The Wonder Lodge lay just off the main casino strip, on a dingy sidestreet that housed a laundromat, two betting parlors and a fried-chicken shop. The motel itself was an old motor-court lodge, each of the rooms of its two stories facing a parking lot made of broken asphalt, and what looked the remains of a swimming pool, now cracked and half-filled only with dingy brown rainwater. The sign facing the street had once sported neon racers, but they were not lit up in the glaring afternoon sun, though its marquee proudly proclaimed "Rooms by the Week, Day or Hore!" She wondered if the misspelling was intentional.
The place had certainly seen better days as had -- a quick look through the parking lot confirmed -- most of its residents. There were a number of rusted-out, American sedans parked crookedly in the lot, with the Starsky and Hutch era well-represented. Several of the second-floor rooms had laundry draped over the common balcony railing, and there were three separate clumps of dirty kids chasing each other and a mangy, dust-colored dog around the open, un-fenced-in pool, with no apparent supervision.
Good. Lord. If Ryan had led her to a trailer park, it couldn't have been more of a cliche. She tried, and failed, to picture him as a snot-nosed kid, chasing Trey around a hopefully-cleaner pool right here. No, Ryan was probably locked in a room somewhere with a book, unless he'd changed drastically over the last few years.
She glanced over to the passenger seat, where Ryan was eyeing the screaming kids with distaste.
"Home sweet fucking home," he muttered, and for the first time, Summer actually saw him squirm a bit with embarrassment.
"You know, I always think it's nice when people are loyal to the same spots, even when they go downhill a little. I mean, Daddy still takes us to Cabo every Spring, even though that's so not the hot place to go anymore," she babbled. Could she sound any more like Cohen if she tried?
Ryan glanced at the back seat, where Dawn had slumped over on her side, her arm now bleeding lightly from where she'd been scratching at it rhythmically in her sleep.
"Yeah, that's my mom," he said dryly. "She's really into the classics."
"Do you have any idea . . . ." She started to ask.
"No. None at all. I'm going to have to wake her up," he answered tightly.
Carefully, as though he were about to poke a sleeping tiger, he reached his arm into the back seat and gently stroked Dawn's thigh. She jumped at his touch, and Ryan jumped at her reaction.
"Ry? Jesus Christ, baby, you about gave me a heart attack! How many times does Mama have to tell you not to wake her up?"
Summer wasn't sure that Dawn was all there.
"Mom? Mom, it's Ryan. We're at the motel. You need to give me your key, so I can get your stuff for you," he said, his patient, sing-song voice returning.
Not for the first time, Summer gave a silent thanks that the step-monster was mostly a do-it-yourself drunk, with only an occasional assist required for an away pick-up.
"What? No, honey, no. I'm fine. You don't need to walk me home. I can take it from here. I'll tell A.J. you said hi," she muttered, still scratching.
Ryan sighed as she waved him off.
"Really, I'll be just fine. I just have to make a quick stop, and everything will be fine."
"Ma -- Dawn -- you can't stay here, remember? Remember we talked about this? We're going to get your stuff and then take you to a nice hotel. They're going to help you feel better. Remember that?" he asked, a little desperately.
Dawn snorted and started to look around for her missing purse.
"Oh, honey. There's no need for that. I'm perfectly fine," she said.
"Mom. Don't you remember court? The judge? If you don't do this, they're going to put you in jail," he said, more urgently.
She reached forward, and Ryan looked like he was going to recoil, but she just patted his cheek clumsily.
"Ry, you always were my good one, weren't you? They're never going to check. They don't care about me, kiddo. I'm small potatoes. You can go back to your rich family and your fancy school -- you don't have to worry about me."
Summer watched as the small spark of something she had seen dampen down at the sheriff's office finally died out in Ryan's eyes. He closed them, seemingly to concentrate on his careful, shallow breathing.
"Mom, I do worry about you. I'll always worry about you. This isn't how you want to live, trust me. Let these people help you. Let me help you. Please," he added, and Summer saw a flash of hate and pain and fear and guilt all at once when he opened them again. At that moment, she would have chosen to be nearly anywhere else in the world -- Algebra class, mid-bikini wax, a dinner with Caleb Nichol -- if it meant she did not have to be in this car one moment longer.
Dawn smiled at him vacantly.
"Please, Mom, please," he repeated. "I can't leave you here. I can't. Not like this. Let us take you to Sagewinds -- it sounds really nice. You don't have to pay for a thing. And, when you get out, you can get a place closer to home -- closer to me and Trey -- leave A.J. here," he was begging, and it seemed wrong to Summer that she was still a witness to this. "Please."
Dawn seemed to look at Ryan for the first time since they'd gotten into the car.
