The Drowning Game (9 page)

But the conversation with Dooley and Randy King kept rolling through my mind. Something was fishy here. Petty could obviously take care of herself, but she was more alone than anyone I'd ever met.

I put the truck in gear and pulled out onto Broadway before pity could overwhelm me. I switched on the radio, hoping to wash away the picture in my mind of that lone girl and her sad suitcase. My life was turning around, and I didn't need any complications. No matter how beautiful she was.

At a stoplight, I pulled the cash she'd given me from of my pocket and fanned it out. Ten one-­hundred-­dollar bills.

A horn honk from the rear startled me into hitting the gas and moving forward, but I was so rattled by the wad of bills that I had to pull off the road.

Traffic whizzed past me as I wrestled with what was left of my conscience. A thousand dollars would get me to Kansas City, and buy some great stage gear and plenty of good feelings from my bandmates. But Petty had given me nearly one-­third of all the money she had in the world. Surely she didn't mean to give me that much—­maybe she'd thought they were tens instead of hundreds.

On the other hand, maybe this was the universe's way of telling me the band thing was going to work out, of urging me on toward stardom. Maybe this was a karmic gift for helping out the town weirdo.

But even as I thought this, I knew it was bullshit. I knew it was a justification to rob this girl who was truly desperate in a way that I would never experience or fully understand. She was going to need every dime she had. This was not my money. I had to go back and return it.

I made a U-­turn, cursing the angel on my shoulder.

I
BOUGHT MY
ticket, pushed open the restroom door and, after I'd investigated every stall, walked into the last one. Luckily it was large. I wedged my suitcase between the toilet and the wall then sat on it. Unless someone got on his knees and looked under the door, I was invisible. From my bag I pulled a paperback and started reading but saw I'd become too engrossed and my OODA Loop would disappear entirely. I put the book back in my bag and promised myself I'd get it out once the bus crossed the Nebraska state line.

It was going to be a long night. I sat listening, turning over in my head what I would do if Randy King came busting in there. My back ached from sitting awkwardly, but I hoped it would help me stay awake and alert.

Twenty minutes later the restroom door opened and I heard high heels on the linoleum. Then I heard the stall doors being pushed open one by one. And finally:

“Petty Moshen? Are you in here?”

I held my breath, sitting silent and still. More clicking high heels coming toward my stall. A tinny knock on the stall door. A female voice Randy couldn't fake. “Petty Moshen?”

“No,” I said.

“Aren't you the one who just bought a ticket to Detroit?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are,” she said, irritation peppering her voice. “Come on out here. There's a man who wants to talk to you.”

How had he found me?

“Please,” I said. “Please tell him I'm not here.”

“Come on out of there, now.”

“Please,” I whispered.

“He says he has something of yours.”

Has something of mine?

“Does this man have a big mustache?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I'd probably notice if he did. This kid doesn't look like he could grow any facial hair at all.”

Dekker?

The woman huffed. “Now come out of there. I need to get back to work.” Her shoes made brisk sharp sounds as she walked across the linoleum and out the door.

I got to my feet and unlocked the stall. I went to the restroom door and peeked out. A blur of passengers—­all ages, sizes, and races—­trooped wearily past carrying suitcases and backpacks. In the midst of this migration stood Dekker.

“Come out of there,” he said.

I scanned the crowd once more. “Is anyone with you?”

“It's just me.”

“What do you want?”

He rolled his eyes. “Would you just come here?”

I hesitated, then walked into the lobby, keeping an eye out for Randy or Mr. Dooley.

“Nobody's here,” Dekker said.

“Why did you come back?”

“I was at the last stoplight on the way out of town,” he said, “and I started wondering.” He lowered his voice. “What could make a girl so desperate she'd kidnap a delivery boy and then turn around and give him a thousand dollars? And all day I kept thinking you had a smudge on your face, but then at some point you turned your head and I saw what it really was.”

I put my hand to the cheek Randy had slapped.

“So I had to come back and return your money and make sure you were going to be okay.”

In that moment I had an odd sensation in my chest and arms. They were tingling. I realized what it was. I wanted to hug Dekker, and it was very nearly a physical pull. Which set off alarms.

“I'm fine,” I said. “And I won't take that money back. That's yours. You earned it. I threatened to shoot you.”

He seemed to mull this over. “When does your bus leave?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten forty-­five.”

“What are you going to do until then?”

“Sit in the bathroom,” I said.

“How about you come with me instead?”

