Stay At Home Dead (23 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Allen
59
I pushed open the door and stepped out into the sticky, humid afternoon air, irritated, angry, and wondering exactly how heavy that swatch catalog was. As I headed for the minivan, I noticed a car coming into the lot. Not just any old car, though.
Odell Barnabas’s truck/station wagon.
He pulled up in front of me, leaned across the passenger seat, and through the open window said, “Hey, Ace.”
“Hey, Odell.”
“Get in,” he said.
“No thanks. My car’s right there.”
Plus, I didn’t have time to self-administer a tetanus shot before jumping in.
“Come on,” he said, waving me in. “I wanna show you something. It’ll only take a minute.”
Isn’t that what the pedophiles say?
The thing was, Odell Barnabas was next on my list of people to talk to. Based on what both Shayna and Deborah just told me, I wanted to find out from him exactly what he thought of Reggie. Not that I expected anything substantial, but I wanted to cover all the bases before I talked to Victor again.
I opened the door, and it creaked as it swung open. He waved a hand across the seat, knocking several Styrofoam cups and a newspaper to the floor. Against my better judgment, I sat down and closed the door.
He pulled the wagon out of the lot and turned right. His hands were tight on the wheel, and he looked much more tense than when I’d seen him before.
“What’s going on, Odell?” I asked. “You look kinda funny.”
As soon as it came out of my mouth, I hoped he wouldn’t take that the wrong way. Or right way. Or whatever.
But if it hit too close to home, he didn’t react to it. In fact, he kept his eyes straight ahead and his fingers clamped to the wheel.
“Odell?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out when we get there,” a voice said from behind me.
I twisted in the seat.
Buried under mounds of old clothing, fast-food bags, and other assorted things that belonged in a garbage can was Reggie Hamlin, pointing a gun at me.
60
We drove north out of Rose Petal, around the lake.
“So,” I said. “You guys working together now?”
“No talking,” Reggie said from his covert spot in the trash.
I glanced at Odell. He was tight-lipped, his jaw set. And either a gnat buzzed his nose or he gave me a barely noticeable shake of his head.
As a kid, I was always a daydreamer. Drifting off, thinking about playing in the NFL, saving some beautiful girl, or fronting a band in front of a hundred thousand people was not an unusual way for me to spend an afternoon. But in all those years of thinking about totally ridiculous, far-out situations, never did I ever think I’d find myself riding next to a guy with the worst toupee I’d ever seen, held captive by a college kid beneath a pile of garbage.
Maybe I just hadn’t been very imaginative.
Reggie didn’t want any talking, but I assumed he’d already instructed Odell where to go, as he seemed to know where he was heading without any word from our captor.
I admit, I was a little nervous. I’d never had a gun pointed at me before, and I was being held against my will. But there was this buzz in my brain that kept telling me this seemed more like a cartoon gone bad than something that was putting my life in jeopardy. Ignorance can sometimes be its own reward.
We circled around the side of the lake into an unincorporated part of the county. The landscape was patchy. Overgrown lots, forty-year-old ranch homes, roadside stores that had either seen better days or had always been wishing for them. Every few years some developer made noise about dropping a bunch of homes in the area, but the lack of infrastructure and roads running out to the highway would eventually be too much to overcome. As a result, the north end of the lake had become a mishmash of a community. College students, drug dealers, loners, and a bunch of other folks who didn’t want to be classified as anything.
It was exactly the kind of place I
didn’t
want to be with Odell and Reggie and a gun.
didn’t
want to be with Odell and Reggie and a gun.
Odell turned the station wagon onto a dirt road, and we bumped and hopped our way about a quarter of a mile, until the tires crunched to a stop.
A dilapidated trailer home sat among several humongous oak trees. The trailer was actually at an angle, the left side lifted up on several sets of cinder blocks, the right side resting on the dirt. A door hung loosely in the center of it, a giant pink smiley face painted on it. It looked deserted.
“This is my place,” Odell said.
“You live here?” I asked.
“Couple years now.” He shrugged. “No air-conditioning, so it gets hot, but other than that, it works out pretty good.”
There was absolutely not a single detail about Odell’s home that looked pretty good.
“I’m gettin’ out the back,” Reggie said, rustling around in the back. “You both stay put until I come around to the front.”
I heard him scoot backward, open the gate, and step out.
“He thinks I got more money here, Ace,” Odell whispered.
“Do you?”
“Not a penny, Ace. And he’s gonna be mad as a hungry rooster when I tell him.”
From bad to worse.
I caught a glimpse of Reggie coming up along my side of the car in the passenger-side mirror. “Don’t say anything, then.”
“Ace, he’s gonna ...”
“Just keep pretending, Odell.”
“I don’t get why he’s doin’ this,” Odell said. “If he needs money, I coulda lended it to him.”
Reggie tapped on the window with the gun and motioned for me to get out. I did, and he used the gun to guide me to the front of the car.