"Don't be so upset, kiddo. I'm all right. Really. But if it'll make you feel better, I'll give this Tradewinds place a try. No harm, no foul, right, Ry?"
"No harm, no foul, Ma," he echoed weakly. "Now, let me go get your stuff."
He reached down for the vinyl purse wedged under the driver's seat at the same time Dawn did, but his reflexes, even stressed out and tired, certainly beat those of a woman in the early stages of the DT's.
"C'mon, Ry. Knock it off. I'll just go talk to A.J., and get what I need. You and your girlfriend can wait here," she said.
Ryan just grunted and opened the bag, sticking a reluctant hand into it.
"Am I going to get stuck, Ma?" he asked, and Dawn shook her head, irritated.
"No. You know they took everything . . . "
Ryan interrupted her with a snort of triumph.
"Ha. Room key. Number 110, it's down the end of the row, it looks like," he said to Summer, pointing out an empty space beside a black Pontiac Fiero. She carefully put the car back into gear and angled into the broken spot.
"You know you can't go in there, Mom. You know why. Just let me get your stuff for you," he said again. "Is A.J. going to be home?"
The corners of Dawn's mouth were still drawn down, but the fine tremors were starting again, and Summer could see that she was starting to lose focus again.
"Fine, whatever. Don't forget to get the stuff under the mattress -- you always forget that," she said with a pout.
"Mom -- A.J.?"
She shook her head as she started to scratch her other arm, watching her own fingers with fascination.
"He's usually at OTB this time of day," she said.
"Won't he wonder where you've been?" Ryan asked, and Dawn shrugged, refusing to look at him.
"Probably not. I called him last night before I called you -- he wouldn't come and get me," she muttered. "Bastard."
Ryan sighed, and clutched the room key in his hand.
"Yeah, you really got yourself a winner there, hunh, Mom?" he said under his breath.
He hopped out of the car without another word, the old-fashioned key on its wooden key chain dangling from his finger. He made his way to the corner room with no trouble, and opened the battered, leaning screen door. Before he inserted the key in the lock, however, the inner door swung open.
Oh, that was probably not a good sign. Not at all.
Before Ryan could move, or react in any way, the man -- it had to be A.J. -- emerged onto the breezeway. This was not some Harbor School water polo player. This was bad.
The man was huge -- the top of Ryan's head barely cleared his nose -- with the kind of upside-down muscles Summer had only ever seen in prison movies where some cast member from the Valley became some gang member's bitch. Adding to the effect was the flannel shirt, its sleeves torn off, and the huge tattoo that wrapped around his bulky arm, which looked, at least from a distance, to be a dragon or a snake wrapped around some Gothic letterings. Seth would probably know exactly what gang that represented, but Summer didn't especially care.
He was in bare feet, and dirty jeans, and his greasy hair was done up in what she always privately thought was a modified Elvis -- a bouffant-y, D.A.-type thing that somehow -- and improbably -- managed to look not the slightest bit effeminate on the man.
"What the fuck do you want, Baby Atwood?" he roared, and Summer could hear him even with the windows rolled up and the engine and air conditioner on. "I thought you were livin' the life of Riley up in alzado Newport Beach. If you're looking for that slut bag of a mother -- she ain't here."
Summer didn't know what to do. Behind her, Dawn was watching the scene unfold silently. If she was Cohen, would she be out there, trying to have Ryan's back, or in here, trying to keep an eye on his mother? Crap.
She fished around for her purse, which Ryan had tossed to the floor at some point, never taking her eyes off the confrontation before her. At the very least, she'd find her damn cell and be ready to call 911. Although, who would that get in trouble? Ryan? Dawn? A.J.? All three? Double crap.
"You see the almeja, buddy boy, you tell her she owes me a shitload of cash, you comprende?"
Summmer realized that A.J. was holding a bottle of beer loosely between his fingers.
"Don't call her that," Ryan snapped.
Call her what? Why hadn't she taken Spanish class when she'd had the chance. Stupid French. Stupid seventh-grade trip to Paris.
Without even bothering to take the weight off his back foot, A.J. backhanded Ryan across the face, hard enough to make him stumble.
"Oh-ho. Look who's grown some aguacates up there on the beach, hey, manito?"
Ryan shook his head, his back still to the car, but Summer thought she saw blood fly.
"Leave her alone," he said. "She's not coming back. I'm just here to get her stuff."
"Since when do you run her errands for her, Baby Atwood? She ain't gettin' shit from me. Not until I get what's owed me."
"Oh yeah, owed you for what? For having her run your drugs for you? Big man. And then you leave her in jail? Just give me her stuff, A.J., and you'll never have to hear from us again."
Ryan made what looked like an aborted attempt to get around the mountain of flesh and through the front door, but A.J. pushed him back, sending him to the ground. He was up before Summer really had time to register it, and was standing before A.J. again, fists clenching and unclenching.
