Laurie’s at the counter. “What can I get you two on this fine Tuesday morning?”
“Your tallest cup of coffee,” Charlie says immediately before scanning the doughnuts. “What do you suggest for a breakfast of champions, Laurie? What’s your favourite?”
“Can’t beat the honey bourbons or the marshmallow bananas—”
“How about a classic, like a chocolate dip? Do you like something like that?” He gives me a sideways peek and I shake my head. Guy has a sugar addiction. Also, he doesn’t give up.
She says, “Hey, you can never go wrong with them. They’re always tasty.”
“Then I’ll take two”—he works it out—“actually, three chocolate dips to go.”
I’m pretty certain I’ll eventually get one of them, but I’m not entirely positive.
As she steps away to get the coffee, he turns to me. “You get that? She likes chocolate dips.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, laughing. “But you don’t get to go there.”
“Why?” he asks, grinning. “You offended?”
“No. But it’s not your joke to make. And if Heather won’t let me joke about it, why should I let you get away with it?”
“Got it,” Charlie smiles. “I’m too vanilla for ya!”
I shake my head and am glad when Laurie returns with the doughnuts and coffee.
Opening his wallet to pay, he asks her, “So, where do all the cool kids hang out?”
She takes his money. “How cool are we talking?”
“Me cool.”
She eyes him up and down. “I’d say Donnie’s Pizza.” She hands him his change, but he leaves it on the counter for her. “Behave yourselves in there,” she adds.
I wonder what she means, but the bell on the door jingles. Charlie’s already outside and I have to rush to catch up.
chapter 42
Charlie’s chewing the last of his doughnut as we step into Donnie’s.
I’ve been here a couple of times to pick up food when the fridge at the cabin was empty at the beginning of the season, but I’ve never come here in the middle of summer. The place is dark and grungy, nothing like Cup of Joan’s. The space is small: five booths along one wall, two tables in the middle, and a long table across the far end.
A young couple, maybe my age, sits in one booth, while an older woman eats alone near the window on a mismatched chair with a cracked vinyl seat. In the kitchen, a guy in his thirties—likely a former dishwasher who now runs the place—drops a basket of fries into the fryer. Smoke and the hiss of steam fill the kitchen.
“Hungry?” I ask.
“Nope, still enjoying my doughnuts, thanks.” He rubs his stomach.
I observe the empty seats. “Where is everyone?”
Charlie tracks down a door at the back, which leads down a hall and past the washrooms. Another door takes us to the top of a stairwell and the faint sounds of binging bells and music rise up from below.
“Arcade,” Charlie announces.
As we descend, I keep my hands off the railing—who knows what’s been on there? The walls are painted black, pockmarked with white dings in the plaster. The stairway opens to a larger space lit by black lights that reflect off scribbles of neon paint. The periphery is lined with pinball machines, old and new, and a pool table and foosball table grace the middle of the flashing, noisy room. Still, the place is jam-packed; there’s someone at every game, playing or just hanging out and watching the points rack up. I follow Charlie into the mix, seeing kids who’ve barely hit puberty next to a couple of people who I’m sure graduated from high school several years ago.
When I see a pinball machine in the corner called Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray, I feel it pretty much sums up the out-of-body experience I’m having. Its synthetic sitar music and tie-dyed, robe-wearing main character makes me feel like a traveller from the future. Everyone’s clothing is a year or two behind, the music is from the ’80s and ’90s—power ballads and Europop—and I’m positive I’m likely the third or fourth, if not the first, black kid they’ve ever seen in their lives.
“This place be trippin’, huh?” I chuckle over my shoulder to Charlie.
Nothing. He’s gone.
I flip into search mode and am moving rapidly along the one side of the arcade looking for him when the trap music kicks in and strobes light up the room like psychotic paparazzi. If I was stoned, this might be enjoyable, but right now, trying to spot Charlie, it’s downright annoying, like a trippy Where’s Waldo.
A big guy about my age, probably on a hockey team judging by the haircut, is coming my way. I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s not on his way over to help.
“You lost?” he asks.
“Nope. Just looking for a friend.”
“I don’t think he’s here.”
I glance at him. “Why not?”
“I’m pretty sure I’d recognize one of your friends around here.”
I try to ignore this asshole and keep an eye open for any mid-height, shaggy-haired teens wearing a backpack, but he keeps trying to get in my face.
“Yo, buddy, I’m right here!” he says.
The music fades to a dull roar in my ears and I get ready for a fight. I might be able to land a punch or two at least, but he’s solid and will likely take me out pretty quick. I’d feel a little better if I knew Charlie was nearby before continuing this conversation.
“Matt!” a blond girl yells, coming over to grab his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Just having a talk with my new friend here.”
She stares me down and I can tell she’s got the same winning character traits as her boyfriend. But apparently I’m not worth it. “What are you messing with him for?” she says dismissing me. “I got what I needed. Let’s go.”
