Southern Cross (7 page)

“No kidding,” Smoke said. “Remote control and all?”

“You bet. Gives satisfaction money can’t buy,” Bubba said.

“You must have quite a shop,” Smoke said.

“Had to add an addition to the garage. Everything from grove joint pliers to a DeVilbiss air compressor rated at 7.6 CFM at 40 PSI and 5.6 CFM at 90 to diagnostic tools like a Sunpro Sensor Probe so you can test manifold absolute pressure, mass air flow and vane air flow sensors.”

“Don’t need shit like that, and neither do you, Bubba,” Muskrat let him know. “At least I know how to use what I got.”

Muskrat replaced the door panel and got up. He climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine and tested the window. It hummed up.

“Smooth as silk,” he proudly announced, wiping his hands on his pants.

“Gee, thanks,” Smoke said. “How much do I owe you?”

“The first time’s on the house,” Muskrat said.

“Gee. Thanks a lot,” Smoke said.

“Hey, the Gun and Knife Show’s coming in two weeks,” Bubba suddenly remembered. “Looking for a couple after-market clips, twenty rounds, for my new 92FS M9 Special Edition, finest military handgun in the world. Now that I gotta show you, Muskrat. Comes with pistol belt and holster, magazine pouch. Same thing used in Just Cause, Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Restore Hope, Joint Guard.”

“Do tell,” said Muskrat.

“I’m debating if I should’ve got the presentation case. Walnut, etched glass cover. And the walnut grips,” Bubba agonized.

“Wouldn’t be as practical if you ever plan to shoot it.”

“I sure as hell do. Winchester 115-grain Silvertip high-power.”

“How come you ain’t in school?” Muskrat asked Smoke.

“Free period. In fact, I gotta get back.”

Muskrat waited until Smoke was in his car, driving off.

“You notice that boy’s eyes?” Muskrat said. “Looked like he’d been drinking.”

“As if you and I didn’t at that age,” Bubba said. “So what d’ya think? This urethane hard enough yet?”

“Should be. But don’t get your hopes up.”

They used the air hose and spray bottle again. The leak was still there. Muskrat took his time studying the problem until he’d figured it out.

“You got a hairline crack in the roof line,” he said.

W
EED REFUSED TO
read his story, causing Mrs. Grannis to doubt that he had written one. This disappointed her greatly, and the other students in the class did not know what to think. Weed had always been so eager, the little boy-wonder in art class. Now, suddenly, he was uncommunicative and uncooperative, and the more Mrs. Grannis pressed him, the more obstinate he got. Finally, he was rude.

“Why I did the fish is my business,” he said, reaching under his desk for his knapsack.

“You had an assignment, just like everyone else,” Mrs. Grannis said firmly.

“No one else did a fish.” Weed looked up at the clock.

“That’s all the more reason we want to hear about yours,” Mrs. Grannis answered.

“Come on, Weed.”

“Read it to us.”

“Hey, it’s not fair. You heard ours.”

It was 1:48. Fifth period ended in three minutes. Mrs. Grannis felt terrible. Weed was impossible, sitting rigidly in his chair, head bent, as if he were about to be beaten. His classmates shifted uncomfortably, waiting for the bell.

“Well,” Mrs. Grannis broke the silence. “Tomorrow we start watercolors, and don’t forget, we have a special program next period.”

Henry Hamilton was the star pitcher of the baseball team, and he hated any activity that kept him sitting past two in the afternoon. He made a face, slumped in his seat and sighed loudly. Eva Grecci did the same because she had an aching crush on Hamilton. Randy Weispfenning wasn’t happy, either.

“We have two very important police officers who have been sent to Richmond by the National Institute of Justice,” Mrs. Grannis said. “They have generously agreed to come today and talk with us.”

“About what?”

“Crime, I suppose,” Mrs. Grannis said.

“I’m sick of hearing about it.”

“Me, too. My mom won’t even read the paper anymore.”

“My dad thinks I should start wearing a bulletproof vest to class.” Hamilton laughed, ducking when Weispfenning tried to cuff him.

“That’s not funny,” Mrs. Grannis said.

The bell rang. Everyone jumped up as if there was a fire.

“Off to see the wizzz-aarrrddd . . .” Hamilton sang and started skipping down an imagined Yellow Brick Road.

Eva Grecci laughed too hard.

“Weed,” Mrs. Grannis said. “I need to see you for a minute.”

He sullenly shuffled up to her desk. The room emptied, leaving the two of them alone.

“This is the first time you’ve not turned in an assignment,” she softly said.

He shrugged.

“Do you want to tell me why?”

