Long chapter. Cursing and just general trouble and hilarity.
A Bluff
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The next morning's rough. Steve and Two-Bit had gone home about four in the afternoon yesterday and I had promptly went to bed. Day drinking never does anyone any favors.
In the kitchen, I chug water, chase aspirin, and sit at the table. Skull pounding, I think about Sodapop and Sandy and my stomach twists.
"Have fun yesterday?" Darry asks, entering the kitchen. Freshly shaved, he's in jeans and a white t-shirt. He starts making coffee. "Soda called, said Steve left work and never showed back up."
"So. What does it matter?"
Darry frowns. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
I stand and trip over the leg of the chair. Darry grabs my arm, steadying me.
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"We're off their case. Officially. They don't want anything to do with us."
"But—but he called it. He knew it. What's their problem?"
Their problem meaning the Tulsa PD's. Since the explosion of events, someone's decided they don't want anything to do with the Tulsa World. They don't want anything to do with Willy Wiese.
"They're worried about credibility," Max drawls. "Sure, they wanted us when they had nothing, and now that they have the boy, they think he'll talk. Give them some surefire clue and lead them to the Tulsa Terror."
"Hell, Nick called it in," I say. "We found him." Even though it's meant to be a secret, it's still an annoyance. Wiese, Nick and I, we found Bradley Miles, not the fuzz.
"I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Max says. "You gotta tell me things, kid. Keep me in the loop so I can help. Get you out of sticky situations."
"Yeah," I say. "That would have come in handy last week."
"I'm real sorry about your hand. It can't be easy but you're a champ. Or some shit like that." Max ashes his cigar, done with his inspirational speech. He asks, "So with the fuzz out, you know what this means?"
Slowly, I say, "There's no deal."
"Yup. Cops pulled the agreement. Wiese goes back on death row."
I think. Chew the inside of my lip, not ready to give up.
"Max?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"We can still work it can't we? The paper could?"
"We could."
"If Willy Wiese still wants to see me, the cops can't stop him, right?"
"Yup. You're just a visitor. No harm in that."
I smirk. "So let's do it then."
"What makes you so sure he'll talk to you?"
"I ain't sure. But I'll try. Let's get the story and solve the case."
"Kid, I'm beginning to like the way you think."
If I could see Max's eyes from behind the dark sunglasses, I'm sure they'd be twinkling.
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Twenty minutes into it and it's not going well.
"You said you liked that I was honest, so I'll tell you. The cops aren't working with us anymore. There's no deal. But I'm hoping you'll still help us."
"Now why would I do that?" His drawl is long and eerie.
"Because a kid is still missing, he's—"
"He's dead. They'll find him soon."
I wince. Wiese's demeanor is distracted; he's already over it. "But if they guy's still out there, you could at least point us in the right direction."
"I ain't gonna do that, My Boy."
I close my notebook. "Yeah, I figured."
"I need a deal. I need to avoid that chair. I'm not ready to meet my maker."
"Why? Because you were such a saint when you killed your entire family?"
"Careful My Boy, that ain't fair play."
"I'm not here anymore, remember?" I stand, calling his bluff. "Fair's a bunch of bullshit."
The guards let me out. I don't look back.
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"God damn it!"
I sink onto the couch and cover my eyes. Allen Rogers has just been found on top of the Ridge. His body mutilated and shredded. I pinch the bridge of my nose and sit like that for a long time.
OoO
Tulsa's a scary place at the moment. A city-wide curfew's been imposed – anyone under the age of 18 has to be indoors after 10 o'clock. For once I'm on the other side of the curfew, but something in Darry's face tells me he wishes I weren't.
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He's outside in his yard fixing a model airplane. "Hey," I shout over the white fence. "You Bradley Miles? Can I talk to you for a minute?"
He shuffles over, embarrassed. His right arm's clean gone below the elbow; the shirt arm tucked and stapled like the Vets on the street corners downtown. "What's it to you?"
"I'm with the Tulsa World but—" I put a hand out. "This is off the record. I swear." And I mean it. Max can go take a flying leap. I'll get the info I need and keep the poor kid out of it.
"Man, leave me alone. You guys are just a bunch of vultures…" He turns to leave.
