Bad Bones (5 page)

Gabe pulled off his backpack, tore open one of the zipped compartments and pulled out the roughly knotted cloth. He stood, weighing the gold trove in his hand. Long seconds ticked by, time seeming to stretch.

Choices.

He hated choices, always sure he was bound to make the wrong one.

But here and now it was so simple: keep the gold, or forget he’d ever found the damned stuff.

Because he couldn’t ignore the obvious truth that there was more,
so
much more, to these things he’d dug up than what they appeared to be on the surface. It was so … the only word he could think of was
possessive
, but that was ridiculous. People possessed objects, not the other way round. Didn’t they? He hated himself for even thinking this could be otherwise, didn’t want to act like some kind of
stupid, scared kid who believed in ghosts and ghouls and all that fairy-tale shit. But he couldn’t help it. His
ears
were bleeding ferchrissake!

Gabe stared down at the bundle. He so wanted to throw it back down the arroyo, yet also desperately needed to keep the gold. The confusion was dizzying. Throw away or keep… Keep or sell and get the money? He could feel himself being ripped apart by the conflict battling it out inside him. The pressure inside his skull had reached migraine levels, the muscles in his arm were stretched to breaking point, vibrating with the strain of waiting to be told what to do, waiting to see which side in this messed-up duel finally won the day.

And it was a close-run thing.

The primal forces, fear of the unknown and superstition put up a fierce struggle against the voices of reason and logic. Not to mention what his old Grandad Mike had used to call dollars and sense. ‘When money talks, even if it’s in a whisper,’ he’d say, tapping the table top with a nicotine-stained finger, ‘you’ll find folks have a tendency to listen.’ He had been referring to politicians, whom he’d generally disliked and distrusted, whichever party
they belonged to, but that thought had, in the end, swayed Gabe and made him return the gold to the sanctuary of his backpack. Dollars and sense…

Gabe dusted himself down and hoped he’d managed to get rid of the worst of the blood – tough to do with spit, an already-grubby tissue and no mirror. If he was lucky and managed to sneak unseen into the house he could finish the job off when he got home. At least he hoped that was the way it was going to go, because he hadn’t been able to come up with a single decent idea to explain away bloody ears to his mom.

Unsurprisingly, the headache had come back. He’d tried to be Zen and pedal in time to its dull, insistent throb, but that hadn’t made it any easier to figure out what to do. He knew it’d be better if the gold wasn’t in the house. The only other place he could keep it that was even remotely safe was his locker at school. Hardly high security, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else.

The first thing he should do was at least try and find out the value of what he’d got his hands on.
And then there was the question of whether he went back to Mr Cecil LeBarron’s Studio City store or looked for somewhere else.

As he turned into his street he thought that Mr LeBarron might be the best bet to start with. The man was interested, and knew he’d screwed up today, which Gabe figured kind of gave him the upper hand. If he hadn’t driven himself crazy before he could get there.

“Hey, Gabe…”

Anton? Gabe wobbled and nearly fell off his bike, jolted out of his thoughts by his name being called.

“You OK, man?”

Gabe braked to a halt and looked behind him. Anton was walking to meet him. “Yeah, fine… I’m fine. You? What’re you doing here?”

“Kinda waiting for you.” Anton shrugged, his smile lopsided. “Missed you at the end of school, wanted to check how your day was, you know? You being so kind of out there this morning.”

This morning.

So much had happened since then… Benny, Stella, Cecil LeBarron, the weirdness up in the canyon. “No, I’m good, Ant, really…”

“We go back a long way, right?” Anton didn’t sound so sure of himself.

“Yeah, we do. Long way.”

“We always talk about stuff, right? Like we always
have
talked about stuff…” Anton didn’t seem to know whether to stay where he was or move closer to Gabe. “Anyway, look, I just wanted to say, you want to talk you can, you know, talk … to me. Right?”

