I Hunt Killers Blood Boy (2 page)

"If you sold it," Howie pointed out, "you would make so much money you could hire someone to drive you around."

"I doubt it."

Mouth open, ready to speak, Howie changed his mind. On a whim, he'd poked around one night on one of the crazy-ass serial killer fanboy message boards. Under the pseudonym BillyFan125 (BillyFan124 was taken), he'd casually inquired as to what someone might pay for Billy Dent's Jeep. The enthusiasm of the responses had startled him, as had the range of offers, none of which was less than five figures.

A couple of days later, he'd received a PM on the board from someone pseudonymmed GoingUnderAgain, who had said, in part, "I notice your IP address is from Lobo's Nod. Do you have a line on the Jeep? I will outbid anyone else. No questions asked."

The message had gone on in that vein, persuading Howie that GoingUnderAgain was very serious and very rich and also very, very serious and also very, very rich and also so, so freaking serious.

So much for online anonymity. Howie had deleted the account and considered tossing his laptop in the trash just to be sure. Still, the idea was there. Jazz could make a bundle selling this heap.

"You never know," Howie said noncommittally.

"Profiting off Billy's murders would be wrong." And then, because something human issuing forth from Jazz's mouth always came at a price, he said, "And I'm not going down that route."

"You know, making a little money to help yourself and your grandmother doesn't make you a serial killer. It's not like Billy left you with the means to rake in the cash."

"He did exactly that. Selling his legacy." Jazz signaled onto the highway on-ramp. T
YNAN
R
IDGE
said the sign. "And I won't do it. And remind me again why we're going all the way to Tynan Ridge for a Halloween party?"

Gazing out the window as though something utterly fascinating hung out there in the dark waste, Howie lied smoothly and easily, "Just wanted to try something different this year. Tired of the old Nod scene."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

Jazz had a built-in lie detector that seemed to ping for everyone and everything
except
for Howie. Howie could slip falsehoods by Jazz in ways that no one else could. He wasn't about to tell Jazz the real reason they were going to Tynan Ridge.

So simple, though.

In Tynan Ridge, no one knew Howie.

*****

T
HEY
ARRIVED
AT
THE
party house in Tynan Ridge a little past nine o'clock. Some late trick-or-treat stragglers ambled along the sidewalks. Cars were crammed in the driveway and up the block. The house itself was a medium-sized Colonial in a development packed with them, a clone that stood out only by the pulsating lights and throbbing music coming from within.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Jazz asked.

"Um--"

"I'm joking."

"Oh. Give me a heads up next time. I’ll be sure to laugh.”

Howie unfolded himself from the passenger seat and stretched. His life seemed, sometimes, to be a series of unfolding and stretching into a world that was too small for someone so tall. If only he were allowed to play basketball — fame and fortune would be his as the greatest white player since that other white dude, and he could afford to build a world around him scaled to his height.

“I guess we go in now?” Jazz asked, eyeing the door to the house as though Billy lurked behind it. To Jazz, Howie knew, it was far worse. Billy would greet his son with a hug; the kids in this house, if they recognized Jazz, would be far less enthusiastic.

“That’s usually how it works, yeah.” Howie peered around. “Where’s your Nubian princess? I thought she was meeting us here?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say stuff like that anymore. It’s not PC.”

“Right. I forgot. Where’s your Nubian equal-partner?”

“Howie.”

“What? I didn’t say
princess
. I know that’s, like, sexist and stuff.”

A gentle sigh was all the reaction he could prod out of Jazz tonight, so Howie gave in. They trooped up to the door and Jazz was actually about to
knock
, the big geek, when Howie shoved the door open. “Breaking and entering!” he chortled. “Just like Dear Old Dad used to, right?”

Jazz shrugged and they entered into a foyer that overflowed with bodies, many of them jutting uncomfortable costume parts randomly. House music pumped and throbbed, as though the house had a heartbeat, one going into overdrive. Trying to avoid being impaled by some guy gesturing with a homemade lightsaber, Howie managed to jam his back against the doorknob. He grinned into the sudden pain.

“You see Connie anywhere?” Jazz asked.

Down amongst the normal-heighted, Jazz couldn’t see much, but Howie had the advantage of a Lebron-like vantage point. The foyer led off in three directions — through an archway to what looked like a living room, down a hallway into the depths of the house, and up a flight of stairs that ascended into darkness, no doubt the family bedrooms, where much hooking up would commence. Howie planned to be a part of that.

“I see her,” he said, catching sight of Connie. She was making her way down the hallway, fighting against a tide of bodies. “Forward! Mush!”

Between the two of them, they shoved through the crowd. Connie spied Howie above the throng and gestured to one side. The three of them met in the living room, which was a little less sardine-y. Connie perched on the arm of the sofa, crossing her legs at the ankles. She wore black boots, a red wig, and a skintight black one-piece suit that zipped up the middle, stopping right at that perfect place Howie loved so much, where it seemed like the boobs might fall out of their own accord. They never did, but a man could dream, right?

“Who are we this evening?” she asked Jazz, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

“He’s
normal
,” Howie said with disgust.

Connie smiled. “I approve.”

With a snort, Howie crossed his arms over his chest. “You would.”

“And what are you supposed to be?" Connie asked him.

"I am the face of spousal abuse," Howie intoned with utter seriousness. "Until women stop beating up their husbands, I will wear this makeup in solidarity with…"

He trailed off as Connie's interest slid away. She had learned far too quickly when to ignore him. It was vexing. Usually people took much, much longer to get to this point. But she was already turning back to Jazz, taking his hand and holding it in both of her own. It was sweet and adorable and nauseating.

“Who are you?” Howie asked.

Connie hopped off the sofa and cocked one hip, pointing at him with a gadget strapped to her wrist. "I'm Black Widow.”

