by Barry Lyga
The delivery guy spent a moment at the door with someone who was not Lisa McKenzie, but who appeared to be her equally well-endowed mother. Then, tucking some bills into his pocket, he ambled back to his car.
“This is officially getting boring,” Brian said. “Are we done?”
Dean opened his mouth to agree with Brian, but just then the pizza guy pushed off the curb, did a Dukes of Hazzard–style dive into his car and peeled wheels, blasting away from the curb and hurtling over the rise and down a hill, out of their sight.
“What the—” Dean didn’t get the sentence out. Jay floored it and hit his headlights.
“What are you doing?” Marcus cried from the back seat, crushed between his brother and Brian as the car twisted around a bend. The delivery guy’s taillights pricked the darkness too far ahead.
“Slow down!” Dean yelled. The roads back here juked and jived like a sleeping cat’s twitching tail.
“Gotta catch him,” Jay said.
“We know where he’s going!” Brian yelled.
They emerged to a streetlight-lit intersection. The light turned red as they approached. Dean was certain that Jay was going to blow through it, but at the last possible instant, he slammed on the brakes, shrieking to a smoky, squealing stop at the line. In the distance, the Datsun’s taillights winkled once, then disappeared from sight.
“Damn!” Jay punched the dashboard.
“I think he knows,” Dean said.
“Game over,” Marcus called from the back seat.
“Over?” Jay’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change. “Since when?”
“He caught us,” Brian offered. “It’s over.”
“Says who?” Jay jumped the light by a half second, blasting through the intersection just as the light turned green overhead.
“No one wants to get in trouble,” Marcus cautioned.
“No one’s getting in trouble,” Jay assured him. “He doesn’t know who we are. All he’s seen is our headlights in his rearview.”
That was a good point. Back at Lisa McKenzie’s house, they’d been half a block away in the pitch dark. The pizza-delivery guy might have an idea of the general size and contours of the car, but otherwise he knew nothing. He certainly couldn’t have discerned the license plate or even the make and model. And the rest of the night, all he’d’ve seen would’ve been Jay’s lights.
“Let’s head down to Finn’s Landing,” Brian offered. “There’s that one place that stays open late. We could get some smokes.”
Dean didn’t really smoke—every now and then a hit off a joint Brian purloined from his mom’s stash—but that sounded a lot better than continuing the pizza game.
“I could go for a Coke,” Marcus chimed in.
“Better than sitting around here,” Brian said.
A general murmur of agreement clouded the confines of the Chevette as they returned to the center of town. But Jay shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
The four others all groaned audibly as Jay pulled into the Nico’s parking lot. The Datsun was parked at a slight angle before the store, its lights dead.
“What are we doing back here?” Marcus said ominously.
“Jay. Come on.” Brian shifted uncomfortably in the back seat.
“Bad idea,” Antoine advised. The car fell silent in the aftermath of a rare Antoine pronouncement.
But Dean was riding shotgun and had known Jay the longest. It fell to him.
“This is getting boring,” Dean said. There was no sense appealing to Jay’s sense of self-preservation—he had none. He feared neither physical harm nor punishment of any variety. But he lived in total terror of being considered dull or uninteresting.
“We’re almost done,” said Jay, gripping the wheel. He’d cut the lights but left the engine idling.
In the back seat, Brian clucked his tongue irritably.
“We’re almost done,” Dean said soothingly. “Everything’s okay.” If Brian lost his temper, it would take them forever to settle him down. He was slow to anger, but once the rage hit, it hit hard.
It was closing in on midnight. Dean reasoned that there was an excellent chance that they were already done, but even as he thought it, the world proved him wrong. The delivery guy ambled out of the pizzeria with an overstuffed thermal bag and a two-liter Diet Coke tucked under his arm.
The Datsun backed out of its spot, executed a three-point turn, then drifted past the Chevette as it prepared to turn out onto the street.
