The Good Boy (43 page)

“But he’s sweating—the blanket’s soaked.”

“Of course he’s sweating. He’s in shock.”

“What do I do?”

“Head up, feet down—”

“I know that, motherfucker, what else?”

“Talk to him. Try to keep him calm.”

“Lex,” Elgin says, teeth chattering, “you never made me calm a day in my life.”

“Let me get this blanket on you, okay? You ain’t got no shirt.”

“I feel like I ain’t got no arm.”

Pete takes the 95th Street off-ramp and navigates side streets; it’d be faster to take the Skyway, but he doesn’t want to be picked up by the cameras on the toll road. Here, he can turn the squad’s lights around for a good five miles until he reaches the Indiana border; it’ll be nearly as fast, and he won’t chance being noticed by anyone who isn’t trying to get out of the way. Anyway he knows this route, and somehow the destination seems fitting.

In the back, Elgin says, “This is all part of the game, right Lex?”

“I don’t know, Elge. I think this right here is personal.”

“Personal
is
the game, now.”

“Yeah, seems that way, since Ervin been gone.”

“I did right by Ervin. Gave those boys—Cee and them?—everything when I had it, no problem. But they ain’t reciprocalic. ’Cause I get out the joint, and now I got nothing, and turns out they the ones who took it all.”

“I told you, these kids play ruthless. They didn’t learn no respect like we did. For elders and such.”

“No matter—if I can’t trust my own boys, that mean I got to assume everybody’s playing.”

“I ain’t playing,” Elexus says. She strokes his hair.

Elgin coughs, wet like before; whatever drug he was on when Pete found him is probably wearing off, letting the pain come on strong. “Lex, I’m stove-up.”

Whatever that means worries Elexus, because she finds Pete’s eyes in the rearview. “We almost there, right?”

“Almost,” Pete says, and steps on the gas. Strange, the solidarity he now feels with the man he’d meant to kill. Turns out the game fucked them both up, no matter how they played.

The two go quiet in the back, though when Pete reaches the Indiana state line and slows to the speed limit, he hears Elexus humming again. He figures they’ve got ten more minutes to the hospital. He isn’t proud, but it’s the best way: to leave them out here, safe, but far enough from the city to buy him a little time.

A few minutes later Elexus says, “This don’t look like Chicago.”

Pete tells her, “It’s East Chicago,” which is the truth, however misleading.

A few minutes after that Pete follows the signs for St. Catherine, the hospital where his father died. Bone cancer. At first, his doctor thought he was anemic, and then maybe depressed—both of which he probably was, since he had fucking bone cancer. The remedies were mistakes. Time was lost. He was admitted and gone.

Pete was here every day. It was a shitty six weeks.

He turns onto Grand Avenue where Washington Park parallels the hospital’s parking lot. He was here in the park every day, too. It was the only place he felt like he could cry, and he always felt like crying, even though he never did.

When he’s close enough to see the hospital, he pulls into a diagonal spot between two other cars, park-side.

“The hospital’s up there,” Elexus says, as if Pete were confused. “Why ain’t we pull up to the front door?”

Pete isn’t about to make an entrance accompanied by the supreme bitch, which is exactly what will happen if he tells Elexus they’re parked here to keep hospital personnel from wondering about the squad, so instead of an answer he gets out, opens the back door, and reaches for Elgin’s feet. “Help me. Sit him up.”

Elexus does as she’s told and on three, Pete hoists Elgin over his shoulder; he’s a featherweight, thanks to his habit, and easy to carry.

Elexus pulls up her boots and slides out of the back.

“Get his coat,” Pete says, starting to the entrance.

He carries Elgin to the double doors and when they slide open, he turns his face from the overhead camera. Inside, it’s quiet, but one pair of eyes is too many, so he situates Elgin in the closest waiting-room chair, kneels in front of him and takes his pulse, his back to the room.

“What do I do?” Elexus wants to know.

Pete covers Elgin’s shoulders with his dirty white jacket. He says, “Go to the desk. Tell them he’s got a gunshot wound to the scapula. He’s in shock and his pulse is thready.”

“Thready?”

“They’ll know.”

“You say so.”

