I started up the stairs.
“Me and Conner are going out,” I said. “I need to buy some more clothes for the trip.”
I stopped. “Oh. I lost my wallet. I need a new credit card, I guess.”
“Some job of growing up.” Stella tried to say it loud enough that my grandfather would hear. He didn’t.
“Sorry, Stella.”
I turned.
“Jack, honey. What happened to your foot?”
I froze. I’ve never been a good liar, and Stella knew it. And I wasn’t even thinking about how I’d have to answer that.
“I got tangled up in something,” I said. “On a run. With Conner.”
“It looks like you stepped in a bear trap.”
I felt myself turning red, hoped it was dark enough that she wouldn’t notice.
“Well, put something on it so it doesn’t get an infection,” she said.
“I did.”
“Do you want to see a doctor?”
“No.”
I went upstairs.
When I was alone inside my room, I sat down on a corner of the bed and stared at myself in the narrow mirror on my closet door. It was the first time I’d really been alone since I got away from Freddie. I can’t honestly count the staggering hike to Conner’s house as being “alone” because that was a swim through pure drugged panic, where I felt like Freddie was with me every step of the way.
And I never cry. What I did at Freddie’s house wasn’t crying, it was more like my body just getting ready to die, I reasoned.
Because I believed I was going to die.
I looked at my ankle. It was messed up.
I pulled my shirt off and threw it at the door. The marks on my belly had turned into small purple bruises, like I’d been snake-bitten. My hair was a mess. My eyes had black smears under them, and I looked like I’d lost ten pounds. I could see my ribs.
I slipped my shorts off and untied the drawstring from their waistband, pulling the length of it free, out through one side. I threw my shorts away and sat there in my underwear. It was like watching a sick movie, looking into the mirror as I wound that string around the cuts on my ankle.
Tight.
The pain felt good, a release.
I tied my foot to the bed frame and just sat there, looking at my pathetic reflection. I pulled and kicked against the string until I almost had to scream from the pain.
But I didn’t cry.
Why did he do that?
What did he want me for?
I know this is going to sound insane, and I’m sorry for it, but a part of me wanted to go back to Freddie’s house. Like there was something I’d left behind that I could only have if I went back to that room and went back to my place on that bed.
Like I belonged there.
Like I deserved it.
I sat there until it was too dark for me to see the sick, undressed, and dirty kid in my goddamned mirror.
It was the first time in my life I wanted to kill myself.
“What the fuck, kid? What the fuck?” Conner’s voice came in an urgent whisper as he squeezed through my door and pressed it shut behind him with his back.
I was still sitting there, and his voice was like a rope that pulled me up from the bottom of an empty well.
“Jack.” Conner flipped the light switch. The movie in the mirror began again.
“Oh. Fuck. Conner. Sorry.” I shook my head, put my hand over my eyes.
“Get this shit off.” Conner began pulling at the knotted line around my ankle. My foot had turned purple, and I was bleeding again. “Dude. You need help. You gotta cut this shit out.”
I lay back on my bed as Conner unwound the stained cord from around my leg. He threw it down and went to the door.
“I’m going to get something to wrap that with.”
I put my arm across my eyes.
“You better cut this shit out, Jack, or I’m going to have to tell someone. I should get Stella.”
“No!”
He went out into the hallway.
I didn’t realize how much time had gone by. Maybe I was still drugged, but I forgot all about going out with Conner that night.
He came back from the bathroom with a first aid kit in his hands.
Conner kneeled at the foot of the bed. He squeezed antibiotic goo over the cuts, spreading it carefully with his fingertips, like it burned him to touch me; or maybe I was toxic. Then he wrapped gauze around my ankle and taped the end, smoothing it down tight beneath his thumbs. I didn’t say anything to him while he worked.
“You want to go get some help, Jack? I’ll go with you. I think you should.”
“No. I just…I don’t know.” I sat up and looked at him. I know my eyes must have looked messed up. “I think those drugs he gave me are making me crazy. And I haven’t eaten anything for two days. I’ll be okay, Con. Thanks.”
“Come on. Get up and get dressed. Let’s go get some food.”
He pulled me up so I could stand.
I kept my eyes away from the mirror.
Eleven
Stella called about my credit card. She gave me cash—she always had cash for me—and Conner and I had dinner at a brew pub that served pizza and burgers. I started to feel better, I guess, but couldn’t stop myself feeling empty. Like something had been taken out of me and now there was nothing there.
The center of the universe.
While we sat there in the pub, I found myself staring off, past Conner, and images of what had happened to me replayed, so unreal. And Conner caught it happening and said, “Snap out of it, Jack. You sure you don’t want to tell anyone about it?”
We hung out at the mall until it closed, at ten; and I bought some more clothes and shoes, but they didn’t really make up for what Freddie Horvath had taken from me. I kept telling myself to stop thinking about it. I kept telling myself, but I couldn’t do it.
And as Conner was taking me back home, we drove past Java and Jazz. I saw Freddie’s convertible Mercedes parked in an alleyway on the side, between the coffee place and the high chain-link fence around the basketball courts in Steckel Park.
