Night Sky (14 page)

“Chewy, I got a bad feeling about this.” Calvin gave me his best Han Solo.

“Just…don't look at any of them. Heads down, we mind our own business until Dana and Milo are back.” But it seriously
was
like one of those cheesy zombie movies Cal and I watched on TV. Everyone honed in on our car, all at once.

“What do they want?” Calvin asked. “I mean, besides to eat our brains.”

“They don't want to eat our brains. I'm pretty sure this is just Dana testing us. Me. She's testing
me
. So just ignore them. Just
don't
look.” But it was hard not to, and even I couldn't follow my own instructions. I looked up exactly as the old guy in the trench coat flashed us.

“Oh, my
God
!” Calvin shouted. “That is wrong. And disgusting! That is wrong
and
disgusting! Do
not
make me get out of this car, old man!”

“Don't you dare get out of the car,” I told Calvin, squinting through my eyelashes as the old man, coat now closed, took his cane and whacked the driver's side window. “Dana told us to keep the doors locked.”

“If this is a test,” Calvin said, “that girl is messed up.”

We were now completely surrounded. Some of the bikers had started rocking the car, and even I was starting to doubt my theory.

“Okay, that's it! Dana and Milo are going to get their butts kicked by these crazies, unless we do something,” Cal announced. He shifted his car into drive and hit his horn repeatedly as he glared at the crowd. “Get the hell out of my way—I will not hesitate to run you down!”

He inched the car forward, revving the motor, and the crowd parted in front of us. He had a clear shot to pull out into the street and zoom away to safety, and even I was tempted to make a run for it. Instead he turned and drove right up onto the sidewalk, positioning the car directly in front of the SmartMart's door.

As we jerked to a stop, that door opened, and I had a front-row seat to Dana's astonishment. And I knew I was at least partially right. She'd expected us to run away.

Milo was right behind her, clutching a small plastic bag in one hand. He stuffed it into his inside jacket pocket as he locked eyes with me.

Neither of them seemed particularly worried about the crowd. In fact, Milo went over to the old man with the cane and whispered something in his ear. The man shrunk back and then sidled away.

One of the bikers nodded at Dana and she nodded back, and they all vanished too. And just like that, the street in front of the SmartMart went from completely crazy to completely deserted.

Calvin unlocked the car doors to let Milo and Dana in. “What the
hell
,” he said. “Was Skylar right? What that some kind of test?”

Dana's eyes were cool as she looked at me. “Smart girl.”

“Blood in the streets?” I tried to make my own eyes as chilly. “That was a little over the top.”

“Just checking to see if you have balls.”

“For the record,” Calvin said, “we've got 'em. And so does Mr. Unfortunate, which, by the way, was something Sky absolutely did
not
need to see.”

“Sunshine's gonna see a lot worse before we're done here,” Dana countered sharply.

“So it was a test?” Calvin shot back. “Did you seriously pay that guy to flash—”

“No,” Dana said. “The bikers were mine. Old Man Dempsey's just part of the local color. He's harmless. Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Calvin repeated as I chimed in with “The bikers
were
yours!”

“Yeah, mostly,” Dana said. “Everyone in Harrisburg is dangerous. So yeah, the bikers happened to be friends of mine—this time. Next time? Who knows? Next time—”

“Did we
pass
your
test
?” Calvin asked, his voice heavy with attitude.

“Part one,” Dana said. “Yeah. But part two is tonight, when you ask yourself,
Am
I
still
alive?
If the answer is
yes
, then—”

“At this moment, you're arguing about irrelevant issues and wasting valuable time that should be spent trying to find Edmund Rodriguez before the police do. Because you know once they find him, we won't be able to get close to him, and we'll be back to square one.” Milo's voice cut through Dana and Calvin's bickering. It was the most I'd heard him talk since meeting him last night.

Dana nodded but didn't stop glaring at Cal. “You're absolutely right.”

