Dead Ends (21 page)

“And I just wanted to know what it felt like.”

“What
what
felt like?”

“Hitting.”

So, the big-mouth kid had told the truth. I was acutely aware of the officer falling still across the desk. He'd heard what Billy had said. It was basically a confession
and
a motive, all in one. Billy went looking for the fight. There would be no way to pin this on the other guys—to claim they started it.

“So?” I asked. “How did it feel?”

“It hurt.”

I stretched out in my chair, trying to sound casual. “Yeah, I told you to keep those shoulders hunched when you go in for a head-butt. Sometimes I bruise my knuckles a little—”

“No.” Billy clutched at his chest. “It
hurt
.”

Oh
.

I thought then about Jimmy Miller—about the way he'd always had a smile on his face, a sort of funny carefree look, until the day I'd knocked him off his bike. Ever since then, the only face I'd seen him wear was one full of contempt. And thanks to what Seely had told me, I now knew I deserved that. I thought, too, about the way other kids skirted me at school or looked down if I caught their eye. Some days that made me angry. Other days it made me proud.

I looked at Billy, still holding his hand to his heart. And if I was totally honest, some days it made me hurt.

“Maybe you're just not a hitter,” I said.

Billy dropped his hand into his lap and stared at it. “Maybe nobody should be a hitter.”

I smiled. “That's just what Mr. Miyagi would have said.”

“From that movie?”

“Yeah.” I sat up straight and made my most serious face. “‘Fighting is not the answer, Daniel-san.'”

Billy laughed at my acting. “he says that?”

“Something like that. He says it in the first movie, I think. Actually”—I waved a hand—“he says it in, like, all the movies.”

Billy screwed up his face. “But I thought you said you were the Miyagi, and I was the Karate Kid.”

“I did.” I sighed and leaned my head against the back of the chair, still facing Billy. “But maybe I was wrong.”

The attorney showed up and announced he was representing us both. I wondered if our moms were getting a two-for-one deal. The guy looked cheap enough, with his shabby shoes and no jacket or tie or anything else lawyer-ish about him. The police made our moms wait in some outer lobby, which I was thankful for. It was a lot easier to tell the truth to cops and attorneys than to your own mom. And that's what Billy and I did—told the truth. Not that I had much choice. I'd thrown my punch right in front of the police. But Billy's story was more elaborate, and every word of it matched what Big Mouth had said.

We both sighed out loud with relief when the cop and the
lawyer agreed we wouldn't be put behind bars or anything. They yammered on about our charges: assault for me and possibly something worse than assault for Billy D.—or possibly something less, depending on how they decided to factor in his disability. They spoke a language I didn't understand with all sorts of legal terms like “probable plea deal something” and “knocked down to lesser whatever.”

I rolled my eyes at one point and whispered to Billy, “I think they're just making those words up to scare us. It's like speaking pig latin.”

It made Billy laugh.

The lawyer went to tell our moms what was going on while the officer filled out little sheets for us that basically said we got arrested, even though it didn't seem like we did. The officer passed me mine, and I thought it looked a lot like the slips I had to take home to Mom when I got detention. Except this time, Billy sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to get me out of it.

Billy's mom kept him out of school for the rest of the week. I thought she was taking grounding to the extreme, but Mom kept insisting “Molly is just being cautious.”

I tried to ask her what that meant and if she and Mrs. Drum were friends now, but she brushed me off with sweeping comments about how single moms needed to stick together and teenagers think they know everything. I had to think I knew a little more than Mom, though, because I couldn't imagine she'd be friends with someone who'd steal a kid from his dad. I would have told her so, but every time I brought up Billy, Mom steered the conversation back to my own legal troubles.

The lawyer had convinced us that my charge would probably get knocked down to a misdemeanor if not wiped out altogether, and he was pretty sure he could use Billy's Down
syndrome and crystal-clean record as leverage for lesser charges there, too. It didn't hurt that the kids Billy had attacked had records of their own, including big stuff like car theft. They'd both been in and out of juvenile detention and were barely even welcome at the alternative school.