“Now you, Odell,” Reggie said, his eyes on me. It was clear that he viewed me as a bigger threat than Odell. Smart guy, Reggie.
Odell got out of the driver’s side and joined me at the front of the car, patting down his pompadour.
“What’d Shayna and Deborah tell you?” Reggie asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
Reggie smiled. “Please. Those two couldn’t keep their mouths shut for a million dollars.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m gonna guess they told you a little too much,” he said.
“You could tell me it’s not true,” I said.
“And you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Probably not.”
He kept the gun pointed at my chest. “So let’s not do that.”
“What are you two talking about?” Odell asked, his face screwed up in puzzlement.
Reggie stayed silent.
“Reggie killed Benny, Odell,” I said. “And he stole your money. Benny’s and Billy’s, too.”
Odell stared at me for a long moment, attempting to absorb my words. The expression on his face, though, made me wonder if I’d accidentally spoken in a foreign language, because he was looking at me like he hadn’t understood a word I said.
“Killer Kids was a sham,” I said.
Odell blinked. He moved his glance to Reggie. “You took my money, Reg?”
Reggie stayed silent.
“And you killed Benny?” Odell said, pressing, his tone uncomprehending.
Reggie’s mouth twitched, but he kept it closed.
“And you weren’t serious about Killer Kids?” Odell said, a bit louder now. Then he shook his head, like a four-year-old who was putting his foot down. “No way. I don’t believe that. No way.”
“Believe it, Odell,” I said. “And if I’m guessing right, he’s the one that clubbed me on the back of the head at the school, too.”
“You two can shut up right about now,” Reggie said, moving the gun from me to Odell and back to me. “Odell, where’s the money?”
“Killer Kids is gonna be awesome,” Odell continued, as if he was pleading to an investor that could make his dream a reality. “One of a kind. I mean, other than Tough Tykes. Why wouldn’t you believe that?”
“Shut up, Odell,” Reggie said.
The fact that Reggie hadn’t bothered to deny anything so far indicated to me that what Shayna and Deborah told me was indeed true. Reggie was the igniter of the flames that had burned through my life the previous few days. But I still wasn’t sure why.
“I won’t shut up,” Odell said, taking several steps past me, now closer to Reggie than I was and apparently unafraid of the gun Reggie was holding. “Killer Kids will work! And I want my damn money back!” He edged closer to Reggie.
Odell’s lack of fear caught Reggie by surprise, and he appeared uncertain how to handle it. He centered the gun on Odell but took a step backward.
“Why’d you take the money, Reggie?” I asked. “You gave me that whole song and dance about having to work at the store because of your father and school.”
Reggie’s eyes were pinballing between Odell and me. “I’m sick of working, and I’m sick of school, man. But if I quit either one, my dad would cut me loose. And those two broads were getting to be too much for me. I gotta get the hell outta this dumb-ass town, anyway.”
“So you just decided to steal?” I said.
Odell was inching toward Reggie, and Reggie was inching backward, as if the gun he was holding was just a water pistol.
“Benny should’ve minded his own business,” Reggie said. “Should’ve stayed off the computer and out of my stuff.”
A breeze blew in, rustling the old oaks. Normally, I wouldn’t have heard that. But with the three of us standing there, alone and isolated, the movement in the trees was as loud as someone banging a drum in my ear.
“I want my damn money,” Odell reiterated.
Reggie’s eyes—and the gun—were locked firmly on Odell. I wanted to tell Odell to relax, but I knew that having Reggie’s attention focused elsewhere could be an advantage for me.
“You lied about Bob,” I said, just to keep him talking.
Reggie’s eyes narrowed. “I what?”
“You lied about Bob.”
Odell turned his head a fraction in my direction. “What about Bob? Is he all right?”
“You and that stupid cat,” Reggie muttered, more annoyed than amused.
Bob was, in fact, the one that truly confirmed to me that Reggie was behind everything. As he’d strolled over and lain down next to me during Shayna and Deborah’s wrestling match, something occurred to me. The first time I met Reggie, he told me that Bob didn’t go near anyone and that he’d freaked out when Odell attempted to catnap him. That led me to think two things. Bob was an okay cat, and Odell had been fired for another reason.
“You didn’t try and steal Bob, did you, Odell?” I asked.
Odell’s shoulders twitched. “Uh, actually, yeah. I did.”
I still had some things to learn about being an investigator.
“Reggie hates that cat, Ace,” Odell said. “Couldn’t stand to see him get treated like that. So I wanted to take him home.” He refocused on Reggie. “I thought you woulda been happy that I wanted Bob. I couldn’t believe you fired me.”
“I was just looking for a reason, you moron,” Reggie said, sneering at him. “I wanted your ass outta there, and you trying to take that damn cat with you gave me all I needed to can your dumb butt.”
So I’d gotten it half right. He wanted Odell gone so he’d be out of the way and unable to check the computer, like Benny had.
