by Teagan Kade
I can’t think about it anymore. I try to pull my concentration back to work, to the op.
I turn to Brock. “Take me out tonight.”
“What?” comes the startled reply.
“With your car buddies. I want to see what it is you get up to. You said I owe you, so there you go. It can be my penance.”
He looks perplexed. “Why?”
I’ve got to be careful here. “Call it curiosity, call it I just need a break, a change of scenery.”
He laughs. “I don’t think you can handle it.”
“A couple of boys and their toys? Try me.”
“Your funeral,” Brock snaps back, the air suddenly icy again at the word.
*
Work is an endless string of briefings. I get a wire, a rundown on who’s who in the club, but it’s sketchy at best. Even the police don’t have a lot to go on at this stage.
Dad’s not home yet when I get back. They’re keeping him in for observation. It’s quiet without the lights on in the main house, without the sound of Jeopardy streaming out of the windows, a salty TV dinner spinning in the microwave.
But the lights are on in the garage next to the granny flat. Brock’s wedged under the hood of his car, spannering on something, overalls caked in grease. He looks like he just stumbled out of Deliverance. I don’t even bother trying to say hi. I’m too exhausted.
I make my way inside and blast last night’s pasta. I write Brock a note telling him to lock the doors, sorry that I can’t come out, and collapse under the covers wondering how the hell everything has managed to change so fast and become so damn complex. I don’t do complex. I like things simple and straightforward, organized. I’m not Brock. I cannot live in a world of chaos.
Oddly, I’m still thinking about him as I fall asleep.
*
I wake sharply.
I roll over in bed, a single limp hand searching for the clock.
My eyes bug open. Two AM?
Brock’s got music blaring from the room next door. It’s like I’ve suddenly been teleported back to 2010. Back then I didn’t mind, but now I just want to sleep.
I tap the wall.
No answer.
“Knock it off. Now!” I add.
My door suddenly kicks open and I scream, pulling the blankets tight to myself.
Brock looks on fully dressed from the doorway. He’s wearing the same leather jacket he’s had all these years. I remember when he first bought it, before distressing was the cool thing. Now it’s looking suitably weathered. Oh what stories it could tell.
I’m really having a hard time closing my mouth. I thought I’d covered myself, but it seems not.
“Purple,” says Brock, noting the color of my bra. “Nice, but I had you pegged as a crimson kind of girl.”
“What the fuck do you want, Brock?”
He picks up a discarded pile of clothes in the corner and tosses them towards me. “You want to go out? You want to see what I get up to? Let’s go.”
*
I start to get a little alarmed when we begin to head out deeper and deeper into the satellite suburbs that ring the city center. This is where crime happens. This is real poverty. It’s Cops re-runs for days out here, 24/7, and we’re headed right into the thick of it.
Brock pulls off the main road and heads around behind a large factory, pulling up into a parking lot filled with a group of maybe ten cars that look like they were pulled straight off a toy shelf. I’m terrible with car models, but I know there’s a mix of vintages here—sleek Japanese imports and American musclers like Brock’s Camaro.
Brock pulls up beside what I’m thinking is a candy red Corvette, a stick figure of a girl approaching from the other side of the parking lot and waving through the windows. She spots me and waves in the exact same manner. Weird.
Brock gets out of the car and she jumps onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her head into his shoulder. Under the sodium lights I now see her hair is bright pink.
There’s a weird sensation that scurries across my skin. I try to pinpoint it, prodding until I come up with the answer—I’m jealous.
I actually step back, a little frightened at myself by this realization.
Stick Figure hops down and Brock leads her by the hand before me. “Maddy, meet Birdie.”
She takes my hand, but only the tips of my fingers, shaking them like you would a tissue. “I’ve heard so much about you, Maddy. It’s so nice to finally put a face to the name.”
I look to Brock. “Cool.”
Did you just say ‘cool’? This isn’t The Breakfast Club, Maddy.
Even Brock raises his eyebrows.
Two more guys walk over. They seem like average Joes that stumbled into a sports store super sale. They introduce themselves as Jay and Axel, seem innocuous enough.
More guys follow, more hands shaken, eyes connecting—rarely with my own.
So this is Brock’s clique.
There’s a food truck selling sloppy burritos in the corner of the carpark. From time to time a car swings in and people get out, hanging around, grabbing their food and disappearing on their way. The smell of sweaty meat is heavy in the air.
“So, Maddy,” starts Jay, all of us gathered between the cars, my butt warm from sitting up against the Camaro’s grille, “what do you do for a crust?”
This is going to go down well. “I’m a cop.”
Axel actually leaps off the hood of his car, slapping the ground in a weird, ‘say what?’-cum-krunk move.
I laugh. “Is it that bad?”
“Man, if I knew you were bringing the po-po around I would have prepared some mud,” Jay fires at Brock.
I give Jay the bird. “Very funny.”
“You in a special squad or something?” asks Birdie, fingernails scratching peeling duco off her equally pink Asian hatch.
“No, just general duties, I’m afraid. I’ve only been on the force a year or so.”
