Six Bad Things (16 page)

But she scratches Little Dog behind the ear. Dad sits back down at the table and gently kicks at Little Dog.

—Don’t encourage her.

Now Big Dog comes over to see if any treats are being handed out. Dad shrugs his shoulders in surrender.

—See, now they’re both in here.

He turns to me.

—We try to keep them out at meals, but your mom.

—Now don’t start that, you feed them from the table all the time.

—I? I feed them?

As he says this, he’s sneaking a scrap of bolognese from his plate and slipping it to Big Dog. Mom slaps his shoulder.

—See, see, there, now you have to give some to both of them.

—See what? I didn’t do anything.

And he tosses a bit of meat to Little Dog. Mom throws her hands up in the air.

—You, you encourage them and.

Dad’s laughing now.

—I don’t encourage anything, you’re seeing things. See, Hank, your mom is seeing things.

He leans over and kisses her on the cheek. She shoves him away.

—Pest.

—You like it.

—I do not.

He leans over to me and stage whispers.

—She likes it.

I shove my linguine around the plate and think about Dylan Lane threatening these people.

—But no one else asks about me?

Mom stops playing with the dogs and goes back to her dinner. Dad sets his fork down.

—We don’t talk about you, Hank. We don’t talk about you to anyone. We don’t talk about you with each other anymore. We had to stop.

He picks up his fork and takes a bite and chews it hard. Mom looks up at me, tears floating in her eyes.

—It hurt too much, Henry. We. And there was nothing to talk about. We didn’t know anything.

I smile at her, at my dad.

—It’s OK, I understand.

We all eat for a minute. Mom wipes some sauce from her lips.

—Wade calls sometimes.

—Wade?

—Your friend from high school.

—I know. Last I heard he was in San Jose.

—Yes, he moved there, and then a few years ago. You remember his mom died so young?

—Yeah.

—Well, his father passed a few years ago and Wade moved back here with his family. They’re living in his old house.

—Right around the block?

—Uh-huh. And he was so sweet right after all the trouble. He came over, and I hadn’t seen him since I don’t know when, and he’s such a grown-up I didn’t recognize him. And then we didn’t hear from him for awhile and then I ran into him at the market and he started stopping by every now and then to see how we are, if we need anything, if we’ve heard anything.

Wade, my old housebreaking partner, the guy who liked to go into houses where people were still at home and awake. He always was a sneaky fucker.

BIG DOG and Little Dog sleep upstairs with Mom and Dad and, both being half-deaf and half-senile, they don’t raise a fuss as I slip out the back door. I walk over to the fence and boost myself over into the yard behind ours. I edge along the fence until I get to the next fence down, and boost over again. If I’m remembering this right, it should be the third house down after this one. I hop another fence.

Dog.

It’s a big fucker. It runs up to me out of the darkness, skids to a stop a foot away, and starts barking like hell. I sprint to the next fence; halfway there I get clotheslined by a clothesline. Who has a clothesline anymore? I scramble to my feet, the dog barking at my heels, run to the fence, and vault over into the next yard.

Dog.

It’s a terrier. The first dog is still on the other side of the fence going apeshit. All the other dogs on the block are starting to join in. The terrier yaps at me as I make for the next fence, then it leaps forward, bites at my ankles, and gets a mouthful of my pants cuff. I hop across the yard, trying to shake it loose, but the little ratter has a good grip and isn’t letting go. I make it to the fence and a light pops on inside the house. I cock my afflicted leg back, kick out with all my might, and hear the cuff tear. The terrier flies off and I jump the fence before he can scramble back at me.

I fall into some bushes. I can hear the terrier raising hell and bouncing off the fence as he tries to get through it to kill me. The porch light comes on in the terrier’s yard. I hear a sliding glass door open and then a woman’s voice.

—Digby! Digby, shut up. Shut up! Come here and shut up.

