Blues for Zoey (23 page)

74

The Las
t Time I Saw Her, Part 2

We drove up in silence. Nomi picked up on my grim mood (not a difficult thing) and kept
quiet in the back seat. The air outside was humid and heavy. It was one of those dark days that
come at the end of summer, when the sky
goes all ashy and you just want it to rain and get it over with, but then it never does. Above us, the
re were layers of cloud so dark they looked like streams of soot.

All I could think about was Zoey. I thought about how strange she'd acted the second time she wanted to stash the rattler at the Si
t 'n' Spin. All that looking over her shoulder, telling me the police were
after her for busking on the street. It had all been a lie. I thought about all those questions about honesty.

I can t
r
ust
y
ou, right?

I mean, y
o
u
'
r
e an honest person.
Y
o
u
'
v
e always been honest with me, yeah?

Then there was the way she had grabbed my wrist, just before I signed everything away to a girl who didn't exist. She had said it one last time.

Seriously. B
e honest. You're really sure?

I had been.

But now I
knew what it was all about. It was a test. I
n her own way, she was warning me. An
honest
person would never have signed those checks. An
honest
perso
n would have walked away if he thought
the thing he was buyin
g was stolen—
from some famous singer who had killed himself
. An
honest
person would have called the
police. Just like she had said at
the movies that night,
You can
't con an honest man
.

I steered
us into the Beauhaven parking lot. Eve
rything was calm and still. A huddle of parked cars reminded me of pigs, feeding from a trough a
round the building. The wide-openness of everything—the huge expanse of asphalt, the lack of tall buildings—made it seem like there was nothing to hold up the sky. It felt like an endless sheet of dull gray plastic had settled
over everything. I could hardly breathe.

“You look pale,” Mom said once we'd joined the wallow of cars. “You should come in.”

I shook my head.

“Give it another chance. Tracey really is—”

“
A genius
. I know, but I don'
t feel like it. Leave me alone, okay? Let me stay in the car.”

Mom sighed and gave up. She and Nomi went in without me. I
shut my eyes, resting my head on the steering
wheel. Had I ever screwed up this
badly before? This went way beyond letting your grades sli
p, or passing out at a party, or falling for the wrong girl. This was
serious
. This was
a deep, dire, game-changing sort of fuck-up
. The only thing I wanted to do was keep it a
secret. Which of course was impossible. Eventually,
I'd have to tell Mom what happened.

The smell of cigarette smoke cut
through my self-pity. I lifted my head and saw
a woman smoking in front of Beauhaven.

She seemed to be staring at me, but when I met her ga
ze, she looked away. After one final puff, she tossed the butt of her cigarette in the bushes and climbed into a minivan two spaces over. As the vehicle pulled away, the
OP
EN
sign at the ice cream shop next door reflected in the tinted windsc
reen. The word flashed on and off, sliding over
the black glass.
OPEN
…
OPEN
…
OPEN
…

It wasn't until the woman had backed out of the spot completely that I saw what was parked behind her.

A red convertible. Empty.

I got out and went over
, one eye on Beauhaven. Could it really be the same car? Ther
e were speckles of rust on the side. H
adn't Andrew Myers-slash-Philip Konig's car been spotless? H
adn't it always sparkled in the sun? O
r was that merely how I remembered it because I believed his lies? M
aybe I never noticed the rust because he'd always parked
across the street?

There were cardboard boxes in the back seat, the tops folded shut. I opened the door and tugged one of them open. It was nothing I recognized, nothing that looked like black crinoline or pink leopard print.

I went around to
the front. There was a dent in the car
's bumper, scratches too. I crouched down and ran my fingers over the metal. I
tried to picture the shape of Razor's
body. The height of her head. The broadness of
her back. Could this have been where she was hit?

Behind me, someone
came out of the ice cream shop. I
t was a hippie girl with a shaved head and
a flowery dress, carrying a pair of vanilla cones. She wo
re enormous sunglasses, even though the sky was the color of old steel. When
she saw me, one of the cones slipped, shattering on the pavement.

“Zoey,” I said. “Zoey …
Konig
.”

She didn't answer.

You could measure a girl's beauty by how she looked without
any hair. That was what she'd told me. No
w I knew she was right. Even shorn of every dreadlock, she still looked as sharp and beautiful as eve
r. Maybe even more so.

“How did you know we'd be here?” she asked.

“Are you gonna give me my money back?”

She took off the sunglasses. “I got your messages, but my dad burned the
phone. I'm so sorry. Why didn't y
ou tell me about your—”

“I'm calling the police.” I
took out my phone, pulled up the number, and showed her the screen. “Gi
ve me back the money or I press Send.”

“Wait, don't.”

“You completely screwed me over and … and … ” I was surprised by watery snot suddenly flowing down the back of my throat. “
Fuck!
I really liked you.”