At the exact moment the driver was about to turn, Jay flipped on his headlights, pinning the driver’s side of the Datsun in bright light. Thrown into stark contrast with the surrounding dark, they all got a good look at the driver as he raised one hand to shield his eyes, his face twisted into anger and shock.
“What are you doing?” Dean punched Jay in the shoulder to get his attention, but Jay only leaned forward over his steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
The delivery guy had been halfway into his turn and had no choice but to commit. He turned out of the cones of light Jay had thrown on him and went up Center. Jay floored it, tearing off after him, barely checking his mirrors as he pulled out onto the road.
Marcus swore loudly and profoundly in the back seat. “What are you doing, man?”
“I said: We’re almost done.” Jay spoke through gritted teeth. Dean wondered how stupid it would be to open his door and roll out of the car like Remo Williams.
How stupid? Try, like, totally stupid, Dean thought in his sister’s Valley-est of Val-speak.
“Hang on.…” Jay muttered, almost as though he resented needing to say it.
To keep up with the delivery guy, who had just executed a perfect right turn onto Bay Street, Jay had to tap the brake and spin the wheel hand over hand. Dean winced with the g-forces, and Antoine yelled out in protest as his twin and Brian crushed him against the inside of the door.
“Just pull over!” Dean pleaded. “Come on, Jay!”
But Jay had already hit Bay and floored it in order to catch up to the Datsun, which now was definitely exceeding the paltry twenty-five-mile-per-hour limit posted on Bay Street. The road twisted like a phone cord, and in a moment the Datsun’s lights disappeared around a corner.
Jay took the corner at forty, this time throwing Antoine and Marcus into a howling Brian. Dean’s head thunked against the passenger-side window.
“Jay!” Dean cried out. “Just stop it!”
Bay rose into a series of hills and turns like a spiral staircase, becoming Gill Drive. They’d caught up to within sight distance of the Datsun, which outpaced them, taking the corners with aplomb. Dean thought of Steve McQueen in Bullitt and grasped for the handhold in the armrest, holding on for dear life as he braced with his other hand against the dashboard. Jay clearly wasn’t going to stop until he’d…
Until he’d what? Dean thought he knew: This would be the last delivery run of the night, and having started this whole mess, Jay was constitutionally and psychologically incapable of letting it go until the delivery guy clocked out and went home. Come hell or high water, Jay would see that last delivery.
And then what? Follow the guy home? One last menacing cruise before calling it a night?
I thought this would be stupid, Dean thought. I was right. I just didn’t know how.
“Slow down,” he pleaded. “Just a little.”
Over a sharp rise, the Chevette actually left the road for an instant. Groans exploded from the back seat, and Dean’s stomach lurched with that weightless, almost-but-not-quite-diarrhea sensation.
From here, Gill became a series of not-at-all-gentle turns wending down the hillside toward Grove Road. The Datsun accelerated into a curve ahead of them, disappearing from view.
Jay gunned it as he took the curve. The back seat boys crushed poor Antoine again. Dean, well-braced, managed to stay in place.
“Holy—!” he exploded as they came around the bend.
They were practical
ly atop the Datsun, which had slowed once taking the curve. Jay slammed on his brakes as the Datsun crept forward ahead of them. The high-speed chase had suddenly become super slow. They inched along at something like fifteen miles an hour, no more than a car length behind.
“What’s he doing?” Brian asked.
Dean was wondering the same thing. The hair on his neck erected. He didn’t like this. “Go around him,” he told Jay.
“Dean’s right,” Marcus vouched from the back. “This ain’t good.”
But Jay couldn’t be dissuaded. His stubbornness had always overridden any common sense, and tonight was no exception. Despite the chorus from the back seat and the passenger seat, he grinned and turned up the radio. AC/DC offered up dirty deeds, done dirt cheap.
The Datsun slowed even more. Jay softly goosed his brake, keeping a car length behind.
Brian started cussing. A lot. Dean had never heard him cuss so much.
“Take out your tampon,” Jay snapped over his shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”
Before Brian could retort, Dean slapped Jay’s arm to get his attention and pointed through the windshield.