Milo tucked his mop of hair behind his ears. He looked different in the daylight…The angles of his jawline were less harsh, and a five-o'clock shadow had begun to darken his chin. I didn't realize I was staring until he looked at me and smiled. Dimples popped out playfully on either cheek. I looked away fast.

“Let's start over on 80th Street, near the old Publix warehouse,” Dana said, “where Edmund Rodriguez's truck was found.” She gave Cal directions.

As he pulled his car down off the sidewalk, I stared out the window at the empty streets. I thought about how quickly Old Man Dempsey had adios-ed when Milo had opened his mouth. And how easily he'd brought Dana and Cal back on track. Impulsively, I asked, “You sure you don't have a gift too?”

Milo looked surprised. “Me?” he asked. Dana laughed.

“Yeah. I mean, what did you say to Mr. Dempsey? He was pretty worked up.”

Dana shook her head and helped Milo answer the question. “He's just street smart, Sugar Plum. There's a big difference between street smart and Greater-Than, as you of all people plainly demonstrate.”

“There's nothing wrong with not being street smart,” Milo reassured me quietly.

“What I want to know,” Cal said, “is why Harrisburg has such a large crazy-person population.”

Dana and Milo looked at each other. Then Dana looked at Cal. “Sweetie,” she said, “these days, half of the population is out of work. The Haves don't want be reminded that they could be next to lose everything, so they hire guards to keep the Have-Nots out of their gated communities, which shoves them all together in neighborhoods like this one—which is the pimple on the sweaty ass of Harrisburg. That'd make anyone a little crazy.”

She shook her head. “And then you show up in your Have-ie car and your little golf shirt and your pink sneakers—and they know that the bump in price that you paid for the pink ones instead of the white could feed their families for a week—and you stand out like lost baby ducklings in an alligator swamp. And some of 'em want to stick you with a shiv because you've still got what they lost, and some of them just want to stick you because they like it when people bleed.”

“But no one's going to hurt you as long as Dana's around,” Milo added.

“What, do you mind-control 'em?” Calvin asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” Dana said calmly.

“I thought you said you weren't telepathic.” Calvin looked at her hard in the rearview mirror.

“I'm not,” she said. “I can't read minds. I can only—strongly—influence them.”

“Like,
these
are
not
the
droids you're looking for?
” Calvin asked.

“Yeah,” Dana said. “Or…”

“This is where the police found Sasha's father's truck,” Calvin recited, his head tilted at a slightly odd angle, as he pulled to the side of the road. But then he straightened up, shook his head, and made a face at me before he turned to glare back at Dana. “Holy crap. Did
you
do that?”

She spread her hands and shrugged. “I'll be here all week.”

Calvin laughed his amazement, but his smile faded as he looked out the windshield. Since we'd stopped, the street had become crowded with more of the people that Dana had called the Have-Nots, most of them bedraggled and fidgety as they sidled closer.

Cal sighed. “Okay. I'm asking you this as a man with a sturdy, intact set of balls, Dana. From what you just told us about the locals, do you really think it's a good idea to leave my car here? I'm just saying.”

Dana smirked. “Thanks so much for the mental pic. And I'll let you answer your own question.”

Calvin's head tilted again. “No one's going to touch my car, either. If they do, Dana'll kick their ass.” Again, he shook his head, adding, “God, that's creepy. Stop doing that.”

“Just proving the point,” Dana said. She quickly reviewed the rules she'd given us before she'd told that blood-in-the-streets story. But she added a caveat to her super-mind-control abilities: her powers didn't work on everyone. Oxycontin addicts, for example, were immune to her mental suggestions. Some jokering Destiny addicts were unreachable too.

So stay relatively close and always be ready to run.

I took out my photos of the Rodriguez family and handed one to Calvin. Milo reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a cheap printout from an online news source.

“Let's do this thing,” Dana said.

—

As soon as I stepped into the outside air, my nostrils were bombarded by smells. More of that fish odor and burning plastic, as well as a grossly overbearing amount of garlic. I tried to detect any sewage smells, but couldn't find any. I wondered if I was overthinking it.

