Shine (14 page)

Beef snorted. His breathing had grown more regular, and I felt like it was maybe safe to go on.

I set down my folded-up napkin. To Dupree, I said, “You ran out of beer, so you went to the Come ’n’ Go?”

“That is correct,” Dupree said stiffly. He sounded like a schoolmarm, but his primness was so deliberate that it crossed over into being a joke. “Patrick’s shift was almost over. We sweet-talked him into leaving early.”

Beef rolled his eyes. I could see that Dupree was pleased, and I was, too. We were one more step back toward normal.

“Then what?” I said. “Did y’all head back to the Frostee Top?”

“Nah, we decided to take the party on the road.” He appraised me from the waist up. “You are looking mighty fine, by the way. Why don’t you party with us no more? What possible reason
could a lady as fine as you have for breaking the hearts of two handsome bucks”—he thumped his chest—“like us?”

The thumping stirred up some indigestion, or possibly smoker’s phlegm, and Dupree fell into a coughing fit. He tugged a napkin from the dispenser, spit into it, and examined the contents.

“It’s baffling,” I said.

“We picked up Patrick, and we went to Suicide Rock,” Beef told me as if he just wanted to get this over with. Suicide Rock was a clearing deep in Pisgah Forest, where the river widened and created an awesome swimming hole. It was good for partying when people were sick of the Frostee Top, because it was far enough off Route 34 that only locals knew of it.

“What’d you do up there?”

“
Nothing
,” he said. “We drank some more and then we went home. Same as I told the cops. All right, Cat?”

“Fine,” I said. I’d hoped we’d gotten past the angry spell, but his jaw was sharp. These new moods of his made me miss my chick-fuzz Beef. “I’m not accusing you of anything, you know.”

“Feels like you are.”

“Well, I’m not. I just want to find the bastard who went after Patrick.”

“I hear that,” Dupree said. There was something false in his tone, and I turned toward him. He was staring straight at me, his stoner’s glaze replaced by a sly intelligence I’d hadn’t known he possessed.

“Why?” Beef said.

I was startled. “Huh?”

“Why do you care? You haven’t hung out with Patrick in years.”

“Yeah, but he’s still my friend.”

“Oh, really? Since when?” He radiated hostility, and this time it was aimed squarely at me. “When’s the last time you hung out with your good friend Patrick, huh?”

My body grew hot, and I hated him. I’d never in my life hated Beef, but I did then. A lump lodged in my throat, and I knew what would come next if I didn’t watch out. So I used a trick I taught myself years ago, which was to turn myself off on the inside. There was a girl sitting at a table, and that girl was me, but the switch had been flipped and I didn’t feel anything anymore. I could put on a show of being a real girl, but I was somewhere else.

“So you partied at Suicide Rock,” I said, as if reading the words off an index card. I looked at Beef, but at the same time not. “You, Patrick, Dupree, and Tommy. My brother. Bailee Ann and Robert.” I paused. “Who drove? How’d everyone fit?”

“Now, Robert didn’t come with us up into the forest,” Dupree clarified. “Patrick made him go home.”

Good for Patrick. Of course he’d be the one to show a lick of sense.

“But Bailee-Ann had her pickup, so we had plenty of room,” he continued. “Tommy rode up front with Bailee-Ann, and the rest of us piled into the back. Good times, man. Good times.”

A shadow crossed his face. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine
or for show. “And then . . .” He splayed his fingers and made a sound to represent it all blowing up in their faces.

Uh-huh
, I thought.
It’s all fun and games till someone gets a gas pump nozzle jammed down their throat
.

The phone rang. Beef stood, but Dupree waved him off, saying, “I got it.” He went to the counter and fished for an order pad. Sliding easily into his laid-back persona, he said, “Huskers, tastiest subs in town. What can I do ya for?”

I expected Beef to sit back down, but he didn’t. He stood by the table, his hand on the top of his chair, looking lost.

I felt myself letting go of my anger, because this was Beef, and he was hurting, too. We were upset with ourselves for not protecting Patrick, but we were taking it out on each other.