When Elexus goes to the nurses’ station, Pete just goes.

*   *   *

Pete arrives home as AM780 pauses for the midnight time-tone and switches to national news. He turns off the radio; he’s got no mental space for the rest of the world’s problems. It was hard enough to listen to the local broadcast during the drive, hoping for the breaking story of a missing boy found while dreading all other possible variations.

He’d started the drive in silence as he tried to reconnect the pieces of Joel’s disappearance minus Elgin Poole, but every time he placed the one where a stranger used Joel’s walkie-talkie, the whole thing fell apart; if there was no calculated crime, there was only coincidence, and all that was left was the unbearable feeling that Joel was gone for good. Even factoring Butch into the equation didn’t help; without a motive, there was no other conclusion.

But for Pete, there will be consequence. No matter what becomes of Joel.

He backs into the garage; he’ll stow the car and deal with the mess in the morning—assuming he’s still here in the morning. Tonight he just wants to go in and see his girls. While he can.

He kills the engine and gets out of the car and nearly eats shit when he stumbles over the wash bucket Joel must’ve left by the side door after he bathed Butch however many days ago. For a kid who remembers nearly everything, it’s pretty convenient that he forgets to clean up after himself.

Remembers. Forgets.
Pete worries that the use of the present tense is only hopeful.

In the backyard, the porch light glares at him.

At the base of the steps, he stops to pick up the rolled-up rubber newspaper toy that Sarah bought and Butch ignored—the sensational headline reading
MAN BITES DOG
. Though Pete was happy Sarah made an effort, he was happier Butch seemed to share his distaste for the media. He kicks the toy out of the way.

Upstairs, the kitchen light is on; he’ll bet Sarah is in there, a glass of wine. He hopes so. He needs to make the effort. He should have before.

“Hey,” McKenna says when Pete opens the door. She’s sitting at the kitchen table and when she sees him she says, “Fucking Christ, what happened to you?”

If the squad contains evidence that could be used against him, the clothes Pete’s been wearing for the past two days could convict him. He bends down, unties his boots. How can he explain? He can’t. Anyway, he didn’t come home to confess; just to witness. He kicks off his boots and asks, “Where’s Mom?”

“In the shower.”

He takes off his coat, notices the room still reeks of Indian food. “It smells like a deli in Delhi in here.”

“It’s gross,” McKenna says. “It’s in my hair.” She brushes her locks back—they’ve got some curl to them now; she must have shampooed and let them dry naturally, without the shellac.

“I like your hair that way,” he says.

She looks down at the mug between her hands. She’s never taken a compliment of his well.

“It’s curr-y,” Pete says, a lame joke, but anything for her smile, even if her eyes could roll right out of her head.

“What are you drinking?” he asks, rounding the opposite side of the table.

“It’s coffee.”

“You don’t like coffee.” At least he’s never seen her drink it.

“I hate coffee. But I need it. I can’t think straight anymore.”

“Welcome to my world.” Pete goes to the fridge, finds an unopened container of half-and-half. “You taking it black?”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re a tough girl.” He gets a mug, pours himself a cup. He lifts foil from a plate on the counter and finds cookies that smell like coconut-covered Indian food. “What are these things?”

“Nan-khatai? Something like that. Sandee brought them.”

“Don’t we have anything normal? Marshmallows?”

“You call that normal?”

“I guess I don’t know what’s normal anymore.”

Pete opens the mostly empty snack cabinet and digs around behind the reduced-fat peanut butter, the boxes of flavored gelatin. In the way-back, he finds a package of vanilla wafers.

“Oh god,” McKenna says, “that old lady probably left them.”

“I don’t think these things go stale. They aren’t made of anything real.” He pours cream into his coffee, brings the tray of wafers to the table. “You want one? You know you want one,” he says.

She doesn’t. He hopes it isn’t because of the calories. Then he realizes maybe what she does want is to talk, and not just coat the silence with a running commentary.

He picks out a wafer and leans against the counter while he stirs it around in his cup and he says, “What a fucking day,” because it’s what he really wants to say.

“I don’t even know what fucking day it is.”

“Maybe you should try sleep. Instead of coffee.”

