Narc (17 page)

Finch said, “Don’t hold it so tight. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”

I hunkered down on my belly, like I was about to blast a charging rhino. In the distance, I heard something clicking and whirring, almost like a lawn sprinkler.

“What’s that noise?”

“Zombies,” he said.

I pulled the trigger until it broke. A plume of white smoke puffed around us, but the bottles were untouched.

“Not bad,” he said. “There’s a crosswind blowing so we’re going to move the target closer.”

As he rearranged the bottles, I wondered if the cop was waiting for me back by the power plant, or if he’d issued an alert.

“Let’s make a bet,” I said, hoping this would speed things along.

“Yeah?” Finch said. “That’s ballsy. One shot and you’re making wages?”

“Why not? You go first, okay? Winner is the first to hit three in a row.”

“Deal,” he said. “Could do it in my sleep.”

He reloaded. The rifle fired off another round of dust and noise. The bottle’s skinny neck exploded and the bottom half wobbled off the log. He went again. This time, he missed. He didn’t try for the third. Just passed the rifle to me.

“See if you can do better,” he said.

I made the first shot, no problem. I was skewing my aim, preparing to miss, when Big Jack lumbered into the backyard.

“How’s it going?” he asked, clapping a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“It’s Aaron’s turn. He’s good for a beginner,” Finch said.

Big Jack cackled so hard, you could see metal glinting in his molars. “That boy? He don’t look big enough to fit in my back pocket.”

Stupid redneck. I took aim and the bottle toppled into pieces.

“Lucky shot,” Big Jack said. “You got a talent for it. Would be a good thing, considering your size and all. Not like you’ll ever take a man in a fistfight.”

Before I realized it, I’d squeezed the trigger. The last bottle went down in a blink.

“Shit,” said Finch. “You sure you’ve never done this before?”

His father nodded. “You did good, boy,” he said, taking the rifle from me. “Maybe you can join the army when you grow up.”

“I’d rather be a cop,” said Finch suddenly.

We locked eyes for a moment.

He laughed. “You know what? Being a cop would suck. Then I’d have to rat out all my friends.”

“Whatever,” I said, brushing off my greasy sneakers. “Don’t change the subject,” I told him, though that’s exactly what I was doing. “I beat your ass, fair and square.”

Finch gave a little shrug. “So what? You want a medal?”

I glanced around the backyard. I could still hear the clicking noises, like someone trying to crack open a safe. It was coming from a shed beyond the trees.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

Big Jack was already walking away. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“Oh, what, is that where you hide your dead bodies?” I said, trying to make a joke.

Finch twitched his lips into a grin. “You really want to see?”

His father gave him a look. “That ain’t your business.”

“Actually, it is,” said Finch, standing beside him.

They scowled at each other. The clicking noise grew louder, then stopped, as if I’d imagined it. Then I only heard cicadas sawing away in the oaks.

“Okay,” said Big Jack. “The boy earned it.”

We walked to the shed. Big Jack was still holding the gun. The shed looked like a vacation cottage for the seven dwarves: a tiled roof and a window trimmed with an empty flowerbox and shutters that were nailed closed.

Finch reached into the flowerbox and pulled out a key. My grandma used the same trick when she was stuck in the hospital one summer and I babysat her Siamese cats. Finch jiggled the lock and the door creaked open.

The smell was the first thing that hit me: thick and tangy, like rotting carpet. “This is some operation, you’ve got here,” I said, as Finch showed off the high-powered lamps, the whirring fans, the automatic watering system hitched to the ceiling, not to mention the thousands of dollars worth of marijuana plants.

“Lay your eyes on this. Been growing about eight weeks.” He pinched a leaf dusted with yellowy pollen.

“That’s all you got?”

Finch glared. “Who’s doing business with you? Nobody’s got better quality than this,” he said. “You buying dime bags from Morgan?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“And where do you think she gets it? Take a guess. She ain’t growing that shit in her daddy’s backyard.”

“What about the jar?”

“Hey, man. You didn’t show. I had to sell it.”

“What? Then why did you bring me here?”

“I thought you’d be interested in this,” he said.

Big Jack cut between us. “How about we go inside?”

“Okay,” I said.

Big Jack slung his arm around me. In the other, he held the rifle.

“Good answer.”

18 :
Rolling

Big Jack gave me a bag of something called ahahuasca. He said it came from the rain forest.

“Don’t smoke it,” he said.

“Why not?”

“That would insult the goddess,” he said, tapping his forehead, as if the goddess lived in there. “And you don’t want to make her angry.”

We shook hands. Then the door creaked shut, and I was back outside, wondering what the hell just happened.

I asked Finch, “Is your dad for real?”

Finch ripped a stalk of tall grass. He shoved it in his mouth and chewed. “Don’t knock my old man. He used to live in the jungle. He’s seen all kinds of crazy shit.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, dangling the baggie.

“Boil it on the stove.”

“Then what?”

He smirked. “Drink up.”

“You tried it?”

“Sure,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was lying.

“How many times?”

“
Mucho
,” he said.

“So what happens when you take it?”

He spat on the ground. “Geez, you’re full of questions. Look. It changes your view of reality. Nothing is what it seems on the surface, you know? People wear masks. This strips everything down to its elemental level. It reveals truths, you know?”

“Sure.” I nodded.

Finch kept rambling. Nothing I hadn’t heard before. All this New Agey talk was grating my nerves.

