Blank Confession (14 page)

I'd never talked to anyone about the whole Dad thing before. I felt as if my brain had just taken a long overdue crap.

Shayne said, “I like your dad. He's kind of like my dad.”

“Your dad's an ex-drunk?”

“No, but he had some bad things happen to him in the service, and he holds a lot of it inside.” Shayne's eyes softened, then snapped back into focus. “You were going to tell me about Marie,” he said.

“Oh yeah. Marie and I were in the eighth grade when Dad quit drinking. Did you know she used to be really smart? She was the smartest kid in school. They wanted her to jump a grade, but around the same time Dad quit drinking, she got stupid.”

“I don't think she's stupid,” Shayne said softly.

“I don't mean stupid like
stupid
. I mean she just quit using her brain for, you know,
thinking
. She started hanging out with all these losers and getting high all the time. Her first boyfriend was Kevin Ungar. He got sent up last year for stealing a car. Then Derek Wilkes, who got stupid-drunk and crashed his car into the back of a cop car. His parents moved to some other state. And now she's with Jon.”

Shayne was staring off into the distance. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Believe me, you do not want to be one of Marie's mistakes.”

“It doesn't matter. I'm not going to be around much longer.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don't know. All I know is that sometimes bad things
happen and I have to do something about it, and every time I try to fix things they break even worse but I can't stop trying.”

“You gave Marie a ride home last night,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Notice anything different about her?”

“She seemed kind of hyper.”

“Meth will do that.”

Shayne drained the last of his coffee. “Meth? Marie is doing meth?”

“She thinks her ankles are fat.”

“That's not good,” he said.

“Nobody wants fat ankles.”

Neither of us smiled.

“You know what we should do?” I said.

“What?”

“Go to my house so I can change out of this dink suit. And play some checkers.”

“Why?”

“It helps me think.”

Playing checkers did not help me think, but it did help me not think. Shayne and I were on our third game—I beat him every time—when I heard a motorcycle pull up in front of the house.

“Sounds like Marie's decided to come home,” I said.

Shayne went to the window and looked outside.

“It's Trey,” he said. “Alone.”

“What's he doing here?”

Trey just sat there, as if trying to make up his mind about something.

“I'm going out to talk to him,” Shayne said.

I followed Shayne outside. He glided up to Trey in that loose-limbed, ready-for-anything way he had.

“Hey,” said Shayne.

Trey took off his helmet. “Hey.”

“What's going on?” Shayne asked.

Trey said, “Marie's up at Jon's.”

“We know that,” I said. “So what?”

Trey seemed to notice me for the first time.

“Where's your suit?” he asked.

I had changed into a T-shirt and jeans.

“That's just for school,” I said.

“You look almost normal. Only smaller.”

“You look normal too, Trey. Only stupider.”

Trey's eyebrows came together and I thought maybe I'd gone too far.

“What about Marie?” Shayne asked. “Is she okay?”

“Depends on what you mean by
okay
,” Trey said, still looking at me.

“He means, is she
okay,
” I said.

Trey's eyes got smaller, then he jerked his chin to the side, as if throwing off my words, as if what I said didn't matter because I was …
smaller.
He returned his attention to Shayne.

“This morning Wart and his girlfriend rode down to Hogfest, this big motorcycle rally, and left Jon in charge. It's been nonstop party central ever since. They're all tweaking.”

“Tweaking?” I said.

“Yeah, doing meth. I mean, I'm wired enough already. But those guys, they smoke up and then take a bunch of Ativan to smooth themselves out, and then smoke up again.”

“What about Marie?” Shayne asked.

“Her too.” He rolled his massive shoulders in what I took to be a shrug. “Jon's kind of—well, you know how he is. Marie and him got in some stupid argument and he started slapping her around. I tried to get him to cut it out, but he went all postal on me and told me to get the hell out. When I left, Marie was in the bathroom with a bloody nose or something. Marie's nice. I mean, she was always nice to me, so I was thinking I should tell somebody.”

Shayne was on his bike before Trey finished his sentence. We watched him tear off down the street.

