100 Proof Stud (The Darcy Walker Series) (45 page)

24. Citizen’s Arrest

C
itizen’s arrest! the angel cheered.
Let him be!
the devil laughed.
He’s making a living.

I couldn’t breathe; in fact, I was in danger of losing all bodily functions in my pants. Dodging a little boy carrying a tray, I hustled back to line, told Grumpy as fast as I could, to which he rolled his eyes totally unaffected. “Maybe it was spices, Walker,” he grumped, looking at his watch.

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t basil and oregano, Grumpy.”

I’d seen marijuana. My grandfather lives in Kentucky. Kentucky people knew all about Mary Jane—even if you were clean—and then the knowledge was passed on through the placenta.

When Grumpy didn’t give me anything more than an eye roll, and Vinnie chuckled, “You’re so cute,” I flipped them both off in my mind and yelled, “Big Moby’s passing out drugs!”

A hush filled the room.

Those were fighting words amongst the parent crowd—especially when it was Kid’s Eat Free Night. But no one made a move to apprehend, defend, or do anything. Heck, they didn’t even look frustrated. They just stood there, wondering how their favorite clown had turned into a freaking felon.

It didn’t take long for me to make the decision to get involved, and come hell or high water, Big Moby would go timber tonight. Leaving Grumpy and Vinnie, I slammed my body in fifth gear, pushed the side door wide, and bounded outside under the security light. In unison, Big Moby and the young woman locked on me, mouths agape, faces shocked-out with that busted looked.

No lie, the female was Madison-I’m a beeyotch-Flannery.

The moron in me yelled self-righteously, “Citizen’s arrest, citizen’s arrest, I’m busting you for possession of a controlled substance.”

Madison dropped the bag of weed and went from zero to sixty off the property. Big Moby snatched it up and immediately plopped it in his mouth. Then he came at me swinging all limbs like he’d lost his mind. He smacked me in the head with a Moby bag, and if that wasn’t insulting enough, he squirted me in the face with his seltzer bottle. When he took off running across the lot, at that moment I felt like a superhero. I dove at him—you heard right, dove at him—and took him out at the knees. Moby went down hard, me on top of him, and suddenly I was eating clown. Clown in my mouth, clown up my nose, clown in the beds of my fingernails. Moby and I rolled around the snow-filled pavement on old french fries, gum, and probably E. coli and the rotavirus, but the verb in me was going for the memorable.

Amidst the flailing of our arms and legs, the bag of pot
plop, plop, plopped
out of his mouth and bounced on the pavement. If pot came out of his mouth, I didn’t dare think what’d come out of any other orifice. Big Moby was scum of the earth. I’m sure he had no scruples.

“Cuff him, Grumpy!” I yelled.

Grumpy was in slow-mo at my heels, partly in shock, partly due to the fact he might just be a noun. Lord help me, I needed more verbs in my life, but I had to work with the tools I’d been given. “Cuff him?!” he screamed back. “I don’t have any cuffs, Walker!”

True, but by God, improvise!

Moby wiggled out from underneath me, stumbling past a still shell-shocked Grumpy, heading straight for the drive-thru in a fit of panicked hysteria. Knocking over a red trashcan, he jumped up on the curb, placing his hand on the driver’s side door of a green Jeep Cherokee. He yanked it wide, pulling a startled teenager out by the shirt. The boy went down hard, but Moby stepped over him, full intentions of taking off in his idling car.

I had a decision to make. I could call the police and give them a description of a clown, or I could dive onto the car and pray Moby pulled over. Without another thought, I dove spread eagle onto the hood, a whole lot of don’t-die-a-virgin giving me flight. Big Moby cursed words so obscene I think my immediate consciousness blocked them out. I heard a b-word, a c-word, and an f-word that frankly made no sense. What I did make out was a laughing, “Ta-ta,” and I knew innately he had plans for me eating the pavement. Swerving the car right then left, we’d traveled a good seventy-plus feet, neither of us giving up the fight. I glimpsed people peering out the windows, cheering me on or shaking their heads in disbelief. My right leg fell off the car when Moby hit the brakes, trying to jar me loose, but somehow I held on, staring into the face of a certifiable psychopath.

Moby and I had one of those moments. A moment where our eyes met and the bad in
him
met the trying-to-be-good in
me
. A sick, twisted smile lit up all that clown makeup, and I briefly said a prayer I’d make it to the Promised Land if this ended badly. Right then, I had a connect-the-dots moment. I recognized him—even through makeup, I recognized him as Brantley McCoy, the photo ID Finn had given me from the detention list.

“You’re Brantley McCoy,” I half whispered, half yelled. Moby grinned so big I didn’t need him unmasked. Right when the small part of my brain told me I should’ve followed by car, Vinnie and Grumpy made the scene. You’d think they would’ve arrived quicker, but all of it took place probably within thirty seconds. God help them, their reaction skills sucked. Vinnie lunged for Moby’s door. He wrestled his way inside, punching and shoving as Grumpy opened the passenger side door and went for the emergency brake.

Trying my best to hang onto the windshield wipers, all at once it felt like the car ran full-force into a brick wall, six feet thick. I performed a backward roll down the hood, bounced arm and elbow first onto the front bumper, and launched about twelve feet backward like I was shot out of a cannon. I landed on my left leg, hearing the knee of my leggings rip wide in protest, scuffing the skin with black, pebbled slush.

Then the inconceivable happened. Someone started snapping photographs. When Grumpy yelled, “What the h-e-double-l,” Vinnie called up his thespian side. My God, he turned and offered up a red carpet smile for the camera, long enough for Big Moby to yank free and run for the hills, like a starving wolf on the scent of a bleeding squirrel.