“So your dad goes to the Everglades a lot?” I asked.

“That’s where he gets the orchids.” Finch squatted on the sidewalk and took a Philly Blunt from his shirt pocket. He tore it open and dumped out the tobacco.

“Ever heard of people throwing parties over there?”

“You mean like raves?” Finch said with a hint of sarcasm. He spun his fists, as if glowsticking. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

“I dunno. It’s stupid, I guess.”

Finch produced a little baggie of weed and spread it into the blunt wrap. He licked the edge, like he was mailing a letter. “I heard there’s a party coming up on Halloween.”

“Yeah, I saw something about it online,” I said, wondering how much Finch knew.

“Could be wack,” he said. “Or the sickest event of all time.” He flicked his lighter across the blunt, sealing it dry.

“You going?”

“Maybe.” Finch sparked it up, then sucked in a lungful of smoke. He passed it to me. I pinched it between my fingers, as if it were alive. Strong stuff. Finch watched me gulp and cough. “You got asthma or something?” he said, laughing. He snatched the blunt and took another long toke. Smoke dribbled out of his nose. Now it was my turn again. We passed it back and forth.

Finch reached into his pocket. “Hold that thought.” He pulled out his cell phone and squinted at it. “My dad’s giving me grief. You know your way back, right?”

“I think so.”

“Cool. I’ll catch you later.”

He walked toward the house.

As I crossed the backyard, stepping over bruised and swollen starfruit, I saw something glinting behind the trees. I waited until Finch had disappeared inside, then snuck a closer look. Buried in the weeds was an airboat. It was about twelve feet long and rigged with a caged propeller so large, it looked like it could fly as well as cruise through a swamp. No doubt, that’s how Big Jack transported his stolen orchids from the Everglades.

I traced my finger in the mud smeared across the seat. As a kid, I used to climb on a broken-down Jeep I found disintegrating in the lot behind my grandmother’s house. I’d pretend it was a pirate ship, sailing to buried treasure.

I’d always had a knack for pretending. Now it was getting harder to remember which part of myself I’d disguised. Which parts were real? And which were fake?

I gawked at the airboat. It was tangled in the sawgrass like those hidden pictures in the magazines I they had at the orthodontist’s office. Find the bunny in the tree branches or clouds. My eyes scanned the license plate: H10FCR.

It was one of those stupid vanity plates that never made sense, no matter how you said it. I sounded out the letters until something clicked. Hi, officer. A smartass salute to a cop. I walked faster. Where had I seen that before? It might’ve been the weed or the Cuban coffee or whatever, but I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder every two seconds as I walked. Even the warehouse, with its chain link fence and barbed wire, seemed to ripple and snap, ever so slowly, like a sail.

The lead officer was waiting in the car. By now, the light had melted into a dim purplish glow, but he never took off his shades. I was still thinking about the vanity plate when the lead officer cracked the window and said, “Where the hell have you been?”

He didn’t change his expression when I showed him the plastic baggie.

“You’ve been gone for over two hours,” he said, ”and you come back with a bag of tea leaves?”

“You should’ve seen all their guns. It was like a war museum.”

He sniffed the baggie. “What’s this stuff called again?”

“Ahahuasca. It’s from Brazil.”

“Never heard of it.”

I fiddled with a loose thread on my shirt hem. Once again, I felt like I’d let him down. “His dad gave it to me.”

“So there was no transaction involved with the dealer?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Why do you think he’s our alpha dog?” he asked.

“Oh, he is. I’m sure about it.”

“What makes you believe that?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s growing thousands of dollars worth of marijuana in his back shed.”

“How do you know he’s supplying it to the school?”

Finch had said he dealt it to Morgan, who was doing business at Skully’s party. But I couldn’t bring myself to say their names. Instead I mumbled:

“He was selling at the warehouse the other night.”

“You witnessed this guy offering narcotics to his friends, but you’re not even sure if it was cocaine or ketamine. Now he gives you this stuff for free. That doesn’t make him the shot caller.” He tucked the bag in his pocket. “I’ll take it down to the station and run a test on it.”

For some reason, when I heard “run a test,” I pictured the cop lighting up, although Big Jack said it would insult the goddess. The whole scene played out in my head like a cartoon, and I snickered.

“Think this is funny?” he asked, leaning so close, I wondered if he could smell the smoke on my clothes.

“No, sir.”

“This was a mistake,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I told them you were too young.”

I tugged at my sock.

“Look,” he said. “I think you’re losing sight of what’s important. These kids are not your buddies. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Think of it this way. If they found out the truth, that you’re a snitch, they would make sure you paid for it. I guarantee it.”

We drove around the block. The officer was rambling about my broken cell phone, but I wasn’t paying attention. “Hopefully we can get it fixed without losing all those phone numbers you’ve acquired.”

“They’re stored on the SIM card,” I said. That’s when I made the connection with the vanity plate. I’d seen the same letters online. It was that guy’s screen name, the one who sent the invite to the Glades Party, as the girls kept calling it. Was Finch the one behind it? And did he hack into my account and create that fake profile?

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” I said, breaking the silence.

“What’s that?”

“There’s a major party coming up on Halloween. It’s in the Everglades. All the players are going to show.”

“You better be talking about the entire school here,” he said. “Because if we send in the foot soldiers and this turns out to be a waste of time, we’ll have to call off the entire operation. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”