The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  But Griffin did. He looked. And smiled.

  He was still smiling, even as Minnie shyly looked away.

  Feeling like a cork about to leave a bottle, Minnie couldn’t look away for long. Standing up straight—completely unafraid—she looked back at him. “Okay,” she said, standing by the passenger side of the car and waiting for him to open the door.

  Still holding both bags, he leaned in and reached past her, his forearm about to brush against her own. He was so close, she could smell the Wonder Bread in the grocery bag—and the black cherry soda on his breath.

  She looked right at him, waiting for him to say something.

  The only sound was a muffled rat-a-tat-tat…

  … of laughter.

  It was coming from her left. She followed the sound over her shoulder, just around the corner, where two guys—one black with a high-top fade, one white wearing an Oakland Raiders jersey—were snickering to themselves.

  “No, ya Guido—the deal was you gotta do the kiss!” the white one shouted.

  “You lose, brother! Game over!” the black one added.

  “That’s not what we said!” Griffin laughed back.

  Minnie stood there, still struggling to process.

  “C’mon, you should be thanking me,” Griffin said, turning back to Minnie. “I gave you a full two minutes of what it’s like to be normal.”

  Minnie wanted to scream. She wanted to hit him. But her body locked up and her legs began to tremble. Still, there was no way she’d cry for him. No way. She tried steeling herself, but all she saw was how hard all three of them were laughing. From her nose, twin waterfalls of snot slowly ran down.

  “Bye, freak,” Griffin said, dropping both bags of groceries. The eggs shattered in one bag. From the other, a single can of tuna fish cartwheeled down the sidewalk.

  “You even realize how much you look like a boy? Whatchu got down there, boy parts or girl parts?” Griffin asked, flicking his fingers against her crotch. The trembling in her legs only got worse. “It’s boy parts, innit?”

  Minnie shook her head, fighting the tears. “I’m a girl,” she whispered.

  “And you’re telling me all those girl parts work? No chance,” Griffin challenged, getting right in her face. “No chance those parts work.”

  Minnie watched the can of tuna fish roll into the street and tip on its side, making a small repeating circle like a spun nickel approaching its stop.

  “I’m right, ain’t I?” Griffin added as the can of tuna continued to spin in front of the car. Minnie shut her eyes, her legs trembling worse than ever. “You got nothing working down there, do ya?” he shouted. “Take the hint, animal. God did it for a reason—He don’t want no more mongrels like you!”

  Minnie’s legs finally stopped trembling. She could feel the result running down her legs.

  “Did you just wet your—!?” Griffin took a step back, making a face. That smell…“Is that—? Ohh, nasty!”

  “She just took a dump in her pants?” the white kid asked.

  “She crapped her pants!” Griffin laughed.

  Scrambling backward, Minnie tripped over the rest of her groceries, landing on her rear with an awful squish that set Griffin and his friends howling.

  In the street, the can of tuna sat there.

  Climbing to her feet, Minnie looked up at Griffin and his eight-ball tattoo as the world melted in a flush of tears.

  “Check it out—a face made for an abortion—and the stench of one too!” one of them said, laughing.

  “Where you going, Elephant Man!? You forgot your groceries!” Griffin called out as she fought to her feet and started running up the block. “Whatcha gonna do—go tell your mom!?”

  She didn’t respond, but as she ran as hard as she could and tried to avoid thinking of what was running down her legs, Minnie Wallace knew the answer. She knew exactly what she was going to do.

  She was going to get her brother.

  88

  I stumble backward, bumping into the spine of the open hospital room door.

  “Good news!” the red-glasses nurse calls out behind me. “Nico’s upstairs. He’s on his way down.”

  I barely hear the words. I’m too focused on the patient with… eight-ball. He’s got an eight-ball…

  “I-Is he…? Is that…?”

