You Killed Wesley Payne

by Sean Beaudoin

  Scanlon looked off toward the houses along the pine ridge above them. He didn’t say anything for a while.

  “I’m sorry, bud, but we can’t afford it.”

  “Mom filled out an application. Without telling me, actually. Somehow I got a scholarship.”

  “Part or full?”

  “Admissions guy said full. Anyway, I have to meet him in an hour to nail down the details.”

  “Studying what?”

  “Writing.”

  “Writing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, we could still use you around here. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But I’m proud of you, Bud. If you really want to go, I say show those Ivy League pussies where it’s at.”

  “I will, Dad.”

  “At least it’s not the goddamned military.”

  Scanlon Rev hobbled back inside to get some pudding and turn on the news.

  Dalton put the lawn mower and Weed Decimator 9000 back in the garage and was about to head upstairs and take a shower, when he heard a loud noise down in the laundry room. It definitely wasn’t his mother.

  “CAN YOU DIG IT?” a voice asked.

  “WE CAN DIG IT!” other voices answered.

  Dalton eased open the door to the basement and crept down the stairs. Turd Unit stood on the washing machine addressing a bunch of other little kids. There must have been thirty of them.

  “Turd Unit?” Dalton said. “What are you guys doing?”

  Turd Unit leaped off the washing machine like a stage diver. The outstretched arms of other little boys caught him and set him down gently. He stood in the middle of them, and they turned as one. Dalton was about to laugh, but the look on Turd Unit’s face seemed to warn against it.

  “What exactly are you guys doing?” he asked again, more quietly this time.

  “Oh, I dunno,” Turd Unit said. “We thought we might wrap some duct tape around Tiny and swing him from the pole for a while.”

  All the kids laughed.

  “Tiny?”

  A big, heavy kid lumbered from the shadows and stood in the light.

  “What is he, twenty-five?”

  “He’s got glandular problems,” Turd Unit said. “So shut up. He’s sensitive about it.”

  Tiny took two strips of duct tape and stuck his lips through them. “Recognize me now, wise guy?”

  The kid was big enough to have looked like The Body. The right shape, the right size, the right lips.

  “No way.”

  “Yes, way,” Turd Unit said. “Totally yes, way.”

  “But how did you even get him up there?”

  Turd Unit snapped his fingers, and immediately all the kids jammed into action. Like a well-rehearsed machine, they had the big kid off his feet, ankles duct taped together and hanging from the pipe above the dryer in about nine seconds. The big kid smiled at Dalton, flipping him the double birds.

  “But why? And how did you even know about that?”

  “I’ve been reading your case files,” Turd Unit said. “Duh! How hard do you think it was to crack into your lockbox? Anyway, we wanted to give you a test. See if you had any pearls. See how difficult a rival you’re going to be while we’re climbing up the clique chart. And you know what? I gotta say, big bro, the results are in, and we figure it’s not going to be too hard. In fact, I think we pretty much just go straight to the top.”

  “Top of what?”

  “We are Generation Terror,” Turd Unit said.

  “WE ARE GENERATION TERROR!” all the boys said as one, their little soprano voices in a frenzied pitch.

  “You have to be effing kidding me.”

  Turd Unit walked over and calmly handed Dalton a piece of paper. It was blank except for the title and two boxes:

  SALT RIVER HIGH

  CLIQUE CHART

  GENERATION TERRUR

  Other Students

  Dalton looked at his little brother quizzically.

  “You cliques are old news,” Turd Unit said, his flaming-red hair even more flaming than usual. “You’ve gotten fat and weak and corrupt. We are the next wave. Gen T’s time has come, and you’re either going to step off, or we’re going to step you off. Plain and simple, we’re taking over.”

  This time Dalton did laugh, but not for long. Thirty little faces looked at him somberly. Then Turd Unit pulled out a gun. A little gun in his little hand.

  “What’s my name?”