I looked at him and then away. My muscles all seemed to loosen then, while my stomach simultaneously contracted. Everything jumbled in my head, the signals in my body contradicting each other, jockeying for control. What was going on? “Come with me” sounded comforting, thrilling, and terrifying at the same time. My dad hadn't trained me for this.

“I don't know if I can trust you,” I said.

“I didn't take you to the police, so that should tell you something right there.”

“Maybe that's where you're going to take me right now,” I said, but I didn't really mean it.

“I know a place you can stay tonight, and it's not the county jail.”

“I don't think I should—­”

“It's safer and more comfortable than a bathroom. Come on.”

I thought about how Dad had said I could trust Mr. Dooley, and I could trust Randy King. But he'd also said, “You judge a man by his actions.” The way those two acted was not honorable. Dekker, on the other hand, had come back for me, and tried to give back the money.

These were trustworthy actions.

It seemed Dad hadn't been the best judge of character. Maybe I could do better. Maybe I could figure out who to trust all on my own. I went in the bathroom, got my suitcase and hauled it out to the lobby.

Dekker picked it up.

“Let's go,” he said.

I followed him out the door.

 

Chapter 13

A
S
I
LED
Petty out of the bus station, I wondered if I was making yet another mistake. But I felt confident that for once I was doing the right thing. It didn't have anything to do with how good-­looking she was.

We got in the truck.

“Just don't ask me any questions,” Petty said.

“Deal,” I said. “And don't threaten me with bodily harm.”

“Deal,” Petty said.

“This girl I'm going to call I haven't seen in over a year.” I opened my phone and dialed. “But we're old pals. She's from Saw Pole too. Did you ever know Ashley Heussner?” I shook my head. “No, of course you didn't.”

A raspy voice said, “Hello?”

“Hey, Ash. It's Dekker. I'm in town and I wondered if me and a friend could crash there tonight.”

A prolonged squeal made me pull the phone away from my ear. Petty's face showed alarm, so I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and said, “Everything's okay. This is her way of saying she's happy to hear from me.”

“Dekker! I've missed you so much! Why haven't you called? I can't believe it's really you! Yes, yes, yes! Come to my place and we'll catch up! It'll be so much fun!”

I kept trying to interrupt and cut the call short, but Ashley made it impossible. “Okay—­okay—­when's a good—­”

“Just come on over. We'll go out and get shit-­faced. You're buying, right? You owe me! You know you owe me!”

“Okay. We'll see you soon.” While she was still talking, I clicked end, pocketed the phone and said to Petty, “You have to do that. She'll keep talking. She's probably still talking.”

Then I pulled out the wad of hundreds Petty had given me. “I can't take this.” I held the bills out to her.

“Yes, you can,” she said. “I'm not taking it back. I can't tell you how sorry—­”

I held up a hand. “Let me explain how this whole apology-­slash-­forgiveness thing works. You say you're sorry, and you really mean it. I say that's all right, but, like, please don't point a gun at me ever again. And you say I won't, and you really, really mean it. And then we move on. But please take your money back.”

“No.” She turned away and looked out the windshield.

“All right, then,” I said, but I felt like I was taking the last remaining vial of a diabetic's insulin. “I'm taking you out for dinner, and you're going to order whatever you want to eat and drink, and I'm paying.”

The silence that greeted this made me turn toward Petty, whose lips were trembling.

“You okay?” I said.

“Yes.”

“You have any favorites? Places you like to eat?”

She shook her head and turned it toward the window.

“Ashley said to come on over. Would it be cool with you if we made a stop? I need to get some more cigarettes if we're going to Ashley's. She only smokes OPs.”

“OPs?”

“Other ­people's.”

“That's fine,” Petty said.

We pulled into a Walgreens lot, parked and got out. I remembered not to wait for Petty to go through the door first and walked inside past the automatic sliding door toward the beverages. I turned to say something to her and realized she was not beside me. I backtracked to the front of the store, where I found her standing and staring with her mouth open.

“What is it?” I said.

She gestured. “This,” she said. “I've never been inside a store before.”

“Never?” I said, a little too loudly. I wondered what it would be like to see a place like Walgreens for the first time, dazzled by all the products and colorful packaging in real life instead of on TV.

She was so awed, in fact, that she turned in circles—­she must have been so happy to be out in the world that she was twirling. I hoped she'd stop soon, because it was a little embarrassing.

“You want anything?” I asked her. “Soda? A snack?”