“Because.” He shrugged again as tears smarted.

“That’s not an answer, Weed.”

He blinked, looking away from her. Feelings boiled up in him. In an hour he was supposed to meet Smoke in the parking lot.

“I just didn’t get around to it,” he said as he thought of the five-page story hiding inside his knapsack.

“I’m very surprised you didn’t get around to it,” she measured her words.

Weed said nothing. He had spent half of Saturday writing four drafts of it before painstakingly making the final copy in black felt-tip ink, letters perfectly formed in the calligraphy that he had learned from a kit and then modified to his bold, funky, completely unique style. The second bell rang.

“We need to go on to the auditorium,” Mrs. Grannis said.

He felt her searching his face, looking for a clue. Weed knew she was hoping the faculty had not made a mistake advancing him to the outer limits of Godwin’s art instruction.

“I don’t want to listen to no cops,” Weed told her.

“Weed?” It wasn’t negotiable. “You’re going to sit with me.”

Brazil parked his marked patrol car on the circle outside the high school’s front entrance, and despite his constant complaining during the drive, felt happy to be here as he climbed out of the car and students milling about stared. It did not occur to Brazil that his tall, chiseled, uniformed presence was striking, that this might have something to do with the attention he so often got.

He had never really accepted his physical self. In part this was because he was an only child left to the mercy of a mother who had always been too miserable and eventually too drunk to see him as someone separate from herself. When she looked at him, she saw a bleary projection of her husband, who had been killed when Brazil was ten. In her rages, it was Brazil’s dead father she ranted to and struck and begged not to leave her.

“You got any idea where the hell we’re going?” West asked as she pushed shut the car door.

Brazil scanned the notes Fling had given him.

“ ‘Go in, take a left,’ ” he read.

“Go in where?”

“Uh,” Brazil scanned some more. “Doesn’t say. We ‘go through doors ahead to green hallway through more doors to a blue one until see a bulletin board with photographs.’ ”

“Fuck,” West said as they walked.

“After that,” Brazil said, “we ‘can’t miss it.’ ”

“It’s a conspiracy. I’m telling you, Andy. They deliberately had Hammer inherit Fling to fuck her.”

“I don’t know,” Brazil said as he opened one of the front doors for her and they entered the commons. “The former chief had him for three years.”

“The former chief also got fired for incompetence.”

“Ah.” Brazil spied a pretty young teacher walking with one of her students. “Excuse me,” Brazil said to her with a smile. “We’re trying to find the auditorium. I’m Officer Brazil and this is Deputy Chief West.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Grannis answered with enthusiasm. “You’re exactly who we’re on our way to see. I’m Mrs. Grannis and this is Weed. You can just follow us. It’s just straight ahead. I’m sure everybody else is already seated and waiting with great anticipation.”

“What’cha say?” Brazil said to Weed.

“Nothing,” Weed said.

“Ah come on,” West said. “I hear they teach a lot more than nothing here.”

“Weed’s our star artist,” Mrs. Grannis proudly said, patting Weed’s shoulder.

He moved away from her, his lower lip protruding in a combination of hostility and near-tears.

“That’s cool,” Brazil said, shortening his long strides. “What kind of art, man?”

“Whatever kind I want,” Weed said.

“Oh yeah?” Brazil said. “You do sculpture?”

“Yeah.”

“How about pen and ink?”

“Yeah.”

“Watercolors?”

“Going to.”

“Papier-mâché?”

“Easy.”

“Impressionism. You like Cézanne? ‘Le Château Noir’?”

“Huh?” Weed looked up at Brazil. “Say what?”

“Cézanne. He’s one of my favorites. Go look him up.”

“Where’s he live?”

“He doesn’t anymore.”

Weed frowned, following the two cops and Mrs. Grannis into the auditorium. It was full, students turning around in their seats, wondering what Mrs. Grannis and Weed were doing with the two important guests. Weed held his head up, walking cool in his baggy look of the day. He and Mrs. Grannis slipped into the second row, near other teachers. Brazil and West made their way onto the stage and sat in chairs on the dais, spotlights on them. West tapped her microphone and it thudded loudly.

“Can everybody hear?” she asked.

“Yes,” voices returned.

“All the way in the back?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your gun?”

Laughter started rolling through the rows.

“We’ll start with that,” West said, her voice booming. “What’s all this crap about guns? Yeah, sure, I’ve got one on.”

“What kind?”

“The kind I don’t like,” she answered. “Because I don’t like any gun. I don’t even like being a cop, and you know why? Because I wish we didn’t need guns or cops.”