“I know.” A feeling of extreme tiredness washed over Gabe. He knew he should talk to Ant, about everything. About how hard it was to deal with his dad being out of work, about being held over a barrel by Benny Gueterro and having Stella on his case. And the skeleton and the gold. Maybe, after a decent night’s sleep, he’d feel up to it, but not now.

“Gabe?”

“Sorry, Ant.” Gabe found it hard to look his friend straight in the face. “Really … I gotta get home right now, but I’ll call you. I will.”

“Make sure you do.” Anton waved, looking over his shoulder as he walked away. “Blood brothers, Gabe, don’t forget that.”

Gabe watched his friend turn the corner at the
end of the street; Anton didn’t look back and for a moment Gabe wondered why that made him feel a bit sad, then the reality of his situation pushed the thought away.

He was about to ride off when his phone rang, not one of his designated ring tones. He looked at the number, which he didn’t recognize, except that it was local. Ant had recently been chewing his ear off about how he was getting an upgrade and changing services, and it would be just like him to call when he was only round the corner. On the off-chance it was Ant, Gabe picked up the call; the least he could do was apologize for the way he’d just been.

“Hi, Ant, that you?”

“Gabriel…”

“Stella? How the—?”

“Never mind how. You should forget Benny, you really should.”

Gabe took the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a second, like that would help him make more sense of what was going on. “What?”

“Like I told you, Gabriel, don’t have anything to do with that lowlife creep.”

“So, OK … like what makes you think you … like, why d’you think you can tell anyone what to do?”

Stella laughed, the reception so clear, her voice sounding as if she was standing right by him; Gabe couldn’t stop himself from looking. No sign.

“Just don’t do it. He’s stupid and he’s trouble.”

“Look—”

The call was cut and Gabe found himself listening to the sound of silence. He stared at the screen again, angry and confused. What right did this girl have to tell him how to run his life? Even if he couldn’t fault her on her character analysis of Benny, which was entirely spot on. And somehow that made him even madder, being second-guessed and outmanoeuvred by someone he hardly knew, who hardly knew him. He almost punched ‘call back’ so he could demand to know why she cared what he did. Instead he jammed the phone in his back pocket and rode off. He did not have the energy.

The car wasn’t parked outside when Gabe got home and he walked down the passage towards the kitchen,
mentally crossing his fingers that he might get some time in the house on his own. It didn’t work. His dad was there at the table drinking a coffee, reading the paper. The funnies, not the Jobs Vacant pages, either. Typical.

The timing was less than perfect. On top of really needing to get himself cleaned up properly, for the last few weeks it had taken a major effort on Gabe’s part to have anything even approaching a civil conversation with his dad. His mom had called him out on his behaviour, told him he was being unreasonable. She said he had no idea how hard it was for someone who wanted to work not to be able to get a job. Gabe had wanted to say did she have
any
idea how hard it was to have a dad who didn’t look like he was trying very hard to get a job, but managed not to. That would have done nothing except hurt his mom.

“Anton came by earlier, looking for you.” Gabe’s dad put down the paper and sat back in his chair. “He find you?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Good.”

“Yeah…” Gabe made for the door.

“Everything OK with you?”

“Sure.” Only a couple of steps to go, nearly there.

His dad sighed and shook his head, a pained expression on his face. “You know the one thing we’ve
never
done in this family?”

There was no way Gabe could get away with not answering. “No, what?”

Vern looked his son straight in the eye. “We never lied to each other, is what.”

Gabe felt like he’d been caught between a rock and a hard place. His dad was right, he was lying, everything was not OK; but whose fault was that? He knew that if he let rip now it would be bad and he would regret it later, but why should he always be the one cutting slack and being understanding? Who was the grown-up here?

“I can’t make you talk to me, Gabe.” His dad stood up, pushing the chair back, and walked past his son. “But I’ll be here, when you want to,” he said as he left the room. “If you want to.”

Gabe stood in the empty, silent kitchen. With nothing to focus on, no target, his pent-up anger left a sour, metallic taste in his mouth. When life sucked it was a bitch, and it sure as hell sucked now.

