by C. J. Skuse
“It’s more than that, though,” I told her. “It’s like we’re helping them. Look at some of the stuff they’re saying. This one girl’s dad just lost custody of her, and she’s looking at us and we’re helping her.”
“How?”
“Because she’s gonna stand up and fight for her dad. She says she’s gonna run away and go find him.”
“Whoa. That is pretty weird,” said Paisley. “I’ve never helped anyone before.”
“Yeah. The message boards are going insane.”
“Let’s leave them a message,” she said.
“Really? What do you wanna say?”
I set her up and she nudged me out of the way again and started typing.
Dear Fans,
Keep Wondering …
Luv, P & B
“There,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Sweet, Pais. Pretty sweet.”
“Why, thank you.”
“But we gotta do more.”
“What?”
“We gotta do another one. Robbery. To keep our profile up.” “Well, there’s turning worms and changing tunes and then there’s you, Beau.”
“Just one more. My way. Then we’ll lay low.” “If you want. I still got the Eclipse on me….” “No. No Eclipse. No outfits. My way,” I said. “Not so aggressive, not so rude. We’ve got a little fame now. We can trade on that.”
She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Fine. Do it your way. Where, then?”
I logged off. We walked out together. The mall directory was right outside. We stood looking at the map. “Cornucopia,” I said. “Popcorn shack. Top floor.”
PAISLEY
NINETEEN
CORNUCOPIA, FASHION SHOW MALL,
THE STRIP,
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
“Hey, can I help you?”
My big, macho brother stepped up. “Yeah, can I get one salted, two sour cream and chive, one caramel, two chocolate, and one cheese, please.”
“Cans or cartons?”
“Cans, please.”
“Tiny, small, medium, large, extralarge, or super-duper?”
“Uh, tiny, please.”
I threw Beau a look as if to say, Why bother? but he got his money ready.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “We’re not gonna pay.”
“I’m just throwing him off the scent.”
“I’ll say. What’d you get cheese for? I hate cheese popcorn.”
“I don’t plan on eating it.”
The Corn Dude got seven little cans ready, which looked like see-through paint cans, and went over to the huge glass machine behind him. It buzzed and hummed and there was this little fountain in the middle of it, spewing out fresh popcorn. At the bottom were the five trays for the five different flavors they sold. Somewhere deep inside that machine, those popcorn kernels were given their flavors, then sent to the right tray. The Corn Dude kept looking back at us as he opened the chocolate tray and scooped out enough for two tiny cans.
He came back to the counter. His badge said his name was Corn Dude—Danny.
“Hey, you guys were on the news.”
“Oh, you recognize us, do you?” said Beau, turning to look at me.
“Yeah. Shit, you guys are way cool!”
“Yeah?!”
“Yeah! Wow. Can I get an autograph or something—or, no, wait—one of those stickers? Please? Wow, this is awesome.” He continued shoveling out our order, but chuckling, barely taking his eyes off us.
“Sure,” said Beau, reaching into his back pocket for the stickers.
I stopped his hand. “Beau, you can’t do that. We only give stickers to people who deserve it. People who we’ve robbed.”
“Yeah, but this guy seems nice. He might give us a discount.”
Corn Dude Danny wiped his palms down his white apron and held his hand out. Beau peeled a sticker from the paper and pressed it down.
“Cool. Thanks, man. Hey, could I get a kiss from you?” he said to me.
“A kiss? Why do you want a kiss?” I looked at Beau. “No, you can kiss him.”
Corn Dude Danny laughed. The machine behind sent out another rush of popcorn to the empty caramel tray.
“Just kiss him. Call it public relations,” said Beau.
I looked at him, my hands on my hips. “So we can’t rob people anymore, but you’re more than happy to pimp me out to any mook that comes along, is that it, Beau?”
“No, it’s just a little give and take….”
