Laying Down the Paw (21 page)

He passed the sporting goods department on his way to the checkout. A display of basketballs caught his eye. He grabbed one and dropped it into his cart. He picked up a sporty duffel bag, too. It wasn't as nice as the one Trent had bought him, but it would do.

When Dub emerged from the store, he was down three hundred dollars, but he still had a little over a hundred fifty, enough to last him another week or so if he was careful.

Using the car charger, he plugged his new phone into the cigarette lighter in the van and searched the Internet. He found a print shop not far away that was open on Sundays. He drove to the shop and used a computer in their foyer to draft a quick flyer.

YARD CARE AND HAULING.

NO JOB TOO SMALL.

QUICK SERVICE AND CHEAP RATES.

He added a clip art cartoon of a man with a hoe, and listed his new phone number repeatedly on tear-off tabs down the right side.

Returning to his van, he headed west and posted the flyers on the poles of streetlights in the University Place, Mistletoe Heights, Berkeley Place, South Hemphill Heights, and surrounding neighborhoods, skipping the Fairmount area. No sense risking Trent and Wes stumbling upon him trimming bushes. He wasn't sure what would happen if they did. Would he be returned to juvie and sent back to Gainesville State School? Placed in a high-security group home? He had no idea what they did with runaways. But he didn't want to find out. He didn't want his life to be someone else's decision.

He dialed Jenna's home number from his cell phone. With him living at his mother's place across town and Jenna grounded at home without a cell phone and forbidden from seeing him, he hadn't even been able to wish her a happy Valentine's Day yesterday.

The phone rang three times before a man answered. Jenna's dad.
Damn!
Dub knew that if he hung up it would only make Jenna's parents suspicious.

“Hello, Mr. Seaver,” Dub said, talking in a voice that wasn't his. “I'd like to tell you about a great deal I can offer you on—”

Click.

Yeah. Nobody wanted to talk to telemarketers. It had been a smart trick.

Dub knew he couldn't go back to his mother's apartment right away or she'd be suspicious. He decided to give it a few hours. When he returned, he'd tell her that he'd made a hundred bucks helping a couple load furniture into a moving truck. He'd got the idea when he'd passed a Budget rental truck on Travis Avenue. A blond guy, a woman with long black hair, and another woman with blue hair had been carrying furniture from the truck into a house. He'd still keep the van a secret. If his mother saw it, she'd know he'd been holding out on her.

To kill time, he drove to the YMCA. He passed through the parking lot to make sure Trent's and Wes's cars weren't there. They hadn't had a membership before they'd taken Dub in, so it was unlikely they'd be at the Y now. But better safe than sorry.

He pulled through a spot, making sure he could drive straight out and make a quick getaway if he had to. He shoved one of the T-shirts and his basketball shorts into his duffel bag and went inside, flashing his card at the attendant at the front desk before going to the men's dressing room.

He yanked the price tags off his new clothes and put them on, stuffing his jeans and tornado hoodie into the sports bag, and stuffing the sports bag into a locker. Dressed now, he went to the basketball court, hoping to get in on a pickup game.

No such luck.

The courts were quiet. He supposed it was because Sunday was a family day for most people. They'd go to church, eat a late lunch, maybe play a board game or watch a movie together or shoot hoops in the driveway. He could see the image in his mind. A smiling mother serving fresh-baked cookies. A father with a receding hairline and fat gut cracking corny jokes. Two kids who groaned at their father's jokes and thought he was a total embarrassment, but who loved him anyway.

The thought left him feeling cheated and empty and sad.

No.

He forced the picture from his head and the feelings from his heart. No sense getting all worked up about the stupid image in his mind. Not every family was as happy as the ones in minivan commercials. He'd survived all this time without a family, and he'd continue to survive. He wasn't some soft loser who needed to be babied. Dub could take care of himself.

Always had.

Always would.

With no one to play with, Dub settled for shooting hoops by himself. He practiced his layups, his slam dunks, his free throws. He even tried some shots from the three-point range. He sank half of them. He hadn't been nearly this good when he played for the Tornadoes. Dub knew the coach had given him a spot on the team not because he had skill or talent, but because he loved the game, showed up for practice on time, and because the coach thought it might build Dub's self-esteem. Somehow it had, even though Dub's performance on the court was nothing to brag about. But for the first time in his life, he'd felt like he was part of something bigger than himself, like he belonged, like he was wanted, like he had a part to play even if that role was a minor one as benchwarmer.

Two white boys strolled in, both dressed in athletic pants and blue and yellow tees printed with the logo for the Arlington Heights High School Yellow Jackets basketball team. Their eyes moved over Dub, sizing him up. He must have looked much fiercer than he felt, because they challenged him to a game of two-on-one.

He bounced the ball hard against the court.
Thunk.
“Prepare to meet your doom.”

But no doom was to be met.

When they easily ran away with the ball, one of them switched to Dub's side. “Where's that doom you promised?”

Dub lifted a shoulder. “I just don't want to embarrass you crackers.”

“Yeah,” said the other, chuckling. “Right.”

They went on to play a game of Horse, trouncing Dub once again. But why shouldn't they? They probably had personal coaches and every weekend free to practice. They probably hadn't been forced to roam the streets looking for odd jobs, to buy their own toothbrushes and underwear. He wanted to hate these boys for everything they had, for everything they were, for everything they would be. But how could he? He'd trade places with them if he could. They were just lucky to have been born into a good situation. They weren't at fault for that. No, Dub knew who was to blame for his current situation.

One man.

The man who had ruined Dub's life, his mother's, too.

Though the man had laid low lately, Dub knew he wasn't done fucking things up for him and his mother. That man wouldn't stop until he was put away for life …
or dead
.

Dub could kill him himself.

He knew he could.