“I’m not attacking you, Beef,” I said. “I swear to God. I just want to know what happened.”

Beef glanced at Dupree, then gestured with his head, a silent request that I follow him. I did, noting how slim his hips and torso were. He wasn’t a man yet, no matter how much he probably wanted to be. He was just a redneck in a ball cap and a T-shirt so threadbare it belonged in the rag pile.

He led me to the back of the store, near the small and filthy restroom/supply closet. He leaned against the cement wall, and I did the same. My eyes drifted to the graffiti scrawled on the supply closet’s door. Much of it had been there for ages.
Bailee-Ann luvs Beef. Willow + Darren. Destiny sux cock
.

Out of habit, I lifted my gaze higher, and yep, there it was:
Cat and Patrick, BFFs 4-ever
. Patrick had written the words,
because his handwriting was better. I’d used a purple Sharpie to draw a heart around them. A heart-shaped fence that protected neither one of us.

“We hung out, like I said, and then we went home,” Beef said. “I’m the one who drove us back into town, because Bailee-Ann was near passed-out. I think Dupree gave her something.”

My heart rate spiked. “What do you mean, ‘something’?” I said, my brain going straight to
meth-crank-ice-crystal
. “Something bad?”

“Nah, not bad, just something that made her loopy. She was, like, talking to the trees and petting them and stuff.”

“Petting the trees?”

The look he gave me said,
Yes, petting the trees. As I said
.

“And then you drove everyone home,” I said stupidly. I was going to lose him if all I could do was to repeat everything he’d already told me. I gulped. “Um, who’d you drop off first?”

“Tommy and Dupree. Dupree crashed at Tommy’s.”

All right
, I thought. If Tommy and Dupree were dropped off first, that meant they had the most time to go back out. Hypothetically. “What time was that?”

“Hell, Cat, I don’t know. One fifteen, one twenty?”

I wasn’t going to let him rattle me again. I focused on the purple heart—that was why I was here, after all—and said, “So you dropped Tommy and Dupree off first. Then who?”

“Then Bailee-Ann, and last of all your brother. Why do you care?”

“What about Patrick?” I said.

He didn’t answer immediately. Several seconds passed before he said, with almost no inflection, “I took him back to the gas station after dropping Christian off.”

“So he could get his car?” Patrick had inherited Mama Sweetie’s ancient Pontiac when she died.

“And so he could finish his closing duties. I was like, ‘Dude, it’s one thirty. Restocking the napkins can wait.’” His eyes found mine. “But you know Patrick.”

I did. The purple Sharpie he and I had used to add our names to the graffiti door had come from school, courtesy of our sixth grade teacher’s top desk drawer. When Patrick found out, he made me promise to return it. Heck, he escorted me to Mrs. Padrick’s room the next day and watched me do it.

“Jesus, Cat,” Beef said. “He could have come home with me. I could have taken him back in the morning. Or I could have helped him with his dang closing duties.”

He lifted the brim of his ball cap and rubbed his head. “But no. I left him alone at the Come ’n’ Go. Lights blazing, and Patrick inside like a fucking lamb for the slaughter.”

“Yo, Beef, I’ve got a delivery for you,” Dupree called. “Hey—what the . . . ? Where the fuck
are
you?”

Beef tugged his cap back in place. He pushed off the cement wall and headed back to our table.

I walked with him, speaking quickly. “You didn’t know. It wasn’t your fault.”

“There you are,” Dupree said. “You’re messing with my head, man. For real.”

“It wasn’t your fault
,” I repeated.

Beef’s expression didn’t change.

Dupree slapped a sheet of paper on the table in front of him, saying, “Peanut butter and mayonnaise, heavy on the mayonnaise.”

“Peanut butter and mayonnaise?” I said. I pulled myself back to the moment, because for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on, it seemed important not to reveal anything to Dupree. Not that I had anything to reveal, but Dupree made me want to hold everything in tight. “That’s disgusting.”

“Ah, but we got customers who swear by it. Ain’t that so, Beef?”

“Yeah,” he said, grabbing the order sheet.