“I can’t let ya have all this stuff for free, though,” said Corn Dude Danny, stacking up our cans. “Sorry. It’s, like, company policy.” He chuckled again. I felt a little sorry for him. He had, like, no teeth.
“But isn’t it good publicity? Us being here?” said Beau.
“I guess,” said Corn Dude Danny.
“Kids are going batshit crazy for us. You said so yourself that we were on the news,” I added.
“Yeah, but I need this job.”
I turned to my brother. “Whatcha gonna do now, Beau?” I said. “Danny don’t wanna play with us.”
Corn Dude Danny rang up what we owed on the cash register. “So that’ll be sixty-eight ninety-five.”
Beau huffed and got out his wallet. “Well, that’s not gonna get our message out there, is it?” he said.
“No,” I said, “but this is.” And I pulled the Eclipse once again from my waistband and held it out in front of me, pointed at the glass popcorn machine, my finger poised on the trigger.
Corn Dude Danny stopped laughing. Beau dropped his wallet. My finger pulled back.
PEEOW! PEEOW! CRASH! WOOMPH! The glass exploded and a fountain of popcorn came flying out, ricocheting off every wall. Corn Dude Danny ducked behind the counter. It was still raining popcorn as I grabbed the cans and bolted for the door.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me handle it!” Beau shouted, running along beside me.
“What did you expect?” I laughed.
We ran out of there into the near-empty mall to the sound of ringing bells and the smell of burning popcorn. The once again fashionably late security staff were nowhere to be found, so we booked out of the nearest exit and made our way back along the Strip into the dense tourist cluster of Treasure Island. Another pirate show was in progress, and we lost ourselves in the crowd.
“Jumbotron!” I shouted out to Beau. He caught up with me at the fountain outside the entrance to the Forum Shops, where we sat on a bench to catch our breaths.
I looked over at him before he even had the chance to say anything. “Yeah, I knew it was loaded.”
He leaned forward and shook his head, still out of breath.
“Aren’t you going to start yelling at me? Tell me I could have taken someone’s eye out? That a little shard of glass could have severed an artery or something?”
He leaned back, still breathing hard, prying open one of the chocolate popcorn cans and picking out a couple of pieces. He shoved them in his mouth and shrugged.
“I’m sorry I put you through all this, Beau,” I said. He offered me the can and I took a handful. “I know you wanna be one of those kids who doesn’t run with the crowd, and you wanna go to Paris and read all your French books and stuff.”
The lights on the big screen illuminated his face. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I know it worked, this whole weird, psychedelic, scary, gun-toting adventure of mine. But I’m sorry you had to be a part of it, okay? It’s my thing, not yours; I know that.”
“Pais, you do know we’re gonna have to leave Vegas pretty soon. Cops aren’t gonna have to search for long. Especially now that you pulled the trigger.”
“I guess.”
“We need to go pack our stuff.”
I nodded. “What about Dad?”
Beau put his arm around me and squeezed. “We’re okay as we are, aren’t we?”
I looked at him. I knew what he wanted me to say, so I nodded.
The news was still
going. We were on. I looked back to see grainy footage of me flipping the bird to the security camera in the Chronic Chocolate Company.
“… Tonight, we take a closer look at the twins whose story is once again captivating America. I’m right here in Las Vegas where the Argent twins, once America’s sweethearts, are now known to have embarked on a candy crime spree. I’m Amanda Peace, and that’s all coming up on Peace of the Action.”
“Ugh, can’t stand that cooze.” I opened a can of caramel corn. There she was again: smirky face, thick bangs, perma-tan, talking about us through her nose like she could smell the shit we were up to our necks in. At the ends of her sentences she’d dip her head and look intently into the camera as if to say, This is serious, everyone. This is soooooo serious. Like she even cared about those stores we’d robbed. Those “decent, hardworking families” I’d pointed the gun at. Or us. Very least of all, us.
After commercials for the Diaper Genie and Oreo cookies, she reappeared.
