The Hard Bounce - страница 59
Junior was right, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. I opened the car door and got out. “Go, then,” I said. “Step the fuck off.”
Junior’s tipping point tipped. He kicked his door open and faced me across the car roof. “Goddamn you, Boo! This girl? This fucking little dead girl? It sucks. It sucks worse than anything I’ve dealt with since The Home. But you know what? It had nothing to fucking do with us.” Junior smacked his open palm on the hood of the car. He folded his arms, shook his head, and dropped the bomb. In a quiet voice, he said, “This girl? You gotta realize something, Boo. She’s not Emily.”
Bang.
All the blood raging in my ears. All the adrenaline pounding in my veins. All of it dropped in a single heartbeat into the pit of my stomach like a mouthful of mercury. Hot tears welled up in my eyes, but I fought them back. I wanted to scream. I wanted to curse and start swinging on him. My best friend. My only family. I wanted to make him hurt like his words did me. But I couldn’t. There was something hard and pointy lodged in my throat that made it hard to breathe, harder to speak.
Because he was right.
He threw his hands up in the air. “There. I said it. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but you’re blind to your own goddamn motivations. So you can listen to me and think it over or you can tell me to fuck off again. Your choice. Say the words, and I’m gone.”
I stared down at the concrete, trying to fight back the anguish Junior’s words had brought up from the bottom of the hole I’d thought I’d buried it in. “You’re right.” My voice came out in a hollow rasp. “You’re right.” I lit a cigarette with numbed fingers. I had a hard time looking up at him. “Maybe… maybe I’ve been screwed in the head with this thing all along. But you’re right, either way.”
“Good. So let’s give this shit up for the night, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow. Sound good?” Junior climbed back into the driver’s seat.
I followed him into the car. As suddenly as everything had come to a boil-all of the anger, the adrenaline, Junior’s coffee-it all rushed out my system just as quickly. My body felt like a full bathtub with the drain pulled. I was exhausted in a place deeper than physical.
We drove in silence. I wanted to apologize again, but it took all the will I had left just to stay awake for the drive home. Junior pulled his car up into the driveway behind the ridiculous hippie van, and I climbed out.
Junior leaned over the seat. “What time you want to get there tomorrow?”
I rubbed at dry eyes with the back of my hand. “Around five, I’m figuring. If the fucker has a jobby-job, maybe we can catch his ass on the way home.”
“Sounds good.” Junior shifted the car into reverse, but left his foot on the brake. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You pissed at me?”
I shook my head. “Nah.”
“You sure you’re not pissed?”
I nodded.
“Still friends?”
“Yeah,” I said, tugging a strained smile onto my face.
“Good, ’cause I owe you this.” He flipped his hand across the seat and whacked me on the balls through the open door.
I groaned loudly as my lower equator cramped in pain. Crumpling from the blow, I tumbled backward into the hedges.
Junior peeled out, his spinning tires spraying me with gravel. I could hear him cackling over the engine’s roar as he pulled out toward Cambridge Street at a clip.
Luckily for me, his leverage was off and he didn’t get off as clean a shot as I had given him. With effort, I got to my feet and stumbled toward my apartment. The hippie was on the steps, looking at me open-mouthed as I approached.
“Hey, dude, you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I croaked. “Never better.”
“Did that guy just hit you in the nuts?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he’s my best friend.”
“Oh,” he said, as if my answer made all the sense in the world.
I got to the top of the porch, then stopped. “What’s your name?”
“Phil.”
“Nice to meet you, Phil. I’m Boo.”
He mulled it over for a moment, blinking in slo-mo. “Is that like Boo Radley or like Casper, the friendly ghost?”
“Radley.”
He smiled and nodded dreamily. “Cool. Good book.”