This time the dreams were so much worse. Hyper-real, beyond hi-def, with every sense magnified to unimaginable extremes.

The colours of the costumes were even more clashing and vivid, the woven patterns more jagged. The sounds were needle-sharp and they hurt, the atmosphere so heavy and cloying he felt as if he was running out of air to breathe.

And this time he could smell the fear radiating off the victim, another young boy, as he was led right past him. Watching him being picked up and placed on the altar, Gabe retched at the thought of all the blood spilled on it by the thousands of souls who had died there. He looked down and saw the stones used to build the pyramid had been stained a dark, dark black by the gore that had soaked into them. So much blood no amount of rain could ever wash it away.

Light from the setting sun flashed off the golden knife – the exact same knife he now had in his possession – and
drew his attention to the man holding it. It occurred to Gabe that maybe he was some kind of priest, although the guttural noises he was making, along with the elaborate feathered headdress, made him look and sound more like a crazed bird. Then he noticed the crucifix. This man also had a crucifix, like the one he’d found, except not all bent and damaged.

There was something odd about the cross, but before he had a chance to think about what it was the priest let out a roar and Gabe knew what was going to happen. Death was being called upon. This truly hateful scene was pulling Gabe in with its terrible, graceful savagery. And what made it so much worse was that he could see some kind of awesome, insane beauty about what was happening in front of him.

That was when Gabe woke up, covered in sweat. The room was pitch black and for a second he panicked that he’d gone blind. Then the soft, fluorescent green glow from the display of his alarm clock pushed away the dark just a little and he saw it was 3.34am. Now 3.35am…

Gabe lay flat on his back, exhausted. His skin crawled like he was covered in ants and he felt as if he’d been to … the word ‘hell’ squirmed and skittered around in the back of his mind waiting to be let out
and he tried as hard as he could to ignore it. Hell was other people. Someone famous had said that, and he wanted to believe it was true and that was all it was. He did not want to believe it was crazed, knife-wielding people and lost souls, blood-soaked altars and sacrifices to unknown gods.

The thought of going back to sleep was laughable.

More of what he’d just been through? No way.

Gabe dragged himself out of bed and padded down to the bathroom, the corridor lit by the plug-in night lamp his sister still said she needed. He closed the door and switched the light on. In the mirror over the sink an exhausted, freaked-out version of himself stared back. He looked like shit. Running the cold tap he sluiced his face and rinsed his mouth out; it was only when he saw the blood running away that he realized he must have bitten the inside of his lip. He checked his ears to see if they’d repeated their performance from earlier in the canyon. They hadn’t. He dried off and sat on the toilet lid, elbows on his knees and hands cradling his head. He felt lousy. His life genuinely was crap, whichever way you looked at it, and now he couldn’t even escape from what was going on with a good night’s sleep.

He sighed heavily. Tomorrow was another day. And tomorrow he and his family would still be facing the same problems. Tomorrow he had to work for Benny, and who knew what that might entail. Tomorrow he would also have to try and get rid of at least some of the damn gold. Although looking on the bright side, if that was at all possible, if Benny and Mr Cecil LeBarron both paid up, the day
after
tomorrow might feasibly be better.

Yeah, right.

“Gabey-Gabey-Gay-ay-ay-bee, hugging his pillow like a bay-ay-ay-bee!”

Gabe jerked awake to see his sister, Remy, bending over and peering at him like he was some weird zoo exhibit.

“Scram, Remy,” he muttered, turning over and squinting at the clock; he found it hard to believe he’d actually fallen back to sleep, not had any nightmares he could remember and that it was now 7.06am… make that 7.07.

“What’ve you got there, Gabey?” Remy pointed at his bedside table, reaching forward like she was
going to touch the untidily knotted cloth duster.

“Nothing, now move it!”