The Datsun had stopped. Pulled over in front of a dark house.
Jay braked, stopping in the middle of Gill, the nose of his Chevette pointed down toward town.
“Now what?” Brian’s voice foamed with injury and satisfied anger.
“I don’t—”
Jay broke off suddenly as the driver’s side door to the Datsun opened. The delivery guy hopped out of the car, bearing a baseball bat. He slammed the door and bounced on his toes in the middle of the street, waving threateningly with the bat.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Come on!”
Jay started to giggle. It was contagious—Dean found himself chuckling, too.
The three in back hadn’t caught the disease yet.
“Get. Out. Of. Here.” Antoine.
“You wanna mess around?” the delivery guy shouted, brandishing the bat. “Get out of the car, you pussy!”
He took a step toward the car. Dean wondered if he could read the license plate. The guy didn’t seem to be in a state of mind to memorize a string of letters and numbers, in any event.
While it felt risky to tear his gaze away from the man with the bat, Dean knew that he had to check in on Jay. When he looked over at his friend, though, Jay was half-bent away from him, scrabbling under the driver’s seat. A moment later, his left hand came up bearing a long hunting knife.
“Jay!” Dean yelped. “Man!”
“Jesus!” Marcus swore from the back seat. “Put that away!”
“Jay…” It was Antoine. And, wow, had they heard a lot from him that night. “Don’t be foolish.”
“This is just so he knows we’re serious.” Jay’s words were calm and rational, but his expression rode the line between chaos and passivity.
The three in the back could only hear him—Dean could see, too. “Jay, man, let’s not get out of control.”
The delivery guy took a couple of more steps closer, his baseball bat now clutched in both hands, swinging back and forth.
“Hit your brights,” Dean blurted out.
Jay, for a miracle, listened, clicking his high beams on. The delivery guy staggered, caught in the intense glow. He released the bat with one hand, shielding his eyes.
“You want me?” the guy shouted. “Come get me!”
Dean’s eyes flicked from the knife to the bat. And he was keenly aware that the only thing keeping them from running this guy over was the fact that Jay’s left foot was still on the brake.
“The coolest thing in the world,” Dean said, each word falling into place without a moment’s thought or consideration, “would be to peel out backward and do a bootlegger’s turn.”
Jay’s eyes—squinted, narrowed, fixated on the delivery guy—widened in recognition and delight.
The delivery guy trotted forward a couple of more steps. Too close now. Too damn close…
And then Jay threw the Chevette into reverse and slammed on the gas. With a high-pitched howl, the car leapt backward, scooting up Gill.
The delivery guy jumped back, stumbled, fell to the ground, dropping his bat. Jay hooted laughter. He turned in his seat, craning his neck to check through the rear window, his knife hand the only one on the wheel. As they neared the crest of Gill, he cranked the wheel left and the Chevette spun drunkenly, its rear wheels bumping up onto a nearby curb.
“What the hell was that?” Now that they were out of danger, Brian was annoyed.
“Hang on,” Jay mumbled. He shifted into drive and stomped on the gas. The car bounced forward, the rear wheels ripping the grass strip between the curb and sidewalk to shreds. Then the car was oriented properly, heading up Gill and back toward Bay. Jay was leadfooting it again, channeling his best Duke cousin, but Dean couldn’t help checking the side mirror. There was nothing there but blackness.
“You think he’ll follow us?” Marcus asked, voicing Dean’s unspoken worry.
As if to answer, Jay tugged the wheel, turning them onto a minor residential street, then wove an intricate pattern of lefts and rights down random roads until they found themselves spat out onto Center near the county line.
If the delivery guy had been inclined to turn the cat and mouse game on its head—to make Jerry into Tom, as it were—then he’d’ve had a tough time figuring out where they went. There’d been no headlights behind them, so Dean decided they were safe.
Unless Jay decided to…
But no. He was driving north along Center, the opposite direction of Nico’s.