And so on. I lie in the dirt while she collects Digby and takes him inside, and then wait while the other dogs on the block settle down. By the time I crawl out of the bushes to see if I’m in the right yard, the night’s chill has gone through the thin CSM jacket I’m wearing, straight into my bones, and the front of my jeans are soaked through from the damp earth. There’s plenty of light spilling into the backyard from the street lamp and the Christmas lights strung across the front of the house. I’m in the right place. The paint job is different and the yard has been relandscaped, but I recognize the house and the big redwood deck.

I can’t see any lights on in the house. I squint and scan the roofline, looking for one of those motion-detector security lights. No sign. I scuttle to the side of the house where I remember the side door to the garage being. I edge past a stacked cord of firewood. No helpful warning sticker left by an alarm company on the door. None of the alarm tape you would expect to see on the window in the door if it had been rigged. I put my hand on the knob, twist it slowly. Someone jams a gun into the back of my neck.

—Don’t you even breathe, fucker.

I don’t.

—Open the door.

I do.

—Now crawl inside. Stay on your hands and knees.

I do. The barrel of the gun stays pressed against my neck and I hear the door close behind us, then the lights come on.

—Turn around.

I shuffle around on my hands and knees, and look up at Wade and the huge revolver he’s pointing at me.

His brow furrows. Air hisses out between his teeth.

—Hank?

He lowers the gun.

—Your mom and dad are really worried about you.

And that’s how I know he’s not the one who sold me out to Dylan.

THE GARAGE is stocked with a particularly large supply of suburban toys: a couple of Jet Skis; a small powerboat on a trailer; two golf bags stuffed in a corner; a massive tool bench running down one side, with every imaginable power tool displayed on the peg wall behind it; snow skis laid out on the rafters; two Honda motocrossers, a massive 420 and a matching 125; and five mountain bikes dangling from overhead hooks.

—Beer?

—I don’t drink.

—Why not?

Because I got drunk and forgot something one time and a bunch of people died.

—It was bad for me.

—Soda?

—Sure.

Wade gets off the stool he’s sitting on and opens the garage fridge.

—Sprite or Coke?

—Sprite.

He tucks the Colt Anaconda into his armpit and grabs a can of Sprite and a bottle of Miller High Life. He hands me the can, twists the cap off his beer, tosses it into a waste can under the workbench, and takes a drink. Then he digs a key from the pocket of his Carhartt jacket, opens a drawer on the bench, takes the gun from his armpit, and drops it inside.

—Stacy would shit if she knew I had that thing, but I always keep it locked up.

I get a good look at the chambers in the cylinder before he closes and locks the drawer.

—It’s not loaded.

He looks at me like I’m an asshole.

—With three kids in the house? No, it’s not fucking loaded.

I open my Sprite, take a sip, and huddle a little closer to the space heater he fired up for me. I point at the side door.

—How did you?

—I was out here sneaking a cig before going up. Stace won’t let me smoke in the house. I heard all that barking, switched off the light to take a peek, and saw someone hop the fence. Went out and hid behind the woodpile. Stupid shit, should have called the cops, but I was pissed.

He fingers a gouge in the surface of the workbench, looks at me.

—You any warmer?

—Yeah.

—Good, let’s take a walk, I don’t want you in here if Stace wakes up.

WE STROLL around the block, our faces illuminated by streetlamps and the colored lights flashing on the rooflines of the houses. Wade left his smokes back in the garage and has to bum one of mine.

—Benson & Hedges?

—Uh-huh.

—Kind of an old lady cigarette. How’d you get started on those?

—Long story.

We pause while I light his cigarette, continue. Walking past houses I remember from my childhood. We stand in front of one with a particularly elaborate display: a mini Santa’s Village built on the lawn and spilling onto the driveway.

Wade looks down, sees something, bends, and picks up a pigeon feather. He tucks it into the zippered breast pocket of his jacket, sees the look on my face.

—I use them for work.

—What for?

—Marbling paint. You dip them in your dark color and run them over the base color while it’s still wet. Have to be real gentle, but you get a great effect. I save them in a little box.

He points at the display.

—Remember stealing Christmas lights?

—Yeah.

—What were we thinking?

—God knows.

We start walking again.

—What were you doing in my backyard, Hank?

