Chasing Death Metal Dreams (33 page)

Carlos glanced over at Nate. He looked pretty nerdy, with his hair slicked down flat with some of Carlos’s product, and the too-big button down. “So what’s the plan?”

“I’m going to tell her we’re doing a magazine story on the successful fight to legalize weed. Flatter her about how her opinion is important. Aunt Lisa suggested I could pretend to be one of the other bloggers, one she couldn’t track down.”

“You think you can pull it off?”

“Maybe? Hopefully?”

Patricia’s building was a run-down apartment block built of ugly beige concrete. Carlos pulled in along the curb a block down, and turned off the engine. He rubbed his suddenly damp palms on his thighs. “We’re just going to talk to her. How hard can it be?”

“Put on your nerd glasses.” Nate dragged a comb back through his hair again, leaving tooth-marked strands on the top of his head. “How do I look?”

“Awful”

“Perfect.” Nate stuffed the papers in his pocket, took a deep breath, and opened the door. “Come on.”

****

Chapter 16

Nate led Carlos toward the building, trying to look like he wasn’t nervous. He had a strategy, thanks to Carlos’s formidable Aunt Lisa. She was nothing like he’d imagined her to be. He’d heard enough from Carlos over the past weeks to know that she’d been his champion ever since he was little, the one who simultaneously encouraged him and made sure he flew straight. Somehow, he’d expected a large, commanding woman, not a little, blond, blue-eyed woman who looked like a schoolteacher.

The sun slanted down on the cracked front steps. Was it really only a couple of hours since he sat outside Carlos’s place hoping with every breath that he’d get the chance to explain? Less than a day since that email had exploded in their faces? It felt like so much had happened in so little time.

“You do the recording,” he suggested as he opened the outer door of Patricia’s building. He realized his hands were shaking and closed his fists to hide it. This mattered desperately to Carlos; he really didn’t want to screw it up.

Carlos pulled out his phone. “Video as well?”

“Yeah, if you can keep her from seeing you do it.”

“Is that legal?”

Another niggle of worry. “I don’t know. It could be useful, though.” He assumed Aunt Lisa wouldn’t have suggested it if they’d get arrested for doing it.

“Right.”

The inner lobby door was shut, but when he pulled on the handle, it also opened easily. He led the way into the hallway and up two flights of stairs. The building was a pit, with debris in the corners of the stairwell and an odor of garbage and pot and stale cooking hanging like a cloud in the hot air. He felt a little nauseated and out of breath for just climbing two flights. At the landing he paused, looking at Carlos, and bit his lip. “We could wait…”

Carlos bumped his shoulder. “Come on.” He turned down the third-floor hallway.

Nate pushed ahead of him at the door to number 311. Standing so he screened Carlos from full view, he straightened his shoulders and ran through his opening lines again in his head. His lips were dry, and he licked them nervously.

It was just some woman’s apartment. Odds were she had nothing to with anything, except posting a lot on the blog. Odds were this was a totally wasted trip.

Or she might be a stupid person who maybe held a grudge against Eli or Carlos, or wanted money or trouble. Or it could be her boyfriend planning blackmail, or maybe Foster was her boyfriend, or maybe Eli slept with her once and dumped her or, or, or something. If she knew about it at all.

His thoughts whirled. Maybe they should have gone after Foster instead. Coming here felt a lot dumber now he was standing at the door. What were the chances their plan would work? What if she freaked out?

“Go on,” Carlos whispered near his ear. “Or do you want me to do it?”

“No. I got this.” He buttoned the top button on his borrowed shirt, closing the collar geeky-tight, and scrubbed damp palms on his jeans. “Start the video.”

Carlos set the video running and tucked the phone into his front jeans pocket with the camera just exposed, and then angled it forward.
Sure, it doesn’t look odd to aim his hip at the doorway, right?
Carlos looked stupidly hot with glasses, but that was awkward. Nate whispered, “You look like a cross between a librarian and a runway model.”

Carlos looked over the glasses at him and when Nate raised an eyebrow, he shrugged and lined the phone up differently in his pocket. Nate gave him a minute to find a more natural way to stand, then knocked on the door.

It took a couple of tries, but eventually the door opened partway to reveal a tall, thin woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in a rumpled tank top and shorts. “Yeah?”