They drove without speaking for a few minutes, listening to Rowdy Randy, the nighttime DJ on WKOR, as he mocked a 7-Eleven cashier who’d called in.
And then Jay dropped his knife back under his seat and sucked at his palm. “Nicked myself when I turned the wheel,” he explained, very mildly.
“You all right?” Dean asked.
Jay held up his hand. A long scratch ran in a straight line down his palm. “It’s fine. It’s not even midnight. What now?”
They drove down to Finn’s Landing and found an open convenience store. Everyone loaded up on chips and sodas. Brian ambled back toward the magazine section and stared at Sports Illustrated for a long time.
“We’re ready!” Jay hollered to Brian.
“Give me a minute!” Brian hollered back.
They bought their junk and went out to the parking lot, loitering against the car as they peeled open bags of chips and popped soda-can tops.
“What’s the deal with the knife, Jay?” Marcus asked, almost casually.
Jay shrugged. “Just in case.”
“That’s like my deer knife,” Dean told him. “You think you’re gonna have to…”
Jay, ignoring him, got in the car and cranked the engine. Music bubbled out from the open windows. Dire Straits, playing “Money for Nothing.” Jay and Marcus duetted in a high falsetto, singing, “I want my! I want my! I want my MTV!”
Dean blocked it out. He hated this song. A few moments later, Brian emerged bearing a gigantic soda, a pack of Twizzlers, and a flat paper bag.
“What did you buy?” Marcus asked as Brian slid into the back seat, pushing the twins closer together. “I bet it’s Playboy.”
“More like Playgirl,” Jay taunted, to general laughter.
“Shut up,” Brian told them, struggling momentarily with Marcus, who half-heartedly tugged at the paper bag.
“I want to see what turns on gay guys!” Marcus laughed as he spoke. “Come on!”
“Get off!” Brian finally shoved Marcus in the shoulder and tucked the bag between himself and the car door for safety.
“‘You can hang out with a gay person,’” Marcus said in his best Eddie Murphy impression, which was quite good. “‘You can play tennis with a gay—’”
“‘I kid the homosexuals a lot,’” Dean broke in, in a not-nearly-as-good Murphy. “‘Because they’re homosexuals.’”
Jay gu
nned the engine. Rowdy Randy scratched a record and played a fanfare and announced, “Your Friday night ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’!” to much hooting and hollering in the car. Even Antoine perked up considerably and actually smiled as the song’s bass guitar cranked through the first few thumping bars.
Dean allowed himself a small smile and gazed out the window as the familiar song pounded at his ears. Everything was perfect.
Wasn’t it?
THE PRESENT: LIAM
Let’s try it a different way this time, the message began. It was, of course, from another burner account. Everyone wins.
Boogie Woogie was clearing out as dinnertime neared. Fish sticks and chicken nuggets were in high demand from the masses of kids exiting the building. Marcie had to clean and disinfect the playing surfaces, but she listened as El read them the message.
It went on to promise $5,000 in cash in exchange for “items in your possession.” He even went so far as to say that El could choose the meeting place and time.
“This is a man who’s willing to deal,” Jorja mused.
“This’ll go faster with some help,” Marcie pointed out, brandishing a canister of bleach wipes.
They all pitched in, wiping down every visible surface as they discussed the message.
“How much is $5,000, really?” Marcie asked. “Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to have $5,000. But is that really a fair trade for helping someone get away with murder?”
“We’re not actually going to do this,” Liam reminded her. “We don’t even have the knife.”
“Yeah, but what happens when we don’t?” El asked. “First he came to my house and tried to take it from me. Then he tried to get me to give it up. Now he’s trying to buy it. What’s next? Is he going to knock down my door and threaten to shoot my mom? Or just grab me off the street one day?”
“None of that’s going to happen,” Liam promised, knowing he couldn’t guarantee it. His voice went hollow and hard.
“What if we go on the offensive?” Jorja asked. She’d stopped wiping things. Not that she’d been doing a great job to begin with.
“Meaning what?”