Thunderland (5 page)

“If Trav hadn’t lost him, we’d have nailed his ass,” Bryan said.

“If you lose him, I’ll nail
your
ass.”

“We’ll catch him, dude. Keep looking.”

Jason scampered into the humid, oily darkness beneath another vehicle. He lost sight of their feet, but their voices sounded as though they were several yards away.

He considered keeping up this strategy, scuttling from car to car, always staying just out of sight, until the boys got tired and left, but he nixed that plan. Blake could probably taste impending violence, and he would not give up until he had appeased his sick hunger. Plus, they had a crucial edge: they could check beneath the vehicles about a dozen times faster than he could scramble under them. Regardless of how quickly or frequently he moved, they would soon catch him.

Now was the time to run.

Cautiously, he crept into the daylight.

The aisle in which he lay was empty.

He rose to one knee. He looked across the car’s hood.

As though equipped with a radar, Blake spotted him instantly. He was about four rows away, fists on his waist. Bryan and Travis milled around him.

Blake pointed. “There. Get him!”

Jason ducked out of view. He froze, unsure where to go. Then he noticed the tall chain-link fence that abutted the back of the lot, five rows behind him. He ran for it.

The footfalls of the pursuing boys clapped like gunfire. Jason had a big head start, but he kept imagining a hand grabbing his shoulder.

He leaped onto the fence, climbed.

Halfway up, someone grabbed his ankle.

“Got you now!” It was Blake.

Jason’s fierce reaction startled even him. He jerked up his snagged leg, then rammed it down, smashing his heel into Blake’s nose.

Blake howled and let go.

Jason climbed to the top of the fence, jumped, and landed in the tall weeds on the other side.

Blake cupped his nose, bright blood leaking from between his fingers. Bryan and Travis watched their wounded leader, Travis holding his groin gingerly, wincing as he breathed.

Jason was simultaneously thrilled and sickened by the savagery of their battle.

Blake’s busted nose had to hurt like hell. But the crazy kid ordered his friends to keep chasing Jason. Then he joined the hunt himself.

Jason looked around. The weedy, tree-canopied terrain slanted steeply into a narrow ravine, and past the water, dense forest thrived. After a few hundred yards, the woods parted to accommodate a bike trail that Jason had explored often that summer.

Somewhere in there, he needed to find a hiding place. He could not outrun them forever.

He sprinted as fast as he dared down the slope. Hawthorns scratched his arms and legs, and sinewy vines threatened to trip him. Broken beer bottles bristled like fangs from the grass, snapping at his shoes as he flashed past.

Panting, he glanced behind him. The boys tore down the incline at kamikaze speed.

He vaulted the ravine and plunged into the woods.

Thomas slowly read his business update on The House of Soul. He had carefully arranged his notes to elicit the maximum satisfaction from his father. Beginning the practice soon after Big George’s stroke, he had developed it into a highly refined skill. When he finally and dramatically told Big George that the net profit for last month was the largest in the restaurant’s history, Big George grinned. Thomas grinned, too, but something inside him was repulsed by his expression.

“You doing good, but don’t get bigheaded,” Big George said. “Pride goes before that hard-assed fall.”

“I have everything under control, Dad.”

“You better.” Big George cocked his head quizzically. “So. How’s married life treating you?”

Big George rarely asked about his marriage. “Uh, well ...”

“Is Linda still so cute niggers get weak when she walks by?”

“What?”

Big George’s face grew dreamy. “When I was younger, I used to have women like her. So fine they make a nigger want to drop to his knees and worship! Those kinds of women can pussy-whip a man, but you can’t let any woman stop you from being true to your nature. You’re like me in a lot of ways, Tommy, so I know you got a girl or two on the side. Ain’t you?”

Thomas erupted to his feet. “Don’t you ever accuse me of that. I love Linda too much to sleep around.”

Big George laughed, a hard bark. “One way we’re different: You don’t lie as well as I do. Better pray Linda don’t pop that subject. She’d see through your shallow ass in a minute.”

“But I don’t cheat on her.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not like you.”

Big George chuckled.

“I don’t treat her the way you treated Mama. Or any of those other women you were with.”

Big George wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell bullshit, Tommy? I do.”

“The only bullshit I smell is coming from you.”

Big George smiled.

Thomas wanted to knock out every one of those false teeth, smash them down his old man’s throat, and make him choke on them. Then he rebuked himself for sinking to his father’s level.