“Odell, I’m not kidding,” Reggie said, lifting the gun a little higher, reemphasizing that he was holding a gun. “Give me your money or I’ll shoot you.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to give you, Reg,” Odell said, inching forward again. “And I want what you took back.” Odell took another step. “Killer Kids is gonna happen!”
“Odell,” I said. “Relax.”
But I could see he’d already made up his mind. Gun or no gun, he was going after Reggie Hamlin.
He charged, and I was right behind him, trying to grab him and keep him from getting shot.
But Odell was quicker than I ever would’ve given him credit for. He was out of my reach and on top of Reggie before I could get my hands on him.
Reggie was either too surprised or too afraid to fire the gun. Odell crashed into him, grabbing onto the hand Reggie was holding the gun with. They did kind of an awkward dance, spun in a circle, the gun pointed straight up in the air, and then collapsed to the ground.
I was locked in on the gun as I sprinted toward them. Reggie hadn’t fired it, but I knew it was more likely to go off now that things had gone downhill. All I wanted to do was take that thing out of commission and make sure it couldn’t hurt anyone, a move that would take a desperate act on my part.
As I dove on top of them and entered the fray, I grabbed the one thing I could think of that might do the job.
I ripped Odell’s toupee from his head and smothered the gun with it.
61
Reggie was no match for the two of us.
Odell was punching at his face, I had the gun pinned under the pompadour, and we were both on top of him, several hundreds pounds that were making it tough for Reggie to breathe.
His fingers loosened on the gun, and I pulled it out of his hands with the toupee. Reggie immediately brought a hand up to his face to defend against Odell’s punches. I rolled off the pile.
I’d never held a gun before. I was very un-Texan in that regard. They scared the heck out of me, and I wasn’t looking to change that.
I pushed to my knees, wrapped the gun up in Odell’s hair, and heaved it as far away from us as I could.
“Nice throw,” a voice said from behind us.
I twisted around.
Victor was standing there with Detective Willie Bell.
“About time,” I said.
Victor looked at me, then at Odell pummeling a now lifeless Reggie. “Seems like things are under control.”
Bell moved over and pulled Odell off Reggie, whose nose was now bleeding from both nostrils.
“Those two chicks at the rug store filled us in,” Victor said. “They saw you get in Odell’s car, so we thought we’d come out here and make sure you guys were okay. Came in the back way so no one would shoot us.”
“I thought you were with Jillian.”
Victor shook his head. “I dropped her off. I knew you were heading to the rug store. I could tell when I left you.”
I pointed at Bell. “So he’s not here to arrest me?”
“Nope.”
Bell pulled Reggie to his feet, slapped the cuffs on him, and gave a satisfied nod. “Just happy to have this all taken care of.” He marched off, Reggie Hamlin in tow.
I’d roll my eyes at him another time.
I got up and dusted myself off.
Odell sat up. He was as bald as Victor, and seeing him without the toupee was just creepy. As strange as the rug was, I’d grown accustomed to seeing it on his head, and his appearance changed dramatically without it.
He touched the corner of his mouth, then looked at me. “He really take all that money, Ace?”
I nodded. “I think so, Odell.”
“Think I’ll get it back?”
“I have no idea.”
He gave a slow nod. “Think I could have Bob now?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m not sure, but I’ll bet that’s a possibility.”
“Where’s the gun, Ace? And my hair?”
There was no embarrassment in the question, and I liked him immensely more for it.
“It’s over there,” I said, pointing. “By your trailer.”
“We’ll probably need that gun,” Victor said.
Odell stood and trudged over to the crooked trailer. He picked up the toupee and walked back to me. He unspooled the pompadour and handed me the gun.
“Sorry I threw it,” I said. I motioned to the hair. “Your ... that.”
“It’s okay, Ace,” he said, looking sad. “I’ve got another one.”
Victor joined us, and I handed him the gun. I f igured he had a better idea of what to do with it than what I did.
“I ask you a question, Ace?” Odell said, rolling the toupee over in his hands.
“Sure.”
He squinted into the sunshine. “You think Killer Kids was a stupid idea?”
Guns and kids was about as stupid of an idea as I’d ever run across. But there was something about Odell’s earnestness, his sadness at the idea that his idea might’ve been fruitless from the get-go that prevented me from telling him that.
“No,” I said to Odell. “I think you had a good idea.”
Victor turned away, presumably to hide whatever bemused expression was gracing his mug.
Odell’s face brightened, and he stood a little taller, his entire mood buoyed by my statement. “I thought so, Ace. I thought so.”
He headed toward the front door of his crooked trailer, the one with the pink smiley face on it, then turned around when he got there. “And you know what?”
“What’s that, Odell?”
“When I open Killer Kids, I’m gonna give you a free membership,” he said, nodding. “Make you a charter member.”
“That’d be nice.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course, you’re still free to buy in, Ace, if you can come up with the dough.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll figure it out. You can count on it.”
I did not doubt him.
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