“I'm thirsty,” she said.

I led her over to the drink case and she stared at the rows of energy drinks, sports drinks, flavored teas, sodas and water.

“You want a Coke?”

“Never had one,” she said.

Had she ever eaten Twinkies or Doritos or any of the staples I grew up on? I didn't want to ask, to draw more attention to her weirdness.

“How about a bottle of water?” I said.

“Okay.”

I handed her a chilled bottle of Aquafina. Up at the counter, I asked the clerk for two packs of Camels and paid for everything with my new cash.

“Thank you,” Petty said as we walked out the door.

I nodded. As we stepped onto the sidewalk, two guys on skateboards whizzed toward us at high speed. I reflexively reached for Petty's arm to pull her out of the way.

What came next happened so fast I barely had time to process it. Petty brought her arm up whip-­smart, instantly and painfully breaking my grip on it, then bounced backward with her fists up. Just as quickly she dropped her hands in front of her, embarrassed when she saw the skater boys and realized I was only trying to keep her from getting creamed.

“Whoa!” I said, impressed. “Do that again!” My finger and wrist bones rang from the force of her movement.

Petty shook her arms out and avoided my eyes. “No,” she said.

“Do you know like kung fu and stuff like that?” I couldn't disguise my admiration, didn't want to. This girl was a straight-­up badass.

“Listen,” she whispered. “I'm not used to having ­people touch me.”

Before I could stop myself, I let this sink in too far and felt the girl's loneliness and isolation so acutely I wanted to run from her.

“It's cool,” I said. “Don't worry about it.”

I led Petty back to the truck and unlocked her door. Then we drove to where Ashley lived, a large, old brick house with a patchy front yard.

Petty followed me up to the front door, next to which were five mailboxes.

“Why does she have all these?” she asked, pointing.

“They aren't all hers,” I said. “The house is divided up into apartments.” I smiled. “You know, hanging out with you is a little like hanging out with E.T.”

“Who?”

“Don't tell me,” I said, incredulous. “You've never seen
E.T.
? E.T., the extraterrestrial? You know, ‘E.T., phone home!' ” I said that last bit in my best approximation of E.T.'s voice, but it came out sounding like Donald Duck.

“I know what it is, but I've never seen the movie.”

“The whole world has seen it,” I said.

“My dad wasn't real big on kids' movies.
A Clockwork Orange
, yes. Disney, no.”

A Clockwork Orange?
Wow. “You have a lot of catching up to do.” I looked at the mailboxes and pointed at the one labeled H
EUSSNER.
“She's in 1A.” I opened the door, and inside was a stuffy tiled foyer divided by a staircase. Somebody's TV was blaring behind one of the doors on either side the stairs, 1B to the right and 1A on the left. I knocked on 1A.

The sound of the TV lessened. “Yeah?”

“It's Dekker,” I called.

The door flew open, drawing with it a billow of smoke which then rebounded outward. The smell hit me like a two-­by-­four to the face. But then the sight of Ashley's face whacked me even harder. It was just a skull covered in scabby skin. She was shockingly thin, and her hair was greasy and dry at the same time, yellow with brown roots. Her eyes shone unnaturally bright.

I'd made a huge mistake bringing Petty here.

Ashley lurched toward me and clutched my arm with her skeletal, nail-­bitten hand. “Dekker!” she squealed, and pulled me toward her. She planted a big kiss on my mouth with flaky, dry lips. Her breath smelled like nail polish remover and cigarettes.

Just as quickly and before I could stop her, Ashley pushed me away and reached for Petty, who jumped backward.

Ashley rolled her eyes at me and then said, “Hi, Petty.”

I didn't like the way she said Petty's name, like she was spitting out some gristle. This was not the sweet girl I remembered. This was somebody else. I knew Ashley had heard the stories about Petty's strangeness, but the old Ashley would have acted more charitably toward someone like Petty. Even though Ashley was somewhat competitive with other girls, she'd never been nasty like this.

It was going to be a long night.

Petty fixed her eyes on me. “You didn't tell me she was a methamphetamine addict.” She turned to Ashley. “How long have you been using?”

The flicker of rage on Ashley's face appeared and disappeared like a haunted house black-­light flash of lightning.

“Whoa!” I said. “What a kidder this girl is, huh?”

