Under the Bridge (15 page)

I did, and he was right. “I’m sorry.”

He stood. “Don’t apologize to me, Tate. Apologize to your mother. You and I can go in circles just fine, but your mother …” His eyes flared. “She’s not your mother when it comes to those things, Tate. She’s my wife.”

I looked at him, and I realized he saw me as a man. Not
a kid, not a child, but a man. I nodded. “It won’t happen again.”

He nodded.

“I think you were wrong about Indy.”

“I know you do, and I might have made a mistake, but Indy can own up to his mistakes just as I can to mine.” He walked to the door, and once again I was surprised at how savvy he was. “I know you’re probably going out tonight to see your brother, and that’s fine. Tell him he’s welcome home to iron things out at any time. And tell him I love him.”

Under the Bridge. As I skated down the hill, the streetlights bathing me in a midnight glow as I rolled from block to block, I thought how I would have given up ever setting my feet on a deck if it would have stopped this from happening. I wished we lived above that buffer zone between the good and the bad, and I wished the biggest problem in my life right now was choosing what university I would attend after high school. It wasn’t that way, though, and my brother was in trouble. I had a creeping feeling it was more trouble than I could deal with
.

A bit away from the park, I kicked my board up and skirted around the block, coming to the place where Indy had been dealing. I found a corner hidden in shadow and sat, watching.

It only took ten minutes for a car to idle up to the curb and a figure to come out from the darkness, and as I peered, I recognized Indy’s shape. I stood, walking across the street as the car pulled away. Indy saw me and stopped. I walked up to him. “Hi.”

He looked at his feet. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry about last night. I was mad.”

Indy looked over his shoulder, nervous. “You should really go, Tate.”

“Have the police talked to you yet?”

He shook his head. “No. But you’ve got to go, Tate. Leave right now.”

“They’re bad people, Indy.”

Indy looked over his shoulder again, and my eyes followed his glance. Will walked from the shadows, that smarmy grin on his face. “You just don’t know when enough is enough, do you, Taterboy?” He didn’t stop walking, and as he reached me, he threw a roundhouse punch and clocked me square on the ear. I spun to the side, dizzy from the punch and my ears ringing, and came back around to face him.

And stared down the barrel of a pistol. He cocked the hammer back, the click echoing against the concrete pillars surrounding us, my heart stopping on a dime, all the pain in my head vanishing in a millisecond. He smiled, his eyes unflinching. “That was for the mistake you made, Taterboy. Now I’m going to tell you one more time. We’ve got business, and it doesn’t include you. Got it?”

Indy’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Will, come on, man.…”

Will chuckled. “It’s all good, Indy. Your brother here just needs to learn his place, and it ain’t here. No problems otherwise.” He looked at me. “Isn’t that right, Tate?”

I looked from Indy to Will. “The police are talking to everybody.”

He smiled. “If I didn’t know that, I suppose I’d be called stupid. But I’m not stupid, Tate, and I don’t want you to be stupid, either.” He glanced at Indy, and then his eyes flashed back to me. He grinned wickedly. “You understand what I’m saying?”

I looked at the black hole at the end of the barrel of that pistol, and it seemed to grow. My knees shook, and I knew all at once that if I pushed it with this guy, my brother and I would end up dead. “Yeah, I understand.”

He didn’t lower the gun. “Good. Now get the fuck out of here. And keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you.”

I looked at Indy, wanting him to come with me, but he shook his head. I left then, my head hanging in shame, my knees shaking, and a sick feeling in me that I’d never felt before.

It was well after two in the morning when I got home, and when I kicked my board up at the sidewalk, I saw a figure sitting on the front porch. As I came near, I saw it was Mom.

She looked at me in the darkness. “Hi.”

I sighed. “I suppose the front porch is becoming the meeting place.”

“I want you to take me to him.”

I shuffled, not knowing what to say. “I can’t do that.”

“Why? You know where he is.”

“I do know. But I can’t.”

Her eyes searched me. “You don’t know what to do, do you?”

I swallowed. “Not really.”

She nodded, her eyes drifting back to the street. “Do you remember when you were little and we had that secret sign?” She held up her pinkie finger and wiggled it. “It meant that whatever you said or did was between you and me and nobody else, and that I wouldn’t say anything to anybody unless you said it was okay.”

I chuckled, remembering. “Yeah.”

“I never told anybody anything, Tate,” she said, looking at me and raising her finger. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Tell me.”

I looked at her finger for a moment. “He’s dealing drugs for a guy he knows. A bad guy. Serious bad guy.”

She took a breath.

I put my hand on her knee. “I saw him tonight. He’s fine. Just messed up about things.”

She shook her head. “He’s not fine, is he?”

I sighed. She always knew. “No. But he will be.”

“I want you to take me to him.”

I thought of Will. “I can’t do that, Mom.”

“Why?”

No matter what kind of weight the pinkie sign held, I knew that if I told her that Will carried a gun and had pulled it on me, she’d call the cops. I couldn’t do that. They’d arrest Indy, and whatever chance he had of getting out of this without ruining his life would be gone. “I just can’t.”

She took my hand. “Tell me, Tate. Please. What’s going on? I don’t care if he’s high or stoned or anything. I just want to talk with him.”

I pulled my hand away. “Anything I’d say would be a lie, Mom, and I’m not going to lie to you. I’m sorry.”