She and Brazil talked for about twenty minutes. Afterward the principal, Mrs. Lilly, made her way up to the front of the auditorium as the applause continued. Brazil bent down and handed Mrs. Lilly the microphone. She squinted in the glaring lights and announced there was time to take a few questions.

Smoke had returned to school after a quick stop at Sears, where he had shoplifted ten garage remote controls. He stood up from an aisle seat on the tenth row.

“I was wondering,” he spoke loudly and sincerely, “if you think some kids are born bad.”

“I think some are,” the lady cop bluntly answered.

“I’d like to believe that’s not true,” Mrs. Lilly piped up.

“We’d all like to believe it’s not true,” the blond uniformed cop said. “But I think what’s important is that at the end of the day, people make choices. Nobody makes you cheat on that test or steal that car or beat somebody up.”

Smoke continued to stand in the darkness, listening attentively, his expression innocent and thoughtful. He wasn’t finished yet.

“But what do you do if someone’s really bad and nothing’s going to change him?” he asked in a loud, sure voice.

“Lock him up.” The lady cop meant it.

Laughter.

“About all you can do is protect society from people like that,” the blond cop added.

“Isn’t it true though that genetically bad people are usually smarter and harder to catch?” Smoke asked.

“Depends on who’s trying to catch them.” The blond cop was a little cocky.

Laughter swelled as the bell rang. Smoke slipped out of the auditorium first, through a side door, heading straight for the parking lot. A cold smile played on his lips as he envisioned the blond cop and his sidekick with the big tits and imagined himself in direct combat with them. The thought aroused him.

Power lifted him and pumped through his blood as he trotted to his Escort and unlocked it. He sat behind the wheel, working himself into intense excitement as he stared at the circle of yellow school buses and the hundreds of kids suddenly streaming out of doorways, cheerful, playful and in a hurry.

Smoke started the car and drove to the appointed spot in the parking lot, forcing other students to go around him or turn and head out the other way. He wasn’t going to move for anyone. Traffic and voices were loud as he sat
watching for Weed, who was about to hurt like hell and make Smoke famous.

Smoke wanted to touch himself again, but resisted. When he deprived himself, he couldn’t be stopped. He could do anything. He would get a faint metallic taste in his mouth as energy rushed up from between his legs and lifted the top of his head. He could work himself into anything.

All he had to do was play the same fantasy over and over again in his mind. He was sweaty and dirty on a downtown rooftop with an AR-15, taking out half the fucking cops in the city, slapping magazine after magazine into his assault rifle, shooting down helicopters and slaughtering the National Guard.

Smoke never carried the fantasy much beyond that point. A rational part of his brain realized that the last scenario most likely would be his death or imprisonment, but neither was enough to get his attention when he was consumed by lust so intense and seething that these days he did little beyond playing with plans.

It was five past three when Weed walked up to the car, knapsack limp in his hand. Smoke was silent as Weed climbed in, shut the door and fastened his shoulder harness. Smoke drove off, slowly making his way out of the parking lot. He turned onto Pump Road and followed it south to Patterson Avenue while Weed got increasingly nervous, licking his lips, staring out his side window.

“So how come you asked the cops all those questions?” Weed finally mustered up the courage to ask.

Smoke said nothing.

“I thought they was good questions.”

Smoke was silent as he turned east on Patterson Avenue. He started driving faster. He felt Weed’s fear, and the heat of rage pressed against Smoke like a wall of fire.

“I thought the cops were fuckin’ stupid.” Weed tried to sound big. “Hey. You hungry, Smoke? I didn’t eat my sandwich at lunch. You want it?”

A long silence followed. Smoke turned south on Parham Road.

“Hey, Smoke, how come you ain’t talking to me?” Weed’s voice jumped. “I do something?”

Smoke’s right hand flew out as if it were alive on its own. It chopped Weed hard between the legs.

“What time I tell you to meet me in the parking lot?” Smoke yelled as Weed shrieked, doubled over, arms locked under his crossed legs, head practically in his lap. “What time, you fuckin’ little shit!”

“Three!” Weed cried, tears running down his face in little rivers. “Why’d you do that? I didn’t do nothing.” He hiccuped. “Smoke, I didn’t!”

“And what time was it when you walked up to my car, you little fuck!” Smoke grabbed the back of Weed’s woolly cornrows. “It was
five after three!”

He yanked. Weed screamed again.

“When I say three, what does that mean, retard?”

“I couldn’t get away from Mrs. Grannis!” Weed choked, gasping and making awful faces as Smoke gripped Weed’s hair, tearing some of it out by the roots. “I’m sorry, Smoke! I’m sorry! Oh please don’t hurt me no more.”