Six Bad Things Part 17

--Good, let's take a walk, I don't want you in here if Stace wakes up.

WE STROLL around the block, our faces illuminated by streetlamps and the colored lights flas.h.i.+ng on the rooflines of the houses. Wade left his smokes back in the garage and has to b.u.m one of mine.

--Benson & Hedges?

--Uh-huh.

--Kind of an old lady cigarette. How'd you get started on those?

--Long story.

We pause while I light his cigarette, continue. Walking past houses I remember from my childhood. We stand in front of one with a particularly elaborate display: a mini Santa's Village built on the lawn and spilling onto the driveway.

Wade looks down, sees something, bends, and picks up a pigeon feather. He tucks it into the zippered breast pocket of his jacket, sees the look on my face.

--I use them for work.

--What for?

--Marbling paint. You dip them in your dark color and run them over the base color while it's still wet. Have to be real gentle, but you get a great effect. I save them in a little box.

He points at the display.

--Remember stealing Christmas lights?

--Yeah.

--What were we thinking?

--G.o.d knows.

We start walking again.

--What were you doing in my backyard, Hank?

WADE HILLER was the toughest guy I knew. The lead burnout in school. The kid in PE cla.s.s who never dressed out. The guy with the mouth on him, who never wanted anyone else to have the last word. Corkscrew hair past his shoulders, thick arms and chest from hours of bench presses in his dad's garage, a box of Marlboro Reds always rolled up in the sleeve of his T-s.h.i.+rt. He grew up around the block from me, went to all the same schools, but it wasn't until I broke my leg that we had anything to do with each other. Jocks and burnouts: do not mix.

I couldn't partic.i.p.ate in PE and ended up sitting around with Wade and his pals Steve and Rich. And it turned out they were OK guys. Steve was really f.u.c.king smart, Rich was as mellow a person as I'd ever met. And Wade. High-strung, quickly violent, but just exciting and fun to be around. And then they got me into the whole burglary thing and me and Wade got busted, and I thought it was time for me to forget my new friends. Last I heard about Wade, he was well on his way to spending his life hanging out in Santa Rita County Jail.

I sit on the back b.u.mper of one of his three trucks. Each of them with the words HILLER INTERIOR CONTRACTING painted on the side. Wade comes back out of the garage, a fresh beer in his hand.

--It's cold, let's get in.

He unlocks the truck and we climb into the cab. He hasn't said much since I told him I thought he might have been spying on my folks for someone trying to find me. He sips at the beer.

--You know, I didn't graduate from our school. I was way short on credits, had to go over to the continuation school where your mom worked. This would have been the year after you went off to college. She tell you about that?

--I guess I heard about it.

--She was great to me. I was a real f.u.c.kup. You know. She took me seriously, didn't just write me off as a lost cause. And that was after we got arrested together. I figured she'd blame that s.h.i.+t on me, but she never even brought it up. I would never have graduated without her.

Mom always had a soft spot for the troublemakers, that's why she took the job as princ.i.p.al at the continuation school in the first place.

--And after I graduated she was the one who convinced me to take some cla.s.ses over at Modesto City. My dad did OK with me, but after my mom died.

I'm digging another smoke out of the pack and he reaches over and takes one for himself. I pa.s.s him my matches and he lights up.

--I'm gonna reek when I go in. Stace is gonna s.h.i.+t.

--Will she be worried where you are?

--I have insomnia, she's used to me taking walks late. Besides, she sleeps like a rock.

We smoke.

--Yeah, Dad was a great guy, but he drank a lot after Mom died.

I remember raiding his dad's booze after school. The handle-bottles of Jack Daniels, cases of Coors stacked in the garage.

--I remember that. Not your mom.

--Yeah she was gone before we were hanging out.

--Your dad drinking.

--He wasn't mean or anything.

--I know.

--Just wasn't there.

His dad, pa.s.sed out on the couch by midday on the weekends.

--Yeah.

--Didn't have much left over for me. Anyway. For a couple years, after I moved to San Jose, when I'd come home to visit him, I'd stop by the school to see your mom. She ever tell you that?

--No.

--Well, I did. And she was always encouraging me, always happy for me. Even when I got Stace pregnant and she was only eighteen and I was nineteen and we weren't married yet. She sent us a card and a baby gift.

--I didn't know about that.

--A little teddy bear.

--Yeah, that's Mom.

--She kind of saved me, made a real difference in my life. I have my contractor's license, my own business, been married for fourteen years. I have three great kids. Honestly, I don't think I would have any of that if not for your mom.

He opens the window and flicks his b.u.t.t out.

