slicking back his pompadour.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Cassie?”

  “Guess we weren’t sure ourselves.”

  “What about the Ginny Slims? You ever take a look in his backseat?”

  “I’m not with them. I take care of them,” Newport said. “The way Wesley asked me to.”

  “Take care of them?”

  Newport looked embarrassed. “I helped Wesley come up with the first batch of Rush. Years ago, playing around with his Lil’ Egghead set. I had no idea he’d see a racket in it. But I still feel partly responsible.”

  “For what?”

  “The Ginny Slims used to be Crop Crème,” Cassiopeia explained.

  “Until they started drinking Rush all the time. Wesley didn’t know how addictive it was, at least not until Macy and Mole were cranking it out by the gallon. He tried to get the Ginnys to stop, but they wanted to lose weight, they wanted to be funny, they wanted to stay up and study, they wanted to concentrate harder. And after a while… they got a little off-brand. So I told Wesley I’d keep an eye out for them.”

  “Were you keeping an eye out for me?” Dalton asked. “Picking me up and driving me around?”

  “I took you to the people you needed to see. So I pretended they wanted me to get you there. Bottom line, I figured you were the best hope to finally put Wesley to rest. It had to be someone from outside. Someone clean. Everyone else, all of us at Salt River, are guilty as hell one way or another.”

  “So why didn’t you do something about Macy?”

  “Honestly?” Newport said, looking away from Cassiopeia. “I was scared.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, rubbing his back. “It’s normal.”

  “You don’t understand. All those times over at Wesley’s house, hanging out, even when we were younger? I was scared to death.”

  “Of Wesley?”

  “Of Macy, man. Of that crazy little Euclidian chick. I mean, you ever look into her eyes? Like, way deep down?”

  “Yes,” Dalton said.

  “She’s a blank well. Even when we were little, man, I wouldn’t turn my back on that girl. No way. I wouldn’t leave her alone with my cat. And Wesley was the only one who could keep her in line. And when he was gone?” Newport let out a low whistle.

  Cassiopeia took a few steps forward, leaned over, and kissed Dalton’s cheek. “See you back at Tehachapi on Monday?”

  “Who knows? I guess I do have to transfer somewhere. I’ve got things to think through first.”

  “Ivy Rev?” Cassiopeia said. “Dalton League?”

  He shrugged, suddenly feeling utterly, completely empty.

  “Well, don’t think too long,” she said. “I’ve got a lead on a new case.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Okay. Call me.” Cassiopeia took Newport’s hand and led him away. Dalton watched her go. Holding someone else’s hand. Again. They made it about twenty feet before he spoke up.

  “There’s one last thing.”

  They turned together. Cassiopeia looked at Dalton expectantly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Lee Harvies.”

  “What about them?” Newport said.

  “I have this feeling. Like, there I was in that Yearbook darkroom, looking at all those pictures you took for Lu Lu. Telephoto shots, long lenses. Almost sniper shots. Then I’m thinking, you know, I’m not sure there is a Lee Harvies clique.”

  “There’s not?”

  “No, there’s not. I think it’s just one guy.”

  “Huh.”

  “I think it’s you.”

  Cassiopeia laughed. Newport didn’t laugh. She turned and grabbed his arm. “You’re not, are you?”

  Newport reached into his back pocket and pulled out the Jason mask, slowly putting it on. Up close, you could see that the anarchy symbols weren’t painted over the eyes; they were made with strips of duct tape.

  Cassiopeia put her hands on her hips. Newport took the mask off and casually tossed it on the ground. “I was totally going to tell you.”

  “When?”

  “Same time you told me you weren’t really the leader of Foxxes but some plant working as a Private Dick.”

  “Fair enough,” she said reluctantly.

  “But also when I was sure that knowing about it wasn’t going to put you in any danger.”

  “I saw the negatives in the Yearbook darkroom,” Dalton said. “How did you take shots o
f yourself?”

  “Ever heard of a tripod? How about a timer? I figured if anyone started getting suspicious, the fact that I’d been the only one to photograph Lee Harvies sort of let me off the hook. Especially after Macy and Mole stole all the Yearbook computers.”