“Like father, like son,” Big George said. “You might deny it, but that doesn’t change what’s in your blood. Like father, like son.”

“I’m out.” Thomas stormed to the door. His hand trembled as he reached for the doorknob.

“Hey, you get your ass back to my restaurant!” Big George said, pointing his long finger at Thomas. “I hear about you messing up, and I’ll
come down there and mop the floor with you. Hear me?”

“Sure, Dad. Good-bye.”

Once inside his Buick, Thomas slammed the door hard enough to rock the car.

Like father, like son.

Lord, he hated that man. His father had an uncanny ability to find an exposed emotional nerve and twist it, and he did so with a sickening, perverse enjoyment. Hating his father was terrible, especially considering his pitiable health, but Thomas couldn’t help it. Why did he keep visiting him?

He didn’t know. There were a lot of things he didn’t understand about his relationship with Big George.

Striving to blot all thoughts of his dad out of his mind, he removed his cellular telephone from the glove compartment. He pressed the
On
button.

He thought of calling Linda. They desperately needed to talk about what had happened in his office. But he wasn’t sure what to say, and she probably needed to cool off before she’d be ready for a conversation. He would speak to her later.

Meanwhile, he would call someone else.

He punched in a number. A female voice answered on the second ring.

“It’s Thomas.”

“I was thinking about you,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Working hard. You know how it is.”

“I heard that. Got to make that money, honey.”

“Please. I need a vacation.”

She laughed.

They talked about inconsequential matters.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Thomas said. “Around ten?”

“Just like always, baby.”

He clicked off the phone.

He started the car. He looked up and found his father’s fourth-floor window. He realized there was only one person he hated more than his father.

Like father, like son.

Himself.

Running through the woods, Jason soon realized that he was lost. The lush undergrowth, which loomed as high as walls in some places, as thick as canvas in others, prevented him from seeing more than a few feet ahead. Worse, all of the foliage looked identical, which made it difficult to distinguish his whereabouts from moment to moment.

Deciding to keep moving forward, he bent down, hoping to conceal himself. He slipped under leaves, brushed away wildflowers and prickly shrubs. He kept his mouth closed, breathing through his nose, not only because it promoted silence, but also because a haze of insects buzzed around his head.

He heard branches break far behind him. Alarmed crows fled their tree perches.

Blake and his friends must be nearby.

He found a potential hideout: a dense ring of shrubs crowded together so that they appeared to be a single large, thorny bush. Red berrylike fruit dangled amid the green needles.

He searched for a gap in the limbs. He located one barely wide enough to wriggle through.

He looked behind him.

He was still alone.

He crept inside the copse. He squeezed into a ball.

He waited, listening.

He heard only the natural sounds of the forest.

Then, the swish of legs marching through weeds.

“Forget it, man. There’s too much shit in here to find him.”

“I want to go home, Blake. It hurts, it still hurts.”

“Shut up, dick-heads. We ain’t leaving until I get that bastard.”

Jason’s clammy hands burned to form fists. Someone needed to give that punk a butt-kicking he’d never forget. But he didn’t move. He was pissed, but not stupid enough to fight three guys.

The footsteps came closer. Stopped.

He shut his eyes.

“Man, I can feel that asshole around here,” Blake said. “Can’t you?”

Another footstep. Closer.

Leave. Turn around and leave.

Silence.

He imagined Blake examining the shrubs in which he hid.

“I swear, I can feel him,” Blake said.

Another footstep.

Blake had to be right outside the bushes.

“That dude could run, man,” Bryan said. “He might be out of this jungle already. Or maybe he’s cutting around us, going back to his bike. Or—”

“Shut up,” Blake said. “I’m trying to listen.”

Silence.

Jason held his breath.

More silence.

His lungs felt as if they were going to explode.

Blake sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. He ain’t here. Let’s go back to the lot. If we beat him to his bike, there’re a few things 1want to do to it.”

“Like what?” Travis said.

“Like shove it down your fat-assed mouth,” Blake said. He and Bryan laughed.

The boys’ voices gradually faded.

Gratefully Jason exhaled. When he was positive the kids were gone, he crawled out of the bushes.

Jason found his bike sprawled at the rear of the car lot. Both tires had been slashed, several spokes were bent, and the chain was tangled around the pedals. Fluid glimmered on the frame, and drops spattered the surrounding blacktop. Understanding—and the sour smell—smacked him in the face. They had pissed on his bike!