Bad Move (12 page)

Angie looked out her window and said nothing.

"I go to school with a bunch of losers," she said, finally.

I let that one hang out there for a while. "What do you mean, losers?"

She shrugged, a kind of like-this-needs-an-explanation? shrug. "I know you and Mom thought moving out here would mean you'd never have to worry again about schools, about drugs and all that shit. But you have no idea. We've got the Crips, and crackheads, and - I mean, look at Columbine. That was, like, the middle of nowhere. That wasn't some inner-city school or something. And look what happened there."

"What are you saying? That there are guys in long black coats waiting to shoot up the school?" I had shifted into parental overdrive.

"No, no, jeez, no, God, don't go all hyper on me. All I'm saying is just because we moved out of the city doesn't mean that there aren't still weird people in my school. There's weird people wherever you go. Just 'cause we've moved doesn't mean we're never going to run into crazy people again. It's really no different out here than anyplace else, at least from that point of view. But you don't have people willing to be eccentric."

"Okay, you've lost me. We've got weird, but we don't have eccentric."

"I mean, like, remember my friend Jan? The one with the boots, and the tears in her stockings, and the orange skirts?"

"And the thing in her tongue?"

"Yeah. Like, she barely rated a second glance at my old school, but if you moved her out here, where everyone's wearing their Abercrombie & Fitch, they'd think she was totally strange."

"She was totally strange."

"Yeah, but that's the point. She kind of was, but no one noticed? You could do that downtown, and no one really thought about it. Out here, there's this suburban thing, where you have to be borderline normal all the time."

In some inexplicable way, I knew what she was talking about.

"That's why, for example, Paul wants to get a tattoo," Angie said. "So he can be just a little edgy out here."

"Paul wants a tattoo?"

Angie glanced at me, realizing she'd broken a confidence. "He didn't tell you?"

"No. Not yet."

"You didn't hear it from me, but he's thinking about it. There's a place, in the plaza, that'll do them."

"He can't get a tattoo. He's not even sixteen yet. They wouldn't do it."

Angie rolled her eyes. We were almost to the school. "Is there more?" I asked.

Angie was quiet.

"Haven't you made any friends here?"

Angie shifted her chin around, a nod in disguise. "Not really. I had friends at Bannerman, like Krista, and Molly, and Denny, but I had to leave them because it wasn't safe there, we had to move to a neighborhood where everything would be okay." There was a mocking tone. "Well, so what if there was a flasher and a few hookers or some needles on the sidewalk? At least it was interesting."

"You know you're welcome to have your friends out here any time you want," I offered. "Invite them on Friday or Saturday, do a sleepover thing in the basement."

Angie looked at me as though I'd just stepped out of an episode of Ozzie and Harriet. "God, Dad, I'm not five. And, like, they just can't wait to come out here."

I stopped the car out front of the school. "I hate this place," Angie said, slipping out the door and closing it behind her.

o o o

Chapter
8

As I looked about the room, dumbstruck, Earl hurriedly pulled on a shirt and then ushered me up the stairs to the kitchen. He got two beers out of the fridge and motioned - actually, more like directed - me to take a seat at the table. He set his handgun on the table where I could have reached it if I'd wanted to. I didn't.

"What's this about a detective, Zack?" Earl asked. He did not look amused.

I was having a bit of trouble collecting my thoughts. "A police detective, he just left my place."

"What was he asking?" Earl took a nervous swig of his beer. "Was he asking about me?"

"No. He was asking about that guy they found down by the creek."

"Are you sure? You're sure he wasn't asking about me?"

"No," I said, more emphatically this time. "I'm telling you the truth. It was about the guy in the creek."

Earl nodded, slowly, but he was still eyeing me warily. "I heard about that. On the radio."

"Yeah, well, it did kind of make the news. It was that guy with the petition, who talked to us the other day."

Earl downed some more beer. "Okay. I remember him. You found him?"

I nodded. "The cops say he was murdered. So they had a lot more questions for me, since I came across him when I was out for my walk."

Earl was shaking his head, like he wasn't listening to me. "Shit. Thank God it was about that and not me. I'm running a business over here and can't afford to have the cops finding out about it. So, why are you over here then, if it wasn't about me?"