  “Okay,” Cassiopeia said. “But why Lee Harvies?”

  “It’s another thing Wesley and I came up with. Years ago. Talking about how to change Salt River. At first, Wesley was all for speeches. Like assemblies where he explained how things could be different. How the cliques could treat each other with respect.”

  “Good luck,” Dalton and Cassiopeia said simultaneously.

  “I know, right? I mean, after a while, he realized that highconcept stuff wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind. It may have even made it worse. So then he thought just by being a real live example, not trying to convince anyone of anything, people might start to follow him. That it might rub off.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it worked a little. Populahs stopped being all about looking good and posing in the hallways. But pretty much everyone else kept up with the rackets. So then Wesley decided nothing would ever change at Salt River without a major reduction in violence.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Yeah, except his idea was to use the theoretics of violence to do it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sowing dissension. Confusion as a means of crowd control. Fear of violence as a tamping device. He came up with the idea of Lee Harvies as mythic figures, like Zorro. A symbol. And then the fear of them leading to a kind of unspoken truce. At the time I really didn’t even get what he was talking about.”

  “And you do now?”

  Newport scratched his sideburns. “Wesley was my best friend. After he died, I wanted to make up for being a Populah. For the stupidity of Crop Crème. The day after the funeral, I stood there in the hallway thinking about all his usual speeches. The bankruptcy of our lives, the worthless things we think are important, seeking each other’s approval or trying to impress each other with crap we buy and wear around like it matters. Suddenly it stopped being gibberish. I mean, me being all cool and Steve McQueen, who cared? I realized I could do something to make things better.”

  “With a rifle?”

  “You weren’t around back then, Rev. It was out of control with everyone strapped all the time. I went to Inference. I went to the Snouts. They did zip. Then I remembered this Lee Harvies thing Wesley was talking about. Scare guns away with guns.”

  “Except there’s no way that works. You’re going to miss eventually. Shoot someone by mistake. It’s too random. Too dangerous.”

  “Yeah, I know. I almost gave up on it. Until I realized there really didn’t have to be any guns.”

  “There didn’t?”

  Newport laughed. “What do you think? You walking around with that lighter? You’re the best possible example. People believed in the idea of your gun, whether it was real or not.”

  “There never were any bullets,” Dalton said, the brilliance of it dawning on him. “You never fired a single shot, did you?”

  “I got to thinking about my telephoto lenses and how taking pictures was a lot like pulling a trigger, especially at long distance. Then I thought about how my brother and his buddies play paintball. And how real his rifle looked. Except red paint looks more like paint than blood. No one was going to buy it was real. And then I thought about the experiments Wesley and I did with Flavor Flavah, and how it looks a whole hell of a lot like blood, like, to the point people were even believing it was Euclidian blood. Except it’s stickier and smells worse. So I figured out a way to put it in the paint capsules.”

  “Blood that smells like vinegar,” Dalton said, thinking about the Kokrock City in the nurse’s office insisting he’d poked himself in the leg with a pencil. “People practically convincing themselves they’ve been shot.”

  “The weirder something is,” Newport said, “the more likely people are to believe it. Or at least not question it. I mean, if you say you saw the Virgin Mary in your dreams, no one cares. You say you saw her face on your tortilla? The news trucks can’t find you fast enough.”

  “You believed there were three Jennys,” Cassiopeia said.

  “It’s inspired thinking, I have to admit.”

  “Yup. Stop violence with ketchup. It could get, like, real popular. Span the country, schools handing out little restaurant packets. It could—”

  Cassiopeia entwined her fingers with Newport’s, and he stopped talking, relieved. She started to pull him away.

  Dalton took the playing card with the guy’s face glued on it out of his back pocket and held it up. “I found this chasing you on the roof yesterday.”

  “Almost got me too.”

  “So who is it?”

  “The jack of spades.”

  Dalton didn’t laugh.

  “Leon Czolgosz.”

  “Bless you,” Cassiopeia said, pretending to hand him a Kleenex.

  “Who?”

  “Guy who shot President McKinley in 1901.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. And, um, what about him?”