Trey said, “Wow.”

“Let's go,” I said.

“Go?”

“Yeah. Take me there.”

Trey looked down at me. “Mikey …”

I climbed onto his bike behind him.

Trey looked back at me. For a second I thought he was going to throw me off, but instead he shoved his helmet onto my head, started his bike, and we took off after Shayne.

“When was this?”

“Just a few hours ago.” “I thought Trey was the kid who tipped your bike over,” Rawls said.

“Yeah. But like I told you, it was never his idea.”

“Okay, so you went over to Wart's apartment because of what Trey told you …”

“Yeah, I went in the lobby and started punching call buttons until I got somebody who buzzed the door for me, then went up to the fourth floor. I knocked on the door to Wart's apartment, but nobody answered. I figured they were all up on the roof, but the roof access—one of those heavy-duty fire doors—was locked. So I kicked in Wart's door—”

“You kicked in the door?” Rawls looked at Shayne, who probably weighed less than the door.

“Yeah. The door wasn't all that solid.” Seeing the expression on Rawls's face, he added, “It's a martial arts thing. Like breaking a brick.”

“Oh, well then …” Rawls decided to file that with the other things he wasn't sure he believed. “Go on.”

“Inside it was a nice apartment, but a real mess. Beer
bottles and pizza boxes everywhere. The apartment filled the entire top floor of the building—I think there were eight or ten rooms. There was a vintage Harley parked in the front room, like a piece of furniture. Three bedrooms, and some workrooms way in back. He's got quite an operation. You'd find it interesting.”

“Was the girl there?” Rawls asked.

“No, everybody was up on the roof. It took me a while to figure out how to get up there, but I finally found a pull-down ladder in one of the closets. It looked like Wart cut through the closet ceiling and put a hatch in for his own private roof access. The hatch was open, so I climbed up and stuck my head out.

“The first thing I saw was Kyle, standing on this low wall at the edge of the roof, walking along it with his arms out like a tightrope walker. Tracy was yelling at him to get down; Jon was sitting on a sofa, laughing.”

“There was a sofa on the roof?”

“Two of them, and some chairs, too. He had it set up like a living room with no ceiling. I climbed up out of the hatch. Everybody was watching Kyle. I just stood there, checking things out, waiting for them to notice me. I didn't see Marie at first. Tracy was standing there yelling at Kyle, Maura Dansky was curled up in one of those big club chairs. Tracy said if Kyle didn't stop screwing around, she was leaving. Kyle thought that was hilarious; he was laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall off the wall. Then Tracy went over to Maura and grabbed her, saying, ‘C'mon, we're leaving.' Maura looked like she was drunk, but she let Tracy pull her out of the chair and
across the roof toward the hatch. That was when they saw me standing there, and everybody froze.

“I stepped aside so that Tracy and Maura could get to the ladder. I told them—Maura and Tracy—to go. I think I said something like ‘Party's over.' They looked back at Jon, then at me.

“Jon said, ‘Party's not over until I say so.' But the girls were already climbing down the ladder. I walked toward Jon. That was when I saw Marie on the other sofa. I couldn't see her before because the sofa back was toward me. She was just lying there with her nose all swollen and her eyes closed.

“I said, ‘Marie?' She didn't move. She was so still that, for a second, I thought she was dead, then she moaned and moved her arm a little.

“‘She's having a little nap,' Jon said.

“I told him I was taking her home, but he said, ‘I don't think so.'

“That was when he brought out the stun gun.”

We were standing in the foyer trying to figure out how to get in when Tracy and Maura came out. Tracy was all jittery and brittle; Maura looked half-asleep.

“Party breaking up already?” Trey asked.

Tracy rolled her eyes and said, “Jon and Kyle are being stupid.” She looked at me. “Your friend is up there.”

“What about my sister?” I asked.

“She's there too.” She went outside, dragging Maura with her.

Trey was holding the door open. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Not really.” I stepped through the door and looked back. “You coming?”

Trey rolled his shoulders and followed me up the stairs. It was strange being with him, just like grade school all over again. And even though I was not completely sure whose side he was on, it felt good to have him there. Especially when we saw what had happened to the door of Wart's apartment.