Milo smoothed his printout photo of Sasha's dad on the top of Cal's car roof. He paused for a moment and took a pack of gum from his pocket and popped a piece into his mouth.

“Ooh. Can I have some?” I asked, hoping the mint taste would somehow neutralize the awful stench of this city.

“Oh,” Milo said. “Um. No. You, um, really wouldn't like this…flavor.”

I think I was standing there with my mouth open. Who didn't share their gum? Of course he and Dana were probably on a more austere budget than I could even imagine. Still, “You wouldn't like this flavor” was kinda lame. If he didn't want to share, he should've gone with “Sorry, last piece.”

“Sorry,” he said again as he backed away.

Dana was already on the corner, talking to what looked like a group of soccer moms dressed up as prostitutes for Halloween. Except it wasn't October, which meant…

“Oh, God,” I said, as Calvin beeped his car locked and took a moment to situate himself and his chair on the street.

Milo was now talking to a man who looked like Santa's evil twin. The bearded guy was selling something called “meat sandwiches” from an old hot-dog stand.

“What do you suppose kind of meat…” Cal started.

I shook my head. “Don't ask.” Although it was hard not to notice the dearth of both dogs and seagulls in this neighborhood.

As if in silent agreement, both Cal and I turned and headed for the same group of ten-year-olds sitting on the front steps of what had once been a bank. They seemed a little less dangerous than the average Harrisburg-ite.

But they started shaking their heads as we approached, before we even showed them Edmund's picture—a trend that continued for the next several hours, regardless of whom we approached.

So that was our Sunday. Or at least most of it.

It might have been my imagination, but by midafternoon, people seemed to begin shuffling out of the woodwork again. The street was becoming more and more crowded with bodies. And nobody looked like they had anywhere else to be.

“We're popular around here,” Calvin noted as we showed Edmund's photo left and right.

“Very,” I said, as one after another of them shook their heads and shuffled away.

We didn't have to search out anyone at this point, because people just kept coming toward us. It was the same type of crowd one might expect on a street corner after a car accident had occurred—a little bit bloodthirsty and a whole lot of curious.

“Keep your eyes peeled for Edmund,” I said. “You never know.”

Calvin looked doubtful.

We walked into the crowd. The sidewalk narrowed significantly as hands and feet gradually began to impose on my personal space. It had to be twice as bad for Calvin. Even the shortest person towered above him.

Someone bumped clumsily into Cal's wheelchair. “Hey!” he said defensively. Watch it, will you?”

The woman who'd collided with him was a skinny little thing. She stared blankly at Cal, her eyes bloodshot and empty.

“What's your problem?” she asked, hands on her hips in an antagonist pose. As I studied her face, I realized she was really just a girl. She was definitely younger than both Calvin and me, but her stomach popped out underneath a sequined halter top. She was pregnant.

Calvin gave up trying to be defensive. “Um…” He paused. “Have you seen this man?” he asked, and showed the girl the photo of Edmund.

“What's it to you?” she asked, all attitude. People pushed her from either side to catch a better glimpse of Calvin and me, and she elbowed them dismissively.

“It actually means a lot,” Calvin said. “The man in this picture? His daughter was murdered last week, and we're trying to track him down to ask him some questions.”

As soon as Calvin said the word “murder,” the girl froze and then backed away. She waved her hands in front of her face and shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she said, “I don't know nothin' about a murder.”

“It's okay. We're not with the police or anything,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “We're just trying to find Edmund—this man—because we think he can help us figure out what happened.”

But the girl had already turned on her heels. She pushed her way through the crowd, her hips swinging.

No doubt about it, the crowd was multiplying. Calvin and I waded through the dense cloud of people, showing Edmund's picture to no avail as it became next to impossible for us to move.

I've never been claustrophobic, but I was seriously having trouble catching my breath.