“Duh. I’ve seen the movies. But Black Widow is white. ScarJo. I have followed her boobs—um, her career with great, bouncing interest.” He bobbed his head as though following a tennis ball or a starlet’s chest. “Oh, wait.
Black
Widow.
Black
Widow. I get it now. But shouldn't it be Black Black Widow? Or African-American Widow? Far be it from me to lecture you on the finer points of political correctness--"

"Far be it," Connie said drily.

"--but it seems to me that
African-American Widow
would be more ethnically sensitive. Or maybe even
Surviving Partner of Color
." He snapped his fingers. "Yeah, that's it. Surviving Partner of Color."

"Can you shut him up?" Connie asked Jazz.

"Sure, but I'd have to kill him," Jazz said.

Connie stared, open-mouthed at Jazz.

"Was that not funny?" Jazz asked.

"Not at all," Connie said, and actually shivered.

Jazz turned to Howie. “Really? It was a joke. Honest.”

"Keep working on it. You'll get there. But, uh, in the meantime, for no reason at all, I'm gonna go mingle."

He sidled away from them, leaving them in their own little world of lovers and puppy dogs and sweet nothings and whatever else people who were
gettin’ some
had in their little worlds.

First order of business: The kitchen. He needed something to drink and he needed it right away. He zeroed in on a dude dressed as gigantic, overflowing bag of garbage. He carried the infamous, ubiquitous Red Plastic Cup, stumbling a bit from side to side, six inches shorter than Howie, but almost as wide as he was tall. The guy plowed into Howie, elbowing him just under the ribs, and Howie
whoosh
ed.

“Sorry, man,” the guy said, peering blearily up at Howie. “Holy crap. Are you that tall or am I that drunk?”

“Both?” Howie suggested.

The guy froze at that; Howie could see the wheels spinning as he mulled it over, then erupted into a wet laugh, slapping Howie on the back, since he couldn’t reach his shoulder without a ladder.

“Where’s the booze?” Howie asked, wondering if calling it
booze
was cool or not. His experience with alcohol was limited to — he counted in his head — exactly none.

“Kitchen,” the guy said, hooking a thumb in the direction of a wall. Howie figured he meant to point down the hall. “Get yourself loaded, brah.”

“Will do, brah.” And then Howie patted the adorable drunken linebacker on his head and pushed back into the hallway crowd.

Making his way down the hallway wasn’t easy, but there was plenty to observe on the way, so he didn’t mind. He was enormously grateful to whomever invented Halloween and decreed that women should wear the skimpiest costumes possible. The party was a press of flesh, exposed flesh in every direction. There were literal and figurative sex kittens everywhere he looked. If not for the very real sensation of blood flowing one place in particular, he might have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

Being a ten-thousand-foot-tall string bean who wasn’t allowed to play sports did not make for the most exhilarating of social lives, and yet nature had given him
some
forms of compensation. Though his freakish height could do him no good on a basketball court, his particularly elevated physique gave him the perfect vantage point from which to scope out cleavage canyons. And from that height, at that angle, it was tough for girls to tell that's what he was doing. So, score one for being a freak of nature.

He was halfway down the hall and frustratingly stalled when he noticed a girl off to one side, listlessly thumbing her cell phone while gnawing on a straw jutting from her red plastic cup. She had two little horns poking through her tawny hair and wore what looked like a skimpy leather bra, incredibly tight shorts, and the kind of thigh-high boots that make a woman’s legs look a mile long. Just the way Howie liked them. Better yet, she was a little taller than the average girl. Howie noticed these things. He had to.

Since he was stuck there and since she was right in front of him and since she was wearing very little, he decided to fall in love.

“Hi, there,” he said.

Nothing. She kept scrolling the cell.

He cleared his throat and projected over the music. “Hi, there!”

Startled, she almost dropped the phone. She looked up…and up…and up, her chin pointing out adorably and sexily, just asking to be nibbled by, say, a really tall hemophiliac.

“Wow,” she said.

“I agree. Wow is pretty much the right word.” He grinned at her, gazing down into her eyes, which sparkled green, then skipping the eyes because who cares about eyes? Down further, past that nibble-able chin and a throat that was begging to be licked was the Promised Land. Howie figured he could be happy for the rest of his life -- no matter how long or short that ended up being -- if he could shrink down and set up camp between her breasts. He would just live there all day long and roam those hills and he would be content.

"You're really tall," she said, still craning her neck to look into his eyes.

"Thank you for noticing. Most people don't."

"Do you play basketball?"

"I've been known to dribble a ball on occasion," he said with as much modesty as he could muster.

"Are you any good?"

"No one has ever scored on me, that's for sure."

"Wow."

“Again, we concur. Indeed. Wow."

"Where do you go to school?"

"Over in the Nod."

Her eyes widened. "Lobo's Nod? Where that serial killer guy lives?"

"Yep."

"Wow."

“And once more, you've managed to get right to the heart of the matter."

With a deep breath that caused her breasts to undulate like only breasts can undulate, she said, "Did you know him?"

Howie flicked a glance over his shoulder. From this angle, he could barely make out Jazz and Connie, standing just inside the living room. Jazz, channeling his inner statue, stood cross-armed as Connie chatted animatedly with a guy dressed as Captain America.

See that guy over there, the guy dressed like no one at all, the guy you'd never look at twice? That's my best friend and he's also Billy Dent's kid, so, yeah, you could say I know Billy.

He had a sudden blast of memory, almost overwhelming: The last time he'd seen Billy as a free man. He'd gone over to Jazz's house to collaborate on a homework project. And by collaborate, he meant
crack jokes while Jazz did most of the work
. Billy had answered the door, his eyes lighting up when he saw Howie.