Maybe it was those little rays of hope, or maybe it was just that Mom was too busy being worried to get mad, but whatever the reason, she decided to go easy on me. Actually, I was starting to realize that, volcanic temper aside, Mom pretty much always went easy on me. My worst punishment seemed to come from Billy's mom, as her keeping Billy at home meant I had to walk to school alone.

By Sunday, almost a week after Billy's bloody battle in the park, his mom finally released him for an afternoon at Seely's. She made us promise to stay out of the park and out of trouble.

Seely sat cross-legged on a rug, while Billy and I stretched out on opposite ends of a sofa. None of us said a word about Billy's fight in the park. I'd already filled Seely in, and Billy was entirely focused on another topic—solving the last clue. He'd spent his week at home coming up with a list of all his favorite things, but we hadn't found any towns with matching names in Kentucky. The whole exercise seemed like a big waste of time, considering Billy and I had bigger problems now than absent dads, but he was obsessed.

“Let's take a break,” Seely said, sounding weary. She tossed Billy's list of favorites onto the coffee table and reached toward the ceiling in a stretch.

Billy tucked the list into his atlas and collapsed backward into
the couch cushions with his arms wrapped around the heavy book. His face was unreadable, even to me.

Seely tilted her head and gave him a sympathetic look. “We'll figure it out, Billy D.,” she promised. “Maybe dads are just harder to find than we thought.”

“Not all dads,” Billy mumbled. He shot me a look.

“What?” I sat up straighter on my end of the couch.

“We could find
your
dad,” Billy said, a note of hostility in his voice. “But you won't look at the yearbook.”

I rolled my eyes. “This. Again.”

Seely picked at a thread in the rug, trying to look invisible. She knew enough by now to realize I didn't have a dad, didn't want a dad, and
definitely
didn't like talking about my dad. But she must have been burning with curiosity, because she didn't stick up for me.

“I told you to take that thing back to the library,” I said.

“I did. But I bet your mom has a yearbook. We could see who signed it and—”

“Stop it,” I said. I wouldn't allow Billy to tempt me into another disappointing stakeout. It was hard enough trying to find the dad who
wanted
to be found. Why would I waste time trying to find one who didn't?

Sure, if I ever found him, I could ask him some questions and maybe plant a punch in his eye socket, but I didn't
need
him. I had taught myself to shave, hadn't I? I did all right with girls, didn't I? And Seely's dad had even offered to teach me a little about cars last time I was here. Anything else a dad could have done for me—show me how to build a snow fort or ride a
bike or stay out of trouble—well, it was just a little too late for all that.

When I spoke again, my voice came out louder than I'd intended. “The guys in those pictures—they're nobody. Signatures—they're nothing.”

“But—”

“Nothing! We're not finding my dad in a yearbook, just like we're not finding
your
dad on a map.”

I wished I could take it back as soon as I said it.

Seely's jaw dropped a little. “Dane.”

“Shit, I didn't mean it like that.”

Billy fingered the edge of the atlas, silent.

“Billy D., really, I didn't mean—”

“You're just scared,” he snapped.

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of finding your dad.”

“I'm not scared of anything!”

Billy met my eye, and his stare was cold. “At least I'm not afraid to
look
for
my
dad.”

Seely moved to sit between the two of us on the couch.

I craned my neck around her bony frame to sneer at Billy. “Too bad you're looking in the wrong places!”

“Too bad I'm not!” Billy held up the atlas and shook it at me. “My dad is in one of these places. He's just not listed. He's just waiting for me. He's just … he's just …”

Billy was waving the atlas around like crazy, and Seely grabbed it from his hand before he could knock her out with it.