I try again. "Hey, listen… I ain't doin' too hot myself. I know what it's like to be where you are. And I swear I just want information. I want to find who killed Allen Rogers."
Bradley stops, his shoulders slumping. It's a total dick move when I position the stick just so he sees it, but hell, I'll do what I can for a good cause. He turns, eyes widening.
I say, "I want to find out who did this to you."
Bradley Miles, a thin, scrawny kid with dark hair, walks back over to the fence. His left hand wraps itself around the white picket. He looks trusting, innocent. God, I hope I can help him.
"You're with the newspaper?"
"I am."
"Are you even old enough to work there?"
I laugh. "Yeah, I work there. But I'll only say what you want me to say. Or nothin' at all. Got that?"
"Yeah," he says, opening the gate to let me in. "I got it."
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"It's all a blur. It's like…numbness. Most of the time he wasn't even there. He stayed away…but I could hear him at night. He was like a zoo animal…just prowling around…watching."
Bradley glances up as a bird caws, cutting the silent air. He moves his right arm, like he's trying to grasp for something; I doubt he remembers it's even gone. I nod and Bradley continues, talking slow and pained. Clearing his throat he says, "The stuff he did…the sick stuff…hell I can't even explain it. I don't—I don't even remember him taking my arm. I just blanked."
"Brad, you don't—"
He keeps going. "I didn't really see much when I was there. It was dark and he kept me blindfolded. He tied me up to…a chair, I think. I could hear things…"
"What kind of things?"
"The knife he used. It was big, like outta a comic book. He'd say these weird prayers in the middle of the night. Sometimes I heard a rumbling…I thought it was his car but I can't be sure…"
"Anything else?" I jot all this down on a small notepad.
"It smelled weird. Like something burnt." He shakes his head. "I can't remember too much. It hurts too bad."
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, it's okay, Curtis." he says, sounding braver than I'm sure he feels. He laughs. "I'll just tell people I was in 'Nam. It ain't so bad." His eyes drift to me. "So what happened to you?"
"Car accident," I lie. I cough and rub my chest, slickness moving in the back of my throat. I grind the cigarette I'm smoking out on the pavement.
"Man, it must've been a bad one."
"You could say that." I flip my notepad shut. "And you told the cops all this?"
"Yeah. Told 'em the exact same stuff." He rolls his eyes. "Who knows what they're doin with it."
Something protective tightens inside. Bradley Miles' dark eyes reminding me of Johnny's; scared, hurt. But there's also a strength the boy has and that's a relief.
"We'll find this guy. We'll find who killed Allen."
"I didn't know him – Allen – you know that? Never met him before in my life. When he was first brought down there…he was just some guy and now…now I'll never forget him." His eyes water and he glances off to the right. "Ain't you with the paper?" he asks in a thick voice.
I shoot him a crooked smile and swallow the lump in my throat. "I'm on your side. No one else's."
And I mean it.
Bradley's left hand shoots out to find my good one. It's clammy, his face young and terrified. "I trust you more than anyone, Curtis. I don't know why, but I just do."
OoO
The Christmas decorations are out and in full force. Soda shows me a gift he wants to buy for Liz and I nod. I wonder what he'll buy for Sandy.
It's awkward with Sodapop now. Now knowing what or how to say it neither Steve nor I have brought it up. Steve spends more nights at Evie's and gives Soda the cold shoulder. Soda doesn't mention it. Who knows, maybe he's glad for it, he doesn't have to explain anything to anyone.
"Hey," Soda says, as we walk down the main drag. "You okay? You've been quiet lately…"
"Ain't I always quiet?"
He grins. "Yeah, well more so than usual, kiddo."
We walk a block in silence, until I say, "Hey Soda?"
"What kid?"
"You buying anything for that girl of yours?"
"I ain't got a girl, Pone." He ruffles my hair. "You know that."
OoO
Even though it's the second week of December I lace up and go for a run. I try. I leave my stick in the car and I move decently. It's not much, a slow gallop, but it's a start.
Then halfway around the track, my side and my back seize up. Like an ice pick the cramp tightens. I double over, eventually managing to straighten up. I walk lamely back to the Ranchero. I close my eyes, sitting there for a few minutes then I head home.