McKenna sips her coffee and it’s clear she’s forcing it. “Sleep, says the man who holds me responsible for all this.”

The frosting layered in the papery cookie sticks in his mouth, paste. “Oh, McKenna. On the phone yesterday? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said those things—”

“You were right. Joel was there, at Zack’s. He followed me.”

“How do you know that
now
?”

She sits on her hands, studies the striped pattern on the vinyl tablecloth.

“McKenna?”

“I knew, when you called. I mean, I knew as soon as I got home Friday night that Joel had been in my room. He was on my computer. He must’ve seen—he must’ve found out about Zack’s. I didn’t tell you then because I didn’t want to get in trouble. And then I didn’t tell you because I went online and this one boy—this boy I don’t know?—he posted that Zack would rather face time than face the 4CH, which is like some gang. The gang, they were at the party—that’s the reason Zack made everybody promise not to talk to the cops. But then online, kids from the party started commenting on the boy’s post, and somebody said Linda Lee talked to the cops, and then that same boy said his gang was going to find her and kill her too, right after the kid and his dog.”

“And you didn’t think you should tell me that.”

Her shoulders find separate, timid ways to shrug and she says, “Everybody wanted to know
what kid?
And one of my friends messaged me that she heard it was Joel, with Butch, and wanted to know,
was it?
But I totally denied it was, because I don’t really know if that girl
is
a friend. I didn’t tell you anything after that because I was afraid. Because, I mean, there’s some fucking gang after my brother now? Because of me?”

“What do you mean, because of you?”

“I, uh.” She’s doing that thing now that Sarah does where she can’t possibly look at him. But when McKenna does it, it kills him.

Still. “McKenna. What are you telling me?”

“I met this boy, a friend of Zack’s? He said he heard you’re a cop, and that his cousin is a K9 in Texas, and that he has a license to keep drugs for training. I told him you had that, too. Then he said I should bring some to Zack’s party—”

“You stole from me?”

“No, I couldn’t get into your locker.”

Pete’s the one looking at the tablecloth now.
What. The. Fuck.

“The thing is? Joel asked me about Zack before I left that night. I blew him off—I honestly didn’t think anything about it. But now I think he must’ve been spying on me, and that’s why he followed me.”

“Who is he? This boy you’re so willing to steal for.”

“He’s just, he’s someone from school.”

“Zack Fowler is just someone from school and he’s in fucking jail. Does this boy have a record, too? Is he in this gang?”

“I don’t think so—”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t. I mean, I don’t know him all that well.”

“But you’ll steal for him? Is this another one of your so-called
friends
?”

“I thought, I guess I thought that he liked me. Or maybe I wanted him to like me.” Sitting there, she looks so much like Sarah, heart-stumped.

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t want to get him in trouble. I’m the one who stole.”

“I thought you
didn’t
steal.”

She looks at him, finally. “When I couldn’t get into your locker, I stole some of Sarah’s pills.” Her tears hit the vinyl.

“What’s his fucking name.” Pete gets up from the table, phone from his pocket, a weapon he’s ready to wield.

“No—Dad—please. He didn’t have anything to do with it—with Joel, or with Aaron. I know he didn’t because he was in the house. When Aaron was shot? He was with me. He was the one who burn rushed me.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” Pete grips the edge of the table. To keep himself there. “What. Is. His. Name.”

“He isn’t even the one who asked me, exactly. It was Zack—he said this boy liked me. And that I should do something gutsy to show I liked him too. So I stole the pills. And after that, things just spun. I don’t know how. But I do know it’s my fault everything’s gone this way.” She puts her elbows on the table, head in her hands. “I’m sorry.”

He rounds the table, gets next to her. “McKenna, you don’t get to say sorry for being selfish and be selfish all over again. Your brother is missing and you aren’t going anywhere until you tell me—about the boy, the party, what you saw, what your friends saw—everything.”

She wipes her eyes, plea turned to pout. “The only reason I told you anything is because I don’t want Joel to be the one to do it when he gets back.”

“Why do you say it like that?
When he gets back.
Last time we talked you said I was going to bring him back. What makes you think he’s coming back at all?”

“Haven’t you talked to Sarah?”

“What? No. What?”