Petty said, “I'm not—­”

“Jeez, Ash, crack a window,” I said, taking Ashley by the shoulders and twirling her away. Petty couldn't know that in real life, unlike on TV, you never called out an addict unless you had a van and a cot waiting. You pretended she wasn't an addict, even with clear evidence staring you in the face. I'd never actually put words to this phenomenon, but it was as if Petty had been put on earth to expose everything that would show up on a bullshit meter.

I glared over Ashley's shoulder at Petty and shook my head, hoping she'd get the hint. She looked bewildered.

Ashley took a big drag of her cigarette and blew directly in my face then laughed. It wasn't the laugh I remembered. She literally laughed—­“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha”—­her voice brittle and rough.

“Come on in,” she said with an arm sweep. Then she ran around the cluttered living room snatching up piles of clothes, which she pitched through a door on the other side of the room. “I was just picking up.” She emptied ashtray after overflowing ashtray into a paper sack. “Gotta save these,” she said as she went. “I have to save them and get the leftover tobacco out of the butts to roll some more. I can't afford to buy any right now, and it's not like I'm going to give it up.”

While she was doing that, I watched Petty turn in a slow circle, her eyes scanning every inch of the room.

Ashley picked up stacks of magazines and carried them through the kitchen doorway. “I wasn't expecting you so soon,” she called.

The sound of water running and dishes clanking came from the kitchen. Petty bent and looked underneath the couch.

“You told us to come on over,” I called back through the doorway, wondering what exactly Petty was searching for.

Ashley laughed. “That's right. Time got away from me, I guess.”

“Can I help with anything?” I asked.

“No, no, you two make yourselves at home. I'm going to finish up in here and then we can go out and get a beer.”

“Listen,” Dekker said. “You sure it's okay if we stay here?”

“Of course,” Ashley called above the splashing and clattering.

“Thanks,” I said. “We can't stay out too late because Petty's got a bus to catch in the morning.”

“Whatever,” Ashley said. The water turned off. “I'm going to get cleaned up and then we'll be off.”

She disappeared again and I heard the shower turn on.

“Do you think she'd mind if I changed the channel?” Petty asked, pointing at the TV.

“Go ahead,” I said, and went into the kitchen. The counters were piled with crusted dishes, food from possibly weeks ago. The smell was gag-­inducing. I could almost hear the cockroaches in the walls scratching to get out and feast. I opened some of the cabinets and found nothing but spices and a few cans. In the refrigerator was mustard, a bowl full of green fuzzy mold, and a carton of milk with an expiration date of two weeks ago.

The sound of changing television channels drifted in through the kitchen doorway until I heard the familiar minor-­key theme song of
Offender International
. I returned to the living room and found Petty standing with her back to the wall, eyes riveted on the TV.

“You okay?” I asked her.

She shrugged. I could tell she didn't feel safe here. I probably should have taken her to another of my friends' places in Salina, but they were all guys, and I didn't think she'd be comfortable in a man cave. Ashley was the only girl I knew in town.

I sat on the couch and watched the show until Ashley reappeared looking like a whole different person, almost like her old self. She wore jeans and a jeans jacket, had on makeup, and her hair was curled. She was almost pretty.

“So let's go, let's do this,” Ashley said, lighting a cigarette.

“You ready to go, Petty?” I asked.

She didn't move, her eyes on the TV.

Ashley took a drag off her cigarette and stared in Petty's direction.

A glance at the clock on the wall told me that about three minutes remained in the episode.

“Hey, Ashley,” I said. “Do you have your yearbook from my senior year handy? I want to show Petty our pictures, show her what she missed.”

Ashley squealed. “It's in my room. I'll go get it.”

She went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

On the TV, Detective Mandy Quirke was telling the killer how she knew it was him. The killer sobbed into his hands. As the uniforms handcuffed him and led him out of the interview room, Mandy's partner said something clever and the black screen that says “Created by Bob Blaine” appeared. Petty turned off the TV.

I stuck my head in the door Ashley had disappeared through. “Never mind,” I said, “we can find it later. Let's go. I'm hungry.”

On the way out to the truck, I asked Ashley, “So where you working?”

“Well,” Ashley said, dragging on her cigarette before crushing it out on the walk. “I was working at Schwan's, but I got laid off.”

Right. Laid off. I turned my face away so she wouldn't see my skepticism. As if she'd notice. I unlocked the pickup. Petty opened the passenger door, pushed the seat forward and sat on the little shelf seat behind the buckets, letting Ashley have shotgun. I totally understood why Petty didn't want Ashley to sit behind her. Ashley probably struck her as the kind of girl who was handy with a garrote.