School Days (10 page)

S
INCE WE WERE WALKING
through a park and down by the lake, away from any roads, I took Pearl off the leash and let her bound about like a rhebok. The rocks were an outcropping of basalt left by some vast meltdown some eons back. Scattered in the area were some boulders, probably deposited by a glacier some other eons back. The basalt sloped over the lip of a hill and down toward the lake shore. Scattered about on its surface were a bunch of prototype suburban dropouts who had been deposited more recently. I counted three girls and ten boys, plus one guy who was too big to be
a boy. He was an obvious bodybuilder, heavily tattooed and of apparently mixed ethnicity. I guessed Asian and Hispanic.

Riding the smell of the lake was the rich scent of marijuana. Pearl smelled it and stopped. She was not bumptiously friendly. When she spotted the group, her ears went down and she came over beside me.

“My name is Spenser,” I said. “I'm looking into the school shooting.”

“Well yippee iyoh ki yay,” one of the kids said.

He was a gangly guy with hair so red it was nearly maroon. He looked a little unfocused. Beside him, the big older guy stared at me silently. He had on jeans and motorcycle boots and no shirt. Most of his upper body was ornamented.

“I was wondering what you all could tell me about Wendell Grant,” I said.

“So who's that with you,” the red-haired kid said, “Dr. Watson?”

One of the three girls threw a pebble at Pearl. It missed, but Pearl shied a little closer to me. I looked at the girl. I knew how it was going to go, but there was no help for it.

“Next person bothers the dog, goes in the lake.”

Everybody looked at the big guy with the tattoos. He remained seated on the rock.

“That's my girlfriend you talking to,” he said.

“Good to know,” I said. “Wendell Grant hang around with you all?”

“I'm talking to you, pal,” the big guy said.

“Squint your eyes a little,” I said.

He stood.

“What's that supposed to mean,” the big guy said.

“Makes you look more dangerous,” I said. “You squint up, like this, and you say, ‘I'm talking to you, pal.' No emphasis on any of the words, you know. Scares the shit out of people.”

“Jesus, mister, don't fuck with Animal,” the red-headed kid said.

“Animal needs to be fucked with,” I said, “about once a day.”

Animal walked at me with his fists chest-high and tried to kick me in the groin. He was ferocious but slow. I turned away from the kick and hit him a straight left on the nose. The nose broke and began to bleed. I didn't want this to take long, because I didn't want Pearl to get scared and run off. I hit him with a flurry of lefts and rights while he was still trying to get over the initial pop on the schnozzle. He took a couple of steps backward, trying to cover up, trying to regroup. I put my hands on his shoulders and spun him and put my foot in the small of his back and shoved, and he stumbled and slid down the hill and fell in the lake.

I looked around. Pearl was about thirty feet away in a full, belly-scraping cower. I went over to her and squatted down beside her and put an arm around her.

“Okay,” I said. “All over. Okay.”

She sniffed at my mouth.

“Okay,” I said.

She gave me a lap on the nose. I stood, keeping one hand on her neck, patting her. The silence around the Rocks was vast. I could still smell the weed, but I heard nothing. At the foot of the hill, Animal was sitting in the lake trying to splash
water on his face. The blood from his nose was seeping pink through his hands.

“Jesus,” the red-haired kid said.

“I'm looking for information,” I said, “about Wendell Grant.”

“I never seen anything like that.”

I was still pumped, and it made me a little brusque.

“Care to see it again?” I said. “Throw something at the dog.”

Nobody said anything. At the foot of the hill, Animal sat in the water. He wasn't splashing water on his nose anymore. He was simply sitting, slumped in the water, his reputation in ruins about him.

“Wendell close with anyone in the group.”

Nobody spoke.

“Anybody got any idea why he might have shot up the school?”

Silence.

“Or where he got the guns?”

Silence. The three girls got up as if they were one. They were in full costume. A lot of hair. A lot of makeup. Cropped T-shirts that stopped well above the navel. Low-rider pants that barely covered the pubic bone.

“I'm sorry I threw something at your dog,” one of them said. “I like dogs.”

“You Animal's girlfriend?” I said.

“We all are,” she said. “Can I pat your dog?”

“No.”

They all three shrugged at almost the same time and moved
away. Seeing the group diminish, the red-haired kid got to his feet.

“I gotta go, man,” he said.

I took out a card and gave it to him.

“You think of anything, call me,” I said. “You might as well get the reward as anyone.”

“Reward?”

I nodded. He looked at my card and put it in the back pocket of his jeans and walked away. The rest of the kids left. At the bottom of the hill, Animal sat alone in the water. I stared down at him for a while, then I looked at Pearl, who was exploring where the kids had been sitting, in case they had left edible refuse. She was not successful, but there was no quit in her. She coursed back and forth among the rocks, exploring all possibilities. Hot on the trail of nothing much.

Like me.

After a while I said to no one in particular, “Okay.”

Pearl looked up.

“Okay,” I said again.

I jerked my head for her to follow and started down the hill.

I
SAT AT THE
water's edge on a small rock. Pearl moved along the edge of the lake, looking for frogs. Animal sat with his back to me, not moving, not saying anything.

“Three girlfriends,” I said. “Way to go, Animal.”

He didn't answer. His head was down, his hands resting lightly over his broken nose, sheltering it, not quite touching it.