One of the boys glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Gotta go. My mom will kill me if I'm late for dinner.”

Dub chuckled at the irony and raised a hand. “See ya.”

After shooting hoops on his own for a while, Dub went to the locker room, changed back into his jeans and Tornadoes hoodie, and drove back to the apartment complex. He worked on his story on the way, hoping his mom would buy it.
The people I helped had a lot of furniture. Heavy stuff. One of those big china cabinets and an entertainment center that took up an entire wall. I used the money to get groceries for us.

He pulled the van into the parking lot of the apartment complex and there was his mother, sitting on the curb outside, smoking a cigarette. Probably one of the Camels he'd stolen from the liquor store. She tilted her head as she saw him drive in.

Shit. So much for keeping the van a secret.

He pulled into a spot nearby. No need to hide the van around back anymore.

As he climbed out, his mother gestured at the van with her cigarette. Ashes fell to the asphalt at her feet. “What's this?”

He closed the door behind him and shoved the keys deep into his pocket. “I got some new wheels.”

“How'd you—” She stopped herself, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Never mind. I don't want to know how you got the van.”

She assumed he'd stolen it. His first reaction was to be angry she'd think so low of him, but how could he be mad? He'd paid for the van with cash from stolen lottery tickets. Not much better than stealing the van, if at all.

She reached a hand up to her face and scratched at her cheek.

Oh, no. No, NO, NO!

“Mom?” He stepped closer.

Sure enough, her eyes were glassy. Fury and frustration and fear shot through him, so hot and intense it was a wonder he didn't burst into flames on the spot. He wanted to grab her and shake her, shake some sense into her, shake her until she disintegrated in his hands and was no more.

“You're using again!” he hollered. “Aren't you?”

He wasn't sure why he even bothered to ask. He already knew the answer. His mother could live without furniture or food. She could live without a husband. She could even live without her only child. But she couldn't live without crystal meth. Not for long anyway.

She didn't answer.

“Did you see him?” Dub demanded. “Did you?”

His mother scratched her cheek again and looked past him. “What I do and who I see are none of your business.”

None of his business?
How the hell could she say that? Her drug use had been his business since the day he'd been born. How many times had he been up all night, left alone in whatever shithole they'd been living in at the time, waiting in the dark for his mother to come home? How many times had he gone hungry because she'd spent the last of their money on a hit? How many times had child protective services taken him away because she was an uncaring, unfit mother who allowed herself and her son to be brutualized? How many times had he heard her lame excuses and apologies?

But maybe the real question was, how many times would he put himself through this?

He was done.

The money he had left wasn't enough to get his own apartment, but as soon as he had enough cash to get his own place he was out of here.

And he would never look back.

 

THIRTY-ONE

LOOK-ALIKES

Megan

Early Monday morning, Frankie and I chatted at the dinette table and shared a toasted bagel. I'd swiped my half with a fruit spread, while she'd topped hers with a quarter inch of cream cheese. While the bagel was breakfast for me, given that Frankie had just come off a night shift I supposed hers counted as dinner.

I licked a bit of strawberry goo off my thumb. “What's it like to work in a store late at night?”

“Quiet, mostly,” she said, taking a sip of her orange juice. “But sometimes on the weekends we'll get a bunch of rowdy college students coming in to buy beer. I was stocking toilet paper once and when I went to round up the empty boxes I found a guy asleep in one of them, drunk off his ass.”

I'd worked many a night shift myself. The wee hours seemed to bring out all sorts of oddballs.

“How long have you worked there?” I asked.

“Six years,” she said. “I started as a sacker back in high school. I moved to the floor after I graduated. It pays better and you don't have to deal with so many grumpy customers.”

“What's your plan?” I asked. “Are you hoping to m-move up into management?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”

Her situation wasn't unusual. Lots of people didn't find their calling until later in life. I supposed I was lucky to have discovered mine early on.

“What about you?” She took another sip of her juice. “What made you want to be a cop?”

“Being mercilessly t-teased and helpless to do anything about it.” I'd already seen her at her worst, bawling over a man who'd dumped her. No harm in opening myself up a little, too, right?

She obviously hadn't expected me to bare myself like that. Her mouth went slack, her lips parting slightly to reveal a bit of half-chewed bagel. She finished chewing. “The stutter?”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks.” She huffed. “Sounds about as fun as being five-eleven and a 38D as a high-school freshman. At least I didn't get teased to my face, though. No one had the guts to do that. But I knew what the other kids were calling me behind my back.
She-Hulk.
”

“Jerks.”

She shrugged again. “I suppose it wasn't all bad. I channeled my anger into the derby. Youngest player on the team and MVP three years in a row.”

“That's the way you do it.” I raised my hand and we exchanged a congenial high five.

When we were done eating, Frankie helped me tie Brigit's cage to the top of my Smart Car. My specially equipped K-9 cruiser had been towed off for repairs, but Brigit and I could make do with a regular cruiser so long as I had her kennel to keep her restrained and safe. We garnered a few odd looks and a couple of smiles as we drove to work, but that was pretty typical for us.

Leading Brigit on her leash, I walked into the W1 station to speak to the receptionist/office manager/administrative assistant/queen-of-the-police-universe about my cruiser situation.

“Hi, Melinda,” I said as I stepped up to the counter.

Melinda was a fluffy-haired blue-eyed bleached blonde in her early forties with a smart mind and, on occasion, a just-as-smart mouth. Not a bad thing, really. Working the front counter in a police station required her to deal with some rather unsavory types on occasion, and she had to be able to hold her own.

“Mornin', Megan. What can I do you for?”

“My patrol car suffered some water damage on Saturday.” That was putting it lightly, huh? “They towed it to the shop.”

“Yeaaah.” She gave me a knowing look over the top of her computer monitor. “I heard about that.”