  “Turd Unit.”

  “What’s my name?” his little brother demanded again, raising the gun to point at Dalton.

  “Okay, okay, Kirk.”

  “Kirk?”

  “Sorry. Kirkland.”

  “Kirkland?”

  “Sorry. Kirkland Rev! Your name is Kirkland Rev!”

  “That’s right,” Turd Unit said. “Leader of Generation Terror.”

  Dalton stared at his little brother.

  “SAY IT!”

  “You are Kirkland Rev, leader of Generation Terror!”

  “And this is my clique.”

  “And this is your clique!”

  Turd Unit lowered his gun. He handed Dalton an index card. On it, in familiar block letters was written:

  BANG! DUCK! OOPS, TOO LATE!

  DUH.

  Dalton stared with amazement.

  “You were the one leaving me those notes?”

  Turd Unit smiled. “Yup.”

  “But why?”

  “I told you, I read your case files. You weren’t connecting the dots. Plus, you know, I was bored. Mom says the doctor says I have ADD. You know what that stands for?”

  “Attention Deficit Disorder?”

  “No. It means Absolute Dictatorship, Dude. It means I was born to be in charge. And also, you know, sort stuff out.”

  “Uh, yeah, I can see that now.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re on board. Frankly, I wasn’t so sure you’d be amenable.”

  “Listen, I have to go,” Dalton said, feeling dizzy. “I have to meet a guy.”

  “Yeah, about this whole you leaving thing? I’m afraid we can’t let you do that.”

  “Let me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What are you going to do? Shoot your own brother?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Dalton couldn’t deny feeling a sense of relief.

  “But they are.” Turd Unit snapped his fingers. Thirty little boys raised their arms and pointed thirty little identical guns.

  “Holy shite, Turd Un… I mean Kirkland! Is your melon watered?”

  “Sorry, big bro, but we can’t allow our secret to get out until we’re ready to make our move and consolidate power.”

  “What power?”

  “I’m sorry, but there is no compromising with Gen T. It’s in the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “The first rule of Generation Terror is there is no Generation Terror.”

  “Don’t,” Dalton said.

  Turd Unit snapped his fingers again, and thirty little fingers pulled thirty little triggers.

  Dalton closed his eyes. There was a loud series of bangs, point-blank. Dalton opened them to see thirty little lighters, with thirty little flames poking out.

  “Oh my Bob.”

  Turd Unit burst out laughing. “Stiff Sheets carped his unders! Stiff Sheets carped his unders! Get him some soap! Get him a rag! Stiff Sheets carped his unders!”

  All the little boys howled with laughter, holding their stomachs with their non-gun hands and clapping each other on the back, bumping knuckles and slapping five. Tiny brought out sticks and a big bag of marshmallows, and they all started roasting them at the end of their lighters.

  “Man, I totally had you,” Turd Unit said, rubbing tears from his eyes.

  “You did, little dude. You really did.”

  “Mole told me all about your lighter trick at breakfast. Found these things for sale on the Internet. Got a great bulk deal. That guy’s okay, you know i
t?”

  “If by okay you mean dangerously psychotic, then, yeah, sure he is.”

  “So go to your thing,” Turd Unit said, dismissing Dalton with a wave. “We have to finish our meeting. And, anyway, you don’t want to be late for your stupid college.”

  “Wait, how do you know about—” Dalton began, and then waved his hand in the same way. “Never mind.”

  He started up the stairs.

  “Seriously, though?” Turd Unit called from below, his little face utterly deadpan. “I’m telling you, bro, in five years, we’re totally going to rule Salt River High.”

  CHAPTER 32

  WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE

  Dalton parked his scooter at the mall, next to the enormous black Diktatorat LE. He walked in and sat on a bench across from Elisha Cook overlooking an elaborately cherubed fountain full of dank pennies.

  “Right on time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I take it everything with your… detainment is now sorted out? I hear Detective Estrada is facing some very serious charges.”

