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Darren squeezed Neecey’s hand again to clam her up. “Ah-ight, little dude, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Let’s see what you got.” There was a glint of craft in his eyes, the twinkle of a career criminal who only showed emotion while walking the tightrope of being had.

“I’ll be more than happy to give it,” I said. “But I’m not stupid enough to spill my guts in front of both of you so I can get double-teamed by a pair of professional bullshitters. No fucking way. Before I say anything, one of you has to go.”

“That’s like completely fine,” Neecey said, glaring. “Because I
so
totally have a few things to say to you, too.”

Darren turned toward the door.

“No,” I said.
“He
stays,
you
go.”

Darren and Neecey both spun on their heels and stared at each other.

“It’s cool, Neece.” Darren winked at her.

Neecey looked stunned and lost but relented anyway, rolling her eyes.
“Whatever
. But if your little pissing contest lasts like more than fifteen minutes, then I’m totally coming back in.” She pulled the door closed behind her when she left.

“You got what
you wanted, little dude, so spill.”

“I’d say stop me when I’m getting cold, but since that ain’t gonna happen …” I trailed off, letting him get used to the noose I was about to tighten, before starting again. “Remember the other day when you told me that
most
of the crew had been tagging the church with you on Saturday night?”

“Yeah, at the arcade.” Darren shrugged. “What of it?”

“Nothing really, except you forgot to add that the
rest
of the crew had been at the retirement home, dropping a wank tag on the sign out front, making it look like amateur bullshit
on purpose
.”

Darren’s lips curled dismissively.

“Yeah, I have to give it to you,” I went on, “it was a brilliant plan. Pulling two jobs at different places across town from each other on the same night, one that you’d intended to claim as your
own
work, and one that you’d intended to pass off as
somebody else’s
. That way nobody would ever
dream
of linking the two, nobody would connect the dots and figure out that the tag on the church was just a
decoy
, an alibi that seemed to place you guys somewhere else. And although nobody
saw
your hit on the church, you sure as hell made a point of
telling
everybody about it.”

Darren slowly folded his arms across his chest. “Ah-ight, you got my full-on attention, little dude. What else?”

I could tell he was playing the role of the underworld crime boss
like a salty old veteran, and that I had to match him stride for stride without letting it rattle me. “I’ll tell you what else,” I snarled. “How about the reason you guys needed that alibi in the first place?”

He nodded.

“Not only the church, but the whole goddamn kaboodle of tags you and the crew have been dropping this summer have
all
just been a cover to divert attention away from the
real
crimes you’ve been committing, crimes that’ve been going on at the retirement home for over a month now.”

“What crimes?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” I’d cleared him back a couple of steps and was pacing in front of the sofa now. “The
real
crime was swiping cash from old folks at the retirement home, weak and harmless seniors who’d forgotten to lock their windows at night.”

“Someone’s been jacking the retirement home?” For a second Darren’s concern almost seemed genuine.

“Don’t act so shocked, okay?” I fired back. “You already know
all
about it.” I was still hurting and wobbly, but it felt like the cobwebs were clearing from my head and the whole plot was laid out before me now, down to the smallest details. “Once you and your buds had broken in the first time and seen how easy it was, you realized you’d struck the mother lode of free loot and wanted to draw from the well again and again. But you knew you couldn’t get away with it forever, unless you played it smart, and by planting a fake tag on the sign at the scene of the burglaries, you’d made it look like there were some
other
vandals on the loose in town, to shift suspicion away from yourselves and throw the authorities off your trail.”

I was picking up steam now; I felt it. “Yeah, you’d
thought
your plan had worked and steered everybody away from what you were
really
up to, even the cops who’d come to your house on Sunday morning to hassle you about it. But since you’re better than David Copperfield when it comes to deceiving people, you lied to the fuzz,
dodged the heat, and
thought
you were in the clear. Then
I
showed up at the arcade on Monday and questioned you about the sign at the retirement home, too, and you started to
think again
.”