  “Relax. He’s fine,” the nurse says. “He’s PVS. Persistent vegetative state. Been like that since he got here—though actually, you should talk to Nico. We ask our patients to go in and do therapy for him: play music, rub his face. But Nico swears that he’s heard him speak—just mumblings, of course.”

  I spin back to face her. It’s the first time she sees the panic on my face. “You okay?” she asks.

  “Is that his name? R. Rubin?” I blurt, reading the name from the medical chart clipped to the foot of his bed. “How long has he been here?”

  “Actually, that information is—”

  “How long’s he been here!” I explode.

  The nurse steps back at the outburst. Eightball doesn’t move, his bat eyes barely blinking.

  “Ten years,” the nurse says coldly. “Now I need to ask you to leave. If you want to speak to Nico—”

  Nico. I almost forgot. Nico’s headed here right now.

  “I changed my mind. I don’t need to see him,” I say, cutting past the nurse and rushing back to the lobby. “And don’t tell him I came. You’ll only upset him,” I warn, meaning every word.

  As I shove the metal door open and dart back into the cool air of the lobby, my brain is still swirling, trying to do the math. If Eightball’s here, then—No. Don’t even think it. Not until I know for sure.

  “Well that was fast,” the guard with the big football ring calls out from behind the security desk.

  “Can I—? Your sign-in book,” I blurt, pointing to the black binder on the edge of his desk. “You need me to sign out?”

  “Nah. I can do it for you.”

  “It’s fine, I’m right here,” I say, flipping open the book and grabbing the pen. My name’s on the last page. I purposely flip to the first, scanning names as quickly as I can.

  For Eightball to be here… If Nico knew—or even if he didn’t know—there’s no way this was pulled off without help.

  The first page in the overstuffed book dates back to June, over six months ago. There’re only two or three visitors per day, which, as I continue to flip through the pages, makes it easy to see who’s been in this building five months ago… four months ago… three months ago…

  Oh. Shit.

  No… it can’t be.

  But it is.

  My ribs contract, gripping my lungs like thin skeleton fingers. But before I can react, my phone vibrates in my pocket.

  Caller ID tells me it’s Dallas.

  “You ready to pass out?” I ask as I pick up.

  “Don’t talk. Just listen,” he insists. “We’ve got an emergency.”

  “Trust me, the emergency’s here.”

  “No, Beecher. The emergency’s here. Are you listening? I had some folks—some of our folks here—I had them run Clementine’s info to see if they could find something new. But when they looked up her address—”

  “The address isn’t in her name. I know. It’s her grandmother’s place. Her grandmother owns the house.”

  “You said that last night. But that’s the problem, Beecher. When they ran her name—according to everything we found…” He takes a breath, making sure I’m listening. “Clementine’s grandmother died eight years ago.”

  Inside my ribcage, the skeleton fingers tighten their grip. I’m still flipping through the sign-in book. But I can’t say I’m surprised.

  “I know,” I tell him.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  I look down at the sign-in book and reread the one name that is in here over and over and over again. Three months ago, two months ago, even last month—the signature is unmistakable. An effortless swirl from the one person who I now reali
ze has been coming to see Nico not just since yesterday, but for over three months now.

  Clementine.

  89

  Twenty-six years ago

  Journey, Ohio

  It was Thursday, and the barbershop was open late.

  The young barber wasn’t thrilled—in fact, if it were any other client, he would’ve already locked up and left. Especially tonight. Tonight was card night, and with Vincent hosting, that meant they’d be playing bid whist and eating those good pierogies Vincent always ordered from around the corner. They were probably already eating them now, Laurent thought as he glanced down at his digital watch and then out the plate glass window where the rain had just started to springboard from the black sky.

  Ten more minutes. I’m not waiting a minute more than that, he promised himself, even though he made the same promise ten minutes ago.

  And ten minutes before that.

  Again, if it were anyone else, Laurent would’ve already left. But he wasn’t waiting on just any client. This was one of Laurent’s first clients—back from when Laurent was still in high school and his dad first gave him the scissors and a chair of his own.