She looked at me. “Then I have no choice.”

“What?”

“I’m calling the police and filing a missing-person report.”

I lowered my head, staring at the concrete step. “Please, don’t. You don’t know …”

She stood. “That’s exactly right, Tate. I don’t know. But he’s my son and he belongs here.”

“If you tell them he’s dealing, they’ll nail him, Mom. And you pinkie-promised.”

“Tell him I want to see him.”

“I will. But I can’t make it happen. Only he can.”

She scratched the top of my head. “Okay, then.”

“Are you going to tell Dad he’s dealing?”

“No. Not now.”

“Thanks.”

She opened the screen door. “This has to come out, though. You know that. I can’t hide something this serious from your father.”

I stared at the street. “I know.”

“In bed,” I said, then glanced at my dad, who did not look like a happy man. Two detectives stood in our living room, one carrying a laptop case. My dad stood in front of them with his arms crossed, his posture threatening. My insides were still twisted up from Will’s gun the night before, and my mind raced about what I should say
.

“You were in bed the night of the murder.” The skinny, balding one nodded, scribbling in a notebook. He looked up at me. “What about your brother?”

I glanced at Mom. “I don’t know.”

The other detective, pale, pudgy, and soft-spoken, studied our living room. He looked at my dad. “And you don’t know where Indy is, Mr. Brooks?”

“No.”

“Is there a family issue going on, sir?”

Dad didn’t like the law, had no use for them, and pretty much thought they were a bunch of nosy, greedy bastards. “What goes on in this house is none of your business.”

The detective nodded, unaffected by the statement. “We’re trying to find a killer, sir.”

Dad glared at him. “Then find a killer. My boys aren’t involved with those kinds of people. My son was asked to leave our home due to a disagreement. If that’s against the law, arrest me.”

The skinny detective broke in. “Understandable, Mr. Brooks. If we could just have Tate look at a surveillance tape, we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

Dad nodded, and the detective went to our living room table, unzipping his case and taking out the laptop. He moved his finger on the touch pad. “We believe this to be the beginning of the assault that ended with the victim’s death. Please watch.” He clicked the play button, and the video began just as Piper said it did. The scene was fuzzy, dark, and shadowed, and it was hard to see anything but two shapes, one with a stick or bat.

Halfway through, as one figure raised the stick, the detective stopped the video. “Do you recognize the figure with the weapon, Tate? Do his movements, his posture, anything at all, look familiar?”

“No.”

The detective nodded, then clicked the zoom on the browser, capturing the upper left of the frame. “See that there?” He pointed to the corner. “That shape is a person. A witness. Or an accomplice.”

Dad and I peered at the figure standing there. I looked close. The detective asked again, “Familiar at all, Tate? This is important, so please, look carefully.”

I shook my head. “You can’t even see.”

“I know it’s hard. This resolution is the highest we have available, but please look.”

I did. After a moment, I sighed. I couldn’t tell if it was Will or his uncle. “It could be anybody.”

He clicked Play again and stayed zoomed in on the shape. It didn’t move, just stood there as the other two figures went out of camera range. In another few seconds, he clicked Stop and closed the case. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. The crew doesn’t night-skate that often, but tons of guys do.”

“Your ‘crew’ would be Thomas ‘Piper’ Sandusky, Sid Valentino, your brother Indy, and yourself, correct?”

“Yes.”

He zipped the case up, turning to my dad. “Mr. Brooks, it is important that we speak to Indy. If you see him, please contact us.” He took a card from his wallet and handed it to him. “Anything at all will help. And if you’d like to file a report to find your son, we can help with that, too.”

Dad brought himself up. “He can find my door on his own and make things better if he chooses.” He glared at the detective. “Maybe you should do something about the scum in this city
before
this kind of thing happens.”

The tension was palpable. The detective clenched his teeth. “We do what we can with the manpower we have, sir. We arrest them, the courts let them out. Just doing our jobs.”

“Line ’em up beside the damn judges and shoot ’em all.”

That got a laugh from both detectives. I pictured my dad shooting his son in that line. Dad loosened up a bit, then held his hand out. They shook. “I hope you catch him. And if Indy comes home, I’ll contact you.”

“Thank you,” the skinny one said, then turned to me. “Tate, if anything comes to mind at all about that tape, call.”

After the detectives left, my dad faced me. “I don’t want you down there anymore.”

I shrugged. “It’s not that bad. We stay away from that side of the park.”

“Where is Indy?”

Even though I was telling him the truth as far as I knew it, I knew this question would come up. I hated lying. Every time I did, things just went from bad to worse because I sucked at it. I glanced at Mom, hoping she’d keep her promise. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Mom cut in. “He’s not, Dan. Tate and I talked last night. He doesn’t know where he’s staying.”

He furrowed his brow. “Well, what the hell is going on, then?” He looked at me. “Why the detectives, Tate? Why did they come to our house?”

“They’re questioning everybody who skates down there. I swear, Dad, I have no idea what happened to Lucius or who did it. They even talked to Pipe and Sid. Nobody knows.”

“This doesn’t add up, son.”

I wished right then, more than ever, that I could trust my dad, but I couldn’t. I wanted to tell him about Will, the gun,
Indy dealing, and everything, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t like Mom. He’d railroad it just like he railroaded everything. Just bull his way through and do it his way. “I don’t know. Sorry.”