"I don't owe you shit, dickwad. You hooked her back on the junk!"
With a casual movement, A.J. threw away the bottle in his hand. It landed by Summer's front, right tire, and she jumped. Behind her, in the rearview mirror, she saw Dawn look up from the lesions on her skin and look around dully.
"What's A.J. doin' home?" she asked.
"I don't fucking know," Summer snarled. "Apparently, kicking your son's ass."
With another casual movement, A.J. slapped Ryan again, this time with his other hand. This time Ryan was able to stand his ground.
"Watch your mouth, there, manito. I didn't make her do nothin' she didn't already want to do. What did you think it was gonna be like after you left? All sunshine and fuckin' roses?"
Summer wished she could see Ryan's face, but his body language was freaking her out enough. His back, under his t-shirt, was stiff and tense, and his hands continued to clench and unclench.
"I. Didn't. Leave," he hissed, each word a separate, poisonous syllable. "I got kicked out, remember? And then, when I tried to come home, you were gone -- just like that -- no address, no nothing. What the fuck was I supposed to do?"
"Yeah, well, if you'd really cared, you'da been here before now, right, manito?"
With an inarticulate cry, Ryan launched himself at the older, bigger man, but to no avail. Calmly, almost mockingly, A.J. caught Ryan and pushed him back, before winding up his fist and connecting, hard, against his nose. Ryan's head snapped back, his body following in slow motion. He fell backwards to the pavement, and didn't get up again. Almost casually, A.J. lifted a bare foot and poked at him, then kicked him, hard--once, twice, three times in the side.
"You gonna act like a man, you better get up and fight me like one, guero"
Summer heard Ryan groan, and saw his head start to shake back and forth. As he began to pull himself to his knees, A.J. reached down and slapped him, open-handed, upside the head.
Summer wanted to throw up. She'd seen Chino throw down before, she'd even seen him get his ass kicked, but this was like watching a cat with a mouse. He was completely outmassed. And A.J. obviously knew which buttons to push.
This guy could kill Ryan without half-thinking about it, and Ryan, being Ryan, would never back down. For the first time, it occurred to Summer that Ryan wasn't just playing a role as some tough kid from Chino. He really was a tough kid from Chino. Jesus. It was painfully obvious that this was not the first time this particular scenario had played itself out.
"Jesus Christ, A.J.! What the fuck? What do you think you're gonna do -- sell her crappy clothes and a box of pictures on Ebay for millions? Just give me her fucking stuff already, and I'll leave you the hell alone," he said in a surprisingly strong voice.
Summer shuddered as a slow, cold smile crossed the big man's face.
"What's it worth to you, manito?" he asked as he reached down and hauled Ryan up by his shirt collar, setting him on wobbly feet.
"What's it worth to me? You want me to pay you? For the crappy stuff my mom already owns?"
A.J. reached out to slap him again, but this time Ryan countered, knocking the arm away.
Summer was impressed. She'd be crying for her mother by now. Of course, her mother wasn't sitting in the backseat of an SUV, picking disinterestedly at her arms as her younger son got his head knocked into the pavement, either.
A.J. came at him from the other side, and this time Ryan's head rocked at the blow.
"Fine. Whatever. You can have whatever I've got in my wallet, A.J., please. Just let me get her stuff and get out of here,"
A.J. looked a little disappointed at Ryan's acquiescence, but then that same slow smile crossed his face again.
"Oh, I'm taking that anyway. Your mother's fuck-up cost me a big chunk of the A.J. Vasquez Retirement Fund. What else you got, chupamondo?"
At the last word, his voice dropped low, and he leaned into Ryan's dazed face, crowding his space.
"Fuck you, A.J.," she heard, and then she saw a wad of bloody spittle land on the bigger man's cheek. Oh, that wasn't smart.
Without another word, he pulled his arm back and hit Ryan as hard as he could. For the next minute or so, Summer couldn't even identify what A.J. was doing to him.
This was nothing like the movies. There was no soundtrack, no wacky chair-breaking noises, and apparently, no cavalry. She had no idea what to do, and she was appalled to learn that it was possible to tell the difference between the whisper-dry sound of a fist hitting an arm or leg, and the wet plop of a first hitting a bloodied face.
A.J. was breathing hard, with Ryan limp in his grip, dangling from his shirt collar. Summer was about to say to hell with it and call the cops, when the large man looked up and seemed to zero in on her SUV. Up until then, he apparently had not cared enough to wonder how Ryan had managed to show up on his doorstep in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. In Nevada.
He dropped Ryan--who fell with a thud to his hands and knees, retching--and sauntered over to the car. For the first time, Dawn seemed more than a disinterested, whimpering spectator, and Summer scrambled to engage not only the electric locks, but the child-proof latches in the back seat. If Ryan didn't want his mother out there, Dawn was not getting out of the car.