  In a town like Journey, where the same man has been cutting the same hair for nearly four decades, it takes more than just bravery to try out the untested new barber.

  It takes trust.

  And like his father with his own first clients, Laurent would never—not ever—forget that fact, not even years later when he was asked to stay late on a cold, rainy card night, when every store on the block was closed and every second waiting here decreased the chances of him seeing a pierogi or—

  Diiiing, the bell rang at the front of the barbershop.

  Laurent turned as the door slammed hard into the wall, nearly shattering the plate glass. It wasn’t his client. It was a crush of young men in their twenties rushing in from the rain, stumbling at the threshold. They were soaked… slipping… dripping puddles across the black-and-white tile floor.

  For those first seconds, Laurent was pissed. He hated dealing with drunks, especially drunk college kids who suddenly see a barbershop and think they want a Mr. T mohawk. But it wasn’t until they tumbled inside that Laurent finally saw the true cause of their lack of balance: The young man in the middle sagged facedown to the ground. His friends weren’t walking with him. They were carrying him.

  As he lay there, not moving, his right arm was bent awkwardly in a way that arms don’t bend. Sliding down from his soaked hair, drips of blood tumbled into the new puddle of rainwater, seeping outward as they turned the floor a strangely beautiful light pink. But even in the midst of the chaos, even with the blood still coming, the young barber, who would forever regret staying late that night, immediately recognized the tattoo on the bleeding man’s forearm.

  An eight-ball.

  He’d cut the hair of one other person with the same mark. He knew what it meant—and what gang it came from.

  “Get inside! Shut the door!” one of the boys said, screaming at the overweight boy—no, that was a girl—who was still standing out in the rain, looking like a chubby phantom and not saying a word.

  “They’re gonna kill us!” the other boy called out, his haunting gray eyes locking on the barber with an almost spiritual clarity. Laurent knew him too—he’d known him for years—back from when the boy was little and his father would bring all sorts of trouble to the shop. Even back then, even when it got bad, Laurent never saw the boy get riled. Until now.

  “I mean it, Laurent. Please…” the young twenty-year-old who would one day be the President of the United States pleaded as his gray eyes went wet with tears. “Please can you help us?”

  90

  Beecher…” Dallas warns through the phone.

  “I’m already gone,” I say, shoving open the lobby’s glass door and darting out into the cold. My body bakes in the weird sensation from the heat in my winter coat mixing with the brutal wind from outside. But as I weave past the concrete benches in front of the brick building…

  “Make sure Nico’s not following,” Dallas says, reading my mind.

  I check. And check. And recheck again.

  The glass door is shut. From what I can tell, there’s no movement inside.

  “Get out of there!” Dallas adds as I run for the narrow black path that snakes through the snow and leads back up to the parking lot. I recheck one more time, but as I turn around, my legs feel like toothpicks, ready to snap and unable to hold my weight. But this time—all the times—I’m not looking for Nico. I’m looking for her.

  For Clementine.

  My mind swirls into rewind, replaying every moment, every interaction, every conversation we’ve had since she “magically” returned to my life. I thought I was lucky. I thought I was blessed. How many guys get to reconnect with the girl they used to dream of? The answer’s easy. None.

  I replay our night on the bridge… and the homemade photo she made of us… and how she understood me in a way that Iris never did. I try to tell myself how stupid and cliché and dumb every precious moment was—but the toughest truth, as the bitter pain in my belly tells me, is how bad I still want every damn second of it to be real.

  Still running on toothpicks, I tear as hard as I can, putting as much space between myself and the building as possible. My stomach nearly bursts, feeling like a rolled-over carcass. How could she do this to me?

  “Beecher, are you—?”

  “I-I saw him,” I tell Dallas.

  “Nico?”