Darren’s face had stiffened and his eyes were squinting.

“But that’s when you remembered that you’re the leader of a gang, the kind of arch criminal who has the clout and the connections to hire a couple of toughs like Razor and Tommy to rub someone out of the picture if he wanted to. And that someone was
me.”

“I know, I’m like all fiendish and shit,” Darren jibed, cracking a smile. “But riddle me this, McScruff. If Razor and Tommy are like my hit squad and all, then why did I just totally waste one of them while I was getting your back?”

“Because you
weren’t
getting my back. You just jumped at the chance to make it
look like you were
, to put a wall of distance between you and your henchmen for everyone to see.”

Darren smiled wider and nodded his head.

“And with Razor and Tommy out of the picture, nobody would be able to trace
any
of their deeds back to
you
. No fucking way. Not the sweet lullaby you’d sent me at football tryouts, or having ordered Razor over to our house to try to root out what Neecey knew about me being on to you, just in case she needed a little roughing-up, too. And when that didn’t work, you’d opted for a more direct route and convinced Neecey to read my journal, to see exactly how close I was getting.”

I put my hand up, cutting Darren off before he could speak. “Yeah, I know how you got my sister strung out on drugs and alcohol and took complete advantage and were using the shit out of her. That’s why I followed her here tonight—I came to get her
away
from you and all your bullshit.” I sighed loudly, slowly shaking my head. “Even the stupidest pushers know that nobody ever suspects a hot chick, and that’s
exactly
what makes hot chicks perfect to cart contraband or payoffs wherever they need to go. Jesus, it was a foul, nasty business, coldly calculated from beginning to end, but that’s
all
you ever wanted her for.”

“Sounds like you got the angles all figured out.”

“You can bet your ass I do, and it all starts with the simple fact that somewhere along the line
you lost control
. You went from being a petty vandal and small-time toker to a full-blown addict with a monkey on your back, so you had to start selling what little weed you didn’t burn to make ends meet. But your habit was too big by then and too expensive and you couldn’t pay off your suppliers and you had to turn to more serious forms of crime to get yourself out of their debt. So you tapped Neecey as your beard and carrier and started stealing from the retirement home and then dropped a shitty-ass tag on the front sign to try to cover it up. Drugs and money and sex—that’s what all of this was about. Then again, that’s what it’s
always
about.”

Darren, still smiling, flipped his hair back and sat down on the sofa on the opposite side of the room. “Proof, little dude. You said you had proof.”

“I do. One of the perpetrators dropped a black rubber bracelet by the sign at the retirement home, and I have it.”

“Oh, yeah? Where?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “it’s in a safe place. And when I hand it over to the cops tomorrow and they find out that the fingerprints on it belong to you, or one of your boys, you’re gonna be in a dickload of trouble.”

The room went quiet—cemetery quiet. Now was the time for him to break down and confess, so I stood there stony silent and waited for it.

Finally, Darren shrugged and said, “Yeah, maybe. Except for when the cops find out that the bracelet doesn’t belong to any of us, little dude, ’cause none of us were there.”

I’d expected a lowlife like Darren to try to lie his way out of it, but it was the way he’d said it, relaxed, unconcerned, that threw me off. But I wasn’t gonna let that or a blatant fucking falsehood stand in my way.

“Oh, that’s right, what the hell was I thinking?” I poured it on. “If you
say
you’re innocent, then you
must
be. Jesus Christ! What kind of
chump
do you take me for?”

“Seriously, little dude.” He spoke calmly, his brown eyes steady on me. “Me and most of the crew hit the church on Saturday night, just like I told you, nothing else. And I said ‘most’ of us because Roni stayed home to babysit his little sis. We been totally raggin’ on him about it since then, too.”

He still seemed so unfazed that what he’d just said didn’t even sound like a lie. I started to feel unsteady, confused, as if the aftershock of the head blows I’d suffered were kicking in. I knew Roni had a younger sister, two grades below me, and that the crew mocked him all the time for treating her like a princess. I began to think maybe I’d shown my hand too soon, and that it might be better to play along for a second so I could hit him from another direction.