Brock’s watching me closely. I can feel his eyes burning into the side of my face. He’s been acting weird, quiet. I don’t get it, but maybe it’s got to do with the scam they’re running. Maybe he’s thinking about business.
Jay points to Brock. “Your brother here’s had a few run-ins with the po-lice. Did you know that?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t seen him in a while, sorry.”
I’m hoping these guys can shed some light on Brock’s whereabouts.
Jay looks to Brock, something I can’t quite grasp moving between them unspoken. “Got me out of a few tight calls, he has. I owe him.”
“I hope it was nothing illegal.”
“No, maam. We’re just a car club. Nothing more.”
“Sorry, what is it you guys call yourself?” I am genuinely curious.
“The Midnight Club,” says a shadowy figure walking up to the group.
“The what?”
“The Midnight Club. From Main to Second Bridge in twelve seconds. That’s the only way in.
“Second Bridge to Main in twelve seconds?” I stammer. “That’s impossible.”
The mystery man winks. “Not if you’re going quick enough.” He moves into the light, whispering something to Brock and then vanishing back behind the cars. I have to find out who he is.
The boys drift off to the food truck. I pass on a burrito, keen to go without food poisoning at this hour.
Birdie comes up right against me, bumping her skeletal hip against my own.
Apart from Birdie’s flamingo hair, she appears otherwise entirely normal. “So, you’re Brock’s sister, right?”
“Stepsister,” I correct. People always seem to make that mistake. It’s not like we look anything alike.
“Oh.”
“Does he talk about me?”
“All the time. If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s got a thing for you.”
Curiosity piqued. “Really?”
“For sure.”
She doesn’t elaborate further and I d
on’t want to push. “You been with the crew long?”
“Couple of years.”
“Any of the guys take your fancy? Brock, perhaps?”
She laughs hysterically, forced to bend over. “Oh man, Brock? No way. Besides, I much prefer,” she puts her fingers up in a vee and places her pierced tongue between them, “you know…”
“Ohhhh,” I stumble.
“Why are you really here anyhow, and don’t tell me it’s about the cars. I know all about that POS Hyundai you get around in.”
Seems Brock’s been most forthcoming with information about me, but he doesn’t know everything. “Actually, I just wanted to see what he gets up to.”
“Racing, beer, talking shop… It’s a real cycle.”
“You don’t seem so interested.”
She turns to me, her eyes lit with a sudden intensity. “Don’t let their boy-wonder exteriors fool you. They’re good guys… mostly.”
I lick my lips, probing. “They’re not into running or anything?”
“Drugs?” She just blurts it right out so loud I notice two of the guys look over.
I try to wave it off. “You know, whatever.”
“You’d have to talk to Hernandez about that.” She points to the mystery man that approached the group earlier, moving her hand to a silver coupe. “That’s his ride. Nissan R34 GT-R—just like the movies.”
“He’s the ringleader of the club?”
She nods, lips pressed together like a fish. “I don’t know if that’s the right word for it, but yeah, I guess you could say he’s in charge. Do you know much about cars?”
“Not really. They stop. They go. That’s all I care about.”
“Well, Hernandez got that car for slips just like the movies. Really traded up big on that one. The bikers haven’t been too happy about it since.”
“What are bikers doing involved in street racing?”
Birdie scuffs her Converse All Stars on the gravel. “Same shit, less wheels. I don’t really know much about it all. Hernandez runs all the club’s extra-curricular activities.”
“My stepbrother isn’t involved, is he?”
She shakes her head, picks at a bobby pin. “Not any more. He gave it all up, but once you’re a Midnighter, there’s no going back, you know. It’s for life.”
It’s all starting to sound ridiculous. I can’t actually believe this is real life, that people would care about this kind of crap.
“Why do you hang around?” I ask.
She looks me right in the eye. “If it’s one thing these guys are good at, it’s attracting pussy, and I love pussy.”
I decide to change the subject, pointing to this Hernandez character. “He started the club?”
Birdie’s eyes narrow. “Well, Brock started the club years ago. First it was all about the cars, you know, but he expanded.”
“Expanded?”
“Parts, the odd couriering. You know, simple stuff to make some quick cash.”
Quick cash is never legal cash. I was hoping there might be a shard of hope to cling onto that this was all a clean operation, guys and their cars and big dicks, but clearly more’s happening here than anyone wants to let on. I’m going to get to the bottom of it whatever it takes, even if I have to bring down my own stepbrother.
“What’s Hernandez like?”
“He’s,” Birdie thinks on it, “moody.”
“Moody?”
“He has his days. If you don’t get on the wrong side of him he’s a teddy bear, but if you do,” she presses a finger gun against her head and pulls the trigger.
“Right,” I nod. “Is there a bathroom around here?”
She points to the World’s Darkest Corner. “Right back there. Just don’t touch anything.”
I shuffle away to the corner and a grimy-looking toilet block. It reeks of piss inside, but I find a small piece of unblemished mirror and undo my blouse, adjusting the wire underneath my bra. I’m sweating like a god-damned Amazonian, completely out of my depth here. If these guys discover I’m here to investigate them, that I’m recording everything, I’m fucked. They seem harmless for the most part, but not all of them. I’ve read the reports. This Hernandez, though? He’s new. There was nothing on him.
