Boys of Blur (5 page)

“We’re really moving here?” Charlie looked from his mother to his stepfather. “Seriously?”

Molly muscled her way into the room between Mack’s knees.

“Through the football season,” Mack said. “Then we’ll see.”

“What about school?” Charlie asked. “Can I skip the rest of the year?”

Natalie rolled her eyes.

“Homeschool me!” Charlie said. “Just sign me up with Cotton’s mom. He’s homeschooled.”

Mack grinned. “Boy, you don’t know what you’re asking. Now, are you staying or going? Your mom could use you back home, but I could use you, too. Got to find a car, a house, everything.”

Molly climbed up onto the bed, bounced once, and then stood, studying her brother. “Charlie, take a bath!” She pointed toward the bathroom. “Now! You take a bath!”

Charlie tried to think about Buffalo, about school and his bedroom and the bike he had left in the garage. But his mind slipped quickly back to the cane, to this place with the thick black muck and burning fields where both of his fathers had grown up, where Charlie had already seen things that he would never forget.

“I’ll stay,” Charlie said.

Mack nodded. Natalie kissed Charlie on the head, then messed up his hair. Molly poked him on one dirty kneecap.

The goodbyes were quick. Two suitcases left and two suitcases stayed. Charlie got into the shower and watched the night before wash off him, swirling in a miniature swamp between his feet before draining away into even deeper darkness.

The water cleared. The tub whitened. Steam flushed the last traces of that smell from his nostrils but not from his mind. It stuck to him like fear from a nightmare, like one of the dark scars in his memory that could never fade. He had buried those memories deep and left them undisturbed. But the stench on the mound had torn them loose. Feelings had exploded inside him without asking his permission, and their sour tracks still ached behind his breastbone.

Charlie shoved his face in the water. Feelings would go away. There were other things to think about. A new town. A week with Mack. Normally that would be exciting. But panthers? A grave robber? And that shadow …

Charlie tapped the faucet hotter and hotter until it was almost painful.

He was still there when the sheriffs banged on the motel room door.

Charlie jumped into fresh shorts and tugged a black T-shirt down over damp skin. He was alone. Mack and the sheriffs had already gone down to wait for him in the parking lot.

Charlie felt like hopping out the motel room window and taking off. But that wasn’t a real option. He fought to get his socks onto his wet feet and then stepped most of the way into his shoes, crushing the backs under his heels. Good enough. He’d fix them later.

Charlie skipped the elevator and raced down the fire stairs two at a time, shoes flapping. He jogged through the lobby and banged through the glass doors into eye-watering sun. The day was already several shades past warm and he hadn’t even had breakfast.

Blinking, Charlie threw his arm up across his forehead and focused on the shapes of three men beside a police
car. Mack was wearing sunglasses and an old Taper Terrapins polo shirt. His veined and knuckle-scarred hands were on his hips. One of the cops was black. Short and solid, he wore a flat-brimmed trooper’s hat. The other cop was white and even taller than Mack, though he hunched forward around a soft middle that teetered over his belt buckle. He was wearing a sun visor, jeans, mirrored sunglasses, and snakeskin boots. A fat red mustache reclined on his upper lip like an overweight caterpillar too tired to cocoon. On his right hand he wore two huge rings, and he was chewing gum.

“Charlie Reynolds!” the man said. He glanced back at the other cop and pointed at Charlie. “Am I seein’ things? Don’t he look like Bobby Reynolds?”

“Don’t he just,” the other cop said. He adjusted his belt and stared at Charlie.

“I’ll say.” The tall cop and his mustache leaned forward. “Holy Mother of Mo, you look like your daddy!” He stuck out his right hand. Charlie shook it. The hair on the back of the man’s hand felt like old rug. His rings felt even bigger than they had looked. “I mean, you don’t have half the bull meat on you that your daddy had, and you don’t have his stringy hair, and you still need some inches on your bones, but all that can grow.” He dropped Charlie’s hand and straightened up, adjusting his belt. “What position you play? You got any speed?” He glanced back at the other cop and raised his eyebrows. “Bobby had
speed
.”