  “No. I saw him. He’s here. I saw Eightball!”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “He’s alive. We assumed he was dead—that Wallace killed him all those years ago—but he’s—” At the top of the hill, the path dumps me back in the parking lot that sits right across from Nico’s home building. Within seconds, I beeline for Dallas’s old Toyota and fish the keys from my pocket. “Don’t you see, Dallas? We were right—about Eightball… and the blackmail… That’s what they were doing. That’s how they found out what happened all those years ago,” I add as I whip open the car door and slide into the front seat. “Maybe they found Eightball… or Eightball whispered it—either way, they used that to blackmail—”

  “I think it’d be best if you put down the phone now,” a soft gentlemanly voice suggests from the backseat.

  “Whatthef—!” I jump so high, my head slams into the roof.

  “I also highly recommend not turning around,” the man warns. “I see what you’re doing,” he adds as we lock eyes in the mirror. He’s an older black man with silver hair and a matching silver mustache. “I’m begging you, Beecher—this is the time when you want to use that big brain of yours. Now please… put the phone down, and put your hands on the steering wheel.”

  His voice is kind, almost soothing. But there’s no mistaking the threat, especially as I spot his shiny silver weapon just above the back of my headrest.

  At first, I assume it’s a gun. It’s not.

  It’s a straight-edge razor.

  * * *

  91

  Twenty-six years ago

  Journey, Ohio

  Up here… left up here!” the kid with the tight curly hair—the one called Palmiotti—insisted, sitting in the passenger seat and pointing out the front windshield of the young barber’s white van.

  “The hospital’s to the right!” Laurent shouted, refusing to turn the wheel.

  “No… go to the other hospital—Memorial. Stay left!” Palmiotti yelled.

  “Memorial’s twenty minutes from here!” Laurent shot back. “You see how he’s bleeding?”

  Behind them, in the back of the van, Orson Wallace was down on his knees, cradling the head of the unconscious kid with the eight-ball tattoo, trying to stop the bleeding by tightly holding towels from the barbershop against his head.

  An hour ago, Wallace threw the first punch. And the second. He would’ve thrown the third too, but Eightball got lucky, knocking the wind out of Wallace’s st
omach. That’s when Palmiotti jumped in, gripping Eightball in a tight headlock and holding him still as Wallace showed him the real damage you can do when, in a moment of vengeful anger, you stuff your car keys between your knuckles and stab someone in the face.

  Years later, Wallace would tell himself he used the keys because of what Eightball did to Minnie.

  It wasn’t true.

  Wallace was just pissed that Eightball hit him back.

  “He’s not moving anymore,” Wallace’s sister whispered from the back corner of the van. She was down on her knees too, but just like in the barbershop, she wouldn’t get close to the body. “He was moving before and now he’s not.”

  “He’s breathing! I see him breathing!” Wallace shouted. “Stewie, get us to Memorial!”

  Palmiotti turned to the barber. His voice was slow and measured, giving each syllable its own punch. “My father. Works. At Memorial,” he growled. “Go. Left. Now.”

  With a screech, the van hooked left, all five of them swayed to the right, and they followed Spinnaker Road, the longest and most poorly lit stretch of asphalt that ran out of town.

  Passing field after field of pitch-black farmland, the barber used the silence to take a good look at Palmiotti in the passenger seat. New jeans. Nice Michigan Lacrosse sweatshirt. Frat boy hair.

  “Can I ask one thing?” the barber said, finally breaking the silence. “What was wrong with your car?”

  “What’s that?” Palmiotti asked.

  “You got those nice clothes—the new Reeboks. Don’t tell me you don’t have a car. So what’s wrong with yours that we gotta be driving in mine?”

  “What’d you want me to do? Run home and get it? My brother dropped us off downtown—then everything else exploded with the fight.”

  It was a fast answer. And a good one, Laurent thought to himself. But as he looked over his shoulder and saw the pool of blood that was now in his van—in his carpet—and could be linked just to him, he couldn’t help but notice the look that Palmiotti shot to Wallace in the passenger-side mirror.