“… Las Vegas law enforcement officials are desperate to apprehend the sixteen-year-old brother and sister duo who have been dubbed the twenty-first century Bonnie and Clyde. And although they are wanted for a string of crimes including arson, car theft, and robbery, many young people see the twins’ exploits as heroic. The Argents have become modern-day celebrities, gracing the covers of the current issues of Teen Times and Face It. Like Bonnie and Clyde before them, the duo perpetrates their crimes in an era of severe economic difficulty. And they’ve become nationwide celebrities because of it. Cell phone footage of their raid at an ice cream parlor right here in Vegas has already registered over one million hits on YouTube. Internet sites have been set up in their honor, web forums are inundated constantly with messages of support, and, believe it or not, items alleged to have been used by the twins in various restaurants have even been posted for auction on eBay….”
Our photos came up again: the grainy black-and-white one of me flipping the bird at the Chronic Chocolate Company, and one of Beau, full color, at General Custard’s.
Amanda Peace spoke to some teenagers hanging out at the base of the Stratosphere.
“They’re just so cool,” said one girl with red cheeks. “And it’s not like they’ve hurt anyone. I don’t think they’d be doing it if they didn’t have to.”
“It’s not like Mickey and Mallory,” said a black-haired boy. “Beau and Paisley don’t kill. They’re not sadistic. They’re just cool.”
“And Beau is really sexy,” said an older woman with a lip ring, laughing.
Out the corner of my eye I could feel Beau looking at me as he stretched out on the bench like a cat stretches after sleep. He was smiling.
The governor came on TV. He had a total stick up his ass.
“… The LVPD expect to capture the Argents within the next twenty-four hours. The net is closing in on these lawless juveniles. Everybody knows what they look like, thanks to the overwhelming media coverage, so they’ll be easy to spot now. And I repeat: If you do see them, do not confront them yourself. They are armed and dangerous. Notify the nearest law enforcement officer instead. By tomorrow, the twins will no longer pose a threat to the residents or the tourists of this city—of that I have no doubt.”
“Asshole.”
“Everyone knows where we are, Pais….”
“Yeah, well. Maybe we should get caught. Maybe that’s the quickest way to find Dad.”
“Or the quickest way to jail.” Beau looked at me. He looked down at Mom’s pendant around my neck. “It looks good on you, Pais.”
“Thanks,” I said, offering him the caramel popcorn.
Then there she was in billions of pixels, Granny Dearest. The old Vaginasaurus herself, once again against the backdrop of the toasted remains of her house.
“… I’ve lost everything, Amanda. I just don’t know why they would do this. They set fire to my house; they stole my car, my jewelry, valuables. I brought them up well, gave them everything I could. Jane was sent to private school and … they had a good life after the trauma of losing their mother. I don’t know what I’m going to do now….”
“Squeeze a little harder, Skank, you might actually produce a tear.”
“She must be massively pissed off at us,” said Beau.
“At me,” I said, digging around for popcorn in Beau’s can.
“What do you mean? I was there, too. I’m an accomplice.”
“Yeah, but you’re Golden Boy. She’ll hang me out to dry. And once the cops find out about my expulsions and …”
“I’m not Golden Boy.”
“Yeah, y’are. She’s always loved you. You’re the one who never makes any waves. You don’t even tell her when you get beat up at school.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, really? You’ve told her about O’Donnell and his crew and what they do to you? The head-flushing and the spitting and the locker graffiti?”
“No, of course not.”
“That’s why she kept Dad away. She’d sell me down the river in a heartbeat, but she’d never let you go.” I closed my can and opened a sour cream one. “She ever try anything, you know, sexual?”
He looked at me from under his hair. “Paisley …”
“I’m just asking. It happens. Something-Ophelia. I heard about it. Like necrophilia, but when old women get horny for young guys. She’s already bagged the infant gardener. She ever get you alone and …?”