I had a feeling there was some reason for Conner coming this way; he kept looking over at me as he got us closer to the park. And when we finally drove by Java and Jazz, I said, “The guy who did that to me’s here. That’s his Mercedes right there.”
Conner stopped his pickup right there in the middle of the street and looked where I was pointing. The car behind us nearly ran into us. I heard a squeal of brakes, and as the car swerved around us, middle fingers flared out the windows on both sides.
“Fuck you, too!” Conner said.
“What are you doing?”
“Dude, let’s fuck with him.”
“No.”
But Conner wasn’t listening. I could tell by the look on his face. We’d been best friends since before we started kindergarten, and I could always read that competitive look on Conner Kirk. It said he just wasn’t going to give up until he won the game. He reached down beside his seat and pulled up a knife.
He flicked it open.
I felt suddenly sick again, and Conner said, “Knife versus tires equals unfair fight.”
“Don’t, Conner.”
“Dude. You have to. It’s what you need.” And he added, “Knife versus ragtop Benz equals lambs to the slaughter.”
Conner laughed.
I began to sweat.
“Con. Stop it.”
He turned the headlights off and pulled around behind Freddie’s car.
“Fuck that, Jack. I’ve got a stake in this, too. Nobody fucks with us. Ever.”
He opened his door and left the truck idling.
“Now come on, Jack. It’s time for a little payback.”
My head rushed when I stood beside Conner, looking at that car. And he didn’t waste any time, either, as he raised the knife and plunged it straight through the canvas top of the Mercedes. I kind of jumped, like I could feel the stab, and I he
ard the ripping sound as Conner shredded open gashes above the passenger side.
“That’s my stuff in there,” I said.
Conner stopped what he was doing.
I could see my clothes through the Mercedes’ window: shorts, socks, the T-shirt I had on at his party, balled up and rumpled on top of the new Vans I’d only worn one time. Conner climbed onto the hood, snaked his arm down through the tattered top and unlocked a door. No alarm. The car must have been thirty years old, at least.
I began to pant when we opened the door. I could tell Conner was scared, too, and I’m sure it was because there was some part of him that didn’t entirely believe everything I’d told him—maybe he was afraid to think those things really happened to regular kids like us—but, seeing my clothes there on the passenger seat brought that whole twisted world into focus.
“Take it back,” Conner said.
It almost made me sick to touch my own clothes and shoes. I opened my wallet. Everything was there, but out of order.
Just like Jack.
When I picked up my clothes, I uncovered a familiar plastic box.
“Look at this, Con,” I whispered.
Inside were a handful of the same zip ties Freddie had used on me. Conner picked two of them up, rolling the thick, glossy black straps with sharp edges between his fingers. The box also contained Freddie’s stun gun, and a blister pack of pills. And there were some capped hypodermic needles and a bottle of clear liquid with its label blacked out by slashes of permanent marker pen.
“Fuck.” Conner sounded like we’d unearthed a tomb. He picked up the stun gun, flicked its switch twice, then tucked it into the pocket on his shorts. “This guy’s sick. Roofies.” He held the pills so they just caught the faint light from over the courts.
“That’s what he put in the water he gave me that first night,” I said.
“And this is probably the shit he shot you up with.” Conner turned the bottle in his fingers.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I want to see him.”
My heart felt like it would pound its way through my rib cage.
“Con,” I began.
“Just point him out through the window,” he said. “I need to see him.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to do it. ’Cause you don’t need to be scared anymore, Jack. Let me have a look at that sonofabitch.”
I didn’t say anything. I walked back to Conner’s truck and got in, holding my clothes on my lap, not looking at them, just staring straight down the alley toward the light of the street. I shut the door and Conner leaned his head in the window.
He sighed. “Okay, Jack. Let’s get out of here, then.”
Then he must have seen the change in my eyes as I stared straight ahead to the street corner.
Freddie Horvath was walking toward us, carrying a cup of coffee, dressed like he was heading to work for another night.
“He’s coming.”
Conner dropped down between the cars, hiding from the man who didn’t seem to notice us sitting there in the dark. I began shaking as Freddie got closer. I was certain he would see me, even if it was next to impossible in the shadows of the alleyway. Still, I couldn’t overcome the thought that he would feel my presence.
“Come on, Conner,” I whispered. My foot twitched. I thought Conner would have already made his way around to the driver’s side, but as soon as Freddie got to his car and paused, seeing what had happened to it, Conner jumped up and shouted something as he pressed the stun gun into Freddie’s neck.
The coffee flew from Freddie’s hand, splashing across the hood of Conner’s truck, and Freddie collapsed, striking his head against the Mercedes’ door handle on his way down.
Conner kneeled. I couldn’t see what he was doing, and I was terrified and just wanted us to get the hell out of there.
“Conner.”
“Come here.”
“Con, let’s go.”
“Come help me.”
I sat there for a minute, wondering what to do. Everything was so quiet and dark. Finally, I put my clothes and shoes down on the floor between my feet.
I opened the door and stepped out into the alley.
Conner had bound Freddie’s hands and feet with double loops of those black zip ties. Freddie’s eyes were closed and there was a jagged cut on his forehead, a small circle of blood on the pavement next to the Mercedes’ front tire. And Conner had opened that package of pills and was using his thumb to force one down into Freddie’s throat.