  “He was a Polish anarchist. After he was arrested, supposedly they found a quarter in his pocket with the year 2288 stamped on it. Some people think he was a time traveler. Wesley thought it was the perfect detail for his dissension plan. To throw the cliques into a panic. Typical Wesley, no one could have cared less. He was like one of three people in the world who had ever even heard of the guy. And the other two are McKinley’s great-granddaughters.”

  Cassiopeia rolled her eyes. “We should go. Okay, Dalton?”

  Dalton looked at his partner, out of costume. Beautiful with her short hair, plain clothes, and tired eyes. Part of him wanted to say no. To refuse to let her walk away. To insist she stay with him. And he was pretty sure some part of her wanted him to. Or was at least wondering if he finally would. If that part in both of them still existed enough to fight over.

  “Okay,” Dalton finally said. “Go.”

  Cassiopeia nodded. She turned and pulled Ronnie Newport’s hand gently as they walked to the gleaming Nova parked out on the street.

  And then the lot was empty.

  And Dalton was alone.

  CHAPTER 31

  KISS POINT BLANK

  Dalton sneaked into his room after two a.m., lay on his bed, and for the first time in years didn’t spread out broken dishes. He thought about Macy. For about fourteen straight minutes. Then fell asleep.

  He got up four hours later. The only one awake, he made eggs and toast and a phone call. The person who answered was delighted to hear from him. Dalton hung up and went outside and cleaned the garage. He washed his mom’s car, and then Landon’s Kawasaki. He weeded the driveway and then mowed the back lawn. When he was halfway done with the front, there was a tap on his shoulder. It was his father. Dalton kicked off the mower, wiping blades of grass from his neck. Scanlon Rev sat at the edge of the lawn. Dalton sat next to him.

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “Work helps me think.”

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  Dalton considered telling his father about Macy. About the raw strip mine that was his stomach. He wanted to ask what you did when you thought you knew someone, when you let down your defenses and let them see a part of you that you didn’t even know was there, and then it turned out you didn’t know them at all. He wanted to ask what you did when there was no way to scream loud enough or run fast enough or punch something hard enough. When there was just another morning and just another lawn and not a single thing to look forward to. Ever.

  “Nothing. School stuff.”

  Dalton’s father let out a little laugh. “Which one? You transfer so much, I can’t keep them straight. There was Darlington High and then Voight Kampff Tech… and then Upheere High before you even went to Tehachapi…”

  “I’m picky,” Dalton said.

  “You’re a Private Dick.”
>
  Dalton looked at his father, one eyebrow raised.

  “You think I don’t know how to turn on a computer? You think I’m so crazy I don’t know where that money’s coming from?”

  Of course they knew, Dalton thought. His mother too. Who was he kidding?

  THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #51

  Assuming your parents are stupid usually makes an ass of U and ME. Not to mention anyone who spells you like U.

  “You’re not crazy, Dad.”

  “Comes and goes,” Scanlon said. “Mostly comes.”

  Dalton nodded.

  “It’s not easy letting your son take the reins,” Scanlon continued, and then winced, holding his back as he readjusted his posture. “But I did. We took your money, which I figure pretty much means I have no right to pass judgment.”

  Dalton hadn’t really thought about that before. How much pride his father must have swallowed over the last year.

  “If you don’t want—”

  “It’s not about what I want. It’s about our family and what’s best for us. It’s not about ego. We all have to sacrifice. Some of us more than others. You’re old enough to realize that family is the most important thing there is. Maybe the only thing.”

  Dalton knew his father was talking mostly about Landon. “I haven’t been giving you all of the money.”

  “That’s okay. A boy has expenses. Car, girls, beer.”

  “No, it’s not that.” Dalton was about to tell his father that he’d gotten an e-mail back from Ukraine. The money had arrived and the shipment had gone to the Middle East Front. But when Dalton saw the look on his father’s face, the effort it was already taking him with the pain in his back to just sit there, he couldn’t do it. Whether the pain was real or not didn’t matter. If his father thought it was, it was.

  “Yeah, you’re right, Dad. A guy’s got to screw around a little bit, huh?”

  “I know I did enough of it when I was your age,” Scanlon said with a laugh. Then he used Dalton’s shoulder to awkwardly stand.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I’m going to go to Harvard.”