Nate said, as warmly as he could without sounding like a Mormon missionary, “Are you Patricia Durand? I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Daniel Johnson. You don’t really know me, but you kind of do, from online. I’m HighFlyer.”

“Um.” Patricia looked doubtful, but she didn’t slam the door.

“You remember? I guess it’s been a while. From
Better With Grass
and
The Legal Potter
blogs. The legalization movement. You were PatTheBoss, right?”

“Oh, my God.” Patricia put a hand to her mouth. “I haven’t used that name in a couple of years. Yeah, I think I remember you. You’re HighFlyer?”

Nate’s tight stomach muscles eased a bit, and he sailed on, keeping momentum, following his memorized script. “We had an argument once about Canadian growers. But mostly we were on the same side. And hey. Initiative 502. We won!” Nate grinned, pretty sure he’d got the number of the legislation right.

“Oh! Yeah. We did. Hey, cool to meet you.” Patricia opened her door wider, showing a cluttered tiny apartment. “What’s up?”

“I have this assignment. I’m a writer, and I’m doing a piece on the successful grassroots movement to legalize grass.”

Patricia snickered. “Good title.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I’m going to quote some of the important blogs, and some of the smaller underground ones.” He’d been supposed to name a couple more blogs here— Aunt Lisa said HighFlyer, who’d been anonymous enough to risk stealing their ID, and PatTheBoss, had interacted several other places— but the titles had slipped out of his brain. He forged on, “I figured out who some of the smarter writers and commenters were, and I want to get their permission to quote their published stuff, plus maybe line up some new quotes about where they stand now, post-legislation. That’s where you come in.”

“I don’t know,” Patricia said slowly.

“I won’t put your real name on anything,” Nate said quickly. “Nothing about who you are. But you made some good points as PatTheBoss, and I want to include them in the article.”

She eyed him with renewed suspicion. “How did you find me anyway?”

He laughed casually. “You linked your Facebook once, don’t you remember? And these days if you have a name you can find an address. No privacy anymore, you know? I’m sorry if you’re mad about that.”

“Not mad, but it’s, um, a bit creepy. Like, I haven’t been PatTheBoss for ages, and then here you are.”

“Yeah, but the things you said mattered. You helped us win.” He did a fist pump, then felt his face heat, wondering if it was too much. Well, he was supposed to be some dorky harmless guy. He smiled sheepishly. “I’m a writer. It’s kind of my job to track people down and talk to them.”

He must have succeeded in looking harmless, because she said, “I guess. You want to be careful, though. Some of the guys got pretty heated up about that stuff, and they’re not all, like, the sanest pencils in the box.”

He nodded. “But it’s just grass, not like I’m interviewing coke dealers.”

“You hope.” She glanced at Carlos, paused for a second, then shrugged. “Okay. As long as my name isn’t in it. What do you want to know?”

Nate ran through a few questions about her memories of the legalization campaign, and the attitude of her friends afterward. If he’d been a real writer, her boring answers would have bugged him, but as it was he wrote stuff down in the notebook he’d borrowed from Carlos like it was important. After a few minutes he said, “That’s good. I think I have what I need there.”

Patricia looked disappointed. “We could talk some more, if you want.”

“No, this is perfect. I have a couple more stops.” He slid the notebook in his pocket.

“Do you need me to sign something?”

“Not right now. If I do quote you, I’ll send you a copy of the article to sign off on.”

“Sure, okay. I’d like to see it.”

He said, “Cool! I’m so glad I got to meet you after all this time. I like to think that together we made a difference.”

“Yeah. Me too. I think so.”

“Oh, one more thing,” he added, like it was an afterthought, like it wasn’t the whole point. “I’ve found the owners and writers of some of the blogs and info sites, but one I can’t seem to pin down that you might know is
Better With Grass.
It was kind of a fun site, the lighter side of the movement. I’d like to include it. You don’t happen to know who wrote that one, do you?”

“Sure,” Patricia said easily.

Nate held his breath and felt Carlos behind him in lean closer.

“He was a friend of mine. That’s why I commented on that site a lot. His name’s Shawn. Shawn Franklin. We went to school together, and he was dating my roommate, back then. He was over at our place a lot.”