“Put ice on it,” I said. “I've had, I think, eight broken noses. They heal.”

His head was forward on his chest. He didn't answer.

“You're going to be a tough guy, you need to be a lot quicker.”

He didn't move.

“Or pick someone you can scare.”

Nothing.

“They'll forget it,” I said. “You can reestablish. Slap one of those asshole kids around and they'll think you're heroic again.”

“I ain't forgetting it,” he said in a thick voice.

“No, probably shouldn't. Make it a learning experience.”

He stared at the pinkish lake water between his knees. His nose still dripped blood.

“I got connections,” he said. “This ain't the end of it.”

“You the candy man?” I said.

He didn't answer.

“Yeah, 'course you are,” I said. “You're the one sells them dope.”

He shook his head. It hurt. He stopped.

“You could probably get them a gun, too, they needed it,” I said.

He was still.

“I'm not a cop,” I said. “I'm only interested in Wendell Grant and the Clark kid.”

He didn't speak.

“You sell them any guns?”

Silence. To my right, Pearl kicked up a frog from the growth at the water's edge, and it bounded ten feet out into the lake, with Pearl bounding right behind it.

“What's your name?” I said.

He didn't answer.

Pearl put her head underwater and pulled it out, but she'd missed the frog. She swam in circles, looking for it.

I said, “If I have to stand you up and take your wallet and look at your ID, it'll start your nose bleeding again and probably hurt. What's your name.”

“Yang,” he said.

“First or last?”

“Last.”

“What's your first name? “

“Luis.”

“Luis Yang.”

“Yes.”

Pearl swam one more circle and gave up and came back into shore and began rummaging in the waterweeds again.

“Emergency room can clean that thing up and pack it for you. Maybe give you some pain pills.”

Animal didn't move or speak or look at me. I stood up.

“Don't take aspirin,” I said. “It'll make it bleed more.”

Then I made a little chuck sound to Pearl, and she and I went back up the hill.

I
T WAS
S
ATURDAY
.
Lee Farrell had come to spend the day with Pearl. This made Pearl happy because she liked Farrell, and he would almost certainly overfeed her.

So I was back in Dowling alone, sitting at a table on the sidewalk outside Coffee Nut in the bright morning with a large cup of coffee, cream, two sugars. The girl who had worn the pink top came by and saw me and sat down with me. Her top was white today. And her short pleated skirt was tan.

“Janey, isn't it?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Can I buy you some coffee?”

“Black,” she said.

I went in and got some and brought it back. She lit a cigarette.

“I heard you had a fight with Animal,” she said.

I nodded.

“I heard you threw him in the lake,” she said.

“He fell in the lake.”

“They said you, like, creamed him,” she said.

I smiled.

“I won the fight,” I said.

She stared at me.

“Everyone is scared of Animal,” she said. “The football players, everybody.”

“He's pretty scary,” I said.

“He's a perv,” Janey said. “They're all pervs out there at the Rocks anyway.”

I nodded. She kept looking at me.

“What's the perviest thing they do?” I said.

“All the girls have to, like, have sex with Animal,” she said.

“Or what?”

“Or they can't hang out.”

“Do they have any other boyfriends?” I said.

“If Animal says.”

“How do you know so much about this?” I said.

“One of the girls went to junior high with me. I see her sometimes.”

“What's her name?”

“It's really Annette George,” Janey said. “But everybody calls her George.”

“Was she there when I had the fight with Animal?” I said.

“Yuh.” Janey giggled. “She threw the stone at your dog.”

“You suppose we could talk with her?” I said.

“You and me?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, I guess so,” Janey said. “I could call her.”

“Why don't you,” I said.

Janey took a cell phone out of her purse and dialed. I went to get us two more coffees. I bought us some doughnuts, too. Balanced nutrition.

“She'll meet us at the mall in an hour,” Janey said.

“Melwood Mall?”

“Yes.”

“Not here.”

“God no.”

“You don't want to be seen with her,” I said.

Janey shrugged.

“Or she with you,” I said.

Janey nodded.

“Or me,” I said.

Janey nodded more vigorously.

“Of course,” I said.

We drank some coffee.

“How come you could like beat up Animal so easy?” Janey said.

“Purity of heart,” I said.

“Huh?”

“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure?”

“What are you talking about?” Janey said.

“I rarely know.”

“Seriously, how come? I mean Animal is . . .” She spread her hands; words failed her in the face of Animal's prowess.

“It's what I do,” I said.

“Beat people up?”

I shrugged.

“Like everything else,” I said. “It helps to know how.”

“And you know how?”

“I used to be a fighter,” I said.

“You mean a boxer. Like whatsisname Lennox something?”

“Yeah. That kind,” I said.

“Jesus,” she said. “Is that why your nose is like that.”

“Thanks for noticing,” I said.

“Were you ever a champion or anything?”

“No,” I said.

“But you're still, like, ah, good.”

“You been a fighter,” I said, “and you stay in shape, you don't lose that many fights outside the ring.”

“You don't seem like a mean guy,” Janey said.

“I don't?”

“No. You seem kind of nice.”

“Damn,” I said. “I'll have to work on that.”

Janey nodded. Some kids drove by in a red Jeep Wrangler with the top down. They honked. She waved. She was with a celebrity. The guy who threw Animal Yang into the lake.