We’d lost him…

“Madison Flannery, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, she recently withdrew from Valley High School, so I’m not sure where she is now.”

“That’s all I need for now,” Officer Abbott concluded, flipping his notebook closed.

I was outraged. “But don’t you want to hear my theory on the identity thief? I think this guy—”

The officer interrupted, cocking his head to one side. “You nabbed a drug dealer, kid. I didn’t see evidence of identity theft anywhere. And frankly, the guy got away. I don’t even have him to question.”

When I belligerently pushed ahead, Vinnie stepped on my toe. As I glanced up into his dark brown eyes, his gaze went as hard as nails, giving me a nuh-uh look. That gaze said Moby was indeed the same guy he’d fought at Calypso Cove—like I’d suspicioned—who I knew in my gut to be Brantley McCoy. I’d learned to trust Vinnie. If he didn’t think I needed to spill yet, then I wouldn’t spill. I’d call Tito, have him work his magic, and pull the employment records for Big Moby. We’d shut that lowlife clown down tonight.

Valley High School’s one of the largest schools in the Greater Cincinnati Area. That could be good if you wanted to hide, but if your aspirations were to make the school athletic teams, you’d better play like a professional or have pushy parents on the PTA.

Competition was fierce.

The place was packed like sardines in a can with dads living vicariously through their sons; others glancing at their watches, just doing time until they could get home and retire with the remote. The gymnasium had stadium seating and was fairly comfortable, but it smelled like a two-hundred-cow dairy farm and the emotions of a big rivalry.

The pep band finished “Let’s Get it Started” by The Black Eyed Peas and segued to “Blow” by Ke$ha when we entered Buffalo Nation. It was halftime, the murmurings grumbled at a lower decibel, but the promise of verbal brawl tickled the air. It was like sitting in a beaker being boiled without any fluid inside. You knew what would happen; it was only a matter of time before the explosion.

Athletes from both teams warmed up at their respective baskets doing layups and shooting threes readying for the next half. We’d missed the first two quarters because we were cleaning up society, and Grumpy was as nervous as a pizza boy who hadn’t delivered the goods on time. Me, I still reeled from the fact I’d seen Brantley McCoy—I knew it deep in my soul—but I nursed a bad feeling he’d be coming for me.

Listening to sneakers squeak on the hardwood while I padded down the gray painted steps, my eyes landed on my best friend first…how could they not. Polyester was one of those fabrics if Nature gave you extra bumps, bulges, or cottage cheese-like cellulite, it could be a fashion disaster. On the other hand, if you were hard, chiseled, and mouth-wateringly perfect underneath—God bless polyester because it accentuated the positive. Dylan? He literally had the kind of body that’d make a girl walk right out of her clothes.

It was reality.

I didn’t make the rules.

Dylan was also one of those players who’d always shine. Indisputably the best athlete Valley had ever seen, he dribbled effortlessly, making every attempt he threw up, rebounding others’ shots, and turning and dunking the ball. More than likely he’d be a McDonald’s All American again this year, and you could add that bullet to his resume of Ohio’s Mr. Football his sophomore and junior football seasons, plus AP and USA Today National Team honors as well. In the short run, that meant captain of the teams; in the long run, that said,
Arrivederci, Darcyville; hello, college scholarship
.

It sucked.

As Grumpy, Vinnie, and I squeezed into the student section, I put my thumb and index finger in my mouth in the shape of an “o” and blew hard. A high-pitched noise was born, loud enough to echo along the cinderblock walls. A few individuals jumped at the sound, but most chatted, ate popcorn, or tried to access free WI-FI on their cell phones.

Dylan slowed his dribble at half court, turning toward the noise.

One Mississippi…two Mississippi…

He met my grin with a knowing smirk.

Cupping my hands around my mouth, I yelled, “We performed a drug bust on the way over! Lights, sirens, the whole gig. I’m thinking the eleven o’clock news.”

Dylan stopped mid-dribble, narrowing his eyes with one of those I-can’t-hear-you faces. “What?!” he yelled.

I waved him off, more or less communicating I’d fill him in later, but Grumpy muscled his way down five rows, making drinks, popcorn, and some misplaced band instruments casualties of his mood.
Hey
;
Watch out
; and
What’s your problem?
were some of the minor phrases that followed; the others were so truck stop, I tried to think of baby bunnies.

Before anyone with half a brain could stop him, he furiously barreled out onto the floor headed straight for Dylan. I had a feeling he’d only replay the scary parts and leave out the fact we were successful, and in my world, that’s all that mattered.

Grumpy may be a lot of things…but a coward wasn’t one of them. When he was chest-to-chest with my slightly embarrassed best friend, he rammed his pointed finger in Dylan’s face, shoving his car keys in his hand. “Don’t
ever
ask me to pick her up, chauffeur her around, or pull her out of a ditch,” I read his lips say. “I’m off-duty. Permanently. She’s fricking nuts! She’s cursed. She dove onto a fricking car, and Claudia took to the bed because of her!”

Dylan glanced at me, hovering outside the free-throw line, and I just shrugged. Unfortunately, Grumpy’s words were a fairly accurate account of what’d happened. Placing the basketball under his left arm, Dylan crooked his finger, motioning for me to join him. All around, players took their last shots, some even venturing to the sideline to ride the bench and wait for the buzzer to go off. When I looked at the clock in the upper left hand corner, it said three minutes and thirty-nine seconds until the beep. Shaking my head no, I gestured there was no time as I tapped the watch on my left wrist.