Matt glares at me, unwilling to back down, so he leans in close. His stinking aftershave makes me want to puke. “You come in here again looking the way you do… I will personally drag you up the stairs and kick you into the street.”
He tacks on a smile and I want nothing more than to give him a quick uppercut and bust a few teeth. But I hold back. He walks away and he and his girlfriend disappear up the stairs.
Someone calls me from behind, “Tony!”
I turn to see Ali, a girl I used to hang out with as a kid. Every summer we took swimming lessons together at the local pool and would go to a movie or the fair when it was in town. But as we got older, she wanted more from me than friendship and we grew apart, seeing less of each other every year until I quit hanging out with her altogether.
“Hey, Ali,” I say, feigning excitement at the sight of her. I know it’s a dick move to put on an act like this, but my blood is still boiling from my encounter with that asshole. In fact, right now Ali’s actually a good distraction.
“When did you get here?”
“The pizza place or the cabin?”
“The cabin, silly. I know when you got to Donnie’s. Your friend Charlie told me.”
“You met Charlie? Here?”
“Where else, ya goofball?” She slaps my arm—hard.
Now I remember why she’s never really been a dating option. “Where is he?”
She points to a motorcycle racing game, and there’s Charlie. He’s with two other guys, watching someone else get a high score. There’s a paper cup with a straw sticking out of it in his hand.
I’m angry and relieved all at once. God! Is this how parents feel when they lose a kid? I want to punch him—but I won’t.
I walk over to him and he keeps staring straight ahead. “Trey’s up for high score,” he says.
“Great.”
He realizes it’s me. “Oh, hey, I thought you were Ali!”
On second thought, maybe I will punch him.
“Where’s my drink, dickhead?” I ask, pissed off.
“Ask Ali. She bought it for me.” He’s as casual as can be, and all of a sudden my brain pops like a pressure cooker.
I pull him aside. “Why would Ali buy you a drink?”
“She was just being nice. Besides, I told her she was cute. Girls like doing stuff like that.” He sucks on his drink and then winks like the player he is not.
“Where the hell did you go?”
“Well, I went to check things out, learn a thing or two. I did tell you I was going and that I’d be right back, but you weren’t listening. I came back to get you and you were gone! So the real question is where were you?”
“Dealing with some racist asshole!”
“Oh, yeah, I saw that. Pretty intense.”
“You saw me? Why didn’t you come help me out?”
“Did you see that dude? I didn’t want to get in a fight with him. He seemed big.”
I get in his face, anger burning a hole in my gut. I truly want to punch him but know how easily he can take me down. “What the hell are we doing here?”
He smiles. “Watching Trey.”
“And who the hell is Trey?”
“Trey is… wait for it…” The group of kids cheers, throwing up their hands, high-fiving the guy on the motorbike video game. “Trey is the new champion!” Charlie rushes over to give Trey a fist bump.
“Good for Trey,” I say flatly.
Charlie comes back to me. “So Trey is the champion. He lives nearby with his dad, who’s a farmer and an mla.”
“An mla,” I repeat. Where is this going?
“Member of Parliament for his rm.”
He can tell I have no clue what he’s talking about. “Come on, Shepherd, keep up. His dad was elected to government for this area. His mom’s in rehab and I think this is as badass as he gets.” Charlie does a quick scan around the room before saying, “Now the guy next to Trey in the button-down shirt with the man bun? He deals.”
“What?!”
“Don’t worry. Soft stuff.”
“You didn’t buy any more, did you?”
“I didn’t even buy my drink, dude. But your buddy, Matt—”
“Not my buddy.”
“Yeah, yeah, Shepherd. Anyway, his girlfriend, the blond, she bought something off Man Bun over here.”
“You learn anything else?”
“There’s a couple hundred-dollar misdemeanors like public intoxication and tagging around here, but nothing too serious.”
“Good to know,” I say. Like I said, it’s tough not to be sarcastic around Charlie.
“Oh, and that girl, Ali? She’s made out with him and him and, oh, her.” He points to three random people scattered around the place.
“Huh? How do you do it?”
“What?” he asks.
“Get elbows deep within minutes? I’ve been coming to this town for years and I don’t know a sixteenth of this stuff.”
“Because you don’t go looking for it. I guess that’s the difference.” He finishes off whatever it is he’s drinking—by this point I don’t even care. “I’m done. Ready to go?”
He sets his cup down on a pinball game and heads up the stairs.
All I can do is follow.
chapter 43
“We need to go back to Miranda’s,” Charlie says as we get into the car.
“What? Why?”
“Because the circumstances around our missing person just got a lot more interesting.”
Charlie must see that I don’t quite follow because he explains, “Donnie’s is where teens go for all their recreational drug needs. There was a lot going down in that arcade.”
“It’s a drug front?”