“Well, Mom says you’d better get your skates on, else you’ll be late for school…” Remy dodged the dirty sock Gabe launched at her as she made for the door. “And you got dribble on your chinny-chin-chin…”

“Get…”

Remy disappeared, then her head popped round the door, excited. “Guess what I saw in the front yard this morning, Gabey.”

“A fight between two of your stupid dolls?” Remy crossed her eyes and did her ‘you’re so dumb’ face, which always cracked Gabe up. “OK, OK, I give up, what?”

“An owl, Gabey. Just sitting there on the mailbox, kinda
looking
at the house.”

Ten minutes later, showered and shaved, Gabe still felt jumpy and nervous, as if any minute something dreadful was going to happen. The owl was watching. Not
an
owl, but
the
owl. Had to be. He didn’t feel hungry any more.

As he went into the kitchen Remy was leaving, giving him a saccharine-sweet smile that ended with her sticking out her tongue; Gabe ignored her, which he knew drove her crazy, but that was only fair as it was all she ever did to him. He saw his mom over by the dishwasher, unloading it with the morning newscast on KZLA, a local TV channel, on in the background. No sign of his dad. They hadn’t said much to each other since yesterday, and he was kind of glad he wasn’t around now. The less stress the better, the way he was feeling.

“Hi, Gabe, sleep well, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, OK, Mom.” Gabe thought about what his dad had said, about how they didn’t – and by implication, shouldn’t – lie to each other in this family; well, if not telling his mom about the kind of dreams he’d had last night was lying, so be it. He glanced at the TV, showing a reporter, station-branded microphone in his hand, looking earnestly at the camera. “What’s the big story?”

“Someone’s gone missing, I think they said over by Daisy Canyon. They showed a picture. Older person, a guy wearing a red baseball cap. I wasn’t paying
too much attention. Must be a slow news day.”

Gabe was glad his mom wasn’t looking at him as he felt the colour drain from his face.
Way
too many coincidences for comfort.

“Before you ask if there’s any chance of some French toast this morning, we’re out of eggs, sweetie, sorry –” his mom carried on talking with her back to him – “I could nuke a slice of pizza?”

“OK, thanks…” Pizza for breakfast. Oh joy. Never the ideal choice, but he had a hard day ahead of him and knew he should eat something.

“Want a glass of milk with that?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Gabe went over to the table, knowing that to refuse food would be like sending up a warning flare: Something Is Wrong With My Son! “Could you do me a favour, Mom? Could you tell Remy,
again
, that she’s not allowed to even step inside my room? I don’t go in hers, right?”

“Sure, but I don’t know what the problem is.” Gabe’s mom put a glass of milk on the table as the microwave pinged. “What’s she going to do, steal your dirty laundry? She’d be doing you a favour if she did.”

“She just gets in my face.” Gabe accepted the plate his mom gave him, the cheese on the pizza slice bubbling like yellow lava; breakfast appeared to be an ogre’s severed tongue.

“Give it a few years, when she and her little friends aren’t so little any more…”

Gabe turned to see his dad, whom he hadn’t heard coming into the kitchen; he hadn’t shaved.

Glancing at the kitchen clock, which was always a little slow, Gabe leapt up from the table. “Geez, look at the time – I gotta go!”

Snatching up the pizza slice, he hared back down the corridor, past his sister going the other way, and skidded into his room. He flung everything he needed for school in his backpack and was halfway back to the kitchen when he remembered the gold, wrapped up in the raggedy old duster and waiting on his bedside table. Swearing at himself under his breath for his abject stupidity, he ran back to his room and got it.

Disaster averted, goodbyes yelled and his head in a whirl, he exited the kitchen and grabbed his bike. Then he stopped and thought about what his mom had said. If he’d got to the kitchen a little earlier
he would have seen the picture, known if the man she’d described was the same person he’d seen. Now all he could do was torment himself, something he seemed to have a talent for. He went to the side door, pulling it open very slowly.

No owl on the mailbox.

Could Remy have made it all up?