I do my blouse up and step back outside.
I come out of the toilets and straight into Hernandez. It’s like he’s just had a cologne bath.
“Little sis! I never thought I would have the pleasure.”
He eyes my body, my tits, makes no attempt to try and disguise it. He rubs his hands together, gold chains gleaming from the heavy lights behind us.
The path is closed in. I can’t get past him. “Hernandez, right?”
“The one and only. You know, Brock talks a lot about you, but he never told me what a hottie you are.”
I smile. “Thanks.” Scumbag.
This guy clearly thinks he’s a gangster, a too-tanned fresh-from-Juarez homeboy. “Say, how ’bout you and I go for a drive, chill for a bit.”
The last place I’d be wanting to ‘chill’ is with this guy. He comes closer and his hands come out. If he touches me I’m going to have to put him down.
Brock jumps down from nowhere between us. “Hernandez, you fuck. You hitting on my sister already?”
Hernandez puts his hands up. “Guilty as charged, your honor.”
Brock gives Hernandez a play punch in the gut. “What did I say, huh? Be nice. She’s practically all the family I have.”
“What about your mama? She felt real nice when I was tapping her last night.”
“Oh, it’s on!” and both boys go racing off laughing, trying to tag each other. Still, I get a funny feeling about Hernandez. He doesn’t look like he graduated grade school, but I’ve known many crims short in the brain department. He wouldn’t be the first criminal mastermind too dumb to notice and too stupid to care. If he is running for the cartels, the bikers, whoever, you can bet he’s not fucking around.
“Come on, Maddy!” calls Brock in the distance. He has Hernandez in a headlock.
I start walking back to the group wondering precisely when Vin Diesel’s going to show up. Maybe he can give Hernandez a good thumping.
CHAPTER FOUR
On the way home, Brock’s still quiet, engine thrumming away, revs high even for this stretch of highway. He doesn’t seem to mind he’s single-handedly guzzling the world’s supply of gas in this thing.
I rub my hand over the dash. Feels funny. “Nice bunch of people.”
He turns to me. “You think?”
“They seem genuine enough.”
“They are, most of them.”
That’s the second time someone’s said that tonight. I’m trying to read between the lines, to make sense of who’s who when Brock says, completely out of nowhere, “Do you think people can change, Maddy?”
Maybe it’s the magical burrito he’s just ingested, but this Brock is one I am not familiar with. A Brock with actual feelings and introspection—wonders will never cease.
“Sure,” I throw out.
“I’ve changed, Maddy. I want you to know that.”
Where is this coming from? “You’re not about to cry on me, are you?”
“Only if you dent my hood.”
I ignore the humor. “What do you mean? I don’t get it.”
“I mean the guy you knew me as, that reckless kid who only cared about himself, he’s gone and he’s not coming back.”
“I don’t think it’s that easy. Do you know what you put your poor mom through, and my dad? Lord knows why, but I think he actually cares about you, you know. It doesn’t matter. You didn’t do anything—not a postcard or a call or message in a bottle to tells them where you were. They thought you were dead.”
“And you? What did you think?”
“I thought you were in prison.”
A dark look comes over his face. “We really going to get into this now?”
“Were you?”
“For a while.”
“I knew it.”
“Hate to disappoint, but like I said, that’s the past. Once we got out of there we both set ourselves on the straight and narrow.”
“What do you mean by ‘we’?”
“Hernandez and I.”
It’s starting to come together. I shift against the leather, the wire red hot on my skin sucking in every syllable.
“You were in prison together for dealing?”
“Distribution.”
“You were bum chums? Don’t tell me you’ve gone that way.”
Brock laughs, the kind of laugh I remember from when we were younger and things seemed so much more clear cut, when our biggest worry was where to scrounge up fifteen bucks so we could hit the movies. “I’m definitely still a fan of the female body, Mads. Make no mistake about that, dear sister, but what Hernandez and I have is different. There was a point inside where I was in deep trouble, flapping my gums, pissing off the wrong people. He pulled some favors, got me a break.”
“So you owe him?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“He seems kind of dangerous. You sure he’s as straight and narrow as you’re making out?”
“More or less.”
“Pfft, more or less? What does that even mean?”
“It means that if he is still involved in something, I don’t want to know about it. Ignorance is bliss and all that.”
“That ignorance could bring you down again.”
He takes his eyes off the road and glues them to me. They glow cerulean even in the darkness of the cabin. “I’m not going back to prison.”
And that’s the last word on it.
We arrive home and go our separate ways. I take off the wire and carefully stash it under the bed. It seems ludicrous I’m living with the very guy this investigation is centered on, that I’m betraying him right under his nose.
I can’t sleep. I toss and turn. I try to get to the bottom of what this is all about, the one thing that is irking me, and then it hits.
I know I’m betraying my stepbrother.
I know it’s wrong.
But worst of all? I’m enjoying it.
*
My alarm goes and it’s like I’ve barely slept. What time did we even get home? Four? Five? If that’s how Brock lives every night it’s no wonder he sleeps away the day like a vampire.