--So when that stuff happened in New York with you, I knew two things. I knew I'd do just about anything for your mom, and I knew there was no way that woman raised a killer. And I would have believed that even if I didn't know you myself.

Wade takes the last swallow of his beer.

--So what did you think you were gonna do, coming over here in the middle of the night?

Kill you.

I finish my own smoke and toss it.

--I don't know. I was p.i.s.sed. Beat you up. Maybe.

He grunts.

--What now?

--I need to get out of town, take care of something.

He nods.

--I'd help, but. I have Stace and the kids to. I can't.

--I understand.

--Maybe there's something. Something small?

--Don't suppose you know anyone in Vegas, someone could help me find someone else? Someone lost or hiding.

He laughs a little.

--You know, you know who's in Vegas? Remember T?

T? Oh s.h.i.+t, T.

--The dealer we scored off? The spaz?

--Yeah.

--I thought he got three-striked and put away.

--No, no way. He had two convictions and was on parole when they busted him the third time. Somehow his lawyer got him bail, and he jumped it. Went to Vegas.

--I don't know, man, he was such a . . .

--Such a f.u.c.kup?

--Yeah.

--Well, I guess that's why we all got along.

I laugh.

--Yeah.

--You know what? He sends me, you'll love this, he sends me Christmas cards, every year.

--No way.

--Yeah, complete, the guy is wanted here, and he sends me Christmas cards complete with a return address.

We're both laughing.

--I just got this year's, like, yesterday. Want me to go get it?

He puts his hand on the door.

--No, no, I don't think T is the guy I need for this.

--No, you should see, you should see this, it's a riot.

He's really laughing now, and I can't help but join in.

--Yeah, OK, OK, I want to see it.

--Hang on.

He opens the door and steps out just as the black Toyota pickup squeals around the corner and plows into the front of the truck, sending Wade flying to crash against the front of his house.

I OPEN my eyes. Where am I? I've been in an accident. I was driving my Mustang and something happened and. Oh, G.o.d. I think I killed Rich. Oh, G.o.d.

I'm lying on my back, looking up at the stars. I'm not in the Mustang. It's not then, it's now. I'm lying on my back in a driveway looking up at the stars. I've been in another accident. I'm lying next to a huge, long-bed pickup with the driver's door hanging open. There's a black pickup that looks like it tried to occupy the same parking s.p.a.ce as the long-bed. Bad call. I must have been thrown out of the long-bed when . . . When what?

My head is lodged in a cone of silence. I shake it and the sounds start to penetrate: dogs barking, car alarms set off by the crash, someone crying. Someone crying. I should see if I can help. I move my arms: check. I move my legs: check. Here goes. I roll onto my stomach and get myself up on my hands and knees. I won't say it feels good, but nothing screams too loudly. OK, let's go for broke: I stand up. My head does a little spin and tumble, the world spins the opposite way, trying to catch up, they crash together, and everything stops moving around. Safe to say I have some dings and bruises, but I'm better off than the guy with the mullet who's lodged in the winds.h.i.+eld of the long-bed. Mullet. When was the last time I saw someone with a mullet? Oh, right. The puzzle pieces in my head fall back together into the shape of my brain.

Fat Guy and Mullet Head must have been riding in the truck bed. Mullet Head is jammed into an indentation in the long-bed's winds.h.i.+eld that is shaped exactly like his body. Fat Guy is sprawled on the hood of the Toyota, just now propping himself up on his elbows to look around. Ponytail Boy is behind the wheel, trying to get his door open, but it looks like both of his arms are broken so he's not doing a very good job of it. Leslie is the one who's crying, except it's more like screaming. She looks OK (has her seat belt on and everything), but she's clutching something limp and dollish. Her door is hanging open. As I walk over, I hear a rustling sound, and turn to see a pair of feet sticking out of a bush, which tells me where Danny is.

I reach into the truck cab. Leslie stops screaming, lets me take Ca.s.sidy out of her arms and sits there holding herself, rocking back and forth.

I lay Ca.s.sidy on the pavement. There's blood covering her face, and her long, honey hair is stuck in it. I take off the CSM jacket and wipe at the blood with the cotton lining. There's a gash in her forehead where it must have slapped the dash. It's b.l.o.o.d.y like all head wounds, but not too big. I press the jacket against her head and feel her pulse. Good, her pulse is good, her chest is rising and falling regularly, there's no blood coming from her mouth, and none of her limbs are obviously broken. She was probably sleeping in her mom's lap, her body limp and relaxed for the crash. That's good.

--Leslie.

She's staring at her daughter. Lights have come on in the houses on the street, people are standing on their porches in nightclothes.

--Leslie!

She looks at me.