“Speed,”
said the other cop.

Mack stepped around behind Charlie and put his hands on his stepson’s shoulders.

“Charlie, this tall talker is Sheriff Leroy Spitz, and that’s Deputy Hydrant Landry behind him. They wanted to ask you a couple questions.”

“Ho now!” Sheriff Leroy Spitz tapped up his sun visor and peered down at Charlie over his sunglasses. “Prester Mack wants us to get down to business. I get the impression that he’d like us to move along, Charlie. You getting that impression, too?”

“Hydrant?” Charlie asked, looking at the thick, shorter cop.

“That’s right,” said Spitz. “His mama called him Steven, but we all called him Hydrant. I mean, look at him. He used to knock your stepdaddy there flat on his all-state backside just by standing there.”

“Don’t know about that,” Mack said.

“Sure,” Spitz said.

“Sure,” grunted Hydrant.

“Sure as I’m wearing rings,” Spitz said. He held up his hand and wiggled his ring-cuffed fingers. “Here’s the thing, Charlie.…” The sheriff dropped all the way into a crouch like he was talking to a little kid. Charlie stared down at him, confused and suddenly much too tall. The sheriff coughed, acted like he was stretching, and levered himself back up. “Thing is, Charlie, Hydrant and I played
ball with your daddy. We whipped up on those Taper Terps and their Mack boys.”

“Whipped ’em up,” Hydrant said.

“And then we beat ’em on down.” Spitz grinned and adjusted his visor. “Beat those scrawny little rabbit runnin’ muck bunnies into fluff.”

Charlie could feel Mack’s hands tighten slightly on his shoulders. “You did,” he said. “A school four times our size beat us down. Twice. My freshman year. My sophomore year. What happened the next two years?”

Spitz laughed and waved off Mack’s question like a gnat.

“Sure, you got a couple wins, too,” Spitz said. “But Bobby ran you out of the state. Hydrant, what did Bobby put on the Terps junior year? Two hunnies? Three?”

Hydrant cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Two hundred and seventy-four yards rushing.”

Spitz whistled. “That’s something else.” He pointed at Mack, but he was looking at Charlie. “Your daddy should’ve been the one off in the league, making millions. Your daddy, Charlie Reynolds, and don’t you forget it.” He looked at Mack. “Kinda strange, Prester Mack, you linking up with Bobby Reynolds’s old lady like that. Raising his son.”

“Strange,” said Hydrant.

Prester Mack stepped around Charlie, big hands on his hips but an easy smile still on his face.

“This why you boys came?” Mack said. “Get some cracks in to my boy?”

Spitz wrinkled his mustache with half a grin. “You mean
Bobby’s
boy?”

Hydrant stepped forward, sliding between the two taller men. They stared at each other over his hat. Mack pulled off his sunglasses.

“If you have any real business, I’d get to it.” Mack’s voice was riding on a growl. “If you don’t, I’m likely to forget you’re a cop.”

Sheriff Leroy Spitz raised his hands and smiled at Mack. Then at Charlie.

“Played quarterback myself,” he said. “People called me Firecracker on account of my red hair and my knowing how to light people up.” He patted Mack on the shoulder and stepped around him. “Girls just called me Fire.”

“Boys just called you Cracker,” Mack said.

“That they did,” Spitz said. He pulled off his sunglasses and winked at Charlie. His eyes were grimy blue. “Jealousy is a sickness.” Reaching back, he snapped his fingers behind him. Hydrant tugged a little notepad out of his shirt along with a tiny pencil.

“You know why we’re here?” Spitz asked.

Charlie nodded. Then he shrugged. Finally, he shook his head.

Spitz laughed. “Boy, don’t ever get yourself arrested. You look guilty sideways to Sunday.”

Charlie licked his lips, and as sweat sponged out of his forehead, he wiped it on the shoulder of his T-shirt.

“This morning, we got a call about René Mack,” Spitz said. “Asked around a bit and heard you might know something.”

Charlie blinked. He looked at Mack and then back at the sheriff.

“René? I don’t know who that is. I’ve never met her.”

Spitz grinned. “Not a
her
.”