WADE HILLER was the toughest guy I knew. The lead burnout in school. The kid in PE class who never dressed out. The guy with the mouth on him, who never wanted anyone else to have the last word. Corkscrew hair past his shoulders, thick arms and chest from hours of bench presses in his dad’s garage, a box of Marlboro Reds always rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt. He grew up around the block from me, went to all the same schools, but it wasn’t until I broke my leg that we had anything to do with each other. Jocks and burnouts: do not mix.

I couldn’t participate in PE and ended up sitting around with Wade and his pals Steve and Rich. And it turned out they were OK guys. Steve was really fucking smart, Rich was as mellow a person as I’d ever met. And Wade. High-strung, quickly violent, but just exciting and fun to be around. And then they got me into the whole burglary thing and me and Wade got busted, and I thought it was time for me to forget my new friends. Last I heard about Wade, he was well on his way to spending his life hanging out in Santa Rita County Jail.

I sit on the back bumper of one of his three trucks. Each of them with the words HILLER INTERIOR CONTRACTING painted on the side. Wade comes back out of the garage, a fresh beer in his hand.

—It’s cold, let’s get in.

He unlocks the truck and we climb into the cab. He hasn’t said much since I told him I thought he might have been spying on my folks for someone trying to find me. He sips at the beer.

—You know, I didn’t graduate from our school. I was way short on credits, had to go over to the continuation school where your mom worked. This would have been the year after you went off to college. She tell you about that?

—I guess I heard about it.

—She was great to me. I was a real fuckup. You know. She took me seriously, didn’t just write me off as a lost cause. And that was after we got arrested together. I figured she’d blame that shit on me, but she never even brought it up. I would never have graduated without her.

Mom always had a soft spot for the troublemakers, that’s why she took the job as principal at the continuation school in the first place.

—And after I graduated she was the one who convinced me to take some classes over at Modesto City. My dad did OK with me, but after my mom died.

I’m digging another smoke out of the pack and he reaches over and takes one for himself. I pass him my matches and he lights up.

—I’m gonna reek when I go in. Stace is gonna shit.

—Will she be worried where you are?

—I have insomnia, she’s used to me taking walks late. Besides, she sleeps like a rock.

We smoke.

—Yeah, Dad was a great guy, but he drank a lot after Mom died.

I remember raiding his dad’s booze after school. The handle-bottles of Jack Daniels, cases of Coors stacked in the garage.

—I remember that. Not your mom.

—Yeah she was gone before we were hanging out.

—Your dad drinking.

—He wasn’t mean or anything.

—I know.

—Just wasn’t there.

His dad, passed out on the couch by midday on the weekends.

—Yeah.

—Didn’t have much left over for me. Anyway. For a couple years, after I moved to San Jose, when I’d come home to visit him, I’d stop by the school to see your mom. She ever tell you that?

—No.

—Well, I did. And she was always encouraging me, always happy for me. Even when I got Stace pregnant and she was only eighteen and I was nineteen and we weren’t married yet. She sent us a card and a baby gift.

—I didn’t know about that.

—A little teddy bear.

—Yeah, that’s Mom.

—She kind of saved me, made a real difference in my life. I have my contractor’s license, my own business, been married for fourteen years. I have three great kids. Honestly, I don’t think I would have any of that if not for your mom.

He opens the window and flicks his butt out.

—So when that stuff happened in New York with you, I knew two things. I knew I’d do just about anything for your mom, and I knew there was no way that woman raised a killer. And I would have believed that even if I didn’t know you myself.

Wade takes the last swallow of his beer.

—So what did you think you were gonna do, coming over here in the middle of the night?

Kill you.

I finish my own smoke and toss it.

—I don’t know. I was pissed. Beat you up. Maybe.

He grunts.

—What now?

—I need to get out of town, take care of something.

He nods.

—I’d help, but. I have Stace and the kids to. I can’t.

—I understand.

—Maybe there’s something. Something small?

—Don’t suppose you know anyone in Vegas, someone could help me find someone else? Someone lost or hiding.