“You are unbelievable! You’re twisted. Have you ever thought that maybe she just prefers me because you’re the difficult one? You’re the one who ‘doesn’t take any of her shit,’ whereas I’m ‘the doormat.’”
“Well you know what they say, a boy’s best friend is his grandmother.”
“Shut up.”
“Aw, Beau. If I’m outta line, just tell me to fu —”
“Fuck off,” he spat.
“All right.” I smiled. I always appreciated him more when he told me to fuck off. I did need to be told. I would’ve told myself to fuck off if I thought I’d listen.
“Come on,” he said, leaving his popcorn cans on the bench. “Let’s go back.”
I did the same and got up. I followed him through the flood of people who were headed for the on-the-hour dance of the fountains outside the Bellagio. They looked just like they did at the end of that George Clooney movie. All these huge bursts of water from all over the pool were shooting straight up into the black sky on the beats of the music. It was amazing. Hundreds of people had gathered all around the pool to watch, and all the best spaces at the front were taken. I wanted to get closer. I went to see if I could push through.
I peered over, jumping up to see if I could see somewhere we could stand, and turned around to tell Beau where to head to.
But he had disappeared.
BEAU
TWENTY
BELLAGIO FOUNTAINS,
THE STRIP,
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
She came toward me like a tiger stalking through long grass. Except the long grass was a crowd of tourists. And the tiger was my grandmother.
I turned around. “PAISLEY!” I shouted. I didn’t know if she heard or saw me. Matt gripped one of my arms, Virginia the other, and together they dragged me through the rest of the tourist mêlée. I wriggled and writhed to be free of them, but the more I squirmed, the harder they held on. I didn’t stop, though. It wasn’t like before, outside the house with Matt squeezing my neck. There, I didn’t dare breathe for fear of what he might do to me. But this time I kept on pulling and pushing and making it as hard for them to take me as I could.
Neither of them said a word, all the way to the motel. They didn’t ask me where we were staying, they just knew. They must have been trailing us. In the parking lot, Matt manhandled me, searching for the room key. I squirmed in my grandmother’s grasp, shouting for help, hoping someone might hear and come over.
“Gimme the key or I’ll bust it open. Your choice,” said Matt. I just smiled at him. He busted it open.
/>
Once inside, Virginia pushed me face-first onto my unmade bed as Matt started binding my hands together with rope. The same rope he used for marking off planting areas in our grandmother’s garden.
She bent down so her face was level with mine. “Where are my antiques?”
“In the closet,” I mumbled, burying my face in the bedsheets.
She went over to the closet and pulled one of the handles, immediately spying the beach bag. She pulled it out and searched inside. “Good. It’s all here.”
“You don’t need to tie me up,” I said, as Matt wound the rope around and knotted it tightly, checking that my hands wouldn’t slide. Then he did the same with my feet and left me on the bed. I lay there, my wrists and ankles throbbing with the rope pressure. “You’ve both got what you came for. There’s only me here.”
Virginia walked back over to the bed, slowly swinging the bag. “This is just the down payment, Beau. YOU’RE what we came here for….”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh. We’re going to the lake house, Matthew and I. And you. We’re going to live there. Just the three of us.”
“What, you’re gonna hold me for ransom?” I didn’t understand it. “No one’s gonna pay for me. You know we don’t have any money. We can pay you in jelly beans. We got plenty of them,” I said, my mouth getting my ass into something it seriously couldn’t handle.
She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. Upside down, her features looked all distorted, like a melted clay pot. She raised her eyebrows and chuckled, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. “Well don’t you suddenly have so much to say! You were always so eager to please me, Beau. What happened since you’ve been away on your little adventure?” She came down closer to my face so I could feel her breath on my skin. “If I have to lock you up for the two whole years, you’ll stay—”
“Two years?”
“Well, eighteen months at least.”
My follicles screamed in agony. I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. She gave me a look, right up close, like she didn’t know if she was gonna kiss me or hit me. “Then you’ll get our fund.” Her eyes gleamed at the thought.