“Nah,” he shakes his head. “That’s where the cops have it all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Donnie’s is the place to go, but they think Pete Johnson, the guy in the kitchen with the french fries, is trafficking.”
“Isn’t that the Pete that Miranda said Terry went out fishing with?”
“The same. But I don’t know how legit any of her story is.”
“You mean, they’re not buddies?”
“Well, they might be, but people say Pete’s always around during the week. Doesn’t sound like he’s the type to take a workday off to go fishing.”
“So is he dealing out of Donnie’s, or what?”
“Nope. He just turns a blind eye to it all. But the cops keep shaking the place down.”
“So they know something’s going on, they just don’t know who’s doing it.”
Charlie nods. “Then on Saturday, the cops searched everyone: pockets, purses, backpacks, pat-downs—all pretty intense. They didn’t find much of anything, but a guy named Little Joe got picked up and tossed in jail.”
“And since Terry went missing around the same time—”
“Why would they spend a whole Saturday looking for drugs instead of for him.”
“Unless they suspect Terry’s involved,” I add.
“Exactly,” Charlie agrees. “Rumour also has it that Terry and Little Joe are buddies.”
“Better buddies than he is with Pete?”
“Way better. They hang out, get drunk together, work on each other’s cars… whatever it is that guys do.”
I stare at him. “You really don’t know, do you?”
He shrugs. “But it gets even more interesting. Yesterday, some tough guys showed up asking about him; they roughed up a few guys when they didn’t get answers.”
It sounds like something from the movies. “What? Like undercover cops?”
“Seriously, Shepherd? In this town? I don’t think they’d go to such lengths.”
“Then who were they?”
Charlie shrugs. “I don’t know, but they don’t sound friendly.”
“So why back to Miranda’s? There was nothing there.”
Charlie doesn’t answer right away. He seems to be pondering something, then says, “Huber said Terry tried breaking into the house. Why?”
“Because she dumped him. He wanted things to return to normal.”
“You saw the place. There was barely anything of him in it. That wasn’t his world.”
“Maybe she cleaned house, got rid of all the memories.”
“When? Before or after her weekend trip to Vegas? Before or after she found out he was missing and the cops were hanging around? Whatever she may have tossed wasn’t a lot. The place had such a woman’s touch; he barely existed in it.” He points at me like a teacher wanting the right answer. “So, what’s so important that he needs to sneak back inside?”
“He wanted something.”
“And we need to figure out what it was.”
chapter 44
We turn and drive down the long street that ends at Miranda’s house. I can’t shake my nervousness. Breaking in once was bad enough—twice seems really dicey, like we’re pushing our luck.
Charlie reads my mind. “I know you think it’s a bad idea going back in there, but we’ll be more efficient this time.”
“You mean because we’ve been there before.”
“No, because we know what we’re searching for.”
We do? “And what the hell is that?”
Charlie scratches at his shaggy hair. “Something Terry wants to hide.”
“Are you serious?”
“What?”
Unbelievable. He really does think this is a perfectly sensible plan.
“Is this how you always work?” I say, “with only the vaguest of ideas of what you’re doing?”
He nods happily. “Pretty much. The unknown is where the secret lies, and no one usually bothers to search there.”
Right. “Why don’t we just tell the police?” I ask. “They’re already suspicious of him.”
“Because
they won’t know what they’re searching for.”
“But neither do we!”
“No.” He smirks. “But we do know how to think like a criminal!”
Guess he’s got a point there.
As we approach, we see a police car parked across the street from Miranda’s house.
“Seems like maybe someone needs a little extra protection,” I observe.
“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe the cops want a second look too,” Charlie replies.
I can’t see a way to avoid them. “Now what? We tap on the window and say ‘Excuse me, Constable, would you like to rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to go in first?’ ”
“Cheeky, Shepherd,” Charlie snickers. Then he points, “Turn left.”
I turn, driving away from Miranda’s street and the police car.
“Pull over,” Charlie says a few seconds later. “We can walk.”
We climb out and double back, casually strolling into the alley behind the houses across from Miranda’s.
Stucco garages and old fences with peeling paint border the lane and there aren’t many sightlines into people’s backyards. As we walk past a shed, a dog rushes up to the wood fence and barks loudly through a gap. I flinch at the sudden sound, but Charlie is unfazed.
“He’s serious about protecting his territory,” I say, hoping my dread isn’t as obvious as it feels when the dog lunges again at the seven-foot fence and his head pops over the top.
“You go on ahead. I’ll be there in a second,” Charlie says over the barking as he unslings his backpack.
This isn’t reassuring. “You’re not going to do anything to the dog, are you?”
“Are you nuts? No!”
I don’t know why I asked, but with Charlie, I’m never quite sure what to expect.
“Go on,” he says again, waving me away. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I make some distance between Charlie, the dog, and me. The beast continues barking and I think Charlie must still be back there, when he suddenly appears beside me.
“What were you doing? Taking a piss?”
“Necessary actions.”
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