He was surprised to hear his voice come out totally steady, unexcited. “You don’t know where I could find Shawn, do you?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, since they broke up. He used to live with his mom, actually, in Tacoma. Her name’s, um, Janelle. Janelle Franklin. She was pretty cool too.”

“You don’t happen have a number or email for him?”

“Um, maybe. Hang on.” Patricia went back inside and reappeared with her phone. “I don’t know if this is current, but try this one.” She read off a local number.

Nate carefully put it in his own phone. “Got it. Well, I hope I can find him. What’s he like? A tough guy?”

Patricia laughed. “Nah, he’s so mellow he’d make a marshmallow seem dangerous. Loves his weed, you know. That’s why my roomie broke up with him. All he wanted to do was lie around all day and toke.”

“So he’s not like some major drug dealer or something? I’m a bit nervous about going to talk to strangers, some parts of the city.”

“Yeah, I bet. There’s some real creeps out there, but Shawn’s okay. He’s harmless.”

“Well, you’ve been a big help and it’s cool to put a face to your name.”

“Yeah. You too.” Patricia looked sad. “You know what’s funny? Now that it’s legal, I don’t smoke half as much as I used to.”

“Um.” He fumbled for an answer. “Me neither. But when I do, I can do it with pride.”

It was pretty lame, but she smiled. “You’re sure you don’t want to come in?”

“No thanks. Hey, do you know? The
Better With Grass
blog looks like it’s locked down. No comments allowed.”

“Really?” Patricia didn’t look too interested. “I guess, after we won there wasn’t as much point, huh?’

“I guess. Well, thanks for your help.” Nate gestured behind her back for Carlos to move away, gave Patricia a kind of wave, and followed him.

As they headed down the hallway, Patricia called after them, “Good to meet you, HighFlyer.”

Nate glanced over her shoulder. “You too, PatTheBoss.”

When they got outside, Nate took a long shaky breath. “I feel kind of guilty about that.”

Carlos pulled out his phone and turned off the recording. “You were amazing. But she didn’t act like she knew me. She didn’t even act interested in the blog anymore.”

“Nope. I’d bet she isn’t involved, other than knowing this Shawn guy and Foster.”

“I think so too. So now what?”

“We talk to one or the other of them. I’m leaning toward the marshmallow.”

“I still want to bust Foster’s nose.” Carlos’s voice vibrated with anger.

Nate took a chance, touching his arm even though they were standing out on the sidewalk. “Your call, you know that. But what would it hurt to go talk to Shawn first?”

“I guess.” Carlos headed for the car. “Come on.”

As they got in, Nate suggested, “We should see what Shawn says. If he’s the guilty one, we don’t have to ever tell Foster that you thought he was, like, a blackmailer. If not, we can confront Foster with all the facts.”

“I guess. That makes sense.” Carlos turned on the engine. “So you think you can find this Shawn guy? Or should we call Tía Lisa?”

“Let me try.” He was already online with his phone, tapping though screens on the reverse lookup site Aunt Lisa had shown him. He double-checked the list of Janelle Franklins, but there was only one good candidate. “Well, I found his mother in Tacoma anyway. At least, I bet that’s her. If he’s not still there, maybe she’ll know where he is.”

“Or bust our heads for asking.”

“Optimism,” Nate said, switching his phone to GPS. “Love it.”

It was less than ten minutes to reach the address he’d discovered. They parked a couple of houses down, and got out. Carlos put on the glasses again, but ran his fingers through his hair until it stood up and left the top button of his shirt undone. His eyes were dark and narrowed. Nate thought he looked dangerous, although maybe not quite like himself with the glasses, and the tats still mostly hidden. Hopefully Shawn wouldn’t recognize him.

Shawn’s mother was in, and it turned out he still lived in her basement apartment. They walked around to the side, as directed, and knocked on the door. Nate took the front, even though Carlos glared at him.

“Be careful,” Carlos muttered.

“No worries.” Nate tried to project his nerd charm again. It’d worked on Patricia. He was actually kind of high, thinking about how that had worked out. Maybe he had a second career as a detective, or an actor.

The man who opened the door looked older than Patricia, and much heavier. He was dressed about the same, although on him the tank top sagged over his round belly, and the shorts strained around his thighs. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the apartment behind him smelled of unwashed body and cooking grease. “Yeah? I’m an atheist,” he said.