“Billy D., it's okay—”

“It's
not
okay,” I said. “He needs to wake up.” I took the atlas from Seely and waved it around myself. “This is like a baby blanket or Santa Claus. You're supposed to outgrow it. You're too old to believe in fairy tales, and that's all this is.”

“Dane,” Seely hissed through her teeth. “You are being. A.
Dick
.”

“Yeah,
that dick
, just like Mark said,” Billy spat.

“Screw you, Billy.”

“Screw your
self
.”

“Stop it!” Seely shouted finally, putting a hand in each of our faces. “If you guys act like this, I'm not having you over anymore.”

That shut us both up.

Seely's garage was my sanctuary, and I wasn't going to throw away my invitation—not even to prove a point to Billy.

Billy and I leaned back in our opposite corners of the couch, both silent.

“That's better,” Seely said. She shook her head. “
Boys
.”

I had more to say—a
lot
more—but I kept my mouth shut and flipped through the atlas instead. Hellhole Palms, California … Climax, Colorado … Looneyville, Texas.
That's where Billy should be
.

I looked as long as I could at the maps, trying to ignore the growing silence in the garage. Finally I settled for just picking at the loose lining on the inside of the book's hard back cover. I ran my thumb back and forth along a spot where the lining peeled away from the shiny blue edge and revealed the ugly cardboard color underneath. The more I thumbed the gap, the
larger it grew, until I could actually fit the end of my thumb inside the space. And that's where I felt it—another paper edge. It wasn't as thick as the book lining, and it wasn't glued down.

I peeked inside the gap, but I couldn't see anything. Bored and curious … and still a little pissed at Billy … I tore the lining right open. It made a satisfying ripping sound as the bottom edge shredded away.

“What are you doing?!” Billy tried to climb across Seely to get to me, but she held him back.

“Dane, what the hell?”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand.

My vandalism had exposed a sliver of the hidden paper. It was a simple, college-ruled page torn from a notebook. I tried to lift it out, but it was still tucked too far under the lining. I ran a finger along the lining's edge, starting at the gap, and noted how easily it pulled up—almost like it had come loose before and been glued back down.

When the last of the lining gave way, the notebook page underneath fluttered right into my hand.

I held my breath as I read the handwritten words scrawled across it and the signature at the end.

When I'd read it twice, and when Billy and Seely both looked about to burst with curiosity, I finally croaked out, “No way.”

“No way what?” Seely asked. She sounded as desperate as Billy looked.

I focused on Billy and swallowed hard.

“Billy D.,” I whispered, “you were right.”

Hey Buddy,

Sorry I had to hide this letter, but you know how nosy your mom can be, and some things are just between us boys.

I know I tell you this all the time, but sometimes daddies say things they don't mean, and sometimes they do things they wish they could take back. Your mom thinks you don't understand this, but I think you understand it better than she does.

Well, Bud, here's another secret about daddies: we cannot tell a lie. That's how you know, when I tell you I love you, that it's always the truth. Just like I told you the answers are usually in the back of the book, and look! I wasn't lying.

Listen:

Everyone knows you need Two Guns for a duel, but only a lucky few know Santa Claus lives in Indiana.

There's a Dinosaur in Colorado and a talking frog in Texas.

“Kermit!” Seely burst out.

I'd been reading the letter out loud, but I stopped when Seely snatched the atlas out of my lap and started flipping through the pages tagged with sticky notes. As I watched Seely, Billy watched me.

“What else does it say?” he asked. He leaned across Seely, reaching for his letter.

Seely gripped his outstretched arm, excited. “It says the answers to the clues, Billy D.”

He twisted his head ever so slightly to her, distracted, but not enough to lower his greedy hand, still open and grasping for the paper I was holding.

“Look.” Seely turned the atlas to face Billy and moved quickly from one map to the next. “See, I was wrong. It's not a circle. The clue in New York is just the start—
What's needed for a duel.
That leads to Two Guns and Santa Claus and Dinosaur and—”