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"Pony?" Liz says, holding out the phone when I walk in. Darry's at the table, plans spread out on top of it, a cold beer next to him "It's Max."
Darry's eyes are on me when I limp across the room and take it. "Yeah?"
"Wiese changed his mind. He wants to talk to you. He'll work with us, Curtis." I hear Max grin over the phone. "I think he missed you."
"Swell. So what next?"
"Get up there tomorrow. Buy the guy dinner, make small talk, get the scoop. You know, journalistic ideals."
"Right," I say, hanging up.
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"You changed your mind?" I slip into the familiar chair.
"Yes, I have. I reckon, I help you and get some company out of it or I help you and get a deal." Willy chuckles. "After da cops see what I give you dey'll come crawling back."
I smirk inwardly, Willy's still up to his wheeling-and-dealing ways.
"Those men that came around…" Willy wrings his hands. "They be back."
"Yeah," I say. "Tell me something I don't know. Tell me about the Tulsa Terror."
"Ahhh hooo," he wheezes. "'Dat be the worst name. I nearly shit my pants when I read that."
"Again, tell me something I don't know."
Willy's mouth turns up into an ugly grimace. "You don't know him. You don't see his face in your dreams like Willy does. He's got eyes that could cut glass…" He draws out glasssss and I shiver. "He just takes up. Picks dem up. Who he likes. Tulsa's in for a hell of a winter. I hope you can stay warm."
I shrug off the references, most of them lost on me. "Who is this guy?"
"I can't know yet. I see…I see…" He shuts his eyes, pounds the table. "He wears a uniform; he waits and watches, he stays in da shadows but moves up high into the light…"
It sounds like a bad horror movie but I don't laugh.
"You said all that before."
"Now write dis down, My Boy. You'll need it. When you see the head of JFK, you're close. He'll be near. Then there's an explorer. Someone who found the new land…" Willy opens his eyes. "Don't worry, when I get more you'll be da first to know."
I don't know what I'm doing here. Sitting in a jail cell, waiting for a murderer who claims he's psychic to pass along key information no one else has. I must be a goddamn idiot but still, here I am, too stupid to give it up. Darry already thinks I'm nuts and who am I kidding, I probably—
"It'll get easier," Willy says. "The more you come here, the more I tell you. You'll believe. You'll believe me. You'll believe all of it."
I rub my jaw, caught off guard, my thoughts echoed in Willy's statement. "Kinda full of yourself ain't you?"
"Oh, My Boy, we all are with our own special talents…you should know that."
Shrugging, I reach for a pack of smokes and Willy starts. "Oh, oh, oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Touching his chest, he closes his eyes again. When he opens them they're wild.
"The pen," he snarls.
I hesitate, remembering the Cherry Hills incident with Lester, but then hand it over. Willy dips close to the table, pulling my notepad away and starts scribbling. His hand goes 'round and 'round like a child's and when he's done he sits up and shoves it my way.
He's drawn a dark circle, colored and filled in. Willy has his eyes shut. "'Dis."
"What? This what?"
"'Dis dark spot will swallow you. It'll grow. I warn you now, My Boy, no more white sticks or you won't even see it comin."
Then like a warning I open up my mouth to tell him he's crazy only to cough instead. Red spews from my mouth, I catch it in my hands.
OoO
"There's nothing," Kathy says. She holds up a film to the light. "You're fine, Ponyboy. Although, I don't know what in the world you're doin' picking up the smokes after last time."
I take the film from her. She's right. It's clear. "Sorry," I say. "Listen, thanks Kath, for sneaking me in here."
Kathy smiles, her cheeks plump and rosy. "In this hospital no one's ever gonna know." She rests a hand on my knee. "You stop though, okay?"
"I will. I'm done." Whether or not Willy Wiese is right I'm not taking the chance to find out. The blood alone was enough to scare me, taking me back two years.
"Good. Now you oughta get home and get cleaned up," she says. "You look like you've been in a slaughterhouse."
The entire front of my shirt is drenched in bright red. I wipe at it but it's dry. "Yeah," I say. "Guess I should." I slide off the table and grab up the stick. I crumple my pack of cigarettes in my fist and trash them.
"Pony?" Kathy says, her green eyes wide. "You don't think these murders are going to keep happening do you? I promised Two-Bit I wouldn't ask you but I'm just…I'm just scared."