  “Unlike almost every other job I’ve ever worked, this one seems to have wrapped itself into a neat little ball.”

  “Except for Mr. Tarot?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  Elisha Cook tapped the newspaper neatly folded on his lap. The headline said YOUNG DRAC GETS AWAY WITH APPLIANCES.

  “Yeah. I guess he was smart enough not to take all the stuff to the fake fence Hutch set up. They waited for him all night.”

  “Well, I’m sure it will resolve itself soon.”

  “Speaking of which. Thanks for bailing me out, or whatever. Sorry I had to run off on you like that.”

  Elisha Cook sniffed. “It was… unexpected.”

  “Anyway, I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  “Thought about what?”

  “I’ve decided I want to go to Harvard, after all.”

  “I see.”

  Dalton took a deep breath, relieved with the finality of it. “I’m ready to get out of this town, do something different. I’m ready to, you know, write.”

  “Ah, yes,” Elisha Cook said. “The creative life.”

  “I’ve got a lot of ideas. New stories, characters. A new direction in style. I feel like I need to be pushed, you know? Like, out of my comfort zone? I mean, maybe even poetry. Really get out there and find my voice.”

  “The thing is—” Elisha Cook began, and then stopped.

  Dalton waited. Some kids went by on skateboards. One of them gave Elisha Cook the finger. The fountain burbled. A security guard came by on a motorized scooter, eyeballed Dalton, and then eased away.

  “The thing is—”

  “You’ve pulled the scholarship, haven’t you?”

  Elisha Cook opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I guess I should have known it was too good to be true. Is it because of the arrest?”

  “I haven’t pulled the scholarship.”

  “Oh,” Dalton said, with palpable relief. “That’s, um. Great. So what then?”

  Elisha Cook smoothed his mustache carefully. He cleaned his fingernails. Shoppers walked all around them, moms and daughters, dads and sons, all of them with bags full of stuff, vacuum-sealed and vacuum-packed.

  “There is no scholarship.”

  Dalton sat back. He suddenly felt old and heavy, laden with rusty weights. He felt exhausted by the ridiculousness of having believed in it in the first place.

  “There never was, was there?”

  Elisha Cook sighed deeply. “I told you that I went to Salt River a number of years ago, did I not?”

  “Yes, you did. And even a mediocre Dick would have made more of that information. He would have done a little research, instead of just hearing what he wanted to hear, lapping it up like a thirsty dog.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So you’re a Scam Wow? Or, what, you work some sort of bribe thing?”

  Elisha Cook shook his head. “I do not want any money.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Before my matriculation from Salt River, I was the leader of the Harvard Fauxs, a now-defunct clique.”

  “Fohs?”

  “Fauxs. We were boys who went around telling everyone we knew that we’d been accepted to Harvard, when, in actuality, few of us had even applied. Let alone gotten accepted. That was the entirety of our racket. There was, of course, a competing Yale Fauxs.”

  “But why? Where’s the percentage in that?”

  “I’m still not sure. Nevertheless, as the years went by I seem to have kept up the pretense.”

  “So you don’t work for Harvard at all?”

  “I’m afraid not. In fact, I live right here in town. With my mother.”

  “Which is why you’re always here. Instead of Massachusetts.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Again, something a decent Dick should have viewed with a shiteload more skepticism.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “You need to get yourself a white jacket,” Dalton said. “You need to find a corner in a rubber room.”

  Elisha Cook nodded. “I have been, shall we say, extensively evaluated by psychology professionals over the last few decades.”

  In front of them, a little girl tripped and spilled her smoothie across the floor in a splash of red. She got up, bawling. A woman came over and yanked her by the hand, leaving the slick for someone else to deal with.

  “The story of the world, is it not?” Elisha Cook observed. “Misfortune, tears, an evasion of responsibility. It’s the math of the human condition. We just play it out again and again, in ways big and small.”