“He means Cotton,” Mack said. “His real name is René.” He looked at Spitz. “What kind of call? What happened?”

“Wish we knew.” Spitz pulled off his visor and wiped his head with his hairy forearm. “He never turned up home last night. His mama called us this morning. She calls us on him at least once a month, so we’re not throwing any panic switches just yet, but the way things have been around Taper lately, we figured it might be best to start poking around.”

“The way things have been?” Mack asked. “What do you mean?”

“All the runaways,” Spitz said. “Been real high cross the whole county the last few weeks, and young ones, too.”

“Too young,” Hydrant said.

“Not talking about punks and dropouts,” Spitz said. “Good kids. Twelve, eleven years old. Couple just ten.”

“Ten,” said Hydrant. He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

Charlie wasn’t listening. Cotton was missing? Hadn’t made it home?

“Charlie?”

He looked up into his stepfather’s dark eyes. Mack nodded toward the sheriff.

Spitz cocked his head. “We got someone says they saw René jump out at you from behind a parked car last night just about where Dredge Street dead-ends. Says René took off running. Then you took off running. That right?”

Charlie swallowed. He bit his lip. Then he nodded.

Hydrant made a careful note—thick fingers pinching tiny pencil.

Spitz tugged his belt up against his belly. “Now what were you boys up to?”

“Cotton took me out in the cane. On his bike.”

“Why?” Mack asked. “He trying to scare the city boy?”

“I guess,” Charlie said. “But we both got spooked. He took off running and I followed him.”

“Guess you don’t have
speed
,” Spitz said. He winked again.

Charlie blinked. So many things could have happened to Cotton. He could hear the panthers. He could smell that … stench. He could see that tall man with the body on his shoulder. What had the man said?

Stay close with me.

Your mothers may be weeping
nan maten
.

“I didn’t follow him right away,” Charlie said. How
much should he say? Charlie cleared his throat. “The moon was up. There were two panthers and this—”

“Heard them or saw them?” Spitz interrupted.

“Both,” said Charlie.

Spitz glanced at Hydrant. “Bobcats more than like.” He smirked at Charlie. “Plain ol’ cats, maybe. Things look bigger in the dark, specially to a city boy.”

Hydrant nodded and made a note.

Charlie wanted to argue, but he just shrugged. “Cotton ran. I ran. He jumped out when I was in the street. Said goodnight. Took off. I assumed he was going home.”

Hydrant made another note.

“Right,” Spitz said. “Well, I’m sure the boy will turn up when he’s hungry. His mama probably set out some big pile of book uglies he didn’t want to read. I swear she homeschools blisters on that boy. That’s why he took off the last couple times.”

Hydrant tucked his notepad and pencil carefully into his breast pocket. Then he crossed his hands in front of his belt like a soldier on guard.

Spitz moved toward the driver’s side of the cop car and pulled it open. He hesitated.

“Last question, Charlie Reynolds. There’s half a million acres of cane in this state. Where you boys go exactly? You have any idea?”

Charlie shifted, scraping his shoes on the asphalt.
There was no reason to lie. Was there? And he wouldn’t lie to Mack. Still …

“Near the church.” He cleared his throat. “That’s where the panthers and … this … There was …” He exhaled and squinted in the sunlight. He shrugged. “It just got spooky.”

Spitz nodded. He tapped his visor, stuck his glasses back on, and folded himself into the car. Then he pointed at Mack, but he was looking at Charlie.

“Don’t be letting old bad knees Prester here tell you you’re a Terp. You’re a Reynolds and that makes you a Buccaneer, kid, and don’t you forget it. A Bucc! It’s in your blood.”

The sheriff saluted. The engine started. Gravel crunched as the cop car rolled to the edge of the parking lot.

The driver’s window slid down.

“Work on that
speed
!” Spitz shouted.

“Speed!”
Hydrant bellowed.

Charlie and Mack watched the car bounce out into the street and pull away.

After a moment, Mack inflated his chest. And then his cheeks. When he exhaled, it all came out in a blast.

“Those guys are idiots.” Mack looked up at the sky. “Charlie … your dad …”