“Jeez,” Trey said, staring at the wreckage. The door looked as if someone had taken a battering ram to it. We entered the apartment not knowing what to expect.

Nobody was home.

“They're probably up on the roof,” Trey said. He led me down a hallway to a closet. The closet door was open, revealing a steel ladder leading up to an open hatch, blue sky above. I could hear voices. Trey and I looked at each other. “You first,” he said.

What I saw when I poked my head up through the hatch looked like a frozen moment in a video game. Shayne was standing with his back to me. About fifteen feet in front of him, Jon was sitting on a ratty sofa holding his stun gun. Over to my right, Kyle Ness stood on the edge of the roof, up on this low wall about two feet high. I pulled myself up onto the roof and stepped aside so that Trey could come up. I didn't see Marie at first, then I noticed her feet sticking out from the end of a second sofa.

Jon's eyes moved from Shayne to me.

“Hey, Mikey! It must be Wednesday!” He saw Trey clambering up to stand beside me. “Trey, my man! Where'd you disappear to?”

Shayne was standing very still, but even from the back I could tell he was on hyperalert. Jon stood up and took a few steps toward Shayne, pointing the stun gun at him. Then several things happened at once.

Jon pressed the trigger on the stun gun; there was a popping sound. Shayne moved impossibly fast, turning his body sideways to present a smaller target. Time slowed. I could see the darts leave the gun, like slow motion in an action movie. Shayne arched his back and the darts whizzed past him, missing by millimeters. I heard a strangled gasp from behind me. Both darts were sticking out of Trey's chest.

Trey's legs folded and he fell back through the hatch, thumping down the ladder.

Shayne was facing Jon again. Jon was frantically trying to pull the spent cartridge off the stun gun. I remembered from my own experience that once the dart cartridge was removed, the gun could still deliver a direct contact shock. Shayne saw what he was doing and started toward him, but Kyle had jumped from the wall onto the roof and was moving to intercept Shayne. He had something in his hand. The short, razor-sharp blade of his utility knife glinted. I shouted—I have no idea what I said. Maybe it was a scream. Shayne saw Kyle coming at him from the side and reacted, grabbing and twisting Kyle's wrist. The knife clattered to the rooftop. Shayne swung Kyle by his arm and hurled him at Jon, knocking both of them back onto the sofa.

Kyle was back on his feet in a second and went after Shayne again. His long arm shot out, his fist aimed at Shayne's head. With a movement that seemed almost casual, Shayne deflected the blow with his left hand, then drove his fist hard into Kyle's jaw.

Kyle's teeth clacked together; his head snapped back. Shayne instantly moved in and hit him twice more, once on each side of his face. Kyle dropped to his knees, tipped onto his side, and lay still.

During the three seconds it took for Shayne to flatten Kyle, Jon had pulled the dart cartridge off the stun gun and was on his feet, holding the gun in front of himself with both hands.

Shayne, about six feet in front of him, stood with his
hands at his sides, looking like a gunslinger from the Old West, waiting for the other guy to draw.

Jon triggered the stun gun, producing a blue electric crackle. Shayne didn't flinch. The gun would have to be pressed against his body for it to work, and he knew it. Jon edged to his right, away from the sofa. Shayne rotated slowly, following Jon, keeping the distance between them the same.

At that moment I felt the thrill of victory. Jon had the weapon, but Shayne was too smart, too fast. He had moves like a ninja and the confidence of one who knows he's in control.

Jon sensed that too—he wasn't smiling anymore. He backed away slowly, toward the edge. Shayne stayed with him, looking for an opening, waiting for Jon to make his move. I stood rooted to the spot; I think I was holding my breath. Then I noticed Kyle. He hadn't moved, but his eyes were following Shayne, waiting for his chance. Jon was forcing Shayne to turn his back on Kyle.

I yelled, but Kyle was already in motion. He rolled to his feet, grabbed the utility knife from where it had fallen, and launched himself cat-fast and rattlesnake-low at Shayne.