“We get all sorts of crazy orders,” Dupree elaborated. “Peanut butter and mayonnaise, turkey with fried pickles, tongue with spicy mustard.”

“Shut up, Dupree,” Beef said. “She doesn’t care.”

Dupree gave me an eyebrow waggle. “You ever tried tongue, Cat?”

“Shut
up
, Dupree.”

Beef was himself again, standing up for me like I was his adopted little sister. I was glad. But I was perfectly capable of handling Dupree by myself.

“Yeah, I’ve had tongue,” I said. “You got some you want me to sample?”

“Hells yeah. You want it now?”

“Bring it on. And bring me a knife, one of those sharp ones you keep in the back. I like my tongue cut up real fine.”

Dupree’s laugh rang out loud and big, and I smiled before I could stop myself. I’d forgotten how fun it could be to sass someone, even if that someone was several-screws-loose Dupree.

“It was good seeing you, Cat,” Beef said, already halfway out of the store. “You should come by more often.”

I watched him strap on his helmet, kick-start his Suzuki, and roar out of the parking lot. Too late, I realized he’d left with nothing.

“Wait,” I said. “What about the sandwich?”

“Huh?” Dupree said.

“The sandwich he’s supposed to deliver. Are you stoned, Dupree? For real?”

“Almost always,” he quipped. He cracked up. “But dang, you’re right. Can’t deliver a sandwich without the sandwich, can you?”

I shook my head. Dupree was useless. I headed toward the door, but before I got there, Dupree called out, “You know your buddy Patrick ain’t no saint, right?”

I stopped. My radar went off—
ping ping ping
—and I turned around.

“No, as a matter of fact I
don’t
know that,” I said. “As a matter of
fact
, I’d say Patrick’s as close to being a saint as anyone can be.”

“Well, I agree that he
acts
saintly. I’ll give you that. But there are certain things that a person—a loyal person—should keep to himself. You get me?”

“No.”

He smiled. I didn’t like it. “Then I’ll make it easier,” he said. “Nobody likes a tattletale.”

“How is Patrick a tattletale?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Hey. Sometimes people bring stuff down on their own selves, that’s all I’m saying.”

I had to take two full breaths before I trusted myself to speak. “Are you saying Patrick deserved what happened to him?”

“Cat, c’mon. You know me better than that.”

“Do I?”

“I ain’t happy Patrick got hurt. Don’t misunderstand.” He searched my face. “There’s just one thing I want to tell you, and I want you to actually hear it.”

He paused as if waiting for some sort of response.

I made an impatient circle with my hand. “Fine. What?”

“The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s tail all the time,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

I breathed in and out carefully, trying not to show anything on my face. But I thought about how Destiny said that Dupree was one of Wally’s boys: a meth dealer or a runner or both. According to Destiny, Tommy and Beef were, too—or had been at one point.

What if Patrick had known? Would Dupree have seen him as a threat? What about Tommy? What about Wally?

And Beef. If Beef knew the others were muttering about Patrick—voicing concerns about loyalty and the importance of keeping one’s mouth shut—what would he have done?

Nobody likes a tattletale
.

I left Huskers, because I needed to get away from Dupree. I considered what he said, though. I considered it from various angles, all subject to a variety of interpretations.

One: Dupree was sharper than he pretended to be. His stoner act was just that, regardless of how much dope he actually smoked.

Two: Dupree was not only sharp, but potentially dangerous. Had he
threatened
me before I left Huskers? Was that what his “the sun don’t shine” story was about?

Which brought me to three: Wally. Wally was nasty as rotten lunch meat, living out in his trailer with his flea-ridden dogs. His eyes were constantly bloodshot, he had a chronic cough, and he was coated with filth and stink.

All things considered, I was left with a plan of attack that made my stomach lurch. First, I needed to keep Dupree in my sights, whether literally or figuratively. I needed to be very, very careful when it came to that boy.

Second, I needed to talk to Wally. I didn’t want to, and I wasn’t at all sure I’d find the courage to make it happen. Wally was worse than any fairy-tale witch, and his trailer wasn’t made of candy. Just the thought of him terrified me.

I’d think on it. For today, I was done.