"I just came over here to tell you about it. Thought you'd be interested. Looks like maybe I caught you at a bad time."

Earl took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He ran his hand lightly over the gun. "So, Zack. You gonna turn me in?"

"Jesus, Earl." I finally twisted off the cap of my own beer and had a swallow. "It's so fucking hot in here."

"There's a lot of humidity in a greenhouse kind of operation," he said matter-of-factly. "That's why I keep a lot of beer in the fridge. And bottled water, soft drinks, that kind of thing." He got out his cigarettes, some Winstons, tucked one between his lips and lit up. "I notice you didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"About whether you're going to turn me in."

"Look, Earl, it's not like I'm worried about the pot, exactly. I mean, everyone's doing it, I gather, not that my own kids are."

"Of course," Earl said.

I ignored that. "What worries me is you're in a line of work that requires you to keep a gun around. That's not a good thing, Earl. Most people, unless they're cops, don't need to pack heat."

Earl said quietly, "Lots of people, not just cops, need guns."

"The thing is, are we going to be having midnight shootouts on the street here? Is everyone else in the neighborhood at risk of getting caught in the crossfire?"

He pursed his lips and tapped the barrel of the gun with his index finger. "It's just a bit of insurance," he said. "That's all. You don't have to be worried."

"I just don't like guns, is all."

"So if I tell you that you don't have anything to worry about because I've got a gun over here, are you going to turn me in?"

I breathed in deep through my nose, felt a trickle of sweat run down my forehead. "No," I said. "I'm not going to turn you in." And instantly wondered whether this was a promise I could keep. I decided to lighten things up. "I guess there's a lot of chips in the cupboard, in case you get the munchies, too."

Earl snorted. He waved his pack of Winstons. "This is the only thing I smoke," he said. "I'm trying to look after my health."

"I can see that," I said.

"Look at us. You're having a beer. I'm having a beer. I'm having a cigarette. The beer gives us pleasure, mellows us out, might even kill us if we abuse it. And this cigarette" - he waved it around with dramatic flourish - "will very likely mean the death of me someday."

"I feel you're making your way toward a point."

"All I'm doing downstairs is meeting a need. I'm providing a service. Just like," and he gestured toward me, "writing pornography, say."

"Earl, I don't write pornography. I write science fiction."

"But if you did write porn, it would be the same thing."

"But I don't, and it wouldn't be."

"Okay, but you're missing my point. People have needs, and no matter how many rules you pass, how many laws you make, they're going to have them met, one way or another. People are stressed out more now than ever before in the history of the human race. Pressures from work, pressures from home, we're trying to raise kids the same time as we're looking after elderly parents, we wake up every morning with something new that hurts that didn't hurt yesterday, like you're bleeding from the ass or you can't feel your toes, or maybe you're getting cancer." He waved his cigarette around, took another drag. "We don't know whether there's a hijacked jet out there with our name on it. Maybe the whole fucking world is going to blow up tomorrow. Some guy with a dirty bomb is gonna walk into the stock exchange. Who the fuck knows? People need some relief, and that's all I'm in the business of doing."

"Earl, your entire basement is a pot crop. If the cops find out, you're finished."

Earl grimaced, running a hand over his shaved scalp. "Life's a risk, right, Zack? Surely you understand that."

I said nothing. Most of my efforts of late had been directed toward minimizing risk. "How's it going so far?" I could imagine Sarah asking.

"Do you even live here?" I asked. "Do you own this house?"

Earl blew out some smoke, nodded. "I got a bed upstairs, and a TV. And I keep the fridge stocked. I even manage to do a little bit of entertaining." He gave me a sly grin, and a nod of his head toward an empty wine bottle and two dirty wineglasses over on the counter by the sink. "But I've kept the decorating to a minimum. Someone else owns the place, some Asian businessmen, I do the gardening, no one's the wiser."

I guess, without realizing it, I had been staring at the gun while Earl talked. He said, "You can't be too careful, this line of work. Sometimes your Asian businessmen get in a disagreement with your Russian businessmen, you don't want to get caught in the middle without a little reinforcement. But you have to understand, that would be a very rare occurrence."

I nodded toward the gun. "Is that thing registered?"