A.J. leaned in towards the driver's window, and Summer wondered, fleetingly, how hard someone would have to hit a glass window to make it shatter.
"Get away," she ordered, aware of how ridiculous she sounded. "Leave us alone."
A.J. chuckled and looked into the backseat of the car.
"There's my bad girl," he said in a voice that put every hair on Summer's arm to attention.
"Hey, Baby," Dawn cooed, "I got in some trouble, babe."
Summer saw a bloody Ryan lurch to his feet and stumble towards the car.
"Get away from them, A.J.," he said in a hoarse voice, and the larger man turned in time to push him down again, this time onto the rough parking-lot surface.
"Or what, manito? You gonna run into my fist again?"
"A.J., you gotta leave Ryan alone now. He's just helping me out. The courts -- the courts say I gotta go away for awhile," Dawn continued, oblivious. "You can keep the rest of the stuff. Just let him get my box and some clothes. C'mon, lover, you and me, we can even party together while the kids are inside packing up."
Oh, good Christ. Summer was beginning to think that the step-monster deserved the biggest box of legal pharmaceuticals she could find next time they were in TJ, just for being not this much of a skank.
A.J. looked for a moment as if he were considering it, then shook his head, regretfully.
"Sorry, babe. You know my stuff is worth more than a five-dollar fuck from a backalley whore. Whaddya gonna do?"
Please, somewhere there was a Valley marathon waiting just for her. Somewhere far, far from this conversation.
"Ryan, Ry? I need you to help your Mama out, kiddo. Give A.J. what he wants," Dawn ordered, her voice slurring as her shakes started to increase.
Summer looked down at Ryan, sprawled out and bloody against the black of the parking lot, and recognized something in his bloody, beaten face.
It was the same feeling she'd gotten when, at age nine, her father sat her down and told her that his new wife wanted to go to Cabo, and not Disney World, for Summer's upcoming birthday. It was the same feeling she'd gotten when her beloved father put her on the Atkins diet, at age eleven, after the step-monster complained that her pre-teen curves were making it impossible for Summer to be seen with her in public.
It was the realization, that somehow never grew less bitter over repetition, that something -- hell, that everything -- was more important than you. She was pretty sure that, if they had their way, she and Ryan would be a united force in making sure that Cohen never even knew that such a sentiment was in the realm of possibility.
A.J. looked down at the boy at his feet with a smirk before hauling him upright on his knees for a second time in less than ten minutes.
"What's the matter, mariquita, eh? You didn't tell your pretty little girlfriend here the rules? What's the rule, manito?" he asked, as he began to lay open-handed blows on Ryan's face again. "What's the number one rule?"
Finally, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and staring up at his tormentor with fire in his eyes, Ryan spat, "If you want to party, A.J.'s got to come."
Okay, as mottos went, that was pretty stupid, but she wasn't sure what all the . . .
Fu-uck.
"Leave him alone," she ordered again, panicking, but Ryan turned his face away from her. "Seriously. Leave him alone."
What the hell was wrong with, well, with every single person in Ryan Atwood's whole life, for starters. Who would make a kid do something like that?
"Jesus Christ, A.J.," she heard Ryan say softly, "You don't even want her anymore. I'm just trying to get her some help."
She heard him take a deep breath, and then pull himself painfully to his feet.
"Whatever. Just, can we take this inside at least, before someone calls the goddamn cops?"
His eyes never left the ground and he sounded utterly defeated. Behind her, she heard Dawn start to whimper.
"Don't you hurt him, A.J." she said. Oh sure, now. It was a little late for that, wasn't it, Dawn?
"Ryan," Summer finally said, unwilling to believe that this was really happening, "What the hell are you doing?"
"It's fine, Summer," he answered, in the same tired voice. "It'll be fine."
He turned to A.J. and gestured towards the door as best he could.
"Give me one goddamn second, would you, and then we can get this over with."
Now seemingly magnanimous, A.J. nodded and lumbered back towards the door of their motel room.
"See ya in hell, bruja" he called cheerfully to Dawn over his shoulder, then nodded politely at Summer.
"Ryan, what the . . ."
"Shut up, Summer. Seriously. You cannot fuck around with this guy. Just let me go pay him, and we can get out of here. He's not going to hurt me anymore, okay? Just -- don't get out of the car. For anything. And don't let my mom out, either. Especially my mom. I'm in no shape to get between them."
He looked at her admiringly and attempted a smile, but grimaced as his split lip caught his teeth.
"Hey, that was smart, with the door -- the locks -- I mean," he said. "Thanks."
And with that, he turned on his heel and limped into the dingy motel room, shutting the door behind him.