  “That’s a fortune cookie,” Dalton said. “Not a philosophy.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Tell me how you got my application. I know my mother really mailed one.”

  “After the Fauxs disbanded for good, most of us moved to towns where Ivy League schools are. We got jobs working as waiters and clerks, telling people we were taking extension classes. We are all congenital liars, you see. And some, being better liars than I, managed to get jobs in various admissions offices. One such gentleman, a Woodrow F. Strode, sends me the names of young men and women who were rejected from our area.”

  “Then you go around pretending to offer them scholarships?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “So I was rejected by the actual Harvard outright.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been going nowhere all along.”

  “There’s always community college. There’s still time to apply.”

  Dalton closed his eyes, trying to get his head around it. “Looks like I’ll be taking cases again.”

  “You do seem to be rather adept at it.”

  “And you seem to need some serious help.”

  “I do indeed. In fact, I was wondering if you were for hire.”

  Dalton stood, looking at Elisha Cook with disbelief.

  “Please?” Cook said, the facade of erudition melting into a low sallow note. “Help me?”

  “I can’t. You need a whole team of Dicks to cure what you’ve got.”

  Elisha Cook nodded, his eyes misty.

  In Standing on the Marrow-Sucked Bones of Tomorrow, Lex Cole had slapped at least two crying men. It’s possible, Dalton thought, that it’s time to stop doing anything Lex Cole did.

  “If it helps,” Elisha Cook said softly, “I truly did very much enjoy your stories.”

  Dalton ran his hand through his hair, shorter and closer cropped, his new school cut. “You know what Voltaire once said?”

  “No, what did Voltaire once say?”

  “It’s better to be stupid and French than just stupid. And, unfortunately, Mr. Cook, you’re not French.”

  Dalton began walking toward the exit. He abruptly stopped, pulling something out of his waistband. Elisha Cook flinched, holding up his hands. Dalton pointed the notebook at him like a gun, said “Pow,” and then tossed it onto h
is lap.

  “What is this?” Elisha Cook asked, pulling off the rubber band that held the pages of the Private Dick Handbook together.

  “Some rules to live by. Maybe you should study them.”

  Dalton turned again and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going? If I may be so bold as to ask.”

  “To the cemetery.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m going to go pay my respects to Wesley Payne. As far as I can tell, he’s the only one in Salt River who deserves them.”

  THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, FINAL RULE

  They’ll think you’re crazy if you talk to the dead, but most of the time the dead are the only ones who listen.

  THE END

  Read an excerpt from Barnaby Smollet’s latest electrifying Lex Cole thriller, slated to begin flying off your local bookstore shelves this spring!

  KISS ME ONCE, KISS ME TWICE,

  YOUR FINAL BREATH SMELLED VERY NICE

  A LEXINGTON COLE MYSTERY

  by Sir Barnaby Smollet

  #53 in the series. First edition. 232 pgs. Fade Publishing, New York, NY, 1961.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The hippie was right where he was supposed to be.

  Sprawled out on the floor.

  Underneath Lexington Cole’s knee.

  Lex grabbed a shank of hair and smashed the hippie’s head into the oak planks. Again.

  “Okay, okay, man, I’ll talk!” the kid sniveled, pulling a cellophane of dope from his dirty dungarees. Lex Cole made a fist, pistoning it into the kid’s privileged belly an extra time. Just for good measure. The hippie was dirty. At least enough to pass muster on the street. But Cole knew he was a fake, on the slum, probably just dropped out of his second year at Choate. For one thing, he sported two rows of perfect dental work. And a smooth leather wallet. And a belt buckle that cost more than most longshoremen made in a month. Lex slipped the baggie into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He’d do more careful testing of its quality back in the hotel tub. In the meantime, the hippie would talk, all right. He’d do exactly what he was told. Or it’d be time to find some pliers and try out a little emergency field orthodontia.