“Conner, quit it.”
“Too late,” Conner whispered. “He swallowed it. Now come help me.”
“How bad is he hurt?”
“He’s not hurt. He’s just knocked out, I think,” Conner said. He wiped the spit off his thumb onto his T-shirt. “Well, he’s going to be knocked out now, that’s for sure.”
Conner looked at me and smiled. He had that familiar expression of his: He was winning the game. I lowered my eyes to Freddie Horvath. He looked sick and weak, nothing like the monster I kept imagining since I’d gotten away from him.
I kicked him in the ribs as hard as I could. His eyes came open for a brief second, like he was a water balloon and the pressure of my kick nearly popped him open.
“Hell yeah!” Conner said.
I kicked Freddie again and a faint moaning wheeze fluttered from his lips. Then I spit on him.
I was breathing hard, excited and nervous. I looked quickly in both directions, up and down the alley, but I suddenly felt more awake and energized than I had since the night of Conner’s party.
I dropped to my knee, hiding next to Conner between the cars. I whispered, “What do we do with him now?”
“You remember where he lives?”
“I walked home from there. I’d never forget it. He lives out in Dos Vientos Ranch Estates.”
“Jack, we’re going to load him in the bed of the truck and dump his ass at his house. Then let’s call the cops so they can find all the sick shit he’s got going on in there.”
I said, “Do we have to say who we are?”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t tell. This way, he gets caught and we get even.” Conner slid the plastic box away from Freddie and picked it up. Then he took his T-shirt off and began wiping down the places where he’d touched the car. He looked at me quickly, handed me the box, and said, “You drive.”
I turned Conner’s truck around and backed up to where Freddie had collapsed in the alley. Then Conner lowered the tailgate and each of us looped our hands under Freddie’s arms and tugged him up into the bed. I’d never lifted a body before, and Freddie Horvath was so difficult to move. We even dropped him once and he landed square on his face. I think it broke his nose.
Nobody saw.
Nobody knew.
He didn’t care about me, and I didn’t care about him—that’s how it works.
And while we did it, I could hear the music from the coffee place.
After we closed the gate on the truck, I slid in behind the wheel. I left the headlights off and drove out slowly around the back side of Steckel Park and made my way up through the rolling hillsides east of Highway 101 toward the home where Freddie had taken me.
We had our windows down. Conner played music videos on his drop-down DVD screen. The music was loud and wild and it made me feel so free. Conner was pumped, too—he sang along, hanging his arm out the window. I smiled as we drove.
“Fuck yeah,” Conner said. “This is the way we take care of shit.”
I held out my right hand for a high five and Conner squeezed it so hard it hurt, but I wasn’t going to let go. I tested his grip by squeezing back just as tight as I could.
I was glad we did it, convinced in the rush I was feeling that Conner was the greatest friend I would ever have, because I knew he would do anything for me and I wouldn’t even have to ask him.
It wasn’t until I’d turned around to back Conner’s truck into that sick ba
stard’s driveway in Dos Vientos Ranch that we both noticed the truck bed was empty.
Freddie Horvath was gone.
Conner said, “Oh Jesus Christ.”
We backtracked.
What looked like a pile of old blankets lying discarded on the asphalt in the middle of the darkest stretch of Nacimiento Road turned out to be Freddie Horvath.
I turned the headlights off and pulled Conner’s truck onto the dirt shoulder and parked it beneath a towering black oak tree.
“Oh, fuck,” Conner said. He laughed nervously.
“He must have gotten up somehow,” I said.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“Shit, Con.”
We sat there in the dark for no more than a minute. Neither of us said anything. Didn’t have to. We were scared, and we both knew it.
I opened my door.
Conner and I crept across the blacktop to where Freddie was lying. His hands and feet were still bound, and he was resting with the side of his face against an orange reflector that was stuck down in the middle of the roadway. His feet were turned around backwards and his dull eye and a black puddle of blood around his head reflected the nighttime stars. He exhaled once, that was all. Then there was nothing.
“Jesus, Conner,” I whispered. “We killed him.”
“We didn’t do anything to him. He did it to himself.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
“Don’t touch him, Jack,” Conner said. “We need to get out of here before someone else comes.”
I stood over Freddie, my mouth hanging open, frozen.
Conner grabbed my shoulder. “Give me my keys and get in the truck.”
And as he pulled away from the spot where we’d left Freddie Horvath’s body, heading back down Nacimiento Road toward Glenbrook—nobody else on the road at all—Conner turned to me and said, “Don’t even think about it, Jack. It wasn’t our fault, so forget it. No one’s ever going to know.”
Except us.
Twelve
Stella assumed the reason I was so mopey around the house for the next couple days had to do with me being nervous about going on the trip. By Wednesday, the night before I was supposed to leave, the newspapers and television stations began running stories about the doctor who’d been murdered and dumped in the middle of the road; and how the search of his home turned up items that linked him to a fourteen-year-old boy who’d been missing since the summer before. They suspected there were others, too, but I already knew that.