“Look at me. I'm a freak.”

“Just give me back the money.”

“I can't.”

“Yes, you can. You have it and you can give it back.”

“I
don't
have it, my dad does. I never have anything.”

“So get it from him.”

“I will, just not now.”

“
It's for my mother!
”

Zoey threw down the other ice cream cone. “Why did
n't you tell me? If I'd known, I would've … I mean, don't you tell people
anything
?”

“I do, but—”

“If you'd told me, I never would've let my dad know about your savings.
Even if he found out, even if he
'd wanted to, I would've stopped him. You
should've told me.” She ground her teeth
and looked down at the blob of vanilla
melting at her feet. “Now it's too late.”

I looked behind me at Beauhaven. “Is he in ther
e now? Getting his
massage
or whatever?”

She nodded.

“That gun I saw, is it in the car?”

Her expression changed. “
What? Why?”

“Give it to me.”

“I'll get your money back. I promise. Just not right now.
You have to believe me.”

“How can I?” I went to the side of the car and opened the box again. “Where is it?”

“
What're you gonna do?”

“Maybe I'm gonna kill him. If he doesn't give back what'
s mine.”

“He'll kill you first. He's
stronger than he looks. He'll do it with his hands.”

“
Is that where you got those bruises? Is that why you help him?”

“I promise I'll get you eve
rything back, you just have to tru—
oh, shit!
”

I turned around and
saw him coming down the steps from Beauhav
en. He was in jeans and an old hoodie. F
or a second, I thought he'd shaved his head
as well. But no, he'd merely bleached his hai
r. It was like it was in the mug
shots. This time he had done his beard too, and ev
en his eyebrows. It made his skin look
pale, almost see-through. Teeth and eyes leaping out
of a flat, white skull.

“Da'fuck is this now?”

His voice, gruff and
threatening, was as altered as his face. He
pounded down the steps, but stopped dead when he
saw who I was. His eyes flashed at Zoey.

“I didn't tell him, I swear!” she said. “It's his mom, she comes he
re too. I told you!
She's sick
.”

He almost laughed. “Not if she comes here, she isn
't. Not really.”

“What did you say?” I
was ready to do what Zoey said he'd do to me. Kill him with my hands.

“Don't sweat it, kid,” he said. “It's just business. Wasn't like it was that much. What was it? Ten grand?”

“It was everything I had.”

He shrugged. “Your loss.” He made a move toward the car, but I cut him off.

“Fuck you! I'm calling the police.”

I brandished the phone like a w
eapon and pressed Send. Zoey's dad lifted the bottom of
his hoodie and pulled out a
real
weapon. The gun I'd just asked fo
r.

“Gimme your phone,” he said. “Right now.”

I didn't. I
n my ear, a recorded voice asked
what I needed: “Fire, police, or ambulance?”

“Police,” I said.

Zoey'
s dad stepped forward. “I'm going to
fucking
shoot you
!”

A human voice: “Yes, what is your emergency?”

“I'm at the Beauha—”

In
one swift motion, Philip Konig stepped forward,
grabbed my wrist, and twisted it so hard my knees gave out and I doubled over. I dropped the phone and watched helplessly as his heel shattered it to bits.

“Next time,
” he growled at Zoey, “when I
tell you to stay in the car, do it.”

Zoey didn't move.

Her dad pointed the gun at her. “
Get in the car!
”

When he shouted, his grip on
my wrist tightened. I yelped and, almost by instinct, took a swing at him with my free hand. With his
attention on Zoey, I caught him by surprise.
I connected just below his eye. It felt like I'd broken every bone up to my elbow.

The next thing I kne
w, Zoey's dad had one hand around my throat.

“You stupid little puke.
We never
stole
your money. You wr
ote us fucking checks! You weren't
robbed, you were
conned
. If you were a little swifte
r, you'd see the difference!”

I tried to say something, but I had no air.

“Dad, stop!”

Everything was
turning gray. The sky roared in my
ears. I heard a grunt. A scream. My
body shook and jostled and fell. I landed hard on my hands and knees, and when I looked up, Zoey was down exactly like me, like an animal, like a spooked cat. The
arch of her back juddered up and d
own. She was crying.

I tried reaching for her, but her dad picked her up around the waist and
jammed her, kicking and screaming, into the car
.

“I'll send it all back!” she shouted. “I promise!”

Oddly, the only thing in my
head was,
I never took a picture with her
. I'll never see her again.
It did
n't help that she had her face buried in her hands.

“Don't look,
Kaz,” she said, or at least that's
what it sounded like. Her words slurred through her fingers. But how could I
not
look at her?

I
breathed deeply and color returned to the world. I
saw Zoey, her face still hidden, as her dad shifted into reverse.

“Wait!” I said stupidly. “Let me see your face!”