"They might. They really might, Kath."
She gives a curt nod like she's deciding whether or not to ask me anything else, when her face brightens. "Hey!" she says. "I hear you're taking Two-Bit out next week for one last fling."
"We are, though I'm not too sure what we're doing exactly."
"Aw, you'll figure it out. He's happy as long as there's beer."
"You know," I say and laugh. "You're the only nurse I'll ever like."
Kathy giggles; she'll make a good wife. "That's the best compliment I've ever got, Ponyboy Curtis."
OoO
Words keep turning over in my mind on the drive home. When you see the head of JFK, you're close. He'll be near…
"What the hell does that mean, Willy?" I mutter.
I'll admit, he scared me bad. With the words and the blood and the creepy drawing, Willy Wiese is making me into a believer.
I turn on the street where the DX is and catch Soda hopping into his truck and speeding off. Seeing the opportunity arise, I take it. I slow the Ranchero and I follow him.
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I don't really get it when Soda pulls up at the playground. I park a block down, keeping my brightly colored car out of eyesight, grab one of the expired Tulsa World's and the cap I tried to fool Willy Wiese with from the dash of my car and walk the perimeter of the playground. I choose a bench, decently out of Soda's line of vision. I'm a walking cliché from those old detective movies my dad used to watch. Sighing, I shake out the paper and pretend to read.
Soda walks across the gravel, kicking rocks, and when he sees her, he smiles.
She climbs out of some car, bundled in a heavy sweater. Sandy looks exactly the same as she did in high school. Maybe a little curvier and a bit harder but she's still pretty enough, her eyes that soft blue. That's when two things hit me at once – Sandy's bringing a little girl out of the backseat and she's wearing a wedding ring. A big rock on her left hand.
Soda gives her a kiss and then Sandy's picking the little girl up, cradling her in her arms. My brother's smile fades a bit as Sandy makes introductions, and I bet this is the kid. The kid that undid it all.
Still, Soda's a good sport; he leans close, his words muted. The little girl smiles and buries her face against Sandy's arm. "Oh, Soda," I moan. "What're you doing?"
Jesus, I picked the wrong day to quit smoking.
Soda and Sandy look like the goddamn prom king and queen. They sit on a bench, their backs to me, and Sandy lets her daughter run off to play on the monkey bars. Watching the two of them is like watching a train run off the tracks in slow motion. I can't believe my brother. Soda, screwing around with a married woman, and it's Sandy no less. It's not that Soda's a saint, I just expected better from him. I never thought he'd do something like this.
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"It's lookin good, Dar…" Soda says, giving a whistle and evaluating Darry's workspace. The trailer's warm and now fully equipped to have Darry work in it. "Really coming together, wouldn't you say so, kiddo?"
"It does," I say to Darry because I can't stand looking at Sodapop. "It really does, Darry. Now you just need a nameplate."
Darry chuckles.
"When do you expect to be up and runnin'?" Soda peers out the blinds.
"Well, we're gonna keep it low key for now, get the crew in, work out of the trailer…but I'm thinking maybe early spring." Darry beams, sticking his hands in his pockets. "We even got ourselves our first job."
I listen as Darry tells us about his first customer. Some hot shot lawyer who's building a house a few miles out of town.
The phone rings, and Darry steps away to answer it. The tension's thick in the air; I haven't called or seen Sodapop for a week. He's picked up on it, his eyes on me.
"You want to grab lunch, Pone?" Soda checks his watch and flashes me a smile. "I have to be back at work at about one but I can swing it."
"I'm sure you can."
Soda frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
I shake my head. "Never mind."
"No…" He moves closer. "Hell, you've been acting weird for the last week…did something happen? Are you in trou—"
"No. And it's not me, Sodapop."
"What's with you guys?" Darry asks. "I've never seen you two this quiet." Soda looks just as confused as Darry.
"Nothing," I say. "Nothing. Look, I'm late for work. I gotta go."
I bump into Steve pulling into the gravel lot on my way out. And while I think it's odd he's there, I just give him a wave and he cuts his engine.
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Pardon typos.
Please review. Maybe you'll get a bonus chapter later in the week. (Bribe!)
XO,
Feisty