“All right, let’s just
pretend
you guys
didn’t
tag the sign at the retirement home. Fine, we’re pretending. But if you didn’t do it, then
who did?”

“Like I told you the other day, little dude, I don’t
know
who did it.”

“Horseshit.”

“Sincerely,” he insisted. “It’s like I got an
idea
who did it, but—”

“Oh, you have a
suspect?
Why didn’t you just say so? Who?”

“Well, the smart money’s on Razor, bro-ski. I totally thought you’d fingered him for the perp yourself, and that’s why you bum-rushed his package like you did.”

“Razor?”
It was so preposterous I almost laughed. But it only went to prove what I already suspected, that Darren was trying to play me for a chump. That was his game, but I wasn’t gonna let on that I knew it just yet. “That doesn’t make
any
sense,” I said, still pretending. “He’s never been a tagger before, so why would he try to be one now?”

“Anybody’s guess,” he prevaricated. “But in the past few weeks he’s been more amped and aggro than ever. Sticky says there’s a rumor
going around that he’s been copping cycles with Tommy for when football starts next week, which would totally explain it and shit—”

“Wait. Cycles? What’s that?” I asked.

“Juice, little dude.”

“Juice?”

“Shee-it.” He sucked his teeth and shook his head. “You need to get out more. Juice is steroids, mini man.”

“
Steroids?”
I’d heard the whispers in town about steroids before—how they made you bigger, stronger, faster, hornier than a dump truck full of toads, and prone to fits of uncontrollable rage. And those whispers only got louder and more specific when it came to starters on the high-school football team, especially star players like Chuck and Easy. “Tommy Sharpe does steroids?” I asked.

Darren pulled his face back a little, staring at me quizzically. “Dude, tell me you didn’t get a look at him while he was thumping your skull? Nobody goes from being the Pillsbury Doughboy to like the One Man Gang in two months without juice. Nobody.”

I’d gotten a good look at Tommy Sharpe all right, more of him than I’d ever wanted to see in fact, and the kid was pretty much a monster. But I’d gotten several good looks at Razor, too, and he was just as bony as ever. “If Razor’s taking steroids like Tommy, then why the hell is he still so skinny?”

“No clue. They work faster for some people than for others, and you’re supposed to pump crazy iron to get the max results and shit. Tommy’s been doing weight training with the team all summer, but Razor hasn’t because he’s been too busy talking smack about how he’s gonna quit and all. So maybe that’s it. Or maybe he hasn’t been taking them as long.”

I wondered what the hell made Darren such an authority on steroids; then again, if there was one thing he knew about, it was drugs. “So you’re telling me that Razor tagged the sign at the retirement home because he’s on steroids?” The question sounded stupid even as it came out of my mouth.

“Like I said, little dude, I can’t say for sure. But maybe he’s the one boosting cash from the home, too, to front for his juice and shit, and he tagged the sign to make it look like
we’d
been doing it.”

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. There was too much new information, too many unforeseen twists to the story. Worse still, some of it was actually starting to make sense. I held my ground, though, and pushed back in the other direction. “Well, that’s it, then. Razor tagged the sign at the retirement home to conceal the fact that he’s been stealing money from there to pay for the steroids he’s taking that have had
no visible effect
on him whatsoever. While you’re at it, why don’t you try to sell me a bridge in the desert, because I’m not buying that shit either.”

“You can like buy it or not, I’m just telling you what I heard.” Darren paused, fingering his pukka bead choker. “All’s I know is that ever since he figured out he’d be surfing pine this season, Razor’s been telling everybody he’s gonna quit the team and acting like full-on ass-ness to everyone. That kid’s always been twisted,” he added, “but throw a little juice into that mix and he’d be bringing the chaos for real.”

“Like I really give two shits about Razor’s behavioral history,” I said.

“Like who does? I’m just trying to tell you why I think he did it and shit.”